“Why do you tell me?” Dalut-hos-me asked.
“My spring will be there, on Upabove.”
He nestled closer. She could feel his heat. His arm went about her. “I will go,”
he said.
It was cruel, but the desire was on her for her first traveling; and his was on
him, for her, would grow, as gray winter passed and they began to think toward
spring, toward warm winds and the breaking of the clouds. And Bennett, cold in
the ground, would have laughed his strange human laughter and bidden them be
happy.
So always the hisa wandered, of springs, and the nesting.
iv
Pell: sector blue five: 5/28/52
It was frozen dinner again. Neither of them had gotten in till late, numb with
the stresses of the day—more refugees, more chaos. Damon ate, looked up finally
realizing his self-absorbed silence, found Elene sunk in one of her own… a
habit, lately, between them. He was disturbed to think of that, and reached
across the table to lay his hand on hers, which rested beside her plate. Her
hand turned, curled up to weave with his. She looked as tired as he. She had
been working too long hours—more than today. It was a remedy of sorts… not to
think. She never spoke of Estelle. She did not speak much at all. Perhaps, he
thought, she was so much at work there was little to say.
“I saw Talley today,” he said hoarsely, seeking to fill the silence, to distract
her, however grim the topic. “He seemed… quiet. No pain. No pain at all.”
Her hand tightened. “Then you did right by him after all, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think there is a way to know.”
“He asked.”
“He asked,” he echoed.
“You did all you could to be right. That’s all you can do.”
“I love you.”
She smiled. Her lips trembled until they could no longer hold the smile.
“Elene?”
She drew back her hand. “Do you think we’re going to hold Pell?”
“Are you afraid not?”
“I’m afraid you don’t believe it.”
“What kind of reasoning is that?”
“Things you won’t discuss with me.”
“Don’t give me riddles. I’m not good at them. I never was.”
“I want a child. I’m not on the treatment now. I think you still are.”
Heat rose to his face. For half a heartbeat he thought of lying. “I am. I didn’t
think it was time to discuss it. Not yet.”
She pressed her lips tightly together, distraught.
“I don’t know what you want,” he said. “I don’t know. If Elene Quen wants a
baby, all right. Ask. It’s all right. Anything is. But I’d hoped it would be for
reasons I’d know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’ve done a lot of thinking. I’ve watched you. But you haven’t done any of it
aloud. What do you want? What do I do? Get you pregnant and let you go? I’d help
you if I knew how. What do I say?”
“I don’t want to fight. I don’t want a fight. I told you what I want.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t want to wait anymore.” Her brow furrowed. For the first
time in days he had the feeling of contact with her eyes. Of Elene, as she was.
Of something gentle. “You care,” she said. “I see that.”
“Sometimes I know I don’t hear all you say.”
“On ship… it’s my business, having a child or not. Ship family is closer in some
things and further apart in others. But you with your own family… I understand
that. I respect it.”
“Your home too. It’s yours.”
She managed the faintest of smiles, an offering, perhaps. “So what do you say to
it?”
Offices of station planning were giving out dire warnings, advice otherwise,
pleadings otherwise. It was not only the establishment of Q. There was the war,
getting nearer. All rules applied to Konstantins first.
He simply nodded. “So we’re through waiting.”
It was like a shadow lifting. Estelle’s ghost fled the place, the small
apartment they had drawn in blue five, which was smaller, into which their
furnishings did not fit, where everything was out of order. It was all at once