"Bc34" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry & Pournelle)

Beowulf's Children
Chapter 34

THE DEVILS SING

As lines so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel
Though infinite, can never meet.
-ANDREW MARVELL, The Definition of Love

Carlos paused on the far side of a glen. The bees had disappeared into the trees, and there was nothing to do until he spotted another one.
Katya offered him a drink from her canteen. They leaned against the tree together. "Let's rest here for a minute. We'll catch the next bee that comes along."
"You know," Carlos said carefully, "I really wasn't surprised that you wanted to come over here. Considering that Mr. Justin was here."
She laughed.
"Yes. That's what I thought." He paused for a moment, and Katya leapt into the breach.
"You know," she said, "Justin's great, but there's something missing."
"And what is that?"
She shrugged. "I'm not sure. But sometimes I think that all of the freedom we have has made us too blase. I . . . " She shook her head. "I don't want to sound too retro."
Carlos's brown eyes softened. "You know, sometimes I forget that you are a woman."
"Well, thanks a lot."
"No. I mean that I forget that you're grown. It is impossible to ever forget that you are female."
She brushed a hand through her hair, shaking out a magnificently leonine mane. "Really?" She seemed cautiously pleased.
"Do you realize that this is the longest period of time that we've ever been apart?
She nodded. "Have I changed much?"
"No. Not really. But when I think of you, I envision a little girl chasing after me, trying to get my attention. If I see you every day, it doesn't really hit me how wrong that image is. But after months . . . well, the contrast jars a little."
"I hope you like it."
"I love it. Love you. You're everything that I might have hoped for in a daughter."
She took his hand. "Is something bothering you?"
He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I grow more conservative with age. I was always the camp rake. I had my pick of the women here--whether they were married or not."
"I'm shocked."
"Naturally. It's just one of those things that is true--women have never been difficult for me. Sex has always been natural and comfortable. There was never a lot of moral or spiritual baggage attached to it"
"Just a natural human function? That's what you always taught me."
"But understand--we came from a culture in which human beings have been limited in their sexual expression for thousands of years. The aftermath of a terrible sexual plague left earth even more conservative. And when we finally came out of that time, there was a general celebration, a rejection of much of what had gone before "
"Sounds a lot like Avalon."
"No. It wasn't. Because remember that European culture's underpinnings were a guilt-ridden vision of sexuality. Perhaps the twenty-second century's hedonism was a healthy reaction to that conservatism--but the truth lies somewhere between the extremes."
"Meaning?"
"It may be something is lost when all of the restraints are thrown away."
"Are we moralizing here?" she teased. "Carlos? The great seducer himself?"
"I'm not talking about right and wrong. I'm asking what works best? People are lonely, sweetheart. And afraid. And will do anything to fill that loneliness--for a minute, an hour, a lifetime. Sex is probably the very best way to feel . . . how would you say . . . not alone."
"Sometimes," she admitted. "There are other times when it can make things worse."
He nodded his head. "I've had a long time to think about this. I think that each stage in a relationship has a different level of communication. In the beginning, both lovers are cautious, and learn about each other gradually. They share memories, take each other to favorite places, and slowly begin to touch. As they get more intimate, they communicate faster and more intensely."
"Sex is probably the ultimate," Katya said. "All the senses are engaged at the same time--"
"If you do it right."
"I'm your daughter. You expect something less?"
"Touche. What I'm saying is that two people eating dinner together can exchange virtually no information, and feel that their interaction was complete. Narrow-bandwidth communication. But sex is so intense that it seems that it just has to mean something. It feels as if you just learned profound and complex things about your lover."
She nodded. "We lie to ourselves about how well we know each other."
"Too often, we try desperately to believe that this other person is the missing part of ourselves--even if only for the night. Maybe it isn't love, but . . . how about . . . friendship? Caring? Compassion?"
"Let's say I agree with you." Katya said. "I'm still not sure where you're heading."
"I think I've always known that the ideal of sexual chastity was just absurd. It seemed to go against nature. Why give a young man his greatest sex drive at fifteen, and tell him he can't indulge it until he's twenty? Clearly, this wasn't nature--it was harnessing a stallion to a plow. On the other hand, you can't just rut at will, either. Back on Earth, it led to so much unwanted pregnancy and disease and disruption that it fit the image of a mortal sin."