“Who are you?” demanded Kiru, looking down from the skimmer, her gun aimed at him.
Floating on his back in the water a few metres away, he looked like James, but looks weren’t everything. Appearances could be very deceptive.
“It’s me,” said James, or maybe John. John Wayne, that was the name he’d told Eliot Ness. (Or the name that Eliot Ness had told Kiru he’d told him.) “You know who I am. You must remember.”
“Who are you?” she repeated. “What’s your real name?”
“It’s James,” he said. “You know that, Kiru.”
“You’re not called John Wayne?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been called John Wayne?”
“No.” He hesitated, staring at the weapon pointing down at him. “Yes. But how do you know?”
“What’s your real name? Is it James?”
“Yes.” He kept looking at her gun. “No. My name is Wayne Norton. Really. It is. Honest.”
Whatever he was called didn’t matter. His true identity was far more important than his name, and Kiru had to be certain who he was.
“Where did we meet?” she asked.
“On Hideaway,” said Wayne, or John, or James.
“How did we meet?”
“You came into my room.”
“What was I wearing?”
“Nothing.”
“What was I carrying?”
“A gun.” He forced a laugh. “It was almost like this, wasn’t it? I was naked then, I am now. You had a gun then, and you have one now. The only difference is, you’re not naked. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you with anything on, Kiru. I almost didn’t recognise you.” He forced another laugh.
Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf was warm, but it was wet. Despite the canopy over the skimmer, Kiru’s bodysuit was slick with rain, and her hair was soaked.
“Then what happened?” she asked.
“You know what happened.”
“Remind me. What did we do?”
“Well… er… you know.”
“Yes, I do know. But I don’t know if you know. What did we do together?”
“I can’t talk about that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s too… er… personal.”
“But I was there,” said Kiru. James/Wayne/John was slowly drifting away. She kept the gun aimed at him. “Tell me something only you and I know, or I’ll have to assume you’re an impostor.”
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“Everything,” she said. “In exact detail.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “You climbed on top of me, and…”
“And?”
He told her. Everything. In exact detail.
She was amazed how much he remembered, far more than she did, but his graphic account soon brought back her own memories. It didn’t take very long until she was certain this was him. James. Or Wayne. Or someone. But she was enjoying his version of their time together too much to make him stop.
“… and then the spaceship blew up,” he concluded.
“I believe you,” said Kiru. She had kept the skimmer close to where he was floating, and now she reached down to pull him up. Their hands touched, fingers interlocking. She hauled him on board. “Welcome to Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf, James.”
“My name is Wayne,” he said.
As they looked at one another, Kiru realised he was almost a stranger. They had only known each other for a few hours, and it all seemed a long time ago. She wondered what to say to him.
“It’s good to see you,” she said.
“Good?” said Wayne. “It’s fabulous! It’s tremendous! It’s magnificent! Isn’t it?”
Kiru nodded. “I suppose so.”
“What’s wrong with your face?”
“My face?” She reached up to touch herself. Had she been hideously disfigured by cosmic radiation, or scarred by acids in the alien water?
“Yeah. You’re… I hate to say this, Kiru, but you’re… smiling.”
Smiting? Was she? She wondered why.
“Am I?” she said.
“Yeah!”
Wayne laughed, and Kiru realised he was right. She was smiting. Perhaps it was because she was—what was the word?—happy.
They kept looking at each other.
Suddenly, they were in each other’s arms, kissing and caressing, then tumbling down on to the deck of the skimmer. Kiru’s clothes were soon gone, as if melted by the incessant rain. Together again, naked again, they continued where they had left off. It was as if they had never been apart.
“You didn’t seem surprised to see me,” said Wayne.
“It’s a small galaxy,” said Kiru.
Limbs entwined, they lay staring up through the canopy at the alien sky. Scarlet rain showered down from the orange clouds.
“You knew I was coming,” said Wayne.
“I knew an escape capsule was coming,” said Kiru. “And I knew it was probably from the ship we’d been on. All I could do was hope it was you on board.”
“Who else could it have been?”
“Grawl.”
“Er… who?”
“Grawl. The guy who tried to wipe my mind and steal my body. The one I escaped from on Hideaway, just before we met. I told you about him.”
“Er… yeah, yeah. You mean… he was on board that ship with us?”
“Yes. And I thought he might have been in that escape pod.”
“That’s why you aimed the gun at me?” said Wayne. “You thought I might have been him?”
“Yes.” Kiru looked at him. “I’m still not totally convinced.”
“What?” Wayne stared at her.
“Convince me again,” said Kiru, and she smiled.
The skimmer drifted over the vermilion sea. Although the hull rippled with the waves, the deck remained level. But even if there had been a hurricane, Kiru and Wayne wouldn’t have noticed. It was nothing compared to the tempest they created between them.
“What makes you think Grawl was on that spaceship?” asked Wayne, during a lull in their typhoon.
“Eliot Ness told me,” said Kiru.
“Eliot Ness? The Untouchable?”
“I never touched him.”
“Who is he?”
“You don’t know? He knows you. Or, maybe I should say, he knows John Wayne.”
“What’s he look like?”
Kiru told him.
“That’s not Eliot Ness,” said Wayne, “that’s Colonel Travis.”
Kiru shrugged. “You can talk about all your different names when you see him.”
“He’s here?”
“We escaped in the same lifeboat, came to Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf together.”
“Tell me about it,” said Wayne, and so Kiru told him about her voyage in the escape capsule and gave him Eliot Ness’s most recent version of recent history.
It was hard to say how long since the two of them had arrived on Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf because this was a world where there was no day and night. Instead, there was day or night. In this hemisphere, it was always daylight; in the other half of the world, it was always dark.
Without day or night, it was almost like being back in the escape pod. Except there was a lot more room. It was also much wetter. As well as being redder. And she didn’t only have Eliot Ness for company.
Since reaching the watery world, things had gone better than Eliot Ness had feared. He hadn’t been killed.
His rivals had attempted to stop him reaching the planet by destroying the ship he’d been travelling on. Once he arrived, he’d wondered if their next move would be to annihilate the whole globe. Kiru had thought that a little excessive, but Eliot Ness told her that his death (and hers) would merely be a by-product. The main reason for deconstructing Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf would be to eliminate a new competitor, a planet that could soon eclipse Hideaway as the galaxy’s premier pleasure world.
Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf was relatively near the famous leisure satellite. (The closest habitable world, in fact, which was why the two escape pods from the doomed ship had made it their goal.) Because Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf was far larger than Hideaway, its potential for profit was even greater.
Built long, long ago by an unknown race, Hideaway had finally been occupied by galactic brigands as a base from which to raid starships. Then the pirates had discovered a far more profitable and less risky way of making money: by marketing the artifical asteroid as the ultimate paradise, a world where every secret desire, every forbidden thrill, every sensual delight, every hedonistic wish, could be satisfied—at a price.
The pirates’ new venture had been a tremendous success until they dared to defy the most feared and fearless organisation of all, a syndicate which operated under a multitude of names, all with the same parasitic purpose: to leech the lifeblood from every person, human or alien, on every world.
When the ex-buccaneers neglected to pay their tax assessment and failed to negotiate the narrow temporal window allowed for appeal, the Galactic Tax Authority took possession of Hideaway in lieu of payment. The pirates were evicted and returned to stealing and looting, until their new base was discovered and destroyed by an Algolan war fleet, after which the survivors were imprisoned on Arazon.
“Why are you talking like that?” asked Wayne.
“Like what?” said Kiru.
“Like a door-to-door insurance salesman who’s learned everything from a correspondence course.”
“Like what?” she said, again.
“Forget it.”
Kiru ignored it. She also ignored the part of her journey that had been on board the Xyzian spaceship because that was something she did want to forget.
“So we ended up here,” she concluded. “And now I’m Eliot Ness’s personal assistant.”
“What does that mean?” said Wayne. “You drive a boat?”
“Amongst other things, yes. It’s an essential skill on Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf.”
“But not for the natives.”
“No,” agreed Kiru. “But for you and me, Wayne, a skimmer is a good idea.” She snuggled up closer to him. “A very good idea. What about you? How did you get here?”
“Same as you. Except I was on my own, of course. I managed to get into a lifeboat, but it was the wrong one. Not the one with you in. Stayed in there forever, all alone, then finally came down here. And there you were, waiting for me. It was worth the wait.”
They kissed.
“Where are we?” said Wayne. “Caff-what?”
“Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf.”
“Everything’s very…”
“Wet?”
“… red,” said Wayne.
“Like your eyes.”
He blinked for a few seconds. His eyes no longer felt so sore.
“Ninety-nine percent of the surface is water,” said Kiru. “The Caphafers have evolved from creatures that lived in the sea. Like humans did.”
“Except they still live in the sea.”
“Mostly, because most of the planet is water. They’re amphibious. They can go on land. Not that there’s much on the land. That’s why this world is ripe for development.”
“Development?” said Wayne. “You mean like… boats?”
“People have to get around.”
“The locals don’t need boats. They don’t need bikinis, either.”
“Bikinis?” said Kiru. “What’s a bikini?”
“I was asked that once before, back on Earth. By Colonel Travis. Or Eliot Ness. Or maybe it was his daughter.”
“And what’s the answer?”
“You sent that native to meet me, to greet me?”
“The Caphafer, yes. We knew the capsule was coming down, and I wanted to be there, but the natives can swim much faster than a skimmer can go.”
“Yeah, okay. A bikini is what the alien was wearing. A two-piece swimsuit. Designed for a female. A human female.”
“If the Caphafers are going to work here,” said Kiru, “they mustn’t offend the tourists. They have to be covered for the sake of modesty. They’ve got these big, ugly, dangly things down there.” She gestured wildly. “And the males are even worse.” She burst out laughing.
Wayne just looked at her, and he shook his head. “You’re different, Kiru.”
“Don’t you like me?”
“No,” he said. “But I love you.”
They kissed. Again.
“This is wonderful, Kiru.”
“I know.”
“You’re wonderful.”
“I know.”
“You’re so lovely, so attractive, so beautiful, so glamorous, so exotic, so perfect, so everything.”
“Stop it, Wayne. You’re making me blush.”
“In this light, I can’t tell.” Wayne sighed. “Is this real? Are we really together again? I must be dreaming. I’ve thought of you every day, every hour, every minute, since we were forced apart.”
“Me, too,” said Kiru. “Of course.”
“Stand up,” said Wayne. He rose to his feet, pulling Kiru up. Once she was standing on the deck, he knelt down in front of her. “I mean it. I love you, Kiru.”
“And I… I like you, whoever you are.”
“I love you, Kiru. Not just now, not this minute, but forever. Will you marry me?”
“Marry?”
“There is still such a thing as marriage, isn’t there?”
“You’re offering me a nuptial contract?”
“Yeah, could be. Doesn’t sound very romantic.”
But this was very romantic, Kiru realised, as she gazed down at Wayne before looking beyond him at the alien world where they had found themselves, watching the red rain falling from the red sky into the red ocean.
Wayne said, “This is what I promised I’d do if we ever met again. If? No, when. I swore that we’d be wed, Kiru. Because nothing can stop a love like ours. The universe exists because of us, for us. Time is no barrier. This is why I’ve lived so long. The years couldn’t keep us apart, Kiru. Neither could the light years.” He reached for her, turning her face back toward his. She looked down at him. He looked up at her.
“You must be wondering about my prospects,” he continued, “my career opportunities. So am I. All I know is my future will be your future. Our future. We’ll have forever, Kiru. What do you say?”
She said nothing.
“Will you marry me?” Wayne said again.
She didn’t know what to say.
“You don’t have to say ‘yeah,’ not yet. But please don’t say ‘no’. You’re not smiling anymore, my love. I know what you’re thinking.”
“You do?” said Kiru. She was so stunned she couldn’t think of anything. “What?”
“You’re remembering your life before me. Whatever you did, Kiru, it doesn’t matter. I forgive you.”
“You forgive me?”
“I do, yeah.”
“For what?”
“Because of your past. Because I wasn’t the first man you ever… er… ever…”
“My past! You’ve got far more past than I have, or so you say. Three hundred years of it!”
“Yeah, but I was flat on my back most of the time.”
So was I, thought Kiru, but she kept the thought to herself. In Wayne’s original time, it seemed, when a couple had sex it meant mating for life. How primitive.
But that was one of the things she liked about him, how he was so innocent yet also so savage. And he had a great body. As for his mind, what went on inside his head? What made him think she’d ever want to marry him?
In time, maybe, but it was far too early to make a decision.
How long had they been together? An hour on Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf? Two on Hideaway? Three on the spaceship?
Probably the best few hours of her life.
“Get up, Wayne,” she said, pulling at his arm.
“Not until you give me an answer,” he said.
“I can’t be rushed into such an important decision, but I promise you one thing: If I’m going to marry anyone, Wayne, it will be you.”
“Great!” Wayne stood up and kissed her cheek. “So we can consider ourselves engaged?”
“What’s that?”
“It means we won’t date anyone else.”
“What’s that?”
Wayne shook his head. “Give me a smile, Kiru. You’re a supernova lighting up my whole universe.”
“Wayne, you don’t have to lie to me. I can always tell when someone’s lying.”
“How?”
“Because they open their mouths. My whole life has been shaped by lies. I don’t want your eternal love and devotion, Wayne. Just be honest and true with me.”
“If everyone was honest and true, the whole galaxy would fall apart.”
Kiru and Wayne both turned their heads, glancing over the side of the skimmer, toward the voice.
Without either of them realising, the airboat had piloted itself back to the land and had settled down on the shoreline. The Caphafers spent most of their lives in the sea, and the hundreds of small islands that dotted the globe were usually barren and rocky.
This was the island where Eliot Ness had established his headquarters, where the first development was taking place. The new buildings were like giant sandcastles, spiralling upward, every successive level becoming narrower as it became taller. They were growing at an amazing rate. The sea-bed was dredged up to provide the raw, red material for this vertical development and also for horizontal expansion. The island was speading, its natural shape sculpted and redesigned by the addition of piers and marinas, lagoons and swimming pools, criss-crossed by bridges and aqueducts.
Kiru stared at the person who had spoken. She thought she knew all the humans on Caphmiaultrelvossmuaf. This must have been a newcomer, although she seemed familiar. She was standing near the edge of the water, wearing an outfit similar to the one Eliot Ness always wore.
“Diana!” said Wayne.
“Get dressed, Sergeant,” said the woman.
“How can I?” said Wayne. “You’re wearing my suit.”
“You know her?” said Kiru, who began pulling on her clothes.
“Yeah,” said Wayne. “This is Major Diana Travis, Colonel Travis’s daughter. Diana, this is Kiru.”
“I know,” said Diana.
“You!” said Kiru, suddenly recognising the woman. Her hair was covered by a hat, her features half in shadow, but Kiru would never forget her face. “You’re dead!” she yelled, and reached down for the gun.
“No!” said Wayne, putting his foot on the weapon.
Kiru elbowed him in the stomach. He grunted in pain and doubled up. She grabbed for the gun, but Wayne’s foot was still pinning it down, and now he also held it with one hand. Kiru turned and rushed toward the edge of the skimmer. Before she could leap off, Wayne seized her.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“Let me go!” Kiru demanded, trying to shake him off. “Let me kill her!”
But Wayne held her even tighter, his arms encircling her elbows and waist, and Kiru could do nothing except glare at the woman responsible for her ending up on Arazon.
Back on Earth, cold and hungry, Kiru had used her talent to open a door. It turned out to be the door of a police base. If a male officer had been inside, there would have been little problem; an arrangement could have been made. Instead, there was a female. This female. Who had arrested her. And Kiru had been exiled to Clink.
“Relax,” said Diana. “Be calm. Think. You hate me. You think you hate me. Because you got a rough deal and were deported to Arazon. But if you hadn’t gone there, you’d never have reached Hideaway, never have met… him.”
Kiru glanced over her shoulder at Wayne.
“You think he was worth any of that?” she said.
“What man’s worth anything?” said Diana.
“I’m worth it,” said Wayne. “Aren’t I?”
Kiru and Diana both looked at him, then looked at each other. They both shrugged.
“What are you doing here?” asked Wayne. “Where’s Colonel Travis?”
“I am Colonel Travis,” said Diana.
“Promoted, huh? Okay, but where’s the other Colonel Travis? You know, your father?”
“That’s me,” said Diana. “I’m him.”
“Where’s Eliot Ness?” asked Kiru.
“That’s me,” said Diana, again. “I’m Eliot Ness.”