Horss thought Mai was lying but he took her at her word. Mai was too old to play games. She knew how to deal with characters such as himself. He, on the other hand, seemed to have lost his meager social skills. "You want something to drink?" he asked. It was a weak attempt to make her lengthen her visit.
She shook her head. She sat on the edge of her chair - not on the sofa where Horss could join her - and she looked ready to bolt through the doorway. He couldn't guess what was on her mind. Mai had once confessed to an attraction to him, and their surprising intimacy after the Mother Earth Opera was proof of it, but that wasn't sufficient cause for a more permanent relationship. The Mother Earth Opera had just made them both a little crazy. She must regret it now. He thought she would leave the ship before they launched from Headquarters. Perhaps she was trapped aboard by the early launch. Why did she accept Aylis Mnro's request to help her prepare the ship's hospital in the first place? Why did she stay aboard at the Five Worlds?
/
Mai got up and started a tour of his apartment. She was drawn to his family pictures. She found what she thought was an adorable image of him as a child. "Is that you?" she asked, pointing.
"An ugly little Indian wearing a cowboy hat? Yup."
"Who are all the others?" She didn't offer an opinion of his looks as a child. Mai was trapped by her training, her rigorous non-involvement with people. How could she comment on his childhood picture? Her ocular camera recorded it. He was so cute!
"Brothers and sisters. Mom and Dad. Uncles, aunts."
"Brothers and sisters?" she queried. "That many?"
"Most of them dead," he answered. "How is your family?"
"Mother is my only close relative. I barely had time to say good-bye to her. I hope she waits for me to return."
"Why wouldn't she?"
"She's tired of living. I don't know whether my leaving on this mission will give her an excuse to stop living or just the opposite. I hoped a grandchild would renew her spirit." There, that was a start: she had mentioned her potential child.
/
"I see." Horss did not see. He thought Mai had wanted a child for the reward of being a mother and a wife. Why couldn't he ask her to explain? Why was he such a coward? Mai was visiting him for some purpose. This was an opportunity for him to propose a change in their relationship. What change? What could he offer her? They had little in common, and he knew she didn't like all the Twenglish humor he kept throwing at her, as though he enjoyed irritating her.
/
Mai looked at the pictures and lost her concentration on the faces in them while waiting for Jon to say something encouraging to her. If it was so important to her for Jon to know she was pregnant with his child, why couldn't she tell him? Because it would make her seem so much less perfect in his eyes than she wanted to be? How could she explain becoming pregnant without it appearing either devious or stupid?
/
She looked at the pictures and Horss wondered if they really interested her or if she was just being polite. Mai looked into the kitchen, the bedroom, the study. She took in the view of the lake beyond his back porch. She turned back toward the front doorway. He wanted to get in front of her and block her path - the path out of his life. He couldn't move. It was brain damage - that was his excuse. She paused. He hoped.
"How are you doing?" she inquired politely. "When we finally get the hospital ready we should give you a thorough examination. We have some excellent specialists."
"I'm adequate. Barely. Uncle Iggy and Aunt Zakiya have kept me from making any bad mistakes."
"You can't be as bad as you think you are," Mai protested.
"I used to be a hell of an officer," he said with a self-deprecating smirk. "I knew everything and I could do anything, including being modest. Now I have no confidence."
"You're a good captain! I hear no complaints."
"I'm a better clarinet player than a captain. It's not the technical details of the ship. It's people, crew members. I feel like a fake, and that keeps me from helping them do their jobs and function as a team."
"I didn't realize you were so troubled."
"I advised Admiral Demba to promote her daughter into the chain of command. If Jamie Jones is anything like her mother, I'll be glad of her help. Maybe I can retire and take clarinet lessons."
/
Mai edged toward the doorway. She wanted to leave before she lost the battle with her nerves. She wanted to leave before the disappointment came into her expression. She was not so perfect anymore in her own eyes. She had always confused the status of perfection with the pursuit of it. The pursuit was honest and noble, but she would never be perfect. But marrying Jon was not something she should pursue for the sake of perfection. Maybe her love for him was also imperfect. She couldn't even blush at her absurdity. It was a false conceit of living to an advanced age: that you had everything figured out and wouldn't make any more mistakes.
/
Mai was edging toward the doorway. To Horss she seemed anxious to leave. It wasn't a smart thing to spill his personal problems onto her. She probably had her own problems - Aylis Mnro, if nothing else. He moved with her toward the doorway. She turned quickly and kissed him, then departed. His heartbeat slowed back down when he realized it probably wasn't the kind of kiss that meant what he wanted it to mean. It was a bit late to realize what he really wanted.
= = =
"Can't I have any secrets from you?" Aylis declared from where she knelt.
Mai had rushed to see what was wrong with Aylis, fearing some further manifestation of psychological damage. Why was she kneeling in the doorway to the lavatory? Aylis's calm tone of voice and her scrubbing of the floor eased Mai's fears. What was she cleaning? Mai leaned over to sniff the air to identify a strange odor. It invaded her nose. "Vomit?" Mai shouldn't have sniffed! Her chest heaved, her abdomen squeezed. She pushed past Aylis and got to the toilet just in time.
Aylis stood looking at her with puzzled concern as Mai rinsed her mouth and wiped her face with a towel. "Let me see you in my clinic, young lady!" Aylis ordered.
"I'm not young and I'm not a lady!" Mai took a deep breath and turned to face Aylis. She had to confess. "I'm pregnant!"
"Good God! Why?" She paused and added, "How?"
Aylis sounded angry to her. Mai was even angrier with herself. She didn't need any interrogation from Saint Aylis. "I had a mental lapse!"
"Is that so?" Aylis said, now almost smiling. She folded her arms across her chest and did that funny thing with her jaw. "How was it not intentional?"
"Never! Not with him!" It just came out, and it was insincere and stupid. Yes, how could it not have been intentional? She couldn't remember anything but the music and the joy and the desire. The desire! As though a hundred fifty years of life had done nothing to subdue such feelings, had done nothing to teach her how to think rationally. Death and danger and music and Samson and Jon: all the ingredients had come to a sudden boil in her life, and she had just exploded, lost control, lost reason! Aylis knew it was Jon. Aylis liked Jon. Everybody liked Jon. Except Mai. She merely loved him. And she hated him for being in the right place at the wrong time! She was confused. And hurt. He was the wrong man. It was the wrong time. It was all wrong! She didn't care! She was lost!
"Jon?" Aylis queried.
Mai nodded. Her face burned and her tear ducts tickled her eyes. It was spontaneous, an evening alone together, caught up in the excitement and passion following Zakiya's return to Earth, the night at the Mother Earth Opera, Zakiya's incredible singing, the dramatic appearance of Fred with Sammy. She was old enough to behave better. And she was a physician who should have remembered her own unprotected fertility! How could she have been that distracted? How could she not?
"How wonderful!" Aylis declared sincerely.
"Oh!" Mai wanted to scream.
"I mean, how woeful," Aylis said playfully, in a deep voice.
"It is not humorous!" But Mai fought the smile th
at tried to twist her lips. And she noted with hope this small attempt at humor from the always-somber Aylis Mnro.
"Yet, you took no precautions after the fact," Aylis noted. "Why not? If you didn't want it. If you didn't want Jon. Shall I terminate it for you?"
"No!" Mai was horrified at the thought. She wanted the baby! But how could she have a baby, here and now? It was the worst possible time! "I don't know! I should..." Should what? What should she do? She buried her face in her hands.
"Poor Mai!" Aylis said softly, putting an arm across Mai's shoulders. "You're as confused as I am. As medically negligent as I am. We can suffer together."
Mai sensed the implication, remembering Aylis was the first to vomit. "Are you?"
"Yes. I'm pregnant, too. We are a great pair to be running this hospital. If you ask me the same questions I asked you, just remember how you answered, because those are my answers."
This is part of the reason, Mai thought, why Aylis feels so badly all the time. "But you should abort it! You were raped!"
"Almost did. Couldn't. How about you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't know! I ask you the same thing!"
Aylis shook her head. "My business is life, not death. We can keep our fetuses for a while longer, then take them out and store them until a better time. Does Jon know?"
"No. I tried to tell him. I couldn't!"
"Do you want to marry him?"
"No!" Why can I never be honest about Jon?
"Emphatic, but unconvincing," Aylis said. "I've seen how you look at him."