either change the subject when Farber questioned her or become withdrawn if he pressed her to answer.
It wasn’t until they attended the monthly Co-op mixer—a flamboyant gesture of defiance on Farber’s part, from which he derived a good deal of bittersweet enjoyment—that he began to understand what was wrong. Prominent members of the Cian community were regularly invited to the mixer—still referred to as a “cocktail party,” although amphetamines and hallucinogens were served as readily as alcohol—and some of them actually came; they called the parties “Little Modes,” and seemed to regard them with tolerant, amused condescension, as one would an absurd play put on by kindergarten children.
Tonight the Cian were very cold toward Liraun, even colder than the Terrans were to Farber. They didn’t quite snub her openly, but there was a thinly veiled hostility behind everything they said and did that indicated their disapproval of her. Jacawen sur Abut was there, that chilly man—as Liaison, he almost had to be there, but it was clear that he hated attending; unlike the other Cian, who participated in the spirit of celebration with a whooping gusto that was not without a certain overtone of sarcasm, he watched the crowds of noisy partygoers with distaste, eyed the dancing with scorn (never, never trying the Terran dances himself, as some of the other Cian sometimes did, the grace and suppleness of their movements far outshining the dancing Terrans even when they amusingly bungled the steps, good-naturedly leading the laughter their attempts to master the Scorpian or the Dustdevil Three-Step inevitably evoked), and imbibed nothing, neither food nor drink nor drug. And, also unlike the other Cian, he alone was openly hostile to Liraun, his flinty eyes snapping with displeasure whenever he saw her, stalking abruptly from rooms if she entered them, refusing to speak to her or acknowledge her presence in any positive way.
Liraun was strained and silent throughout the party, and kept to herself as much as possible. Farber was chagrined: it had never occurred to him that their miscegenation might have caused Liraun to be ostracized by her people as he had been by his; he had realized that the Terrans would be distant with her, but had not stopped to think that by bringing her to the party he would be exposing her to the hostility and scorn of the Cian as well.
That night, for the first time since he’d known her, she was preoccupied and unresponsive during their lovemaking. At first he thought she was angry with him for taking her to the party, but then he realized that her distress was made up more of pain and humiliation than of anger. They lay quietly together in the darkness, her sweaty thigh still thrown over his legs, her head on his shoulder and three of her nipples—still hard—pressing into his side, feeling the sweat drying on their bodies, the body fluids and semen turning sticky in their pubic hair, watching the creamy shimmer of light the streetlamp outside the window cast across the ceiling and along the top of one wall. The silence was too heavy and too long there in the musk-smelling darkness, her body too inert a weight, and so to break the silence he said, “What was it like for you when you were a child?”—not so much because he thought she would answer him, or even necessarily because he really wanted to know, but because these were the only words, the only conversational gambit, he could find in his tired, intoxicated head.
Surprisingly, she did answer him, raising up a little on an elbow to speak musingly, ironically, bitterly: “What was it like, to be a child? I remember mostly emptiness and wind, and that no one would play with me. Being alone. Walking on the Esplanade in the snow and the icy wind, looking at the shuttered houses. Knowing that every day, every minute, that went by brought me that much closer to the day I would die.”
Farber stared at her, appalled. “It was
It wasn’t until they attended the monthly Co-op mixer—a flamboyant gesture of defiance on Farber’s part, from which he derived a good deal of bittersweet enjoyment—that he began to understand what was wrong. Prominent members of the Cian community were regularly invited to the mixer—still referred to as a “cocktail party,” although amphetamines and hallucinogens were served as readily as alcohol—and some of them actually came; they called the parties “Little Modes,” and seemed to regard them with tolerant, amused condescension, as one would an absurd play put on by kindergarten children.
Tonight the Cian were very cold toward Liraun, even colder than the Terrans were to Farber. They didn’t quite snub her openly, but there was a thinly veiled hostility behind everything they said and did that indicated their disapproval of her. Jacawen sur Abut was there, that chilly man—as Liaison, he almost had to be there, but it was clear that he hated attending; unlike the other Cian, who participated in the spirit of celebration with a whooping gusto that was not without a certain overtone of sarcasm, he watched the crowds of noisy partygoers with distaste, eyed the dancing with scorn (never, never trying the Terran dances himself, as some of the other Cian sometimes did, the grace and suppleness of their movements far outshining the dancing Terrans even when they amusingly bungled the steps, good-naturedly leading the laughter their attempts to master the Scorpian or the Dustdevil Three-Step inevitably evoked), and imbibed nothing, neither food nor drink nor drug. And, also unlike the other Cian, he alone was openly hostile to Liraun, his flinty eyes snapping with displeasure whenever he saw her, stalking abruptly from rooms if she entered them, refusing to speak to her or acknowledge her presence in any positive way.
Liraun was strained and silent throughout the party, and kept to herself as much as possible. Farber was chagrined: it had never occurred to him that their miscegenation might have caused Liraun to be ostracized by her people as he had been by his; he had realized that the Terrans would be distant with her, but had not stopped to think that by bringing her to the party he would be exposing her to the hostility and scorn of the Cian as well.
That night, for the first time since he’d known her, she was preoccupied and unresponsive during their lovemaking. At first he thought she was angry with him for taking her to the party, but then he realized that her distress was made up more of pain and humiliation than of anger. They lay quietly together in the darkness, her sweaty thigh still thrown over his legs, her head on his shoulder and three of her nipples—still hard—pressing into his side, feeling the sweat drying on their bodies, the body fluids and semen turning sticky in their pubic hair, watching the creamy shimmer of light the streetlamp outside the window cast across the ceiling and along the top of one wall. The silence was too heavy and too long there in the musk-smelling darkness, her body too inert a weight, and so to break the silence he said, “What was it like for you when you were a child?”—not so much because he thought she would answer him, or even necessarily because he really wanted to know, but because these were the only words, the only conversational gambit, he could find in his tired, intoxicated head.
Surprisingly, she did answer him, raising up a little on an elbow to speak musingly, ironically, bitterly: “What was it like, to be a child? I remember mostly emptiness and wind, and that no one would play with me. Being alone. Walking on the Esplanade in the snow and the icy wind, looking at the shuttered houses. Knowing that every day, every minute, that went by brought me that much closer to the day I would die.”
Farber stared at her, appalled. “It was
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