Footsteps in the Sky Read Online Free PDF Page B

they both whirled crazily across the cabin, joined by the frantic motion of their pelvises. Her heels dug painfully into his calves, legs clamping his thighs like steel bands. She caught his arms and held them hard against his sides as the two of them bumped with painful force into a bulkhead. Alvar was absolutely immobilized; pinned like a wrestler by a superior opponent. Though it scared him, the fear was melted, fused into the white heat building in him. When he exploded, she nearly crushed him, grinding her pelvis into him with manic force. Then, just as he was beginning to fear for his life, she released him. They drifted gradually apart, enormous beads of sweat forming on their bodies.
    â€œYou’re beautiful,” he said after a moment, surveying her languid white form.
    â€œYou too,” she said, smiling a little sarcastically. She reached out for him, caught his ankle, began to explore his leg with her tongue. Alvar twisted around to her back—a contortion impossible under gravity—and began probing and stroking with the tips of his fingers.
    â€œWe have to accelerate soon,” he said. “No more free-fall for a long time.”
    â€œWe should make the best of it then,” she replied.
    They continued touching and kissing. The first time, there had been no time for learning: now he intended to absorb everything about her body he could. And thus he discovered a secret.
    The second time was gentler, though he felt a distance in her that he suspected sex would never close. She reveled in his body, but his eyes did not interest her. At climax she kept her own tightly shut. When they were done, he asked her about the small round scars on her buttocks and around her crotch.
    â€œCigarette burns,” she said, and her face hardened up.
    â€œHow?”
    â€œNot your business, sailor. Get that straight. You’re the only man awake on this trip, and you look pretty good. Furthermore, I like you. I’m going to fuck you. But we aren’t lovers in any greater sense than that.”
    Alvar nodded. He could accept that well enough. And they were going to be together a long time. No use in starting out arguing. Things were going fine.
    â€œYou’re the boss,” he said.
    â€œYes,” she agreed. “Yes, I am.”

Chapter One
    2442 A.D.
    SandGreyGirl finished washing her mother’s hair, her narrow face clenched around the tears it hid.
    What killed you, Pela? She asked in the black shadow of her mind. What ended my mother’s life?
    She stepped back, relieved to let her cousins close in and do the rest. They tied prayer feathers to Pela’s hands and hair, gifts for the ancestors. No doubt some of the ancestors—the ones from the Fourth World, Earth—would be confused by the feathers. There were, as yet, no real birds other than turkeys on the Fifth World. The feathers were grown in sacred culture tanks.
    The white cotton mask they placed on Pela’s face was real. Pela had grown the cotton herself. Now it would be the cloud which hid her face when she came back to bring rain to her people.
    SandGreyGirl was beginning to feel sick. She stepped out of the little apartment she shared with her mother for some air, aware even as she did so that the others would talk, call her a bad daughter.
    But they already did that, didn’t they?
    She let her gaze drift across the box-hive of native stone dwellings and poured concrete facilities that were Tuwanasavi, the town of her birth. Of her mother’s death. Father Sun was resting in his noon-time house, and his light inked doorways and windows in sharp relief. Beyond the edge of the mesa, the land stretched off, hazy and unreal, a cloud tinted grey and green.
    â€œSand.”
    She didn’t turn at the voice. Her father was the last person she wanted to see right now.
    â€œSand, I’m sorry. There was nothing any of us could do.”
    Sand bit down on her lip, resisted the urge to spin around