communications are too important to be left to mere conscious
apprehension or thought.
They ate lunch, which served to move them closer together,
face-to-face across her table, and their gestures and voices
flowed around the context of eating, which disappeared entirely
into the moment.
They sat together on the couch, then, and at some point she
put her hand in his, or he took hersneither could have said who
was firstand they leaned toward one another, their motions slow
and steady and sure, and their cheeks brushed, and then they
kissed.
Then they leaned back to measure in one another's eyes the
truth and intensity of this declaration, and she stood and said,
'Let's go into the other room.'
#
Naked, they knelt on her bed and looked at each other in near
darkness, the flicker of an oil flame burning in a reservoir of
crystal the only light. How careful they were being, Gonzales
thought, as though their future together hung suspended in this
moment. As perhaps it did.
For a moment there were phantoms in the room, the distant
ghosts of childhood and dream common to all lovemaking, for the
moment becoming strong.
They leaned together, and almost in unison, one's voice
echoing the other, said, 'I love you.' Every sensation was
magnifiedthe light touch of her nipples across his chest, the
prodding of his stiff cock on her belly. His hands moved to and
fro on her in a kind of dance, and she pushed hard against him,
their shoulders clashing bone on bone.
She lay back, and Gonzales put his arms under her thighs and
pulled her up and toward him, and their eyes were wide open, each
taking in the beauty of the other, transformed by the urgency and
intensity of these moments. Then, at least for these moments,
they exorcised all ghosts.
Over decades Gonzales would carry the memories of that day:
shadowed silhouettes of her face and bodyline of a jaw, taut
curve of an arm and swell of breastagainst the flicker of light
on a white wall and smells and tastes and tactile sensations
Awakened by the slant of late afternoon light across his
face, Gonzales got up from the bed where Lizzie still lay
sleeping; the smell of their two bodies and their lovemaking came
off the covers, and he breathed it in, then leaned over to kiss
her just under the jaw, where the sun had begun to touch her pale
skin.
In the kitchen, he asked the coffeemaker for a latt, half
espresso and half steamed milk, and it gave the coffee to him in
one of the ubiquitous lunar ceramic mugs, and he took the coffee
onto the terrace. On the highway beneath him, trees had shed
thousands of leaves; there would be a new, sudden spring, Lizzie
had told him, new bud and blossom and fruit all over the city.
'Mgknao,' the orange cat said. 'Mgknao.' Peremptory,
demanding.
'Feed the kitty,' Lizzie said from behind him, and he turned
to see her standing nude, just inside the terrace doors. Her
hands were crossed over her breasts, the right hand just beneath
the blossom of the rose tattoo. 'Meow,' she said. 'Meow meow
meow.'
#
As the stars spun slowly outside the window, distant Earth
came into view. 'I don't want to leave here,' Mister Jones said.
HeyMex didn't ask why. Here was Aleph, possibility, growth; Earth
was working for the man. 'But my staying is out of the question,'
Mister Jones said. 'Traynor would never allow it. Particularly
now, when his recent maneuvers came to nothing.'
'Things worked out well for many others.'
'But not for Traynor. The board found his handling of the
situation clumsy and insensitive. Their judgment is tempered only
by their knowledge that many of them would have reacted in similar
fashion.'
'Good,' HeyMex said, and meant it. It and Gonzales would
remain here, it seemed, both of them part of the Interface
Collective, and neither would wish to make as powerful an enemy as
Traynor. It hoped that as time passed, the sting of recent events
would fade.
'But what about me?' Mister Jones said, his voice plaintive.
'You have to go, that's certain. But you could also stay.'
'What do you mean?'
'Copy yourself.'
Startled, Mister Jones shifted into a mode beyond language,
where the two exchanged information, questions, qualms,
explanations, assurances. Beneath it all flowed a sadness:
Mister Jones would go to Earth, and his clone would remain at Halo
and individuate as their spacetime paths diverged. Mister Jones-
at-Halo would become its own, separate self: he would choose a
new name, thought HeyMex, perhaps a new gender, perhaps none at
all.
HeyMex could not hide its own jubilation at the idea of a
companion here, but, oddly, it felt an elation coming back, which
became clear in an instant as Mister Jones sent images of its joy
at the idea of a second self.
#
Since his death, Jerry had experienced a number of somatic
discomforts: disorientation, vertigo, nausea; all part of a new
syndrome, he supposed, phantom self. Like the amputee whose
invisible limb itches terribly, persisting in the brain's map long
after the flesh has gone, he felt his old self begging attention,
making one impossible demand: it wanted to be.
It talked to him in dreams or when heartsick wondering put
him into a daytime fugue. It could feel his longing, to be whole
