Читаем Starborne полностью

Nevertheless the year-captain does not halt in his telling of the tale. “The next time Zeus comes to her, Semele says to him, ‘You never show yourself to me as you really are.’ And Zeus says, ‘No, no, that would be too much for you, the sight would be overwhelming.’ But Semele insists. She reminds Zeus that he had promised her, long ago, to grant any wish that she might make. To refuse her nothing. Zeus is trapped. He can’t go back on his promise, though he knows what’s going to happen. So, reluctantly, he gives Semele what she’s asking for. There is a tremendous clap of thunder and Zeus appears before her in his chariot in a great aurora of light. No human being can look upon the true form of Zeus and survive. Semele is destroyed by the heat that emanates from the god. She is burned utterly to ashes by it; and so Hera has had her revenge.”

Noelle has drawn back into herself during this part of the story. She has wrapped her arms tightly around her body, and it seems to the year-captain that she is trembling a little.

“But something good came forth out of that, didn’t it?” she asks. “There was Dionysus the god. Semele’s son. He survived the flames, didn’t he?”

“Yes. He survived. Zeus spared him, and scooped him up in the moment of Semele’s destruction, carrying him off and hiding him from Hera’s wrath until he was grown.”

“So, then. That’s the point of the story. The miraculous birth of the god Dionysus.”

She is definitely trembling, he sees. Shivering, even. They are still naked after their swim, but it is, as always, quite warm here in the recreation area.

“The point of the story is that Semele overreached herself and died,” the year-captain says. “Dionysus is just an incidental part of the myth. The point is that ordinary mortals can’t hope to have unrestricted contact with gods.”

“The birth of a new god can’t just be an incidental part of anything,” Noelle says. The year-captain thinks he hears her teeth chattering.

“Are you feeling all right, Noelle?”

“Just a little chilly.”

“It isn’t chilly in here, though.”

“But I feel that way. Maybe we should go on across into the baths.”

“Yes. Yes. A little time in the hot tub will get you feeling better in no time.”

The baths are just on the other side of the corridor from the lap pool. They collect their towels and discarded clothing and go across. The room is empty when they get there.

“Why did you tell me that story?” Noelle asks him.

“You know the answer to that, don’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“I can’t help feeling worried about what will happen when you try to—”

“It isn’t the same in any way. I’m not Semele. The angels aren’t Zeus.”

“How do you know what they are?”

“I don’t,” she says. “Not really. How could I? But I just don’t think — I’m quite confident that I — that they — that when I—” She is really shaking now. They are at the edge of the hot tank. The usual procedure is to step quickly into the cold tub, then go on to the hot one, and finish by returning to the tepid tank or even the cold one. But instead of going into any of them now Noelle stands trembling at the brink of the hot tub for a long moment; and then she turns, suddenly, and presses herself into his arms.

He enfolds her and holds her tightly and gently strokes her back, trying to soothe her, trying to comfort her and ease whatever terror it is that has taken possession of her. All of it very manly and paternal, and then a moment later not paternal in the least, for the year-captain is trembling too, and they stand there for a long while in a close embrace.

Then she breaks free of him and steps a few paces back. She is smiling, and her eyes, those mysterious sightless eyes that are nevertheless often so expressive, have taken on a strange mischievous light. She reaches out a hand toward him.

The year-captain is amazed at how her body, which he has seen on so many other occasions here in the baths and in the pool, now suddenly seems unfamiliar — different, transformed. The same full round breasts, yes, the same flat belly, the same deeply indented navel. But it is all different. There is an inner light emanating from her. She is gleaming, radiant. He is powerfully drawn to her. He wonders how he had ever managed to fail to find her attractive — why she had never seemed to him, really, like a sexual being at all. Certainly she seems like one now.

“Come,” she whispers, and tugs at his hand, and leads him deftly and unhesitatingly over the tiled floor into one of the little lovemaking rooms that adjoin the baths.

They sink down together onto the hard narrow bed. It is entirely obvious to him now that he has wanted this since the beginning of the voyage, that he has always been drawn to her, that he has hedged himself around with a host of caveats and uncertainties and self-imposed prohibitions precisely because he has desired her all along with such frightening intensity.

Перейти на страницу:

Похожие книги