Blue Mars(37)

Well. Strictly speaking, she was at the physiological equivalent of being seventy or so, depending on when she had last had the treatments. So not that bad. Perhaps Peter would know. But the longer one went between treatments, he had heard, the more problems cropped up, statistically speaking. It made sense. It was only wise to be prudent.

But he couldn’t say that to her. In fact, it was hard to think what he could say to her.

Eventually her gaze lifted. She recognized him and shuddered, her lip lifting like a trapped animal’s. Then she looked away from him, grim, stone-faced. Beyond anger, beyond hope.

“I wanted to show you some of the Tyrrhena massif,” he said lamely.

She got up like a statue rising, and left the room.

Sax, feeling his joints creak with the pseudo-arthritic pain that so often accompanied his dealings with Ann, followed her.

He was trailed in his turn by the two stern-looking young women. “I don’t think she wants to talk to you,” the taller one informed him.

“Very astute of you,” Sax said.

Far down the gallery, Ann was standing before another window: spellbound, or else too exhausted to move. Or part of her did want to talk.

Sax stopped before her.

“I want to get your impressions of it,” he said. “Your suggestions for what we might do next. And I have some, some, some areological questions. Of course it could be that strictly scientific questions aren’t of interest to you anymore—”

She took a step toward him and struck him on the side of the face. He found himself slumped against the gallery wall, sitting on his butt. Ann was nowhere to be seen. He was being helped to his feet by the two young women, who clearly didn’t know whether to cheer or groan. His whole body hurt, more even than his face, and his eyes were very hot, stinging slightly. It seemed he might cry before these two young idiots, who by trailing him were complicating everything enormously; with them around he could not yell or plead, he could not go on his knees and say Ann, please, forgive me. He couldn’t.

“Where did she go?” he managed to say.

“She really, really doesn’t want to talk to you,” the tall one declared.

“Maybe you should wait and try later,” the other advised.

“Oh shut up!” Sax said, suddenly feeling an irritation so vehement that it was like rage. “I suppose you would just let her stop taking the treatment and kill herself!”

“It’s her right,” the tall one pontificated.

“Of course it is. I wasn’t speaking of rights. I was speaking of how a friend should behave when someone is suicidal. Not a subject you are likely to know anything about. Now help me find her.”

“You’re no friend of hers.”

“I most certainly am.” He was on his feet. He staggered a little as he tried to walk in the direction he thought she had gone. One of the young women tried to take his elbow. He avoided the help and went on. There Ann was, in the distance, collapsed in a chair, in some kind of dining chamber, it seemed. He approached her, slowing like Apollo in Zeno’s paradox.

She swiveled and glared at him.

“It’s you who abandoned science, right from the start,” she snarled. “So don’t you give me that shit about not being interested in science!”

“True,” Sax said. “It’s true.” He held out both hands. “But now I need advice. Scientific advice. I want to learn. And I want to show you some things as well.”

But after a moment’s consideration she was up and off again, right past him, so that he flinched despite himself. He hurried after her; her gait was much longer than his, and she was moving fast, so that he had to almost jog. His bones hurt.

“Perhaps we could go out here,” Sax suggested. “It doesn’t matter where we go out.”

“Because the whole planet is wrecked,” she muttered.

“You must still go out for sunsets occasionally,” Sax persisted. “I could join you for that, perhaps.”

“No.”

“Please, Ann.” She was a fast walker, and enough taller than him that it was hard to keep up with her and talk as well. He was huffing and puffing, and his cheek still hurt. “Please, Ann.”

She did not answer, she did not slow down. Now they were walking down a hall between suites of living quarters, and Ann sped up to go through a doorway and slam the door behind her. Sax tried it; it was locked.

Not, on the whole, a promising beginning.

Hound and hind. Somehow he had to change things so that it was not a hunt, a pursuit. Nevertheless: “I huff, I puff, I blow your house down,” he muttered. He blew at the door. But then the two young women were there, staring hard at him.