Chapter 31

Actually we each woke the other both times, and were glad we had. It was after 8:00 a.m. when I finally clambered out of bed, leaving her snuggling back in under the covers. I took another quick shower—the first one had been at 3:30, which we'd shared—and shaved, and then dressed with frequent glances at the breathtakingly gorgeous woman who lay in my bed. To remember the joy we'd shared all night, including when we'd only slept, was almost more than I could bear.

When I finally emerged into the hallway I was amused to see Asmedogh coming out of the guest room. Evidently he liked the softness of a mattress beneath him when he slept, and that had been the only vacant bed. I told him good morning quietly, he hopped again onto my shoulder, and together we went downstairs.

"The night went to your hopes?" he asked as we descended.

"You can't begin to know," I told him.

"In fact I can," he contradicted. "We also among us have two sexes with closeness between. I have not yet been so fortunate as to have a liaison with one of the other sex in which I invested such feelings as I sense in you for Camilla. But I have heard of such, I have seen such among others, and I hope greatly that such may come to me one day. I would give much to experience the joy that I sense in you this day."

I'll be damned. I thought again of his pissing and moaning about the shoddy work that had led his ship to crash. There was a tremendous amount of similarity between his species and mine, and it made me feel even warmer toward him.

"It is the same for me," he said in response to my unvoiced thought. "You and I are kindred in very many ways. I am sad that our species must maintain separation as we do, as we have."

That one took some thinking about. I did it as I fixed my coffee and his breakfast, letting him out while I was doing so for his potty—loo—break. As Camilla and I had last night, I set out his food on the table so we could sit together.

"I agree with what you said a few minutes ago, Asmedogh," I began at length. "About the need for our two species to keep separate, avoid contact. But— I'm not sure quite how to say this, and I'm likely to mess it up a little, so bear with me.

"Not all humans are as I am, or as Camilla is. Some are ... well, fearful of things that are different from them. They're suspicious, always ready to see the worst rather than the best. And some of those people are in positions of power, of authority, of leadership, and they exert a strong influence over the others."

"We have seen this, even from far," he told me. We weren't touching, but again I could hear him clearly, though not pick up his other surface thoughts with the same facility I could when we were physically linked.

"There are still others who are simply hateful," I went on. "It pains me to say so, but some humans kill only for the sake of killing, of watching others—animals, other people, whatever—die and knowing they caused the death. I don't understand it, not that and not a lot else about people, but there's enough of it around that I can't pretend it doesn't exist. I'm sure you've seen a good deal of that as well."

"Yes."

"Sometime, I hope, that'll begin to change. Long term, I don't see how we can survive as a species if it doesn't. You know the fearsome weapons we've devised, the horrible destruction they can do. It seems to me only a matter of time, and perhaps not very much time, before some of those weapons fall into the hands of the destroyers, the killers, and they put them to use. I'm hoping to live out my life before that happens. But I also hope to have children, and for them to have their own children, and I don't wish that on them, either."

"I understand your feeling," he said. "At some time I, too, wish for ... children. Those who may carry on after me. And perhaps who may meet with your species as equals, as have you and I, and come to know each other as have we, and learn and grow from that knowing."

"Yes," I said sadly. "But I don't think that time is now. Perhaps the knowledge that we, we two, gain from each other can help that time to come sooner than it otherwise might. But meantime I think you're spinning your wheels up there watching us, wasting your time. As we are, I don't see that we'll ever last long enough to develop the technology to reach your world or anywhere close."

"Some of us think the same," he admitted. "But others, and I am one, feel that you may overcome this bad time of yours and come to meet us. We wish to be prepared with as much knowledge as we may gain for when that comes."

"It's nice to know somebody's that optimistic," I told him. "And who knows, maybe you're right. A species that can invent, say, opera can't be all bad."

We left it on that note. It was just as well; the whole conversation had begun to put a serious dent in my day. I'd just had what was beyond question the best night of my life, and the prospect of more days and nights like that to follow lay bright before me. The last thing I needed was to work myself into a depression that might take some—any!—of the glitter off my glowing life prospects.

I had my bagel and settled back down to finish the novel I'd left the day before, and to wait for Camilla. She might, I recognized, be especially late this morning after our ... active nocturnal time.

But it was only about 10:00 that I heard her moving around. "Good morning!" I called upstairs. "Morning, darling!" I heard in reply. "Darling?" What I'd thought couldn't get better just had.

I started her coffee and set out the butter and jam for her; I'd wait on the bagel until she actually appeared. Which she did in surprisingly short order, dressed this time in only a pair of shorts and a sleeveless top. The shorts showed off her gorgeous legs—legs that not long ago, I thought lasciviously, had been wrapped around me!—and the outfit made her look like a teenage cheerleader, I thought.

"Good morning again," she said, and came over and gave me a warm kiss. I started to return it with enthusiasm, but she pushed me away after a minute. "That's for tonight, sweetheart," she said. "Today's a working day, remember?"

"Yeah," I said regretfully. But she was right, we had a lot to get done in the next four days.

I started my warm-up as she was eating. She finished, then cocked her head at me.

"You're used to doing that earlier, aren't you, Nick?" she asked.

"Well... ," I said hesitantly.

"Go back to your regular schedule," she directed. "You won't bother me. In fact, it'll be kind of nice to listen to as I doze away. If you like you can warm up by singing me lullabies. I'll sleep right on, but I'll have pretty music to listen to as I do."

"You're sure?"

"I told you, I sleep through hurricanes. And that lovely voice of yours, it's actually soothing. Now, get done and I'll do mine and we'll start working again."

She insisted on going back over the material we'd already covered, so we did that for openers. About halfway into my brief scene with the tenor she stopped me.