Involution Ocean

the center hull, holding Dalusa almost completely out of the dust. She let go of my neck, lying quietly at full length on top of me. The buoyancy of the dust “was enough to hold the round breathing filter of my mask out into the air, but the rest of my head was submerged. Most of Dalusa’s weight was concentrated in her massive flying muscles.

Then she slid grittily downward along my torso and rested her masked cheek against my chest. My face floated up out of the dust. Some of Dalusa’s body heat was begin­ning to conduct itself through the layers of dust that separ rated us. If I started to sweat at the areas of contact she would contract a severe rash. I exhaled sharply and sank a little under her so that fresh dust could adhere to me.

Feeling me sink, Dalusa linked her arms loosely around my waist. It was still pitch black. I knew her position only by touch. There was no sound but the hollow roar of the wind and the gritty sandpaper sound that the dust made as it rasped at the Lunglance above us.

But we Were safe, at least for the moment. My heartbeat had slowed now and I became aware of the definite eroti­cism of the situation. I lifted my dustcaked arms and put my hands over Dalusa’s shoulder blades. The muscles un­der my fingers grew stiff, then relaxed and moved. Her cheek still rested on my chest, but, suddenly, I became aware that she had reached down and was caressing the backs of my calves. Her arms were longer than I had real­ized; I felt a sudden chill, not unmixed with lust, at the realization of Dalusa’s essential alienness.

She continued to stroke the backs of my legs. It was not a particularly sensual feeling in itself; the dust was gritty on my skin, and my loose sailor’s bellbottoms were bunched uncomfortably around my knees. But the idea of it was startlingly provocative. So abstracted was the relationship between us that any physical contact, however minor, as­sumed fantastic, grotesque importance. I stroked Dalusa’s back with my dry, gritty hands. I hesitated about embrac­ing her. The sensation of having ha wings pinioned might make her panic.

We lay there for several minutes, listening to the wind moan and savoring our comfortless contact. I could feel Dalusa’s heart beating with amphetaminelike speed against my chest. Then, amazingly, her hands began to creep up­ward along the insides of my legs, inside my baggy trou­sers. Inch by inch they slid across my skin, triggering reac­tions that were frightening in their intensity. There was an almost sinister quality to it, afloat in the dust on my back in the dark, while Dalusa’s feverishly hot fingers grittily caressed the insides of my thighs. My own heart was thud­ding now, and my hands were limp on Dalusa’s back.

Thai Dalusa’s hands stopped and squeezed. Suddenly a series of quick spasms went through me, so bewildering in their intensity that I had difficulty identifying them as sex­ual. At the same time Dalusa shuddered against me. Drained, we relaxed against each other. I think I slept.

At any rate, I suddenly became aware of the glare of the sun on the dust outside. Dalusa lay unmoving on my chest Pushing off gently from the central hull, I began to back­stroke out from the Lunglance’s shadow.

When the sunlight hit us, Dalusa stirred. Flexing her wings, she knelt on my torso and flapped into the air, shak­ing dust from the fur on her wings and from her streaming hair. I swam to the ship’s port side, and, kicking violently, was just able to reach up and grab the edge of the deck. It was metal smooth; all the plastic had been blasted off by the storm. Hoisting myself up, I grabbed the bottom rung of the guard rail. It screeched in protest at my weight. The upper rail had been weakened by the wind. When I grabbed it it broke in my hand and cut the edge of my palm. Dust soaked up the blood that trickled down my wrist As soon as I recovered my breath, for the sudden fall had slammed me bruisingly into the Lunglance’s hull, I pulled myself up with a mask-muffled groan and slid under the railing. I found a new ship. She was clean, incredibly clean, as clean as a picked bone. Several braces had snapped, eaten in two by the awful friction of the wind. The masts gleamed. Every surface was smooth and shiny; I could see my masked reflection on the deck where the sand had eaten down into the bare metal. I looked like the ghost of some humanoid alien, so completely was I covered with the pallid dust. It shook itself loose from my clothing with every step. The plastic had been completely stripped from the deck, except iii the thin shadow zones behind the masts, try-pots, and starboard railing. When the sun came fully overhead, the glare would be blinding.

The hatch to the kitchen creaked open; I froze. The first mate, Mr. Flack, came cautiously out and looked at the clear skies. Then he looked back down the hatch and nod­ded.

Turning, he saw me standing completely still in the mid­dle of the barren metal deck. He, too, froze. I envisioned the thoughts going through his head: Good Lord! Look at the poor bastard. His skin’s been completely stripped off and replaced with dust, he’s been mummified alive. I hope he didn’t suffer much.

Then he said, “Get below and clean up, Newhouse. The men’ll be eating soon.”

I stood by the hatch while the crew tramped past me up the stairs. Calothrick was last; when he emerged, he gave me an overly jovial whack on the shoulder that raised a cloud of dust.

I went through the electrostatic field inside the hatch and it ripped a great sheet of dust off my skin and a cloud out of my hair. As I walked down the stairs a torrent of loos­ened dust poured out of the bottom of my trousers and out from under my shirt. Still wearing the dustmask, I stripped and whacked my clothing against the counter top. Dust flew. I took off the mask, sneezed, and put it back on. I would have to wait for the stuff to settle before I tried to clean it up. I went to the cistern, twisted the tap, and soaked up a spongeful of water. Its contact against my skin was sybaritic in its luxury.

I pulled a change of clothes out of my duffel bag and took the broom out of its closet. The dust was so light and frictionless that it was almost impossible to pick up, and my energetic attempts only reopened the cut on the side of my hand. A drop of blood slid slowly down the edge of my wrist.

Then Dalusa came down the hatch.

“How are you? Are you all right?” she said. I smiled at her show of anxiety.

“I’m fine,” I said. “A few abrasions, and I bruised myself getting back on board. Oh, and I cut my hand a little.” I held up the injury.

“Au’” Dalusa said, stepping closer to me. “You’re bleed­ ing.”

“It’s nothing,” I said. She was staring at the small wound with all the rapt fascination that a mantis shows at the ap­pearance of a fly. “How are you?” I asked lamely.

“Fine. I was flying at the same speed as the dust, it wasn’t able to hurt me. But it ruined my dress. See?”

It was true. The thin white film had grown dingy; mil­lions of microscopic particles had somehow imbedded themselves in its polymerized surface.

“Maybe you can wash it,” I said.

“Oh, no need. I have yards and yards of material. IH make another one.”

An uncomfortable silence fell. I put down the broom and dabbed at the cut with my sponge. It would clot soon.

“When we were under the ship, John . . .”

“Yes.”

“I liked what we did.”

Our eyes met. Perhaps, if she had been a normal woman, and I a normal man, we would have understood one an­other then. Poets say that souls meet and touch with the eyes as their medium. But even within the same species, what man can claim to really know a woman’s mind? Her next words were barely audible.

“Did you?”

“Very much.”

“I want you to kiss me, John.” She stepped closer yet, so close that I could feel the radiant heat of her body.

“You know I can’t do that.”

She closed her eyes and tilted her chin upward. I put my hands behind my back. “ItH hurt you,” I said, weakening. Her perfectly sculptured lips parted a fraction of an inch.

I leaned forward and, with the care of a biologist dissect­ing a unique specimen, touched my mouth to hers. She re­sponded with dreamy hunger, and the whole situation took on an aspect of glazed unreality. A chill swept through me. The silken, almost molten fusion of textures and pressures was like the culmination of a murder. Tears came to my eyes as her tongue slid across the atrociously sensitive ridges of my upper palate, just behind my teeth. I re­sponded. Her own teeth were abnormally sharp, and there was a subtle alien tang in the taste of her mouth,