Of Man And Manta - Ox Part 35

"Your eyes! Did it get your -- ?"

"Yes. I am blind."

She did not need the visual input to pick up his shock and hurt anger. "G.o.d, Tamme -- "

"I can function. But it will help if you find that projector."

"Come on!" He took her hand.

"You run ahead. I am well aware of your location."

"Okay." He let go. They moved down the flexing pa.s.sage.

He did know the way. They reached the projector. "Lefthanded -- and it's not ready," he announced.

And the next frame should be the forest -- safe, pleasant, with plenty of fresh cold water in a nearby stream. Out of reach.

"Someone must have used it since we did," he said. "Been almost eight hours since we were here last." Then he caught himself. "No -- I'm thinking of the time we slept. We left here only about an hour ago. Hey -- I never gave you back your watch. You don't need it right now, though, I guess."

It was a pitifully naive attempt to distract her from the insoluble problem. "I doubt anyone has been here since we were," she said. "But we have no notion how many are traveling this pattern. This is an inversion, possibly part of another hexaflexagon, with its own personnel."

"Can't we push it?" he asked plaintively. "The dial is getting toward the green..."

"Dangerous. An incomplete transfer might deliver dead bodies. We don't know."

"We've got to clean out those eyes. Make them tear." Another hesitation. "Or do agents ever cry -- even for that?"

"My eyes teared. The damage was done in the first seconds, and after that it was probably too late for water, anyway." Had she not been preoccupied with their escape, she would have thought of this before. It was another mark of the pressure she was under and her loss of capacity as an agent, quite apart from her vision.

"Permanent or temporary?"

"Temporary, I think. It is a superficial burn, clouding the retinas."

"Then we're okay. We'll rest until you heal."

"We may not have time."

"Stop being so d.a.m.ned tough and act sensibly! Going off handicapped is stupid -- you know that."

She nodded. "It was stupid letting myself fall into the acid trap. I've been making too d.a.m.n many human errors."

"Now you even sound human." He sounded pleased.

"We'll give it a few hours. Agents recover quickly."

"Any other girl'd be crying and dependent," he grumbled.

Tamme smiled. "Even Miss Hunt?"

"Who?"

"Deborah Hunt. I believe you were close to her at one time."

"You mean 'Quilon!" he exclaimed. "We never use her original name, any more than we use yours." He paused. "What was yours?"

"I have no other name."

"I mean before you were an agent, you were a girl. Who were you? Why did you change?"

"I do not know. I have no memories of my civilian status -- or of my prior missions as a TA-series agent, female. The debriefing erases all that. All agents of a given series must start their missions with virtually identical physical and intellectual banks."

"Don't you miss it sometimes?"

"Miss what?"

"Being a woman."

"Like Aquilon Hunt? Hardly."

"Listen, don't cut at her!" he snapped.

"I admit to a certain curiosity about the nature of this emotion that grips you," she said. "Pa.s.sion, pleasure, pain, hunger, I can understand. But why do you maintain an involvement with a woman you know must go to your best friend and avoid one with me that would carry no further entanglements?" The question was rhetorical: She knew the answer. Normals lacked fit control over their emotions and so became unreasonable.

"You want my involvement with you?" he asked incredulously.

"It is a matter of indifference to me except as it affects my mission." Not wholly true; she had no real emotional interest in him but would have appreciated some entertainment during her incapacity. This conversation was another form of that entertainment.

"That's why," he said. "You are indifferent."

"It would be useful to know what she has that I do not."

"Any other woman, that would be jealousy. But you only want to know so you can be a more effective agent."

"Yes." Another half truth. The continuing strain of too long a mission made her desire some kind of b.u.t.tressing. The temporary love of a man offered that. But it would not be wise to tell him that; he would misinterpret it.

"Well, I'll answer it. 'Quilon is beautiful -- but so are you. She's smart, but you're smarter. As a s.e.x object, you have it all over her, I'm sure; she has the body, but she doesn't know how to -- well, never mind. What it is, is, she needs a man, and she cares."

"Agreed. You have not answered my question."

Veg choked. "You don't care. You could drop me in a volcano if it helped your mission. You don't need anyone -- even when you're blind."

"True. I have never denied this. I have no such liabilities. But what positive a.s.set does she have that -- "

"I guess I can't get through to you. Her liabilities are her a.s.sets -- that's how Cal would put it. Me, I just say I love her, Cal loves her, and she loves us. I'd let the universe go hang if that would help her. It has nothing much to do with s.e.x or strength or whatever."

Tamme shook her head, intrigued. "This is far-fetched and irrational. It should be informative to put it to the test."

"Shut up!"