Through a Darkening Copse
Jack Vance was right; every hero needs his girl — or is it the other way around?
“I am not going to lie to you,” she says as we rest on the bank of the Appalachian stream after finishing our third Saturday hike. She has the usual pleasant aroma of coriander, lavender, and something else I haven’t been able to put my finger on.
“I want to use you,” she adds.
“Excellent,” I grin.
“As a gentleman, I waited for you to breach the subject. We’ve known each other for more than two months.”
She looks at me in the way that had immediately attracted me to her in the company canteen when I joined her group and grabbed the last free chair. While others were discussing intermediate fasting, I asked her whether she had ever read any Jack Vance.
Her face is unstirring except for the golden strands of her hair fluttering in the breeze and her bright blue eyes shimmering.
She breaks the tension with a ghost of a smile, which is so purer because of its scarcity — no contest here who is the comedian in our fledgling relationship.
She sighs.
“Besides the visual advantage of your good genes, which even I am evolutionarily predisposed to appreciate, there is a second, more pressing reason why your genome interests me.”
“My sense of humour?” I quickly interject.
“Can you please listen? Our non-coding RNA complements each other exceptionally well for the purpose of … long-distance trips with the Chrono-pleater I have been entrusted with. Alone, I can attempt only short jumps.
The device folds the innumerable dimensions to a subset of eleven spatial degrees of freedom that are strictly needed for instantaneous travel — and to time, of course. And no, causality is not violated as one arrives at the destination in one’s future.”
I chuckle, appreciating her imagination, if not her knowledge of general relativity or M-theory.
“Travelling to where, exactly? Zürich or Adelaide?”
She watches my reaction.
“Oh, more like Andromeda or the Sombrero Galaxy.”
A wave of dread makes me grip her arm.
“Who, or what, exactly are you?”
“I am as human as you, only somewhat technologically enhanced.”
I look hard at her, desperately seeking reassurance of normalcy while trying to prevent my thoughts from exploding all over. Her pupils remain deep pools, devoid of deceitful swirls.
“Allow me to guess; you’re also entangled in a conflict. Are you at least on the decent side of it?”
(Years later, I will still be surprised by her line that convinced me. But I was always a sucker for pretty women who had perused the five tomes of the Demon Princes.)
“How did you … yes,” she pauses, startled, then continues breathlessly.
“I’ll explain everything in the car, but let me say that Vance would understand, and his hero, Kirth Gersen, would approve.”
We sit silently until I just have to ask, although it is too soon but then again late as never.
“Do you love me?”
Her smile is no longer a twinkle but a magnificent glow to rival the sunset skies above.
“Did I mention that using the transport contraption bonds us forever?” she says.
I stand up, offering my hand.
“Shall we depart, my dear?”
We cross the short distance to my parked Subaru through a darkening copse, and I recognise her illusive fragrance.
She smells of faraway, fabulous places.
The story above was first published on X (Twitter) and is © 2024 by David Pahor. No part of my stories should be used to train AI technology to generate text, imitating my writing style.
The story is also featured on the June 7th, 2024, podcast at https://rss.com/podcasts/the-crann-bethadh-podcast/.
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