The Seventh Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®. Robert Silverberg
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She leaned down and kissed me. If it felt like anything other than being kissed by a human woman, I sure as hell couldn’t tell the difference.
I ate my breakfast, and we spent the morning talking—about books, about art, about theater, about food, about a hundred things we had in common. And we talked in the afternoon, and we talked in the evening.
I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I woke up in the middle of the night. I was laying on my side, and she was curled up against me. I felt something warm and flat on my leg, not a bandage. It seemed to be…sucking is a terrible word; extracting…some of the infection from my leg. I had a feeling that it was some part of her that I couldn’t see; I decided not to look, and when I woke up in the morning she was already gathering some firewood for warming my breakfast.
We spent seven idyllic days together at that campsite. We talked, we ate, I began walking on a pair of crutches she made. Four times she excused herself and ran off, and I knew she’d picked another distress signal out of the air, but she was always back a few minutes later. Long before those seven days were up I realized that, despite a broken leg and a shredded arm, they were the happiest days I’d ever spent.
I spent my eighth day with her—my ninth on Nikita—making my way slowly and painfully back to the spot where the ship would pick me up the next morning. I set up my bubble after dinner, and crawled into it a couple of hours later. As I was starting to drift off I felt her lie up against me, and this time there was no illusion of clothing.
“I can’t,” I said unhappily. “My leg…”
“Hush,” she whispered. “I’ll take care of everything.”
And she did.
* * * *
She was making breakfast when I awoke.
“Good morning,” I said as I emerged from the bubble.
“Good morning.”
I hobbled over and kissed her. “Thank you for last night.”
“I hope we didn’t damage your wounds.”
“If we did, it was worth it,” I said. “The ship is due in less than an hour. We have to talk.”
She looked at me expectantly.
“I don’t care what you are,” I said. “To me you’re Rebecca, and I love you. And before the ship arrives, I’ve got to know if you love me too.”
“Yes, Gregory, I do.”
“Then will you come with me?”
“I’d like to, Gregory,” she said. “But…”
“Have you ever left Nikita before?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “Whenever I sense that someone with whom I’ve been linked is in physical or emotional pain.”
“But you always come back?”
“This is my home.”
“Did you visit Myron Seymour after he left Nikita?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” I said. “Either you did or you didn’t.”
“All right,” she said unhappily. “Either I did or I didn’t.”
“I thought you were never going to lie to me,” I said.
“I’m not lying, Gregory,” she said, reaching out and laying a hand on my good shoulder. “You don’t understand how the bond works.”
“What bond?” I asked, confused.
“You know that I look like this and I took this name because I was drawn irresistibly to your pain and your need, and found the name and the image in your mind,” she said. “We are linked, Gregory. You say that you love me, and probably you do. I share that emotion. But I share it for the same reason I can discuss your favorite books and plays—because I found them where I found Rebecca. When the link is broken, when I’m not in contact with you any more, they’ll be forgotten.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “And everything I feel for you this minute will be forgotten too.”
I just stared at her, trying to comprehend what she’d said.
“I’m sorry, Gregory,” she continued after a moment. “You can’t know how sorry. Right now all I want is to be with you, to love you and care for you—but when the link is broken, it will all be gone.” Another tear. “I won’t even feel a sense of loss.”
“And that’s why you can’t remember if you made it to Earth and saved Seymour?”
“I may have, I may not have,” she said helplessly. “I don’t know. Probably I never will.”
I thought about it. “It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t care about the others. Just stay with me and don’t break the link.”
“It’s not something I can control, Gregory,” she replied. “It’s strongest when you need me most. As you heal, as you need me less, then I’ll be drawn to someone or something that needs me more. Perhaps it will be another man, perhaps a Patrukan, perhaps something else. But it will happen, again and again.”
“Until I need you more than anyone else does,” I said.
“Until you need me more than anyone else does,” she confirmed.
And at that moment, I knew why Seymour and Daniels and the others had walked into what seemed near-certain death. And I realized what Captain Symmes and the Patrukan historian Myxophtyl didn’t know: that they hadn’t tried to get themselves killed, but rather to get themselves almost killed.
Suddenly I saw the ship overhead, getting ready to touch down a few hundred yards away.
“Does anyone or anything need you right now?” I asked. “More than I do, I mean?”
“Right this moment? No.”
“Then come with me for as long as you can,” I said.
“It’s not a good idea,” she said. “I could begin the journey, but you’re getting healthier every day, and something always needs me. We’d land at a spaceport to change ships, and you’d turn around and I’d be gone. That’s the way it was six years ago, with the human and Patrukan survivors.” Her face reflected her sorrow. “There is so much pain and suffering in the galaxy.”
“But I need you even if I’m healthy,” I said. “I love you, damn it!”
“And I love you,” she said. “Today. But tomorrow?” She shrugged helplessly.
The ship touched down.
“You loved each of them, didn’t you?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I would give everything I have to remember.”
“You’ll forget me too, won’t you?”
She put her arms around my neck and kissed me. “Don’t think about it.”
Then she turned and began walking away. The pilot approached me and picked up my gear.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, jerking a thumb in Rebecca’s direction—and I realized that he saw her as she truly was, that she was linked only to me.
“What did it look like to you?” I replied.
He shook his head. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
* * * *
It took me five days to get back to Earth. The medics at the hospital were amazed that I’d healed so quickly, and that all signs of infection were gone. I let them think it was a miracle, and in a way it was. I didn’t care; all I cared about was getting her back.
I