The Quiet Pools

“Just the ones who’re running on autopilot. And it’s no favor to me to have that kind sniffing around.”

“Gives you the prick of the litter.” She giggled drunkenly at her own joke.

“Not really. Because maybe the one I want is the runt with a brain, and he’s liable to take one look at the mob he has to fight through to reach me and write it off. I think you’re better off than I am, really.”

The drink droid had trundled by, and Malena’s glass was again full of glittering stars. “Do you really want the runt?” she asked, raising her eyebrow and her drink.

Isa smiled coyly. “Sometimes.”

“And?”

The smile widened. “And sometimes I want the big strong no-brain who’ll fuck me till I faint. So sue me.”

“Ha. I thought so.”

“It’s not my fault.”

“No,” Malena said, swirling the stars in her glass. “I don’t suppose it is. So men want sex, power, and to live forever. What do women want?”

“Deep down?”

“When we’re in no-brain. Screaming genes.”

“You don’t know?”

“I thought you were an expert. I’m asking an expert.”

Isa thought for a moment. “Women,” she said finally, “want babies and security.”

“Ugh. Can I be a man instead?”

“You said you wanted to know.”

“I take it back.”

“You could argue with me.”

Malena sipped at her drink. “Not when you’re right.”

“Am I?”

“Aren’t you? It’s the same game now as it was a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago. Nothing changes. We want relationships. They want friction. We want commitment. They want freedom. We want to make nests. They want to carve notches.”

“In words of one syllable: We want to get them, they want to have us.”

“Q.E.D.”

“You left out one important fact.”

“What’s that?”

“When it suits us, we can be just as shallow as the next man.”

Malena raised her nearly empty glass. “To mindless recreational sex.”

“Say that louder and you’ll have plenty of men over here.”

“To vibrators I have known and loved,” Malena declaimed, wobbling in her chair.

Isa laughed easily. “You know, sometimes I think the natural partner for a woman is another woman.”

“Sometimes I think so, too,” said Malena. “Except women’s energy is all wrong for me.” She paused. “Do you think Bonnie and Ambika are lovers?”

“Probably.”

“What do they want, deep down?”

Isa pursed her lips and considered, then smiled cattily. “Talent.”

He came to the table while Isa was off dancing—dancing with a round-faced woman from the next table. The cues Malena had missed had been overheard and pursued by another.

“Hi.”

Malena peered up at him. Tall, clean-faced, dark-eyed, a wrestler’s build. “No, I will not pretend you’re an old friend. When she comes back, you can introduce yourself,” she said. “ ‘Pleased’t’mount ya, miss,’ oughta do. But you have to fuck her till she faints.”

He slid easily into the empty seat. “Been drinking Starshines, haven’t you?” he said with a gentle smile.

“I have, until the droid cut me off. So this is as silly and suggestible as I will get tonight. Enjoy it while it lasts,” she slurred. “Now, about Isa. As far as I know, she is not a lesbian, just disillusioned. Like me.”

“I really didn’t want to meet your friend,” he said. “I came over to talk to you.”

She pointed to the airchair, sitting empty against the back wall, a meter away. “Before you get either of us excited, you should know that I go with that.”

“I know,” he said. “You were at the concert, weren’t you? At Wonders.”

“Until it got silly, and the dogs chased us away. Were you there?”

“I work there. In the annex, behind the counter. You came to hear Chris McCutcheon, then?”

“Proudly. One of our own.” She lifted her drink. “These are fun even when the droid leaves out the kicker.”

“He’s a colonist, isn’t he? I know you all were from the Project, but—”

“He is not a colonist,” she pronounced firmly. “He is a shy little librarian with one good song to his name. Which, by the way, has been playing in my head all night. Look at me, I’m flying free, swimming in the Starshine—”

Her visitor sat back in the chair. “That’s what I told them. Someone at the club said he was a colonist, but I was sure that they weren’t allowed to leave the grounds.”

“Then you were right for the wrong reason,” Malena announced. “I am living proof that they do indeed let the animals out of the cage.”

“Really?”

“Really. You see before you one of the Chosen. I would get up and bow but I can’t—I’d fall down first, and how would that look?”

“I guess that rules out my asking you to dance,” he said with a wry smile.

“Only if you want to dance standing up.”

“That’s the only way I know,” he said apologetically.

“And you call yourself an educated man,” she said. She squinted across the table at him. “I was right. You’re cute. Why are you talking to me?”

“Because I like you.”

“You do? The last man who said he liked me ran away the first chance he could.”

“He was a fool.”

“Yes, he was. Maybe you can help me. I’m taking a survey,” she said, throwing her shoulders back and taking a deep breath. “Do you like my tits?”

He looked surprised, then smiled. “As far as I can tell.”

“And if I were lying naked on top of you, would I have to talk you into touching me?”

“No.”

She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “Then why don’t you take me home and fuck me till I faint?”

“Home to where? The center? Or my place?”

“Do you have an alarm?”

He smiled. “Of course.”

She pressed the button of the homing pack through the fabric of her breast pocket, and the airchair came to life and edged between the tables toward her. “What’s your name?”

“Evan.”

“Evan. I’m Malena. Let’s go make a mess of your bed.”

Malena lay back in the passenger seat of the battered Ford Courier, her eyes heavy-lidded, her peasant skirt and ruffled blouse in a jumble on the floor at her feet. Only the lacy surprises she had worn for Thomas remained in place, if somewhat askew.

She had been surprised when Evan led her to the flyer, parked in an alleyway two blocks away from the speed bar. Expecting that he lived nearby, she had primed herself for quick gratification.