Life-Suspension

II

The space service was practical, but not given to more than acknowledging that humans, particularly with mixed crews, did require a certain privacy. Cubicles for one officer would fit two, but not with all that much room to spare.

Rokujo, lying in Ghenji’s arms, or on his right arm, looked up. “Officers’ cubes have a cross-section that’s almost bell-shaped.”

“It helps get rid of excess heat,” he replied languidly.

“Or traps it… my not-so-monkish lover.”

He stroked her short, silky, brilliant white hair.

“I need to go,” she said. “I do have the med-section mid-watch.”

“You didn’t…”

“I wasn’t about to. Your monkish concern with duty would have had you protesting that you didn’t want to interfere with mine.” Almost absently, she licked her lips, before smiling at him. “This way, you’ll get a good night’s sleep.”

He had to admire the seemingly boneless way in which she slithered into her uniform skin-suit and shipvest before leaving him and the cubicle.

He lay back, amazed at what had happened. In a way, she had almost coiled around him, he reflected, yet cool as she seemed, and as cool as her touch was, she also radiated warmth. How could anyone look so cool, even feel so cool, and then pour forth such heat? But then she had said that her nature was both hot and cold.

Later, alone in his small cubicle, he finally drifted into an uneasy sleep, knowing that before long he’d be in suspension in transit to the combat zone, even if he had no idea where it was or exactly what the mission would be.

He dreamed, and the dream was like all the others. He was awake and trapped in his cocoon, and, just as the shakes and shivers began to subside, the temperature began to plunge once more. He could not move, and at that moment, the face of a woman with flowing white hair and skin as white as porcelain, and lips like cherries appeared above him, and bestowed a loving kiss upon him—and the ice encased him with whiteness.

He woke, not sweating, but chill. The face in his dream had been that of Rokujo. The chill in his soul intensified as he realized that it had been her face all along. Every dream about life-suspension he’d ever had was exactly the same—and it had always been her face. He just hadn’t known it.

Surely, he was just back-projecting. He had to have been. He’d never met Rokujo Yukionna before embarking on the Amaterasu.