Habu. James B. Johnson

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      She smiled and leaned back. They sat in silence for a while.

      And it took awhile, but finally the thought occurred to him that he was growing an affinity for this woman. Something he hadn’t felt so deeply for a century or two. Maybe longer. The feeling was more of a comfortable empathy than a physical attraction.

      He had volunteered nothing about himself other than his name. Nor had she pushed him about his background, his past. As it was, he felt that he’d talked more than he had in the last year.

      Her eyes on him and a slight smile, she said, “You are much used to silence, no?”

      “If I don’t have anything to say, I don’t say it.”

      “Cryptic,” she said. “A man accustomed to living alone.”

      “I am about due for a trip to the Long Life Institute.”

      “Oh.” She studied him for a moment. “Me, too. Is it bad yet?”

      He shrugged. “It builds. You get used to it.”

      “I know.”

      Eight hours of sleep and now they faced each other in the splatter ball room.

      Gravity could be adjusted from zero up. They wore thin coveralls of some paper material. When the balls of colored water struck and burst open, the paper changed color from white to whatever color the water was. The first one to completely change color was the loser. Reubin was throwing blue and Alex was throwing red. The longer the game lasted, the more the paper coveralls dis­integrated.

      They touched hands in the traditional beginning of the game.

      Alexandra hurried back to the dispenser on her side of the court. She punched the start button and snatched wa­ter balls from the dispenser tube.

      Reubin had walked back to his dispenser slowly, ob­serving Alex to try to figure out her tactics.

      Her arm snapped and he stepped aside—but she’d thrown a second quick one, guessing he’d step to his right.

      He’d automatically stepped to his left.

      He smiled a challenge and dodged her volley for a mo­ment. Perhaps she’d tire soon. But he did not underesti­mate her craftiness. It occurred to him that she was showing him less than full power and shot accuracy. Which probably meant that she was waiting for him to approach his dispenser.

      She stopped as if winded.

      He moved toward his dispenser and reached out.

      She threw several water balls quickly and accurately. He dodged, but water splattered off the back wall and he felt wet on his back.

      “Wallflower,” she taunted.

      He stuck his tongue out at her.

      He braved the distance to his dispenser and collected half a dozen water balls, taking only one hit on his shoul­der. The paper began to disintegrate.

      A bell toned.

      “My gee,” he said and grinned wickedly. He went to the control and punched in zero.

      “Oh, no. No fair,” she said.

      He floated, pushed off, and threw underhanded. It was a direct hit on her thigh. Blue splotches appeared all over the front of her suit. The paper began to deteriorate.

      The force of the throw twisted him up and sideways.

      Then he was busy contorting, dodging in midair zero gee, a veritable hail of red water balls. Alex had thought ahead of him, guessing that was what he’d do. As the gravity had disappeared, she’d anchored her legs around her dispenser and began pelting him as fast as she could.

      The entire left side of his paper suit was gone and he was drenched in red. Not only that, but the globules of water hung in the gravityless room, adding additional ob­stacles.

      Reubin dispensed half a dozen, as many as he could hold, and pushed off toward the gravity control. He punched in two gees and Alex fell off her dispenser tube. He nailed her on the way down.

      “Hey! Not fair,” she said and rolled along the floor toward him, firing her last salvo.

      He dodged aside.

      “You move quicker than a snake,” she said as the tone sounded.

      He froze. He watched her but could read nothing as she went to the gravity control. She switched it back to point seven and they continued. Surely she couldn’t have guessed his identity. Were her words on purpose or merely a common metaphor?

      Reubin decided her comment held no deeper meaning. He admired the flesh which was appearing through her costume in great gaping blue bits. He planned his next shots, deciding to make the game last as long as possible. No more zero or two gees.

      * * * * * * *

      “Pizza and beer?” Alex said.

      “I bribed the cook,” Reubin said.

      It was mid-afternoon and they’d managed to cleanse the stains—supposedly no more involved than using soap and water, but Reubin always found that some re­mained. Under the fingernails. In the crook of the el­bow or knee.

      “Big spender,” she accused, wrapping a string of cheese around the slice in her hand. “I can pay my own way.”

      He shrugged. She was saying that he was a mercenary on the run, bailing out of the mess on Karg with only the clothes on his back. And that she was a high government official with a commensurate salary and/or other holdings with which she could adequately afford to pay her own way.

      “I’m taking the Change anyway,” he said.

      “Haven’t you heard? You can take it with you.”

      “I heard.”

      She looked at him over the mug of beer. “You are a study of contradictions, Reubin Flood.”

      He drank his own beer,

      “A real man of mystery,” she continued.

      He shrugged again and felt self-conscious as if that was all he’d been doing,

      “If you’re taking the Change, I guess the past is no longer important.”

      “It’s gone,” he agreed. “Not worth going over any­way,”

      “Sure.”

      He was uncomfortable. He didn’t want to talk about his past. Nor admit to the dormant killer serpent deep within him. He was going to take the Change and the past would no longer matter again. On the other hand, her interest was certainly promising. He knew himself to be a cold man, one who usually didn’t respond to a woman without long exposure to one. Alex was different. Why now? Now that he’d severed his ties and was going to take the Change? Could he postpone the Change? No. Madness and death would follow.

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