Seven of Infinities by Aliette de Bodard

Author:Aliette de Bodard [Bodard, Aliette de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Space Opera
ISBN: 9781625675323
Google: NIYOEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B08QBL2HCQ
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2020-12-09T18:30:00+00:00

* * *

VN WOKE UP. For a brief moment she didn’t recognise where she was, and then she realised she was still in the same bed she’d been in before, except that she lay pillowed in the hollow of Sunless Woods’s shoulders, with the sound of distant starsong washing over her, and Sunless Woods’s bots curled up on her own shoulders and arms. Half of them scattered when she moved, and the ship beneath her stirred, the room slowly shifting into life in a word that Vân found hard to quantify—lights and oily reflections on metal becoming sharper and more in focus.

“Ship,” she said, slowly, carefully. And then, the word itself tentative and presumptuous, sticking in her throat like the bone of a fish, “Big’sis.” She started to ask what had happened, but it all came flooding back anyway, along with a memory of when she’d climaxed, her voice hoarse from moaning. “Hum. I—”

“Lil’sis,” Sunless Woods said. Vân couldn’t see her face, but she could feel the ship starting to pull away from her—the casual, arrogant mask being slipped back on. “Regrets?”

“No!” Vân fumbled for words. “I. Hum. It was amazing.”

Laughter, good-humoured and sharp. “Yes. Same here.”

Vân opened her mouth to say the ship had had other lovers, and then closed it when Sunless Woods ran a hand from the lobe of her ear down her cheek, slowly trailing beating warmth all the way down to her lips until she ached with need. “You’re going to protest it can’t possibly be that good. Please don’t. Unless you want another demonstration of how much I enjoyed it?”

Vân wanted to, desperately—she nibbled on Sunless Woods’s fingers instead, inhaling her until the world seemed to tremble and fold around her hunger—and then letting go with a breath that felt torn out of her. “Later?”

A silence. Then Sunless Woods said, “You’re worrying about what you told me.”

Vân opened her mouth, and realised that wasn’t it—that she didn’t know what she felt anymore—a perverse mixture of relief that it had been said, that it was out in the open and not weighing her down anymore, and of fear that Sunless Woods would push harder, that she’d ask about An Thành and the secret that would get her kicked out of Uyên’s house.

Sunless Woods rose, holding both of Vân’s hands close to her—bringing them to her chest until all Vân could feel was the steady hum of motors. In her eyes, stars wheeled and slowly expanded, and sunlight glinted across the habitats spread like pearls against the blackness of space. “I have you,” she said, simply. “I’m not in the habit of sharing confidences with other people.”

Vân’s voice choked in her chest. “You can’t—”

“Love you? Care for you?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. We—we barely know each other. We—” she sought for words. “We had amazing sex and that’s really all there is…” Her voice trailed off, because she didn’t know anymore what she’d say—what she’d be afraid to say, that the ship had seen dozens like her, that she was nothing special.

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