Page 6 (2/2)
"Why so thoughtful?" she asked "I thought you’d be a"
"I’m sorry Lately it’s bothered me when I do that Never take tiht word at the right ti self-indictment for a poet"
"It’s e or a holo than it is to order one’s life ’One’s life’! Why do I talk that way?"
She slipped an ared hied into the Doh the screening filters All the greens ca blue undertones Kerro took a deep breath of the oxygenated air He heard birds twittering behind a sonabarrier off in heavier bushes to the left Other couples could be seen far down through the trees This was a favorite trysting place
Hali slipped off her pribox strap and pulled him down beside her under a cover of cedar The needle duff arh the branches They stretched out on their backs, shoulder to shoulder
"Mmmmmm" Hali stretched and arched her back "It smells so nice here"
"It? What’s the smell of an it?"
"Oh, stop that" She turned toward him "You knohat I mean - the air, the moss, the food in your beard" She brushed at his whiskers, wove her fingers in and out of the coarse hairs "You’re the only Shipman with a beard"
"So I’m told"
"Do you like it?"
"I don’t know" He reached out and traced the curve of the s which pierced her left nostril "Traditions are strange Where did you get this ring?"
"A robox dropped it"
"Dropped it?" He was surprised
"I know - they don’ta sensor outside that little medical study next to Behavioral I saw the wire drop and picked it up
"It was like finding a rare treasure They leave so little around Ship only knohat they do with all the scraps they carry off"
She slipped her arm around his neck and kissed him Presently, she pulled back
He pulled away from her and sat up "Thanks, bu"
"It’s always, ’Thanks, bu’" She was angry, fighting the physical evidence of her own passion
"I’etic "I don’t knohy and I’ with you I just have this cos"
"What could beeach other all this tiers"
He could not bring himself to look at her "I kno anyone shipside can partner with anyone else, bu"
"But!" She whirled away and stared at the base of the sheltering tree "We could be a breeding pair! One pair i what? Two thousand? We could actually make a child"
"It isn’t that It’"
"And you’re always so da social patterns this and language patterns that Why can’t you see wha"
He reached across her, put his fingers over her ently kissed her cheek
"Dear Hali, because I can’t Forso deep that I lose "
She rolled away and lifted her head to stare at hiet such ideas?"
"They co and fros?"
"Ship does not deny me what I want to know"
She stared round under her feet "Ship won’t even talk to me"
Her voice was barely audible
"When you ask in the right way, Ship always answers," he said Then, an afterthought as he sensed it between them: "And you have to listen"
"You’ve said that before but you never tellthe jealousy in her voice He found that he could only answer in one way
"I will give you a poem," he said He cleared his throat
"Blue itself
teaches us blue"
She scowled, concentrating on his words Presently, she shook her head "I’ll never understand you any o to WorShip; I pray; I do what Ship direct" She stared at him "I never see you at WorShip"
"Ship is my friend," he said
Curiosity overcame her resentments
"What does Ship teach you?"
"Too ive , just one!"
He nodded "Very well There have been es and the chronicle of their years weave ato me You don’t even have to understand the words to hear the"
She felt an odd sense of wonder at this
"Ship gives you words and you don’t understand?"
"When I ask for the original"
"But why do you ords that you don’t understand?"
"To make those people live, to make them mine Not to own them, but to become them, at least for a blink or two"
He turned and stared at her "Haven’t you ever wanted to dig in ancient dirt and find people nobody else even knew existed?"
"Their bones?"
"No! Their hearts, their lives"
She shook her head slowly
"I just don’t understand you, Kerro But I love you"
He nodded silently, thinking: Yes, love doesn’t have to understand She knows this but she won’t let it into her life
He recalled the words of an old earthside poeht, the poem of life, that was consolation He would talk to her of love soht, but not this dayside