She was the Galaxy’s most beautiful whore. He knew that if he went to
her couch during the time-storm, he, too, would be booking
Passage To Gomorrah
Even for a lady of the stars, the Lady Berenice was beautiful. Her
short blonde hair made Cross think of Martian maize, and her blue eyes,
set wide apart in her tanned, oval face, reminded him of the ice lakes
of Frigidia. Her tall, Junoesque body put to shame the pornographic
photographs he had seen of it, cheapened the lurid passages he had read
about it; betrayed, as yet, no evidence of her apostasy.
He wondered who her lover was, and why she had refused to reveal him.
When the Jacob’s lift matched levels with the _Pandora_’s lock, she
stepped lightly into the ship beside him. The corporation officer who
had accompanied her, handed him her papers, then signalled to the
longstarmen below. After a moment the lift and its sole occupant sank
from sight.
“How soon do we blast?” the Lady Berenice asked.
She was looking at Cross intently, as though trying to probe beyond the
bleak grayness of his eyes. “In about fifteen minutes, my lady,” he
said.
She nodded, stepped into the ship proper. He sealed the lock and
escorted her up the spiral companionway to her cabin.
She paused in the doorway. “I’d like my luggage, please.”
“I’ll bring it up as soon as we’re in _A Priori_, my lady. Right now,
I’ll have to insist that you strap yourself on the acceleration couch.”
He watched as she did his bidding. “You can get up as soon as the ‘all
clear’ signal sounds,” he said presently.
She nodded again, not in the least perturbed. He wondered if she’d
be equally calm if “acceleration couch” was something more than a
hand-me-down term from pre-degravitation days; if she’d be equally
composed if she had to contend with 3 or 4 g’s, instead of just the
temporary instability of blast-off.
She probably would be, he decided. A miscarriage would not affect her
banishment to Gomorrah, but it would save her the unpleasantness of
having to give birth to a mutant.
He excused himself and headed for the control room.
* * * * *
_A Priori_ drive, once activated, required no supervision except in
cases of emergency. The _Pandora_ was only a one-passenger-one-pilot
job, but Falcon Lines, Inc., had a reputation throughout the civilized
sector of the galaxy for fast, efficient service, and even its smallest
ships boasted the latest in automatic equipment.
Cross secured the control room door behind him, made his way leisurely
down the spiral companionway to the hold, where the WineWomenandSong
longstarmen had deposited the Lady Berenice’s luggage. Even in the
artificial ½ g, the two bags were heavy, and he was breathing a little
hard when he halted before her door.
He knocked. “Yes?” she answered, her voice muffled by the sound of
running water.
“Your luggage, my lady.”
The sound of running water ceased, and presently she opened the door.
She had wrapped a ship’s towel deftly around her torso. It was a white
towel that enhanced the hue of her clear, tanned skin. Water glistened
on her golden shoulders, ran in twinkling rivulets down her coppery
thighs and calves. “Set them inside, please.”
Cross complied. She did not move an inch, and his arm, despite his
efforts to avoid touching her, brushed her thigh. He withdrew quickly.
His arm tingled and his hands were trembling. He kept his eyes averted
because he knew what she would read in them. “If you wish anything
further, I’ll be in my cabin,” he said. He turned to go.
“Wait,” she said.
“Yes?”
“How--how long will we be in _A Priori_?”
“A little over four hours, ship’s time.”
“Is--is there any likelihood of a time storm?”
The question surprised him. Passengers, especially passengers of the
Lady Berenice’s status, did not usually concern themselves with the
exigencies of space travel. They took it for granted, unless otherwise
apprised, that such exigencies did not exist. “There is always a chance
of a time storm,” he said. “But don’t worry, my lady. If the conditions
for one are present, we will be contacted by the port authority in time
to avoid it.”
“But suppose something should go wrong. Suppose we weren’t informed in
time and did get involved in one. What would happen then?”
He could not keep his eyes averted forever, and he forced himself to
meet her gaze. He was mildly shocked to see that a quantity of her
composure had left her, that there was a certain diffidence in the
expression on her face.
Presently: “As you may know, my lady,” he said, “_A Priori_ is merely
the result of the separation of pure space and pure time from the
thing-in-itself, or from basic reality. Once separated, pure space
can be contracted to the extent where a parsec equals .59 kilometers.
Usually pure time contracts accordingly, but sometimes there is a
slight discrepancy, and certain phases of _A Priori_ contain more time
than space. If we should become involved in one of these phases--or
storms, if you like--we would lose our awareness of our objective
reality and proceed to relive a subjective and sporadic playback of our
pasts. So all that could happen to us, actually, are the things that
have already happened to us--with the difference that we would relive
not only our own experiences, but one another’s as well; in pure time,
individuality does not exist.”
“But wouldn’t our objective reality be affected?”
He nodded. “It _could_ be,” he said, “since, in the absence of any real
passage of time, it would be in temporal ratio to our involvement in
our pasts, which might force it into a different time plane altogether.”
She dropped her eyes. “Then--then in spite of what you said before,
something could happen after all--something that hasn’t happened
before.”
“I suppose so, my lady ... Will that be all?”
“Yes--for now.”
“I’ll be in my cabin....”
* * * * *
“Cabin” was a euphemism for “cubicle.” The cramped compartment
adjoining the control room contained a couch, a desk, a small microfilm
library and a well-stocked liquor cabinet, but that was about all.
Cross opened the cabinet and poured himself a generous brandy. He drank
it fast, then he lay down on the couch and tried to sleep. He always
slept out the _A Priori_ phases of his runs if they were under eight
hours, but he had a good idea that he was going to have a hard time
sleeping this one out. He was right. The minute he closed his eyes he
saw a white towel and a golden sunrise of shoulders; two breath-taking
colonnades of tanned, glistening flesh--There was no sleeping after
that.
* * * * *
He swore aloud. Surely she must realize that an ordinary pilot like
himself couldn’t afford her. Then why had she deliberately exhibited
her de luxe charms? Why had she deliberately delayed him at her door
with so obviously false an excuse as a discussion of the unstable phase
of _A Priori_? He was certainly not naive enough to think that, just
because she was a _fallen_ lady of the stars, she would waive her fee.
If fourteen years in space had taught him nothing else, it had taught
him that any extraterrestrial act of love was a business transaction
and nothing more.