his head for the last twenty-four hours at least, strode over, and was about to haul her to the couch when it occurred to him that this was exactly what had set off all the turmoil of the last few days which, matched against the appraising reality of Al·Ith, seemed now, to put it mildly, inappropriate.
Swearing vigorously, he sat down opposite her, looking as ever on his side of the little table as if an incautious movement might collapse not only it, but the whole pavilion. He leaned back, sighed, and seemed to return partly to himself.
They were both considering, with fortitude, the uncertain term that they faced during which they would have to sustain their incompatibility.
‘I would like to know,’ said he, ‘all about your arrangements for this sort of thing — in your country.’
Now Al·Ith had already given thought to this problem. She could not imagine that he would accept the proprieties of Zone Three, not on any terms. She tackled the immediate point of his disquiet with: ‘There is absolutely no doubt at all — there can be no doubt — that this child is yours.’
‘I said nothing about that,’ he protested, while his pleased face showed she had been right.
He waited.
Having discovered she needed food, she had thought her requirements, and what had arrived before her was a delicacy of her country made of honey and nuts. She began to crumble bits off it. Without ceremony, he put his finger out, scooped up a fragment, tasted it, rolled up his eyes, and was resigned.
‘It is very good for pregnant women,’ she said.
‘I hope that you are taking proper care of yourself! After all, this child will be the ruler of Zone Four.’
This thought, too, had not been overlooked by her. She contented herself with: ‘If the Providers so decide.’
His checked gesture of rebellion told her what his thoughts were — what his actions might be.
‘I take it,’ said he, positively radiant with sarcasm, ‘that I am only one of your lovers.’
At this she leaned back, held up her two hands, and began counting on her fingers, with a look of pretty self-satisfaction, hesitating on the third finger with a little moue, returning to the second, going back to the third with a nod, then on to the fourth, the fifth — changing hands, with deliberation, six, seven, eight — allowing her counting forefinger to dwell lovingly with a reminiscent smile on the ninth; heard his indrawn and outraged breath, wondered if she dared to count back again, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and did so, rather perfunctorily, fourteen, fifteen, and ended on nineteen with a competent little nod, like a steward who hasn’t forgotten anything.
She looked at him, inviting him to laugh— at her, himself, but he was quite yellow with disastrous thoughts.
‘You know,’ she began, but he finished for her, savagely, ‘“Things are not the same with you as they are with us!” I give thanks for it. Decadent, spoiled, immoral …’
‘It is true I can’t imagine you making much of our ways.’
‘Very well, how many lovers have you had?’
She winced at the word and he noted it. Not without interest, a dispassionate interest. This encouraged her to try and explain, openly — though she had previously decided against any such attempt — with a real intention to persuade him out of his barbarity of perception.
‘First of all, that word means nothing to me. It would mean nothing at all, to any woman in our Zone. Even the worst of us, and of course we have our failures as you do …’ She noted him noting that word as being different in emphasis from any Zone Four might use. ‘Even the worst of us would be incapable of using a word that described a man as some kind of a toy.’
This earned a glance of appreciation. Finding she liked him enough, she continued, and explained the sexual arrangements of Zone Three to him. As she went on, his pose, his fists, tightened until she was almost brought to a stop; then he became absorbed, and listened carefully, missing — she could see — nothing.
There were moments when she was afraid that all his self-pride was going to mount to his head and explode in fresh violence against her, but he contained it. By the time she had finished, aggression had left him, and there remained only the philosopher.
She thought herself some wine, and at a gesture from him, some for him as well, but stronger. He took the glass from her, with a nod of thanks.
‘It’s no good pretending that I can go along with any of that,’ he pronounced at last.
‘It seems to me,’ said she humorously, ‘that you are going to have to.’ But, as a threat of trouble reappeared, she told him that since their first association, claims (she was not going to say ‘higher’ ones) had made their appearance, and it looked as if absolute fidelity to Zone Four was going to be the order of her day. ‘It seems,’ said she, ‘that there is some sort of prohibition laid down in my flesh — laid down somewhere — and that it is not merely the touch of another man I cannot allow, but the touch of anybody.’ He was smiling, and she said, ‘And that is not good, oh great king, it is not. I regard it as pernicious, and unfriendly, but we are both stuck with ways not our own and we have got to get on with it.’
On the tip of his tongue hovered words such as ‘then you must love me after all,’ but this calmly explanatory mode seemed to forbid it. Melancholy settled on him. It had enclosed her. The reason was, simply, that whenever a natural spring of vitality flourished in either of them, it was instantly suppressed by the natural disposition of the other.
Melancholy took them to the couch in fellow-feeling, made them love each other with many whispers of condolence for their unfortunate linking, caused sympathy to flow from one to the other, made their sexual play — if that could possibly be the word for such sorrowful exchanges — so unlike their previous encounters that neither could recognize the other in them, and culminated in groans and cries from both of them that were nothing less than expostulations at the mismanagement of absolutely everything.
But Al·Ith had noted in herself, and with dismay, the sharp — as if with an ambiguous wound — pleasures she felt in being ground and pounded into these ecstasies of submission to fate. She had not known anything like it before, and could not believe that she could ever want them again.
Meanwhile, it rained. They lay in each other’s arms listening to squelches and wallows of rain, and both marvelled at the infinite possibilities of variation there were that neither had expected of themselves.
Still under heavy rain they rose and bathed, and dressed, and returned themselves — she this time using the bright orange dress in a quite desperate attempt to bring some sunlight into this marriage of theirs — to the central room.
They were as close and connubial as any Order could have wished.
But there was also the edge of asperity in both voices that goes so ineluctably with this marriage mood.
She wished to get at the truth of this martial Zone of his.
Do you mean to say — her questions began, while he sat with his chin in his hand, elbow on the table, with the air of one admitting to everything because he was forced to, but nevertheless preserving inner independence.
‘Do you mean to say that those singlets of yours you make such a great thing about are all a fake? They don’t do anything at all? They can’t repel weapons?’
‘They are very good at keeping off the rain.’
‘Do you actually mean to say that these hideous grey round buildings you’ve got all over Zone Four don’t make death rays? That’s a fake, too?’
‘Everyone believes we’ve got them. It comes to the same thing.’
‘Ben Ata, sometimes I can’t believe my ears!’
‘Why are you in such a fuss about it? For one thing, building one of those death ray fortresses is a major undertaking. We have so