She giggled as he slid his arms around her. One hand stroked down her spine until it came to rest on her rump. “Was it this?” His other hand squeezed a small beautifully shaped breast, mercilessly tweaking the nipple. “Or this?” He kissed her neck, moved around to her mouth to smother the giggling. “This?”
One of her hands wriggled down between them, gripping.
“Wa-how!”
“Might have been that,” she said with a laugh.
“Oh, yeah?” He started to tickle her ribs. She retaliated. It turned into a mild wrestling contest, which soon developed into a much more intimate body contact sport.
In the end she grinned down victoriously from her position straddling his hips. “Well, whadda ya know: it is true what danger does to a man.”
He could hardly deny it. Last night had been all about survival, his body celebrating with its most basic physical reaction. The amount of relief he’d experienced when the Second Chance had risen above the spaceplanes had actually produced the shakes (which thankfully only Anna had witnessed). The others on board—the youngsters—had been delighted, ecstatic even, with their dramatic escape; but the prospect of dying hadn’t been too much for them to stand.
Wilson had never quite realized before how scared he was of dying, especially now. It wasn’t something today’s society could understand, not with all the expectation of rejuvenation and re-life procedures instilled from birth. The post-2050 generation knew they could live a good chunk of forever, it was their right. He thought his fear might have come from growing up in a time when there was only one life and then you died. The idea that memories could be saved and downloaded to animate a genetically identical body was a reassuring crutch for everyone else. But he couldn’t quite convince himself that was a continuation of his current existence. There would be a discontinuity, a gap between what he was now, and what that future Kime would remember being. A difference; a copy that was flawless was still a copy, not the original. People got around the dilemma by saying that every morning when you woke the only link to your past was memory, therefore waking in a new body was just an extended version of that ordinary nightly loss of consciousness. It wasn’t enough for him. His body,this body , was his life. The longer he lived in it, the more that identifying link was hardened. Three hundred plus years had produced a rock-solid conviction that nothing could break.
“I don’t think I’d survive another dangerous night like that one,” he told her, still panting slightly.
She folded her arms across his chest, and bent forward until her chin was resting on her hands, putting their faces inches apart. “What’s ship regulations about the captain sleeping with the lower ranks?”
“The captain is very much in favor of it.”
A finger tapped on his sternum. “You do have a sense of humor.”
“Carefully hidden, but cherished nonetheless.”
“So what do we do tonight if there isn’t an attack?”
He pursed his lips in mock thought. “Practice just in case?”
“My diary’s free.”
“You don’t have anyone?”
“No. Not for ages, actually. Too damn busy with my new job. You?”
“Not really. I haven’t been married since my last rejuvenation. Some affairs, but nothing serious.”
“Good.” She straightened up. “I’d better get a shower. Do you really want to meet up again tonight? Last chance for a clean getaway.”
“I would like to meet up again tonight.”
“Me, too.” She gave him a quick kiss. “Life’s too uncertain not to try and keep hold of something good. Yesterday really made that clear to me like nothing else. Nobody’s ever tried to kill me before.”
“You did a magnificent job up there. Combat stress is hardly something you’re used to. I’m proud of you.”
“Have you been through something like that before?”
“Not exactly. But I’ve seen active military service. It was a long time ago, though. Not that you ever really forget, not even with rejuvenation editing.”
“Did you—” She hesitated. “Kill anyone?”
“Honestly? I’m not sure. I certainly shot at a lot of people. You don’t hang around to see the result. Slam on the afterburners, and head for home almost before the missile’s left the rail.”
“It’s hard to think how old you are. I just know you as a corporate chief. I had to run a search program to dig up the Ulysses story.”
“Ancient history. If you accessed it recently you probably know more about it than me.”
“But you did it, though. You traveled through space in a ship. It can be done.”
“I wouldn’t call that mission an unqualified success.”
“Oh, but, Wilson, it was! You reached Mars. Millions and millions of kilometers from Earth. It doesn’t matter that Sheldon and Isaac found another way. Don’t denigrate what you did. After all, look who needs you now.”
