longing. Her feet touched down. Another shaft, wider than the first. Water trickled along the floor. At the far end, she saw a circle of light. Now she knew where she was: one of the spillway tubes. It was moonlight she was seeing. She moved toward its penumbral glow just as a shadow moved across it. Not a shadow: a figure.
She knew.
Amy, Amy, daughter of my heart.
He reached toward her through the bars: a long, crooked claw, the digits distended, tipped with curving talons. As their palms touched, his fingers curled first through and then around her own. She felt no fear, only a spreading lightness. Her vision blurred with tears.
Amy, I remember. I remember everything.
Their hands held fast. The feel of his touch had dispersed to every part of her, bathing her in its warmth—a warmth of love, of home. It said: Always I will be here. I will be the one to keep you safe.
My brave girl. My brave Amy. Don’t cry now.
A great sob shook her, a flood of pure emotion. She was happy, she was sad, she felt the weight of her life.
—What’s happening to me? Why do I feel like I do? Please, tell me.
His face made no expression, for there could be none; all that he was, was in his eyes.
All your questions will be answered. He is waiting for you, in the ship. I will show you the way when the time comes.
—When? When will it come?
But Amy knew the answer even as she spoke the words.
Soon, said Wolgast. Very, very soon.
29
REFINERY COMPLEX
Freeport, Texas
Michael Fisher, oiler first class—Michael the Clever, Bridger of Worlds—aroused from a deep and dreamless sleep to the sensation, unmistakable, that somebody was fucking him.
He opened his eyes. Lore was straddling him, her spine bowed forward, her brow glazed with a glinting, sex-fired sweat. Flyers, he thought, hadn’t they just done this? Most of the night, in fact? Hugely, hilariously, in every position allowable to human physiology in a sleeping berth the approximate dimensions of a coffin?
“Good morning,” she announced with a grin. “I hope you don’t mind I got started without you.”
Well, so be it, Michael thought. There were certainly worse ways to face the day. From the flush of her cheeks, he could tell that Lore was well on the way, and, come to think of it, he wasn’t far behind. She had begun to rock her hips, the weight of her sex lapping against him like waves on a beach. In and out went the waves.
“Not so fast, mister.”
“For Christ’s sake, keep it down!” a voice barked from above.
“Shut up, Ceps,” Lore replied, “I’m working in here.”
“You’re making me hard! It’s disgusting!”
This conversation seemed to Michael to be occurring in some distant orbit. With everyone bunked together, nothing but thin curtains for privacy, you learned to tune things out. But the feeling was more than that. Even as his senses sailed away into pure physicality, something about sex, its hypnotic rhythms, prompted in him a kind of disassociation. It was as if his mind were lagging three steps behind his body, sightseeing its way through a landscape of various concerns and sadnesses and emotionally neutral images that rose before him like bubbles of expanding gas in the boiler. A decaying gasket that needed replacing. The delivery schedule of fresh crude down from the depot. Memories of the Colony, which he never otherwise thought about. Above him, Lore continued on her journey, while Michael drifted in this current of mental disloyalty, trying to will his attentions into alignment with hers. It seemed the least he could do.
And in the end, he did. Lore’s accelerating passion won the day. By the time they pulled the curtain back, Ceps was gone. The clock above the hatch read 0630.
“Shit.”
Michael swung his feet to the floor and yanked on his jumpsuit. Lore, behind him, wrapped her arms around his chest.
“Stay. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I’m first shift. If I’m late again, Karlovic will chew my ass for breakfast.” He stuffed his feet into his boots and swiveled his face to kiss her: a taste of salt, and sex, and something all her own. Michael wouldn’t have said it was love between them, exactly. Sex was a way to pass the time, but over the months their relationship had evolved, little by little, into something more than habit.
“You were thinking again, weren’t you?”
“Who, me?”
“Don’t lie.” Her tone wasn’t bitter, merely correcting. “You know, someday I’m going to fuck all the worries out