Pia
She lay back on her bed staring up at the mesh underbelly of the bunk above. It was three o'clock and she expected Marco to arrive at any moment. Her long, bony fingers shook uncontrollably at her sides. What if she wasn’t responsive enough for him? Would he reject her? If he did, what did that mean for his place in New Atlantis? He was a special case, only because of her. If it didn’t work out between them then, technically, he should not be allowed to come.
The idea that he should remain to die was unthinkable and she pushed it away. Even if he rejected her, she would not let on to the others. She would save him anyway, knowing she would be able to handle seeing him with another woman back in her world as long as he survived.
There was a soft knock and she jumped to her feet and opened the door. With a quick look around the corridors, Marco stepped into the cabin and closed the door behind him. He had come straight from the restaurant and was still in his waiter’s jacket and bow tie. His hair was slicked down and parted on the side. He looked every bit the continental waiter.
‘I am sorry I am late. We have been very busy today.’ He looked down at her with soft, brown eyes.
‘It does not matter. Thank you for taking the risk to come here.’ She played with the edge of her skirt shyly.
‘How could I not? I have been unable to think, or work, or do anything else since this morning. I cannot believe that you want me.’
‘I cannot believe you want me,’ she said with a little laugh.
He drew her into his arms and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. ‘How could I not? You are like no other woman I have ever met. I cannot imagine my life without you now.’
‘Yes. That is how I feel. However, there are still things about me, about our world, that you must understand. I do not want you to agree and then regret your decision later.’
‘Regret being with you? Never. Regret not dying? What do you think? Regret leaving Paulo behind… yes.’
‘Paulo?’
‘My assistant. I spoke to Carter, the red-haired man, over luncheon. I asked him if Paulo could be included. He said it would be against Protocol, whatever that word means. He said that if they made an exception for one, then it opened the door to more and more. But I am already an exception because of you. It seems such a little thing to include the boy. He is only seventeen!’
‘Oh, Marco, I am sorry. Really I am. But I did not expect to be able to include you. They are bending the rules for me already… we cannot expect them to bend them further. Maybe you could tell him what will happen. Tell him to go up to the decks before the alarm is given. He might get away if he is out of uniform.’
‘But you said that history cannot be changed. Only one of us survived, and that is not Paulo.’
‘Yes… I do not know. Please, can you let this go for now while I tell you the rest?’
He removed his jacket, collar and bow tie and then drew her down with him onto the bunk, resting with his back against the bulkhead, arm around her shoulder. ‘So tell me what I must know.’
For a short time she was quiet as she gently stroked his white, starched shirt with shaking fingers. Where did she begin? How did you tell someone that the girl he thought was no more than a few years younger than him, was, in fact, hundreds of years older? What did that do to his desire for her?
‘In our world we are sterile. There has been no child born to us for hundreds of years. The only children are those we bring in from the past and they become sterile once they have passed through the Portal.’
‘That makes no sense, Pia. You had to have been born.’
‘I was born before the Last Great Plague that killed almost everyone and sterilised the rest of us. I was in my mid-twenties when that happened.’
‘So you time travelled to this later time, hundreds of years later?’
‘No. Time travel was only perfected about seventy years ago in our timeline.’
‘I do not understand. You are only in your twenties now. How can you…?'
‘I am two hundred and fifty years old, Marco, with my time in-situ added to my personal timeline.’
Marco laughed so hard his eyes watered. She let him finish before going on.
‘We all age. However, rather than die and end our race, our consciousness – our being – is transferred into another body, identical to the last, but younger. This is my fourth such body. If you come to my world you will also live for many, many hundreds of years by Integrating with new bodies when the old one wears out.’
‘Pia, you are already expecting much from me… to believe that you can travel through time, that you come from the future, that this unsinkable ship will soon sink. This is too much; you cannot expect me to accept this?’
She turned around and took his face in her hands, meeting his eyes with a steady gaze. In the shadowed recess beneath the bunk, his eyes were dark and huge. His beautiful lips were drawn tightly closed in frustration.
‘If you love me, you will trust me. You must trust that I would not lie to you or try to trick you in any way. Can you do that?’
He let the breath he held out in one furious gust, leaned in and kissed her in defeat. His kiss was angry and frustrated, but she could feel the capitulation there too.
‘I love you and I trust that you would not lie to me.’
‘Good. So does it make you feel any different toward me, that I am so old?’
‘No. I am in love with the girl who sits before me, no matter her age.’
‘Good. That is good. Next. I am not a virgin. Well, this body is, but I am not. I was sexually active in my youth, but I have not been with anybody since the Last Great Plague.’
‘Hundreds of years ago?’
‘Yes.’
‘How can your body be virginal and you are not?’
‘My hymen is intact. My maidenhead on this body has never been breached.’
He blinked rapidly and frowned. ‘You are a virgin then.’
‘Physically. Even so, I will not seem that way when we… make love. I do not think I have forgotten how it works, even if I am a bit rusty.’
‘I will show you, gently, when we are married.’
‘Marco, I do not want to wait. I want you now, so you know what it is that you are getting. It is the way of the world in my time.’
‘I will not take your maidenhead without the sacrament of marriage. I have had many women, my Pia; I will not lie to you. But none have been virgins. I could not do that to you.’
She sighed heavily. This was what she had been expecting from him. He was a man of his era and it only made sense that he would see this as honouring her.
‘All right, if you are sure, we will wait until we get home. Once there, you will see how the world works and that may soften your hard line.’
‘I am not being rigid, Sweet Pia; I am being honourable.’
She sighed again and rested her forehead against his. ‘I know you are. It is just so damned inconvenient and unnecessary. But I am pushing you too hard. Let us just lie here and talk some more.’
They shifted position so that they were lying in each other’s arms on the narrow bunk. As she started to talk more about her world and what he could expect she became aware that he was very quiet. She lifted her head from his chest and realised he was sound asleep. There were dark circles under his eyes and she had sensed his exhaustion every time she'd seen him in the last few days. Now his weariness had caught up with him. She smiled and lay back on his chest. It felt good to be this close, listening to the sound of his slow and steady heartbeat. It felt right. No matter what the future held for them, this bond they had formed was right. She could not regret it, no matter what might follow.