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the room.
It must be a cat, trying to wake him up. Dammit! He blew a puff of air
towards the suspected cat (he didn t dare open his eyes). Heavy cat feet tromped
down his body and a flabby, soft weight settled over his calves. That would be
Mork, the biggest of the three cats, and the most eager to eat. Vibrations against
his leg told him his guess was right. Mission accomplished, Mork was waiting for
him to finish waking up and break out the cat food. Feeding the cats first thing in
the morning bad idea, he thought for the fiftieth time.
For now, it was so warm and snug under the covers. He stretched slightly,
feeling the woman next to him. Her back was to him; he turned toward her and
wrapped an arm around her middle, nuzzling the back of her head with his
cheek. Her breathing altered briefly and then she stretched too and settled against
him, radiating warmth.
This can t be me, he thought. What did I do to deserve this woman? This is
not happening. I m dreaming this is way too good to last, way too good& .
He stuck his arm out from under the covers and felt for the saucer on the
headboard. Finding the apple there, he took a bite out of it. He replaced his arm
around her middle.
- 195 -
Al Past
196
She stretched again and nestled closer to him, mumbling some words in her
native language. He only knew about six words of it (including  Darcy and
 Hleo ). Add that to his list of things to do: learn Luvit, Darcy s native language.
Mmmm. Her hair smelled nice. She was the only woman he d ever been con-
fident and comfortable with in bed. Not that he had had that much experience,
but he d always felt sort of on trial before. Darcy was more a companion. He had
no idea how that had happened, but it was a revelation, and excellent fun.
What the blazes was he going to tell his parents? They thought he d taken
some time off from his newspaper reporter job to help his grandmother get her
property fixed up. That was true, actually. It just wasn t the whole truth.
So what could he say?  Oh, by the way, mamá, you know that woman you
saw on tv who won six gold medals in the Olympics? The one who disappeared
after she warned everyone about the two meteoroids? Well, guess what? She s
staying in Grandma s foreman s house and I am living with her and we re in love
and, and& .
No, he couldn t imagine telling his parents anything like that. For several rea-
sons.
One reason he couldn t was that he wasn t all that sure she was actually in love
with him. He was head-over-heels in love with her. She liked him; he knew that.
She just wasn t that demonstrative. Maybe it came from living by herself on the
moon for something like seventy years while she watched things develop on
earth. (And that reminded him that he was in bed hugging a hundred year old
woman. If anyone had told him he would be doing that& .) Or maybe she didn t
want to commit herself. But he had to be honest: maybe she just didn t love
him& .
Another reason he couldn t tell his parents was that she was probably the most
sought-after person on the planet. After successfully waking people up to the
threat from those meteoroids, she dropped completely out of sight to rural
New Mexico, of all places, with him, of all people.
As it was, politicians, biologists, linguists, historians, sociologists, political sci-
entists, theologians, and ordinary people as well as nuts of a thousand kinds
wanted to know more about her, to see and hear her, to read about her, to be
close to her. She was not an outgoing person under the best of conditions, and
she had no desire to live under a spotlight. If the slightest hint got out as to where
she was a salivating throng of media hotshots would be upon them within the
hour, and their present happy lives would come to a screeching halt. No, he
could tell no one about her, not even his parents.
Al Past
197
The third reason was that over the past three months Darcy seemed to actually
be enjoying their modest existence within the Reyes family compound. She was
living a largely self-directed life, learning and studying on her own, and making
careful contact with the world via her internet link.
Her modest needs, and his own, too, for that matter, were easily accommo-
dated. She had a generous income from licensing the rights to her athletic images,
managed by the law firm that sponsored her during the Olympics. As far as he
could tell Darcy was happy. The downside of her income was that it was gener-
ated by the publication of her images, which kept her in the public eye. She was
as famous as she had ever been, perhaps more so, by virtue of having dropped out
of sight. He had read that her Wheaties boxes had become so desirable that they
were being forged. He couldn t go into town without seeing her image on a mag-
azine at the checkout counter or in a newspaper.
For now, though, he was living a dream. She was sweet-tempered, curious
about everything, stimulating company, and, now that things had settled down,
had revealed a lively sense of humor. Heretofore, he had preferred his girl friends
a little heftier, but that no longer mattered. She had made a believer out of him.
If only she loved him& .
In a few minutes he would get out of bed, put some wood in the woodstove
and warm the place up, pour out some crunchies for the cats, and serve some
orange juice to his girl friend from outer space. Life was good.
She rested a warm hand on the arm he had wrapped around her ribs and
mumbled a couple more words English or outer space? He couldn t tell.
They liked sleeping in a cold room in the winter. Darcy would have been will-
ing to get up and stoke the stove, but Matt felt it was the male s duty to do it for
her. She had a thing about weather. The worse it was the more she loved to be [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]