Seed of Stars Read Online Free Page A

relationship; indeed, she probably had no need of it
    "I can't talk now—"
    'To hell with that!" Her voice was a hiss. "I want to know. You're not making it with anyone else in the mess, I know that much, and you can't do without it this long!"
    Then she didn't know about Mia. That was good. But she would find out eventually; she would make it her business to find out And when she did. . . . He turned away from the icy blast of her gaze, and found himself staring at the result of his own butchery. What kind of woman could be so blind to the ordinary humanities that she should choose this scene and this background to demand a reasoned explanation of why he no longer wished to ride her? The dismembered dead, now destined to become so much stored material in the deep freeze banks of Venturer Twelve, meant nothing more to her than so many stacked engineering spares.
    Hers was the Corps disease, the danger that every woman member faced, but which struck especially at the officer class with its additional burden of tradition and responsibility. In the pursuit of such a career it was necessary to forswear love. Different women reacted in different ways; some became to all intents men, their womanness dried and hardened into something beyond masculinity. Others, like Trudi, became loveless tigresses, permanently in heat, demanding the constant mechanical satisfaction of off-duty copulation as a compensation for the love they could never have. He pitied her, but he lacked the moral courage to be frank with her.
    "I wanted to work, to study. I've been taking balancing hormone shots to cool me down. There's so much to learn, so little time..."
    "Liar!" Her voice was incredulous, scathing. "I don't believe you. You would never do that—it means too much to you. There's not an officer on this ship gives it to me the way you did. You must be getting your satisfaction somewhere; why not with me?" The glare went from her eyes, and she asked, in a voice which, by comparison, was tender: "Come and see me, please, when you're back on board?"
    He nodded, taking the chance to get rid of her. "Yeah, yeah, I'll do that. Now will you please go?"
    She stiffened, on the brink of yet further argument, then apparently realizing the futility, she turned abruptly and left Piet leaned against the locker for a moment and took off his skullcap to wipe the drenching sweat Palance approached.
    "Too hot for you, sir?"
    "No, no. I'm O.K. How are we doing?"
    "I figure we'll save all your lieutenant needs, sir."
    "Fine."
    Palance added his burden to the growing stack of plastic bags and went away. Piet put on his cap and glanced at the door. Even as he wondered if it was proof against further visitors, it opened.
    Mia stood there, tiny and neat in her blue coveralls, with the flash of her rank on the left shoulder, her hair dank with sweat. He backed into the angle of the locker, where Caiola and Palance could not see, and she thrust herself close to him.
    "Piet, love," she whispered. "They said you were working down here. We've finished up in Astrogation, and..."
    Her voice died in her throat It was, perhaps, not entirely credible that one of her race could ever be said to be wide-eyed, but she seemed so now, as she stared at the pile of plastic bags.
    Aixd because he knew, because he felt what she was feeling so deeply, his reply was deliberately harsh. "You aren't supposed to be in here, Mia. Do you hear me? For God's sake, girl, turn your eyes away!"
    She was weeping, the sobs shaking her small frame. "Those men ... oh, Piet, those poor, poor men!" She buried her face in his shoulder, seeking the comfort of physical contact against the horror that was beyond bearing.
    "Mia, love—Mia." Now he held his hand at the back of her small, neat head and smiled down at her. "We are all poor creatures. Perhaps in some respects these men are luckier than most—because in death they will live on."
    She looked up at him, her round doll-face seeking comfort from his own.