Starplex

The main door to the apartment slid open, and Keith stormed in. Rissa must have arrived a few minutes earlier; she came out of the bedroom naked, obviously preparing for her midday shower.

"Hi, Chesterton," she said, smiling. But the smile faded away, and Keith imagined that she could see the tension in his face, his forehead creased, his mouth downturned.

"What's wrong?"

Keith flopped himself onto the couch. From this angle, he was facing the dartboard Rissa had mounted on one wall.

The three darts were clustered in the tiny sixty-point part of the triple-scoring band — Rissa was shipboard champion.

"Another run-in with Jag," said Keith.

Rissa nodded. "It's his way," she said. "It's their way"

"I know. I know. But, Christ, it's hard to take sometimes."

They had a large rear window on one wall, showing the starfield outside the ship, dominated by the bright F-class star nearby. Two other walls were capable of displaying holograms. Keith was from Calgary, Alberta; Rissa had been born in Spain. One wall showed glacier-fed Lake Louise, with the glorious Canadian Rockies rising up behind it; the other a long view of downtown Madrid, with its appealing mixture of sixteenthand twenty — century architecture.

"I thought you'd show up here around now," said Rissa.

"I was waiting to shower with you." Keith was pleasantly surprised.

They'd showered together a lot when they'd first gotten married, almost twenty .years ago, but had gotten out of the habit as the years wore on.

The necessity of showering twice a day to minimize the human body odor Waldahudin found so offensive had turned the cleansing ritual into an irritating bore, but maybe their impending anniversary had Rissa feeling more romantic than usual.

Keith smiled at her and began to undress. Rissa headed into the main bathroom and began running the water. Starplex was such a contrast to the ships of Keith's youth, like the Lester B. Pearson he'd traveled on back when first contact with the Waldahudin had been made. In those days, he'd had to be content with sonic showers. There was something to be said for carrying a miniature ocean around as part of your ship.

He followed her into the bathroom. She was already in the shower, soaking down her long, black hair. Once she'd moved out from under the shower head, Keith jockeyed into position, enjoying the sensation of her wet body sliding past his. He'd lost half his hair over the years, and what was left he kept short. Still, he massaged his scalp vigorously, trying to work out his anger with Jag in doing so.

He scrubbed Rissa's back for her, and she scrubbed his in turn. They rinsed, then he turned off the water. If he hadn't been so angry, perhaps they'd have made love, but…

Dammit. He began to towel off.

"I hate this," Keith said.

Rissa nodded. "I know."

"It's not that I hate Jag — not really. I hate… hate myself.

Hate feeling like a bigot." He ran the towel up and down his back. "I mean, I know the Waldahudin have different ways. I know that, and I try to accept it. But — Christ, I hate myself for even thinking this — they're all the same. Obnoxious, argumentative, pushy. I've never met One who wasn't." He sprayed deodorant under each arm. "The whole idea of thinking I know all about somebody just because I know what race they belong to is abhorrent — it's everything I was brought up to understand. And now I find myself doing it day in and day out." He sighed.

"Waldahud.

Pig. The terms are interchangeable in my mind."

Rissa had finished drying herself. She pulled on a beige long-sleeve shirt and fresh panties. "They think the same way about us, you know.

All humans are weak, indecisive.

They don't have any korbaydin."

Keith managed a small laugh at the use of the Waldahudar word. "I do too," he said pointing down. "Of course, I only have two instead of four, but they do the job." He got a fresh pair of boxer shorts and a pair of brown denim pants out of the closet, and put them on. The pants constricted to fit around his waist. "Still," he said, "the fact that they also generalize doesn't make it any better." He sighed. "It wasn't like this with the dolphins."

"Dolphins are different," said Rissa, pulling on a pair of red pants.

"In fact, maybe that's the key. They're so different from us that we can bask in those differences. The biggest problem with the Waldahudin is that we have too much in common with them."

She moved over to her dresser. She didn't put on any makeup; the natural look was the current style for both men and women. But she did insert two diamond earrings, each the size of a small grape. Cheap diamond imports from Rehbollo had destroyed any remaining value natural gemstones had, but their innate beauty was unsurpassed.

Keith had finished dressing, too. He'd put on a synthetic shirt with a dark brown herringbone pattern, and a beige cardigan sweater.