Exile from Space Read online

and closed too, but nothingcame out. The light was green; he noticed, and started moving, but itturned red again. This time he kept watching it.

  "I don't suppose anybody ever told you about the birds and the beesand the butterflies," he said.

  "Told me _what_ about them?" He didn't answer right away, so I thoughtabout it. "All I can think of is they all have wings. They all fly."

  "So do I. So does a fly. What I mean is ... the hell with it!" Heturned off the highway, and we went up a short hill and through a sortof gateway between two enormous rocks. "Have you ever been here?" heasked.

  "I don't think so...."

  "They call it The Garden of the Gods. I don't know why. I like it here ...it's a good place to drive and think."

  There was a lot of moonlight, and the Garden was all hills and dropsand winding roads between low-growing brush, and everywhere, as if thecreatures of some giant planet had dropped them, were those toweringrocks, their shapes scooped out and chiseled and hollowed and twistedby wind, water and sand. Yes, it was lovely, and it was non-intrusive.Just what he said--a good place to drive and think.

  Once he came to the top of a hill, and stopped the car, and we lookedout over the Garden, spreading out in every direction, with themoonlight shadowed in the sagebrush, and gleaming off the great rocks.Then we turned and looked at each other, and he reached out for me andkissed me again; after which he pulled away as if the touch of me hurthim, and grabbed hold of the wheel with a savage look on his face, andraced the motor, and raised a cloud of dust on the road behind us.

  I didn't understand, and I felt hurt. I wanted to stop again. I wantedto be kissed again. I didn't like sitting alone on my side of theseat, with that growl in his throat not quite coming out.

  I asked him to stop again. He shook his head, and made believe tosmile.

  "I'll buy you a book," he said. "All about the birds and the bees anda little thing we have around here we call sex. I'll buy it tomorrow,and you can read it--you _do_ know how to read, don't you?--and thenwe'll take another ride, and we can park if you want to. Not tonight,baby."

  "But I _know_...." I started, and then had sense enough to stop. Iknew about sex; but what I knew about it didn't connect with kissingor parking the car, or sitting close ... and it occurred to me thatmaybe it did, and maybe there was a lot I _didn't_ know that wasn't onTelevision, and wasn't on the Ship's reference tapes either. Moralsand mores, and nuances of behavior. So I shut up, and let him take meback to the hotel again, to my own car.

  He leaned past me to open the door on my side, but he couldn't quitemake it, and I had my fourth kiss. Then he let go again, and almostpushed me out of the car; but when I started to close the door behindme, he called out, "Tomorrow night?"

  "I ... all right," I said. "Yes. Tomorrow night."

  "Can I pick you up?"

  There was no reason not to this time. The first time I wouldn't tellhim where I lived, because I knew I'd have to change places, and Ididn't know where yet. I told him the name of the motel, and where itwas.

  "Six o'clock," he said.

  "All right."

  "Good night."

  "Good night."

  * * * * *

  I don't remember driving back to my room. I think I slept on the bedthat night, without ever stopping to determine whether it wascomfortable or not. And when I woke up in the morning, and looked outthe window at a white-coated landscape, the miracle of snow (which Ihad never seen before; not many planets have as much water vapor intheir atmospheres as Earth does.) in summer weather seemed trivial incomparison to what had happened to me.

  Trivial, but beautiful. I was afraid it would be very cold, but itwasn't.

  I had gathered, from the weather-talk in the place where I atebreakfast, that in this mountain-country (it was considered to be veryhigh altitude there), snow at night and hot sun in the afternoon wasnot infrequent in the month of April, though it was unusual for May.

  It was beautiful to look at, and nice to walk on, but it began meltingas soon as the sun was properly up, and then it looked awful. The reddirt there is pretty, and so is the snow, but when they began merginginto each other in patches and muddy spots, it was downright ugly.

  Not that I cared. I ate oatmeal and drank milk and nibbled at a pieceof toast, and tried to plan my activities for the day. To the libraryfirst, and take back the book they'd lent me. Book ... all right then,get a book on sex. But that was foolish; I _knew_ all about sex. Atleast I knew ... well, what did I know? I knew their manner ofreproduction, and....

  Just why, at that time and place, I should have let it come through tome, I don't know. I'd managed to stay in a golden daze from the timein the Garden till that moment, refusing to think through theimplications of what Larry said.

  Sex. Sex is mating and reproduction. Dating and dancing and kissingare parts of the courtship procedure. And the television shows allstop with kissing, because the mating itself is taboo. Very simple.Also _very_ taboo.

  Of course, they didn't _say_ I couldn't. They never said anythingabout it at all. It was just obvious. It wouldn't even work. We were_different_, after all.

  Oh, technically, biologically, of course, we were probablycross-fertile, but....

  The whole thing was so obviously _impossible_!

  They should have warned me. I'd never have let it go this far, if I'dknown.

  Sex. Mating. Marriage. Tribal rites. Rituals and rigamaroles, and stayhere forever. Never go back.

  _Never go back?_

  There was an instant's sheer terror, and then the comforting knowledgethat they wouldn't _let_ me do that. I had to go back.

  Baby on a spaceship?

  Well, _I_ was a baby on a spaceship, but that was different. Howdifferent? I was older. I wasn't born there. Getting born iscomplicated. Oxygen, gravity, things like that. You can't raise a_human_ baby on a spaceship.... _Human?_ What's human? What am I?Never mind the labels. It would be _my_ baby....

  I didn't want a baby. I just wanted Larry to hold me close to him andkiss me.

  * * * * *

  I drove downtown and on the way to the library I passed a bookstore,so I stopped and went in there instead. That was better. I could buywhat I wanted, and not have to ask permission to take it out, and ifthere was more than one, I could have all I wanted.

  I asked the man for books about sex. He looked so startled, I realizedthe taboo must apply on the verbal level too.

  I didn't care. He showed me where the books were, and that's all thatmattered. "Non-fiction here," he said. "That what you wanted, Miss?"

  Non-fiction. Definitely. I thanked him, and picked out half a dozendifferent books. One was a survey of sexual behavior and morals;another was a manual of techniques; one was on the psychology of sex,and there was another about abnormal sex, and one on physiology, andjust to play safe, considering the state of my own ignorance, one thatannounced itself as giving a "clear simple explanation of the facts oflife for adolescents."

  I took them all to the counter, and paid for them, and the man stilllooked startled, but he took the money. He insisted on wrapping themup, though, before I could leave.

  * * * * *

  The next part of this is really Larry's story, but unable as I am,even now, to be _certain_ about his unspoken thoughts, I can only tellit as I experienced it. I didn't do anything all that day, except wadethrough the books I'd bought, piece-meal, reading a few pages here anda chapter there. The more I read, the more confused I got. Each writercontradicted all the others, except in regard to the few basicbiological facts that I already knew. The only real addition to myfactual knowledge was the information in the manual of technique aboutcontraception--and that was rather shocking, even while it wastempting.

  The mechanical contrivances these people made use of were foolish, ofcourse, and typical of the stage of culture they are going through. IfI wanted to prevent conception, while engaging in an act of sexualintercourse, I
could, do so, of course, but....

  The shock to the glandular system wouldn't be too severe; it was thepsychological repercussions I was thinking about. The idea of pursuinga course of action whose sole motivation was the procreative urge, andsimultaneously to decide by an act of will to refuse to procreate....

  I _could_ do it, theoretically, but in practice I knew I never would.

  I put the book down and went outside in the afternoon sunshine. Themotel was run by a young married couple, and I watched the woman comeout and put her baby in the playpen. She was laughing and talking toit; she looked happy; so did the baby.

  But _I_ wouldn't be. Not even if they let me. I couldn't live here andbring up a child--children?--on this primitive, almost barbaric,world. Never ever be able fully