'Guys only think of one thing.'
'Monists, all. I myself am of that stripe, but a fecal monist. Know what that is?'
'Uh-uh.'
'That's the philosophical position that everything is shit.'
'That's right. For the birds.'
'Turd thou never wert. Okay, I'll make a pass.'
They were across the river. He veered right and bumped up onto the curb, bumped down again. The car screeched to a halt. He pulled back the hand brake and shut off the motor.
'I'm a simpering bastard, but I hope I'm acceptable.'
He took her in his arms and their mouths met. Her tongue was as quick as Dara Porter's, but smoother, less sharp. His hands went a-roving, and the moon was still as bright. She was soft, yielding, eager, and warm.
'We can go to my place,' she said, her breath hot on his face.
'I thought you bunked at the Tweeleries.'
'Only sometimes. I have a place in Hellgate. Put your hand there. Right there.'
'Ah, _Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures pr ? ''
She stopped his mouth with hers.
A time later he went on, '_ ? Ae fond kiss, and then we sever… flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless… ''
He stopped and pulled away. He shook his head and it seemed, to his dismay, to rattle.
'Whoa! Ye gods! This is working up to be one monster of a spell. I've never seen its like. I'd as lief never see it again. But… on the other tentacle, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, do.' He popped the cork and took a drink.
'Give me that,' she said, grabbing the bottle away from him. She took a pull, and it went down successfully. Her eyes bulged.
'Smooth, huh?'
She gasped. 'Yeah.' She took another.
'You got yo' mojo workin' now, babe.'
'C'mere, you beeg feesh.'
She drew him to her and they sank together into the depths, while the Lethe flowed softly by, dark and deep in the night.
Twenty-one
World
The star that was the sun hung, bloated and swollen, in a dusk-red sky. A billion years ago it had been small, yellow, and hot. Now it was a ruddy monster giving off little light compared to its former compact self. Nor did it have much heat to give, but its immense size brought its surface closer to the planet. The air was temperate.
The green sea looked as it had looked five billion years ago.
They walked the beach and found something unusual lying in at the edge of the surf. It was large and looked dead. Its shape was indeterminate. It had tentacles on one side, claws or hooks on the other. Its body was flat, except toward what amounted to a head, where it bulged. The skin looked like leather here, blubber there. The color was a mottled blue-green. There were two eyes in the head, and a third, perhaps malformed, on the hump behind the head.
Goofus sniffed at the creature, barked once, and sat in front of it.
'Gene, it's really gross.'
'It would probably have thought us pretty damn homely. But that means little to me. I'm no relativist, aesthetic or otherwise. I say that's ugly, and I say to hell with it.' Gene walked on up the beach.
'I feel kind of sorry for it,' Linda said. 'Dying alone in this place, at the end of the world.'
'I wonder if it's good to eat,' Snowclaw said.
'Snowy! Don't be disgusting.'
'Well, I'm hungry.'
'You're always hungry.'
'And that looks like blubber to me. Parts of it, anyway.'
'Yuck. Well, have a nice time. C'mon, Goofus.'
Snowclaw stalked the animal's length and breadth, eyeing it.
'Nah.' He walked away.
Linda looked back over her shoulder. 'Goofus?'
Goofus was still planted in front of the thing. He looked expectant, as if waiting for his master to give a signal.
'What is it, Goofus?' Linda walked back, Snowclaw following.
Goofus barked.
'He must sense something about it,' Linda said. 'I wonder what.'
'Maybe it's still alive.'
'Do you think?'
'It looks dead, but you can never tell about big sea critters. I know. I hunt them.'
'That looks like a mouth, there. Maybe that slit there is a nose. Sort of. Nothing's moving.'
'You know,' Snowclaw said, 'something tells me it is alive. Just barely.'
'Oh. Did you see it move just then?'
Goofus got up on all fours and barked.
'I think it did move,' Linda said. 'I wonder if we can do anything to help it.' She cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, 'Gene!'
Gene had wandered back to the ship, which had come to rest on dry sand a little way up the beach. Gene waved and yelled back, 'Just a minute!' He climbed inside the Voyager.
'What's that?' Snowclaw said.
Something had extruded from the creature: a metal rod looking not unlike a radio aerial.
Linda put both hands up to her cheeks. 'Oh, my! Could this be a machine?'
The end of the rod unfolded into a wire mesh disk. The disk rotated slowly until it was aligned with the Voyager.
'God, I hope that's not a weapon,' Linda said.
'You want me to rough it up a little?'
'No! Snowy, don't do anything.'
Goofus barked and sat on his haunches again, watching the thing intently.
One of the eyes on the creature blinked.
'It is alive!' Linda exclaimed. 'But I don't understand the aerial. Is this thing animal, vegetable, or mineral?'
'Maybe a little of everything?' Snowclaw ventured.
A high wave came in and washed over Linda's pretty silver boots. They were watertight. 'Do you think it's trying to communicate with us?'
Gene came running from the ship.
'Hey, there's something going on with the computer. It's going nuts….' He saw the communications dish. 'Now what the hell is that?'
'We were asking the same thing,' Linda told him. 'I think it wants to establish contact.'
'Well, apparently it has, at least with our computer. The screen's jumping with activity and I can't make head or tail of it. And this looks to be the cause of it all.'
'What do you think it is, Gene?'
Looking at the thing afresh, Gene gave it a clinical scan. 'Some sort of intelligent, seagoing life form. Doesn't look anything like a dolphin, but those flaps back here might be fins of some kind. Lessee ? eyes, breather holes,
