Yeah, that had been bad. Change-your-whole-outlook kind of bad. Still, the humiliation of powerlessness had been worse.
But not worse than what Gaia had done to him. Nothing to what she had done.
In his arrogance he had thought he was free of the gaiaphage. But he never would be, would he? As long as that monster existed, it would have a back door into his brain and could make him crawl and cry and beg for death . . .
He made a whimpering noise. Like a scared child. Well, he was a scared child, wasn’t he?
He hopped down into the boat. There was no gauge on the tank, so he looked around for a while, wishing he had Sam’s power of light. It took him a few minutes to find what he needed, something thin enough and long enough to stick in the fuel tank and check the amount. It was a broken piece of fishing pole, a one-foot length of dark fiberglass. It came back up showing about an inch of gas sloshing in there.
Out in the ocean Caine saw something large going by—a tanker, maybe, carrying hundreds of thousands of barrels of gas.
“Must be nice,” he said.
“What must be nice?”
She had snuck up on him without his seeing or hearing her. Diana, a dark shadow above him, outlined by stars.
He started to say something to her, but nothing came. She was on the dock. He was in the boat below her.
Diana.
Finally he said, “What are you doing here?”
“Finding you,” she said. “You took off.”
“You didn’t find much,” he said bitterly, and immediately regretted it. It sounded self-pitying. Well, it was, wasn’t it?
“This is where we landed, coming from the island,” she said.
“Yes. In triumph. The conquering hero,” he said. “King Caine. I was just remembering that.”
“With that monster in my belly,” Diana said.
“Not your fault,” he said tersely. “Not mine, either.”
“I wonder.”
“We had . . . Listen, we made love, right? Isn’t that what we’re calling it? No one warned us we were conceiving a body for the gaiaphage.”
“Did we make love?” Diana asked him.
“Jesus, Diana,” he pleaded.
“Tell me, Caine. Did we make love or did we just have sex? It’s a simple question.”
“No, it isn’t,” Caine said.
He heard Diana’s sardonic laugh, and at that instant he knew the answer to her question. He heard that snarky, almost cruel laugh and he knew, and it filled him so suddenly full of emotion that he almost cried out.
“No, it’s not an easy question between us,” Diana admitted. Then: “Did we make love, Caine?”
“Okay. Okay, yes, Diana, we made love.”
“Say it to me, Caine,” she said.
“What’s the point?” he pleaded. “I’m running away. I’m saving myself and leaving you behind. I’m a rat deserting the sinking ship. I’m a coward holding on to his pathetic life for an extra hour or two. I’m scared to death; I can’t stand up to it anymore. I’m done. Why do you want me to say it?”
She didn’t answer.
She had bathed him when he was lost in madness, had spoon-fed him, had been there each time he woke to rave, to rave about the hunger in the dark.
She had backed him in all his wild plans. She had stood by him, despite, oh man, despite so much. So much.
He couldn’t see her face, just her outline, but he could picture her face in detail. In his mind he saw the full lips and the smirk and the way she sometimes pressed her lips together as if physically repressing laughter. And he saw her cheeks and the perfect line of her jaw and the neck that no male had ever seen without wanting to kiss.
And he saw her dark eyes.
And he saw her breasts.
And he saw her thighs and . . .
And somehow Diana, being Diana, knew every thought going through his mind, and she said, “I’ve had a baby. Things aren’t quite the way you left them. And it’s going to be some time before I’m ready for what’s going through your evil mind.”
“Okay,” he said.
“‘Okay,’ he lied,” she mocked.
He shook his head. She had him. Again.
“Just what are you ready for?” he asked.
“I’m a bit stiff,” she said. “Hard to climb down there.”
He raised one hand, and she rose slowly from the dock and then slowly descended, sliding down just inches from his face. He let her feet touch down in the boat, felt the weight of her as the boat rocked.
She tripped a little, or maybe she didn’t but only pretended, who cared: he took her in his arms. Yes, she felt different. Her belly was larger. Her breasts larger as well. The rest of her felt pitifully thin.
“How’s your mouth?” he asked, wanting badly to kiss her.
“Why, what do you have in mind?”
He laughed.
“Say it. But . . .”
“But what?” he asked.
She whispered it, sounding too vulnerable. “But only if it’s the truth, Caine. Only. If.”
“I love you,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, satisfied.
He kissed her, and yes, her mouth still worked.
Then, serious, he said, “So we don’t go to the island?”
“Why were you going?”
He sighed. “I had two answers in mind. One, I was running away like a rat. That was the main answer. I can’t . . . I’d rather die. I can’t let her do that to me again. So I was running away.”