Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [101]
But what was hanging out of her mouth? Kathryn rose, dismayed, to see that Petunia held a half-eaten sandwich in her mouth, gently, as though she were retrieving a duck. Proudly, tail wagging, eyes shining, the pup dropped the sandwich at Kathryn's feet and looked up at her as though expecting praise. "Oh, Petunia-what have you done? Whose is this?" She looked toward the embankment, fearing the sudden roaring appearance of an outraged picnicker. What she saw was the figure of a man, somewhat shaggy and rumpled, climbing toward her over the embankment, shoulder pack dangling at his side, hair tousled and a bit unkempt. And so familiar... She stared, trying to distinguish the face in the gathering gloom. Finally, it wasn't the face, but the loping gait that told her she was right. "Hobbes?" she breathed, and the man stopped in his tracks, staring at her.
"Kath-is that you? I don't believe it." And he was running toward her, swooping her into an old-friends hug, laughing as he saw his doggy-licked sandwich lying at Kathryn's feet. "It was my fault," he assured her. "I broke off part of my sandwich and fed it to your pup. When she snatched the rest I knew I had only myself to blame."
He backed off from her and stared for a moment, his grave brown eyes absorbing her intently. "You look terrific," he announced. "But you look like you've lost a lot of weight."
Kathryn nodded. Eating was something she still had to force herself to do. But she felt no need to comment; Hobbes' observation had been just that, not a value judgment.
"I heard about your dad... and your friend. I'm so sorry." Those words of commiseration from someone she'd known almost all her life had a potency she was unprepared for. She felt tears-tears? she hadn't shed tears yet over the tragedy-flood her eyes, and she blinked them back desperately. "Thank you. Oh, Hobbes, it's so good to see you." He took her hand and they sat on the bench while Petunia gleefully ate the rest of the sandwich. "What are you doing now?" Kathryn asked, eager to reestablish the comfortable relationship they had managed to achieve. "I'm part of a philosophical symposium that's based in South America. It's great, Kath-a bunch of us just sit and think about all the unanswered questions, and talk about them, and argue, and distribute papers about our arguments. I've never had so much fun."
"You're part of the Questor Group?"
He nodded, and Kathryn looked at him with deepened respect. This was an august body of philosophers who incorporated the most innovative aspects of science and technology into their formulations. The entire Federation waited for the distribution of their papers, for they were always challenging, stimulating, and provocative. Imagine: Hobbes Johnson-vulky Hobbes Johnson-part of that exalted company.
"Hobbes, that's wonderful. I can't imagine anything better suited for you. But you must be the youngest person there."
He laughed, throwing back his mop of unruly hair. "That part is right. But I've met some people in Curitiba, and there's a tennis club I spend a lot of time at."
"You still play?"
"As much as possible. How about you?"
"Phoebe's gotten me out on the courts lately. But I'm set to do a two-year deep-space mission, so I don't imagine I'll be honing my tennis game for a while."
"We'll have to play before you leave."
"I'd like that." She paused, looking fondly at him. "You know, I used to hate tennis. But somehow I keep coming back to it. There's a-satisfaction-to it that I couldn't appreciate as a child." They sat like that, talking easily, for an hour, while Petunia, for once, lay quietly at their feet, belly full of cheese sandwich, dreaming happy puppy dreams. They talked about their childhood, and their lives since they'd lost track of each other, and eventually Kathryn found herself talking about the awful accident on the ice planet: about the snowy plain, and the dark alien sea, and the iceberg-particularly the iceberg-all the images that were seared in her mind