Legacy (Eon, 1) by Greg Bear

Author:Greg Bear [Bear, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

We rested in the flowing patches of sun and cloud shadow, alternately warmed and cooled, surrounded by the rustling furred leaves of the grove. Salap and the captain and Randall sat on the porch with Nimzhian, who had closed her eyes and slumped in her chair, her breast rising and falling evenly beneath the folds of her robe and jacket.

Shirla and Shimchisko lay on either side of me, Shirla on her back, eyes tracking the clouds above, Shimchisko dozing lightly.

“I'd like to sneak off and explore,” Shirla said. “I've been bunking on the ship too long, with the mate watching every tickle.” She rolled on her side facing me. “Shall we run off to the hills?”

I smiled. “No flarking,” I said. Shirla surveyed me critically, one eye half-closed, and lay back again.

“It's a bold offer,” said Shimchisko, waking from his doze. “What do you see in him?”

“I can't help myself,” she said lightly. “It's his mystery. Where did you come from? I know ... from Jakarta, before you lost yourself in Liz. But you don't talk like a Jakartan, and you don't act like anybody I know ... There's a coolness about you.”

“If mystery gets me out of cleaning the shithouse, I'll be mysterious.”

“Well said,” Shirla commented. “Droll defense. Come with me,” she whispered conspiratorially into my ear, “inland to the hills,” she lifted her chest and tucked in her chin, “and you'll see my tits.”

I nearly choked on my laugh, and she laughed with me. But her eyes had fixed on mine. “The old woman's going to walk us somewhere. I'd love to run away behind everybody and sneak back in later. If you don't want to see my tits, okay, but keep me company.”

The heat in me almost overrode my sense of duty—if that was what it was now. Duty had transmuted into a burning curiosity and a rush of other conflicting emotions: fascination, anxiety, even a kind of patriarchal concern. “I'd love to,” I said.

“Soterio will dock us,” she said. “You might be cut back to apprentice. Am I worth it?”

Shirla had never gone quite this far in her coquettishness.

“You are without doubt the loveliest creature on the ship,” I said.

“Tell me more,” she said.

“Much lovelier than Shimchisko here.” Shimchisko opened one eye, then closed it again. “And you're much too smart to ruin a good sea career.”

She poked her tongue out between her lips like a forgetful cat and broke our gaze, looking again at the clouds. “One day,” she said, “I will see your secret nakedness, and I will gloat.”

“You may see my nakedness any time,” I said, “by appointment.”

On Thistledown, I had been successful with women, too much so. I had come to think of them as delightful and valuable commodities, worth much effort, but not like me in any serious respect. I could see now, middled in this dreamlike experience, that my attitude carried a taint of youth and foolishness. Shirla was very much like me; Shimchisko was not, nor was the captain or Salap.

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