somehow feel the passage of Jiang-qing.
Into the air, into the earth, into the fire. I am with you.
Chapter 2 A MEETING
"The strangest thing about humans is the way they pair up, males and females. Constantly at war with each other, never content to leave each other alone. They never seem to grasp the idea that males and females are separate species with completely different needs and desires, forced to come together only to reproduce."
"Of course you feel that way. Your mates are nothing but mindless drones, extensions of yourself, without their own identity."
"We know our lovers with perfect understanding. Humans invent an imaginary lover and put that mask over the face of the body in their bed."
"That is the tragedy of language, my friend. Those who know each other only through symbolic representations are forced to imagine each other. And because their imagination is imperfect, they are often wrong."
"That is the source of their misery."
"And some of their strength, I think. Your people and mine, each for our own evolutionary reasons, mate with vastly unequal partners. Our mates are always, hopelessly, our intellectual inferiors. Humans mate with beings who challenge their supremacy. They have conflict between mates, not because their communication is inferior to ours, but because they commune with each other at all."
Valentine Wiggin read over her essay, making a few corrections here and there. When she was done, the words stood in the air over her computer terminal. She was feeling pleased with herself for having written such a deft ironic dismemberment of the personal character of Rymus Ojman, the chairman of the cabinet of Starways Congress.
"Have we finished another attack on the masters of the Hundred Worlds?"
Valentine did not turn to face her husband; she knew from his voice exactly what expression would be on his face, and so she smiled back at him without turning around. After twenty-five years of marriage, they could see each other clearly without having to look. "We have made Rymus Ojman look ridiculous."
Jakt leaned into her tiny office, his face so close to hers that she could hear his soft breathing as he read the opening paragraphs. He wasn't young anymore; the exertion of leaning into her office, bracing his hands on the doorframe, was making him breathe more rapidly than she liked to hear.
Then he spoke, but with his face so close to hers that she felt his lips brush her cheek, tickling her with every word. "From now on even his mother will laugh behind her hand whenever she sees the poor bastard."
"It was hard to make it funny," said Valentine. "I caught myself denouncing him again and again."
"This is better."
"Oh, I know. If I had let my outrage show, if I had accused him of all his crimes, it would have made him seem more formidable and frightening and the Rule-of-law Faction would have loved him all the more, while the cowards on every world would have bowed to him even lower."
"If they bow any lower they'll have to buy thinner carpets," said Jakt.
She laughed, but it was as much because the tickling of his lips on her cheek was becoming unbearable. It was also beginning, just a little, to tantalize her with desires that simply could not be satisfied on this voyage. The starship was too small and cramped, with all their family aboard, for any real privacy. "Jakt, we're almost at the midpoint. We've abstained longer than this during the mishmish run every year of our lives."
"We could put a do-not-enter sign on the door."
"Then you might just as well put out a sign that says, 'naked elderly couple reliving old memories inside.'"
"I'm not elderly."
"You're over sixty."
"If the old soldier can still stand up and salute, I say let him march in the parade."
"No parades till the voyage is over. It's only a couple of weeks more. We only have to complete this rendezvous with Ender's stepson and then we're back on course to Lusitania."
Jakt drew away from her, pulled himself out of her doorway and stood upright in the corridor - one of the few places on the starship where he could actually do that. He groaned as he did it, though.
"You creak like an old rusty door," said Valentine.
"I've heard you make the same sounds when you get up from your desk here. I'm not the only senile, decrepit, miserable old coot in our family."
"Go away and let me transmit this."
"I'm used to having work to do on a voyage," said Jakt.