Woman on the Edge of Time

“It’s running hard for me to comprend,” Luciente said in his high excited voice. “Might as well be Yif. Your mem has a sweet friend who abuses per and who … sold your sister?”

“Her pimp, Geraldo. And she’s my niece, not my sister. Geraldo is a pig! He didn’t want her to have his baby.”

Luciente looked deeply embarrassed. Passing his hand over his mouth, he shifted from haunch to haunch, squatting before her. “Uh, I know you people ate a great deal of meat. But was it common to feed upon person? Or is this slavery, I thought wiped out by your time?”

The urge to cry was still burning her eyes. “Sometimes we have nothing to feed on but our pain and each other … . What’s that about meat?”

“How did this Geraldo sell per flesh then, and pigs too?”

“She hustles!” Seeing blank incomprehension, she snorted and said harshly, “Puta. Tart. Whore.”

Luciente began fiddling with the wrist gadget again till she reached out to stop him. Small bones he had, little heavier than hers. “Who do you talk to with that?”

“My kenner? It ties into an encyclopedia—a knowledge computer. Also into transport and storage. Can serve as locator-speaker.” Luciente’s face changed suddenly and he smiled. “Oh. Had to do with sex. Prostitution? I’ve read of this and seen a drama too about person who sold per body to feed per family!”

“I suppose nobody in your place sells it, huh? Like they say about Red China.”

“We don’t buy or sell anything.”

“But people do go to bed, I guess?” Connie sat up, holding herself across the breasts as she shook back her lank hair. “I suppose since you’re alive and got born, they must still do that little thing, when they aren’t too busy with their computers?”

“Two statements don’t follow.” Luciente gave her a broad smile. “Fasure we couple. Not for money, not for a living. For love, for pleasure, for relief, out of habit, out of curiosity and lust. Like you, no?”

Like sunshine in her cell, he looked so human squatting there she heard herself ask half coyly, “Do you like women?”

“Allwomen?” Luciente looked at her with that slight scowl of confusion. “Oh, for coupling? In truth, the most intense mating of my life was a woman named Diana—the fire that annealed me, as Jackrabbit says in a poem. But it was a binding, you know, we obsessed. Not good for growing. We clipped each other. But I love Diana still and sometimes we come together … . Mostly I’ve liked males.”

“I thought so.” Why should that make her feel gloomy? He had shown no signs of sexual interest, except for all that patting and hand holding. But shouldn’t a figment of her mind at least satisfy her? Perhaps being crazy was always built on self-hatred and she would, of course, see a queer.

“You’re lonely here, and I just let you down. Truly, I’m not rigid and I like you.” Luciente took her hands between his warm, dry, calloused palms. “What is this place? You seem to be locked in. I’ve seen holies about your prisons and concentration camps. Is this such a place?”

“No. I’d rather be in prison. Unless you’re on an indeterminate, at least you know when you’re getting out. They can keep me here till I go out with my feet in the air. It’s a loony bin—a mental hospital.”

Luciente consulted his wrist. “Oh, a madhouse! We have them.” He looked around. “But it seems … ugly. Bottoming.”

“Are yours so fancy?”

“Open to the air and pleasant, fasure. I never stayed in one myself—”

“Big deal!” She pulled her hands free.

“But Jackrabbit has—just before we fixed each other, and we’ve been sweet friends three years. Bee and I have been lovers twelve now, isn’t that strange? Not to stale in so long. And Diana goes mad every couple of years. Has visions. Per earth quakes. Goes down. Emerges and sets to work again with harnessed passion … . But I have to say this—in truth you don’t seem mad to me. I know I’ve never gone down myself, I’m too … flatfooted … earthen somehow, so it’s beyond my experience. Bee tells me that I’m the least receptive person in our base, and person has to scream in my ear to get through … . I don’t mean to pry or make accusations, but are you truly mad?”

“Here they say if you think you aren’t sick, it’s a sign of sickness.”

“You’re sick?”

“Sick. Mad.”

“We do not use these words to mean the same thing.” Luciente tilted his head to one side. “Could it be you’re bluffing? Truly, I have never gone down, but I have been close to Diana when person was far inward, and … you seem too coherent. Perhaps you’re tired, unable to cope for a while? Sometimes, among us, this happens.”

“I don’t think there’s a thing wrong with me, aside from seeing you—that’s the best sign of being crazy I can think of.”

“No, I’m in touch with you, really.” Luciente scowled at the room. “This place bottoms me. Would you like to take a walk?”

“The door’s locked. Or do you have a key?”

“Not a walk here or now. I wish to invite you home with me for a short visit Say an hour?”

“You mean the way you come here?”

“Wouldn’t you like to see my village?”