Free Starship Winter (David Conway 03) by Eric Brown Page B

behind me and crossed to Dortmund in his armchair.
    He became aware of me after a second and looked up drunkenly. “What do you want, Conway?”
    I controlled my anger. I took a breath and said, “I just wanted to say that I hope you’re proud of yourself, Dortmund. That was very clever – using your ability to dissect us like that. Very clever, and very indicative of the man you are: egotistical, monomaniacal, and without a soul in the world who cares a damn about you.”
    I looked at the barb protruding from the timber of the fireplace, gathering my thoughts. “And some of what you said might contain a grain of truth. But so what? No one is perfect. We live with our strengths, our weaknesses and imperfections – and we do our best with what fate has given us. It’s called being human – to try your best, and fail, and to go on despite everything… But perhaps you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be human, Dortmund.”
    I stood over him, willing him to look at me, wanting to see in his gaze an admission that what I had said had penetrated to his heart, if he possessed a heart.
    He looked up, his ice-blue eyes unremittingly cold, and his expression mocked every word I had spoken.
    * * *
    Our bedroom overlooked the front lawn.
    The balcony doors were open, admitting a slight breeze. Hannah had slipped into bed and turned out the lights; the room was illuminated by the silver light from the Ring of Tharssos.
    I stood by the balcony doors, staring out at the parabola of the Ring as it diminished over the sea’s horizon.
    “Come to bed,” Hannah said sleepily.
    I undressed and slipped under the cool sheets beside her. “Hannah…?” I began.
    She pressed a finger to my lips. “Shhh,” she said. “Hold me, David.”
    I held her, and she kissed me, and we made love, slowly. I swear it was the most intimate and meaningful of all the times we had made love up to then. I collapsed beside her, exhausted, tracing a finger across her chest and belly and considering my words.
    “Hannah?” I said. She was silent, so I said again, “Hannah…”
    The even sound of her respiration, the shallow rise and fall of her chest in the ring-light, told me she was sleeping.
    I lay awake for a long time, considering Dortmund’s final tirade. I dismissed a lot of what he’d said as no more than vindictiveness: there might have been a kernel of truth in some of his insights, but they were exaggerated out of all recognition.
    What he’d said about Hannah, however, made me wonder. It was almost as if he were unable to discern the workings of her mind, for some reason, and therefore accused her of concealment. Then I recalled what he’d said earlier about her gemstone…
    I must have fallen asleep eventually, as I awoke some time later with a pressing
    need to visit the loo. On the way back from the en suite bathroom, I moved to the open doors and looked out. The far-away straits were silvered with ring-light and the land was black with night; the scene resembled an old-fashioned photographic negative.
    I was about to return to bed when I noticed movement down below. I stepped forward and peered. Hawk, fully dressed, crossed the patio and leaned against the stone balustrade, staring across the lawn.
    I wondered if he, too, was finding sleep hard in the aftermath of Dortmund’s petty invective.
    I stepped inside, locked the doors, returned to bed and eventually slept.
    At some point I woke again, disturbed by Hannah as she rolled out of bed. Dawn light filled the room. I dozed in that realm between sleep and wakefulness when lucid dreams take on the fidelity of reality. I saw Hannah waving goodbye, tearfully, as she moved ever further away from me.
    I woke up and reached out. The bed was empty.
    When she returned, at last, I pulled her to me and hugged her like a needful child.
    Later – and it must have been an hour or two at least, as full sunlight now exploded into the room – we were awoken by an insistent knocking on the