“Besides,” Caitlin said, “the Others are keeping this world for a race that can truly grow into it, the way they kept Demeter for us.”
Nightwatch.
Chinook drove back toward the gate, Caitlin lay awake after Brodersen had fallen asleep, until she rose, slipped on her pajamas, and left their quarters. Entering the common room, she closed its door, turned off the lights and that viewscreen which showed the sun, and sat down in a soundless dark to be with the stars of the cluster.
Half an hour had passed when the door opened anew, to admit a person who shut it behind her. The sky, more radiant than a full Luna, showed Susanne Granville. Tears coursed along her face.
She halted when she saw Caitlin. “Oh,” she stammered, “ex-excuse me,”
and turned to go.
“Wait, Su.” The quartermaster sprang up and hastened toward her. “What’s wrong?”
“Rien- it makes noting. I kn-kn-knew not you are ‘ere. I will take me to my cabin.”
“Like hell you will.” Caitlin reached her and laid arms about her. “If anybody leaves, that’ll be myself. You came in search of comfort, girl.” She considered the desolate visage, bowed head, uneven breath, desperately intertwined fingers. “Or strength?”
Susanne yielded. Caitlin held her, stroked and murmured, until the storm of sobbing had passed. Thereupon she led her to a small gaming table, set her down, sat opposite, and reached across to clasp a hand. The heavens were a diademmed house around them. Su shuddered. “It’s cold,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Aye, that time of the temperature cycle,” Caitlin replied. “You’re feeling it in a coverall, though, where I’ve naught but these flimsy things on me. The real cold is in you, dear. Can you be letting in some warmth?”
Su bent her look blindly outward.
“I’d not pry,” CaitlIn said. “Still, I am the doctor to this ship, who on Demeter has heard worse than I’d ever have you imagine, helped where I was able, and always kept silence… It’s to do with Carlos, is that not so?”
Su nodded violently.
“Aye, everybody’s noticed you two becoming close, and been glad for you,” Caitlin went on. “See here, if you tell me to mind my own business, I’ll apologize and leave you be. However, you’ve a high heart beneath your mildness.
A fight with him could make you miserable, but would not crush you like this.
What happened, Su?”
The linker lifted a fist and got out, nearly too headlong to be followed: “E ‘as asked me for to marry ‘im!”
“What? Why, that’s wonderful. Two fine people- But you refused?”
“Yes. I must. It is impossible.”
“Why?” Su giving no immediate response other than a dry gulp or two, Caitlin reconstructed in her most soothing tone: “No doubt he first propositioned and you declined. Tonight he proposed marriage. That shows he loves you, darling. He could have ample sex elsewhere. Frieda; and I confess I’d have satisfied my curiosity by now, had he not begun making you glow. True, a Side 162
Anderson, Poul – Avatar, The service Dan performed would have no legal or canonical standing, but it’d be a wedding in every honest intent, and sure I am he’d take care of the formalities if we should find our way home. Dan, who knows him of old, has told me that when Carlos gives his loyalty, that loyalty stays given.”
Su bobbed her head.
“Why’d you not simply move in with him?” Caitlin asked. “Your parents are religious, you said, but to me you’ve called yourself a devout atheist.”
“For their sakes,” Su replied in a raw whisper. “I ‘ave ‘urt them enough already, not to come back a, a kept woman.” A ghost of vitality entered. “And I would not be, regardless.”
“But you’d accept a shipboard ceremony? You do love him? Then in Macye’s raunchy name, why have you told him no?”
“I am – une vierge.”
“A virgin?” Caitlin smiled. “Well, that’s unusual at your age, but no disgrace. No more than a misfortune, I’d say.” Seeing the woe before her unchanged, she went on soberly, “Is it afraid of conjugal relations you are? Not pain, maybe, but inadequacy? I can give you a bit of help overcoming that, and Carlos far more. Frie- I’ve reason to know he’s considerate… Or do you fear being subordinated, smothered? He does have his touch of machismo. Yet I’ll wager you’ve spirit to match, and to steer by your own compass. Remember Lis Leino.”