Dominance Read Online Free PDF Page B

he didn’t notice it. She rarely spoke of Aldiss and the night class to him, and usually Peter had to press her for information.
    â€œDid he do it?”
    â€œNo,” she said hotly, defensively. “Of course not.”
    â€œBut they think—”
    â€œTo hell with what they think. They don’t know Dr. Aldiss like I do.”
    A moment of silence passed. The CD ended, shuffled back to the first track.
    â€œSo is that why you’re going back there? To save him again?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen why?”
    â€œBecause they need me.”
    That was all. The room fell still. She felt him draw even closer. His leg went up and over her, pulling her tight, trapping her. She thought she heard him whisper, thought she heard two muffled words on his lips— Don’t go —but Alex could not be sure.
    Then Peter’s breathing became even, and she carefully maneuvered herself out from under him and went into the library down the hall. There was a window on the far side of the room blocked by a dust-heavy fold of venetian blinds. Alex picked the blinds up and removed what was on the sill. The pack was cold from touching the glass. She checked the doorway for Peter and then lifted the window a sliver with her fingertips. For a moment she listened to the breathing of far-off traffic, and then she took one of the cigarettes from the pack and lit it. Sucked in with her eyes closed, listening. Thinking.
    She did not turn on a light. She simply smoked in the clinging darkness, waiting. Waiting for what? Waiting for a sign, a truth, some notion that she was doing the right thing by going back to Jasper.
    She remembered Michael Tanner. Dead now, dead and quiet. She remembered Michael’s face when they were in the class. In her memory the classroom was always semidark, hazy—everything stretched and elastic. The students were framed in static darkness, as if the night had forced its way inside.
    Do you like this class? he’d asked one night.
    No, she said. Not at all.
    Neither do I. None of us do.
    Right then, standing in the little library that could have been a closet, surrounded by books, nothing happened and everything happened. The world outside roared along. All those strangers continued on to wherever they were going and Alex was stuck here with all her unanswered questions about a dead professor.
    But no. That wasn’t quite right. A big question had been answered tonight.
    It had very much been answered. Alex was sure of that.
    The game had begun again.

4
    Richard Aldiss’s eyes remained open, that permanent smile etched on his face. He appeared to be waiting for something. An answer, perhaps. A solution to the puzzles of the dead. Alex’s hands, meanwhile, fluttered to her jacket pocket. The nicotine gum was there, and she had to fight the urge to slip it out, press a square from the package and chew like mad.
    Instead she merely watched the professor. Watched and said nothing and thought, Please tell me you had nothing to do with this.
    â€œThere is a type of very rare puzzle,” Aldiss said finally. “It is called a cyndrot. Its pieces are found in the world. A sharp stick, perhaps, the page of a book. The rules are moving and unfixed, as in any good game. Chaotic. You will receive a clue, a sheet with the number two written on it, and then you will begin your search. Two sticks, two pages, two socks. The best players, however, go outside the game. They do not collect objects in exact pairs, they collect objects that reciprocate each other. A stick and a seed. A seed grew the tree that formed the branch that created the stick. A book and a pen. The pen wrote the page that made up the book. Everything is genesis, evolution.”
    â€œWhat does this have to do with Michael Tanner?”
    Aldiss waited. His breathing was soft, plaintive.
    â€œPerhaps nothing, Alexandra. Or perhaps it is heavy with meaning.” He stood up, whirled out of the dark