Free Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson Page B

that precisely the advantage of a weight room over the outdoors was the chance to do strength work. So now he upped the weight for a few hard pushes at the end of the set.
    Up and down, back and forth, push and pull, all the while taking in the other people in the room: watching the women, to be precise. Without ever actually focusing on them. Lifting, running, rowing, whatever they did Frank liked it. He had a thing for jock women that long predated his academic interest in sociobiology. Indeed it seemed likely that he had gotten into the latter to explain the former—because for as long as he could remember, women doing sports had been the ultimate stimulus to his attraction. He loved the way sports moves became female when women did them—more graceful, more like dance—and he loved the way the moves revealed the shapes of their bodies. Surely this was another very ancient primate pleasure.
    At Optimodal this all remained true even though there was not a great deal of athleticism on display. Often it was a case of nonathletes trying to “get in shape,” so that Frank was covertly observing women in various stages of cardiovascular distress. But that was fine too: sweaty pink faces, hard breathing; obviously this was sexy stuff. None of that bedroom silliness for Frank—lingerie, make-up, even dancing—all that was much too intentional and choreographed, even somehow confrontational. Lovelier by far were women unselfconsciously exerting themselves in some physical way.
    “Oh hi Frank.”
    He jumped a foot.
    “Hi Diane!”
    She was sitting in a leg press seat, now grinning: “Sorry, I startled you.”
    “That’s all right.”
    “So you did join.”
    “Yes, that’s right. It’s just like you said. Very nice. But don’t let me interrupt you.”
    “No, I was done.”
    She took up a hand towel and wiped her brow. She looked different in gym clothes, of course. Short, rounded, muscular; hard to characterize, but she looked good. She drew the eye. Anyway, she drew Frank’s eye; presumably everyone was different that way.
    She sat there, barefoot and sweaty. “Do you want to get on here?”
    “Oh no, no hurry. I’m just kind of waking myself up, to tell the truth.”
    “Okay.”
    She blew a strand of hair away from her mouth, kicked out against the weight ten times, slowing down in the last reps. She smelled faintly of sweat and soap. Presumably also pheromones, estrogens, estrogenlike compounds, and perfumes.
    “You’ve got a lot on the stack there.”
    “Do I?” She peered at the weights. “Not so much.”
    “Two hundred pounds. Your legs are stronger than mine.”
    “I doubt that.”
    But it was true, at least on that machine. Diane pressed the two hundred ten more times; then Frank replaced her and keyed down the weights. Diane picked up a dumbbell and did some curls while he kicked in his traces. She had very nice biceps. Firm muscles under flushed wet skin. Absence of fur made all this so visible. On the savannah they would have been watching each other all the time, aware of each other as bodies.
    He wondered if he could make an observation like that to Diane, and if he did, what she would say. She had surprised him often enough recently that he had become cautious about predicting her.
    She was looking at the line of runners on treadmills, so Frank said, “Everyone’s trying to get back to the savannah.”
    Diane smiled and nodded. “Easy to do.”
    “Is it?”
    “If you know that’s what you’re trying for.”
    “Hmmm. Maybe so. But I don’t think most people know.”
    “No. Hey, are you done there? Will you check me on the bench press? My right elbow kind of locks up sometimes.”
    So Frank held the handlebar outside her hand. A young woman, heavily tattooed on her arms, waited for the machine to free up.
    Diane finished and Frank held out a hand to help her. She took it and hauled herself up, their grips tightening to hold. When she was up the young woman moved in to replace her,