Exile from Space Read online

old are youanyhow?..." We sat down, but he still didn't give me a chance toanswer. "No, that's not the right question. Who are you? What are you?What makes a girl like you exist at all? How come they let you runaround on your own like this? Does your mother.... Never mind me,honey. I've got no business asking anything. Sufficient unto themoment, and all that. I'm just talking so much because I'm so nervous.I haven't felt like this since ... since I first went up for a solo ina Piper Cub. I didn't think you'd come, and you did, and you're stillhere in spite of me and my dumb yap. Orange juice for the lady,please," he told the waiter, "and a beer for me. Draft."

  I just sat there. As long as he kept talking, I didn't have to. Helooked just as beautiful as he had in the diner, only maybe more so.His skin was smoother; I suppose he'd just shaved. And he was wearinga tan suit just a shade darker than his skin, which was just a shadedarker than his hair, and there was absolutely nothing I could say outloud in his language that would mean anything at all, so I waited tosee if he'd start talking again.

  "You're not mad at me, Tina?"

  I smiled and shook my head.

  "Well, _say_ something then."

  "It's more fun listening to you."

  "You say that just like you mean it ... or do you mean _funny_?"

  "No. I mean that it's hard for me to talk much. I don't know how tosay a lot of the things I want to say. And most people don't sayanything when they talk, and I don't like listening to their voices,but I do like yours, and ... I can't help liking what you say ... it'salways so _nice_. About me, I mean. Complimentary. Flattering."

  "You were right the first time. And you seem to be able to say whatyou mean very clearly."

  Which was just the trouble. Not only able to, but unable not to. Itdidn't take any special planning or remembering to say or act thenecessary lies to other humans. But Larry was the least alien personI'd ever known. Dishonesty to him was like lying to myself. Playing arole for him was pure schizophrenia.

  Right then, I knew it was a mistake. I should never have made thatdate, or at least not nearly so soon. But even as I thought that, Ihad no more intention of cutting it short or backing out than I did ofgoing back to the ship the next day. I just tried not to talk toomuch, and trusted to the certain knowledge that I was as important tohim as he was to me--so perhaps whatever mistakes I made, whatever Isaid that sounded _wrong_, he would either accept or ignore orforgive.

  But of course you can't just sit all night and say nothing. And thesimplest things could trip me up. Like when he asked if I'd like todance, and all I had to say was "No, thanks," and instead, because I_wanted_ to try it, I said, "I don't know how."

  Or when he said something about going to a movie, and I agreedenthusiastically, and he gave me a choice of three different ones thathe wanted to see ... "Oh, anyone," I told him. "You're easy toplease," he said, but he insisted on my making a choice. There wassomething he called "an old-Astaire-Rogers," and something else thatwas made in England, and one current American one with stars I'd seenon television. I wanted to see either of the others. I could have saidso, or I could have named one, any one. Instead I heard myselfblurting out that I'd never been to a movie.

  At that point, of course, he began to ask questions in earnest. And atthat point, schizoid or not, I had to lie. It was easier, though,because I'd been thoroughly briefed in my story, for just suchemergencies as this--and because I could talk more or lessuninterruptedly, with only pertinent questions thrown in, and withouthaving to react so much to the emotional tensions between us.

  I told him how my parents had died in an automobile accident when Iwas a baby; how my two uncles had claimed me at the hospital; aboutthe old house up on the mountainside, and the convent school, and thetwo old men who hated the evils of the world; about the death of thefirst uncle, and at long last the death of the second, and the lawyersand the will and everything--the whole story, as we'd worked it outback on the ship.

  It answered everything, explained everything--even the unexpected itemof not being able to eat meat. My uncles were vegetarians, which wascertainly a harmless eccentricity compared to most of the others Icredited them with.

  As a story, it was pretty far-fetched, but it hung together--and incertain ways, it wasn't even _too_ far removed from the truth. It was,anyhow, the closest thing to the truth that I could tell--and Itherefore delivered it with a fair degree of conviction. Of course itwasn't designed to stand up to the close and personal inspection Larrygave it; but then he _wanted_ to believe me.

  He seemed to swallow it. What he did, of course, was something any manwho relies, as he did, on his reflexes and responses to stay alive,learns to do very early--he filed all questions and apparentdiscrepancies for reference, or for thinking over when there was time,and proceeded to make the most of the current situation.

  We both made the most of it. It was a wonderful evening, from thatpoint on. We went to the Astaire-Rogers picture, and although I misseda lot of the humor, since it was contemporary stuff from a time beforeI had any chance to learn about Earth, the music and dancing were fun.Later on, I found that dancing was not nearly as difficult orintricate as it looked--at least not with Larry. All I had to do wasgive in to a natural impulse to let my body follow his. It feltwonderful, from the feet on up.

  Finally, we went back to the hotel, where we'd left my car, and Istarted to get out of his, but he reached out an arm, and stopped me.

  "There's something else I guess you never did," he said. His voicesounded different from before. He put both his hands on my shoulders,and pulled me toward him, and leaned over and kissed me.

  I'd seen it, of course, on television.

  I'd seen it, but I had no idea....

  That first time, it was something I felt on my lips, and felt sosweetly and so strongly that the rest of me seemed to melt awayentirely. I had no other sensations, except in that one place wherehis mouth touched mine. That was the first time.

  When it stopped, the world stopped, and I began again, but I had tosort out the parts and pieces and put them all together to find outwho I was. While I did this, his hands were still on my shoulders,where they'd been all along, only he was holding me at arm's distanceaway from him, and looking at me curiously.

  "It really was, wasn't it?" he said.

  "What?" I tried to say, but the sound didn't come out. I took a breathand "Was what?" I croaked.

  "The first time." He smiled suddenly, and it was like the sun comingup in the morning, and then his arms went all the way around me. Idon't know whether he moved over on the seat, or I did, or both of us."Oh, baby, baby," he whispered in my ear, and then there was thesecond time.

  The second time was like the first, and also like dancing, and someways like the bathtub. This time none of me melted away; it was allthere, and all close to him, and all warm, and all tingling withsensations. I was more completely alive right then than I had everbeen before in my life.

  After we stopped kissing each other, we stayed very still, holding onto each other, for a while, and then he moved away just a little,enough, to breathe better.

  I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to get out of the car. Ididn't even want to be separated from him by the two or three inchesbetween us on the seat. But he was sitting next to me now, staringstraight ahead, not saying anything, and I just didn't know what camenext. On television, the kiss was always the end of the scene.

  He started the car again.

  I said, "I have to ... my car ... I...."

  "We'll come back," he said. "Don't worry about it. We'll come back.Let's just drive a little...?" he pulled out past my car, and turnedand looked at me for a minute. "You don't want to go now, do you?Right away?"

  I shook my head, but he wasn't looking at me any more, so I took abreath and said out loud, "No."

  We came off a twisty street onto the highway. "So that's how it hitsyou," he said. He wasn't exactly talking to me; more like thinking outloud. "Twenty-seven years a cool cat, and now it has to be a crazylittle midget that gets to you
." He had to stop then, for a redlight--the same light I'd stopped at the first time on the way in.That seemed a long long time before.

  Larry turned around and took my hand. He looked hard at my face, "I'msorry, hon. I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

  "What?" I said. "What do you mean?" I hadn't even tried to make senseout of what he was saying before; he wasn't talking to me anyhow.

  "Kid," he said, "maybe that was the first time for you, but in adifferent way it was the first time for me too." His hand opened andclosed around mine, and his mouth opened