She pulled her attention away and, keeping a grip on a handhold, punched the intercom button. “Su,” she called. “This is Joelle. Come.” It might take the linker a few minutes to get shut of whatever she was doing.
“To go back to the deeps below the deeps, that will be like returning to the shore after inland years,” Fidelio breathed.
“I know,” Joelle said. The same ardor was in her. Holothesis shared with a Betan had dimensions no human partner could offer, among them the knowledge that her dissimilarities to him gave him an equal heightening. Together they had speculated whether the Others might not be several distinct races who formed groups that were permanently linked.
“It has been dry. . .” Fidelio’s voice trailed off. He was not really capable of self-pity.
Side 114
Anderson, Poul – Avatar, The Pain on his behalf clenched. Her free hand sought his nearest arm, the upper right. The claws on that paw could have shredded her, but she felt simply warmth and velvet. “Oh, Fidelio,” she whispered.
Your food stores are good for less than a year. You will die among glabrous, tailless, four-limbed trolls who can’t unaided swim a single day; no wife will hold you that you may suckle her for the last time as you sink; we do not know how you ought to be mourned.
His un-Earthly gaze captured hers. “I would ask this of you, Joelle,” he said calmly. She expected him to shift his glance at once, for a Betan stared hard only at someone who had angered him or someone whom he loved and was offering his faith to. He kept looking. The blood beat in her ears. “Be warned, it is no ripple, it is a wave.”
“Yes, if I’m able.”
“Now that I can use this equipment, let me be the holothete whenever we need a single one, as long as I remain.”
For you have nothing else left, do you, Fidelio? She let go the handhold in order to clasp his arm doubly. “Y-yes.”
“You can carry out searches of your own when I float at rest. In a while, the system will again be yours entirely.”
Her eyes stung. God damn it, she wasn’t about to cry, was she? Joelle shook her head; the drops flittered glittering.
“Is this not acceptable?” Did he sound resigned? How could she tell?
“G’ng-ng, I understand, female of intellect. My request ebbs.”
“No, no!” The force of her reaction dismayed her. Overwrought, short on sleep, the forebrain functional but the rest going into oscillation. If I don’t take care, I’ll have hysterics. “You misunderstood. I didn’t mean a negative. Of course you take over. Any time, any time.”
“You let water flow, Joelle. You are sorrowful[wounded? without vital nourishment? cast on a sharp-shelled reef?] Have I done that?
“No. You-no. Fidelio, we can link together!”
“Often, I trust, beginning today. I scent a splendor before us. But Joelle, dear mind-mate, more often-” He was stammering, she thought, and she saw the tendons grow tense behind his claws. “Alone in the All, I can raise Beta from it, wife, co-husbands, children, grandchildren, friends, the living and the dead alike, not mere memories but perceived realities in space-time; I can feel that they exist. It will be nearly as good as embracing them.”
He stopped. Blurrily though she saw him, she sensed his astonishment.
“You did not know this, Joelle? You have never done it yourself? No words will serve to explain. Well, I think I can show you, teach you, before I go down. I must certainly try. It is very fine that I can make you a gift.”
She cast her body against his, held tight, and wept.
Susanne came through the door. “Ere I am,” she said; and:
“Oh! Pardonnez-moi! Vous me pardonnerez!”
Awkward in free fall, she tried to withdraw. Joelle, twisting her neck about (cheek brushing along the pelt of her mind-mate, who had gently laid his two lower arms around her while the talons of the upper left stroked her hair) saw the linker sprattle in the doorway like a large black spider. When Fidello, with whom she begot new comprehensions, was soon to die, but before he died might lead her to Oneness with Eric and Chris and himself and- “Get Out!” Joelle screamed. “You ugly little bitch! Go!”