Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [146]
"Is this appropriate?" Her voice might have been a stranger's. It was Eileen, but detached, from a long way away.
"What is?" Tim said. He felt vaguely ashamed of himself. "I'm sorry." The glow from the beer was gone now.
"Don't be. I'll sleep with you, if that's what you want. I'd rather not. Not now … "
"Yeah, there have to be better times."
"Not if that's what you really want," she said. "I've been thinking. Were we ever really in love?"
"I asked you to marry me … "
"And I wanted to, only I didn't want to marry anybody. Well, we're married now."
Tim was silent in the darkness. He felt an insane urge to giggle. Mother will be pleased, he thought. Little Timmy's married now. He wondered where his mother was, and the rest of his family. Could I have done anything? Should I have tried? I didn't try. I didn't do anything but run for my life.
"Sure you want me?" he asked.
"Tim, when I came out of Corrigan's and saw you I was never so glad to see anyone in my life. Yes."
Was she putting him on? And what was the point of worrying about it?
"We'll learn to love each other," she was saying. "We've been learning it all day. So if"—she patted his hand that still lay passively on her breast—"this is what you want, I'm willing."
He sat up and moved away from her.
"Tim, please don't be angry."
"No, that's okay. You're right, it feels wrong. The whole car is wet, and our clothes stick to us, and if you're not tired half to death, I am. Jesus, we came close to driving off that bridge!"
She reached to squeeze his hand.
"Wrong time, wrong place. Hey, how about the Savoy Hotel?"
"Huh?"
"Savoy Hotel in London. Elegance. Incredible room service. Huge bathtubs. If this is the wrong place for a love affair, the right place is the Savoy Hotel. Only, it's probably underwater." He was babbling. "Sure, there's a right place somewhere, but what if we never reach it? Eileen, I damned near didn't get that fence down, and it had to be done. You don't need me, you need Conan the Barbarian! Him for brawn and you for brains."
"Will you stop that?"
"I can't. You're the one who kept us going. If you want manly strength, I don't think I have it. I don't have the skills either. I used to know how to hire skills."
"You carried me down the hill," she said, exaggerating for effect. "You knew where to go. You've done all right."
He couldn't see her in the dark. But he knew she wasn't laughing at him, because she had a death grip on his hand. He moved toward her again, and she came to him, holding him desperately. He had no sexual urge now, only a feeling of innate protectiveness. Part of his mind knew this was silly; knew that Tim Hamner, however much he might share the ages-old instincts of male Homo sapiens, had neither the training nor the muscles to give them reality. But it was very pleasant to hold Eileen and have her go quietly to sleep with her head in his lap, and after a while he slept too.
The sea is withdrawing from England.
Sluggish with debris, the water that has conquered London flows back toward the Channel. Glutted with human bodies and the lighter cars, and the wooden walls of older buildings and the sea-bottom debris that came inland in three monstrous tidal waves, the water must force its way between and around and through mountainous chunks that were tall buildings yesterday. Windows that survived the wave break now to let the water through. It sifts the interiors as it goes, and carries away furniture, bedding, whole department stores full of clothing.
Buildings along the Thames have been smashed to their foundations, and even those are being torn loose. Tremendous pressures pry the concrete away in pieces and send them, with megatons of mud from the banks, down into the river bed.
Tomorrow and forever after, there will be no way to tell where the Savoy Hotel once stood.
They woke with cramps, tingling