Jacob's Ladder 1 - Dust by Elizabeth Bear

Author:Elizabeth Bear [Bear, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Space ships, High Tech, Fiction, Science Fiction, Space colonies, General, Angels
ISBN: 9780553591071
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 2007-12-26T21:46:24+00:00

It was full light when Rien returned—alone, for Gavin had gone out exploring. Perceval slept curled tight around a pillow, sheathed in Pinion as if in a clamshell, both fists pressed against her chin, the blankets draped haphazardly. She wore an open-backed nightgown Rien had never seen, too white to have come traveling with them.

Her father must have brought it for her.

Rien wrapped her arms around herself. The flush of alcohol was already fading; she didn't know if that was because it had taken so little to intoxicate her or because her symbiont filtered her blood. She thought of Tristen, the glide of his razor along the edge of his jaw, and reached out and stroked Perceval's scalp, the soft stubble prickling her fingers.

She felt Pinion watching, but the parasite wings permitted her touch.

It was a kind of opposite, wasn't it? Tristen couldn't wait to shave the beard away, and here was Perceval, all shorn like a sheep, and defiant with it. Rien thought she could shave Perceval's head for her, too. If Perceval would let her.

With a rustle, Pinion unfolded. But not violently. Rather, like the wings of the sleepy pigeons Rien had once tended in their cote, before the job was handed down to a younger Mean. Perceval's head moved under Rien's hand. She turned and blinked drowsily, brown eyes made enormous by the unrelieved bones of her face.

"Is it time to get up?"

"No," Rien said, and kissed her.

She looked hard, but her mouth was tender. Rien cupped her face in both hands, feeling skin—soft, with rough patches, the hard oval of a blemish. Perceval's mouth was wet, resilient. So much more yielding than Mallory's.

The kiss tasted of bitter sleep, the sourness of the wine. Something brought by each of them.

Rien's heart pounded as if she had just walked out of a sauna. Perceval's long hands lay flat against her shoulders; without touching, Pinion unfolded, arched over them and crossed behind Rien's back, a sort of bower. For an instant, Perceval kissed her back, and the beating wings were in Rien's bosom.

And then Perceval slid her hand around, pressed her fingertips to Rien's chest beneath her collarbone, and gently levered her away. "No," she said, softly. "Rien, I'm sorry. I'm fallow. Asexed. I don't want this."

"You're female." Not like Head, Rien meant to say. But Head might be dying or already dead, half the world away. And somebody had used Perceval to do it.

She had kissed Rien back. And so Rien leaned down, as if she would kiss Perceval again, because she hurt so, and was so lonely, and because she loved Perceval as she had not known that she could love. And was stopped by no more than the pressure of Perceval's hand.

"Being male or female has nothing to do with desire."

"You don't want me."

"I don't want anyone," Perceval said. Rien stepped back, still half drunk and groggy with wakefulness, and watched Perceval rise. She crossed to the window and threw the drapes open with a flick of wingtips.

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