The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF - Mike Ashley [201]
We stepped into the cubicle and stood together, belly to belly. She touched the controls and I gasped. Warm water cascaded over our heads, and I experienced both a sense of pleasure at the silken warmth of the water, and guilt at the profligate use of such a resource.
She passed me something, a small white block.
"Soap," she explained. "Rub me with it."
I did so, surprised by the resulting foam, and we made love again.
We dried ourselves and lay on the bed, facing each other. I stroked her cheek. Even then I knew that this was a passing pleasure, unexpected and delightful but hedged with danger. I knew that it could not last.
Then, as if reading my thoughts, Samara traced a finger across my ribs and said, "You can stay here, if you wish. Leave the others, travel with me. The life is hard, but I have my comforts."
I stared at her, at her hard eyes, her cruel mouth. Even then I had wits enough to wonder if she harboured ulterior motives.
I said, "And leave my... my family?"
"You'd have me, Pierre," she said. "We'd want for nothing. We'd eat well."
I wondered if she had a hydroponics expert aboard. I'd seen no evidence of things growing in my brief passage through the hovercraft.
She leaned on one elbow, staring down at me. "And things will get better, believe me."
I shook my head. "How?" I asked, wondering suddenly if she had information about a thriving colony somewhere.
"We're heading to Tangiers," she said.
"There's a colony there?"
She smiled. "There was once a successful colony at Tangiers, Pierre. It died out, I've heard, a few years ago."
"Then ... " I shrugged. "Why go there?"
She paused, stroking my chest. "The colony was religious - one of those insane cults that flourished as civilization died. They called themselves the Guardians of the Phoenix."
I shook my head. "I've never heard of them."
She looked at me. "But you've heard of Project Phoenix?"
"Edvard told me about it," I said. "A ship was sent to the stars, hoping to find a new Earth."
She was smiling. "That was the plan, anyway."
"The plan? You mean ..."
"I mean the ship was almost built, in orbit, before the end - but the funding ran out, and governments lost control. The project became just another dead hope-"
"How do you know this?"
She rolled from the bed, crossed the room to a small wooden table and returned with a sheaf of papers.
"A read-out," she said, curling next to me. "I obtained it years ago from a trader. This was before the Guardians of the Phoenix died out. It's an official report about the winding up of the Project, and the resources that remained."
I leafed through the papers. They were covered in a flowing script that made no sense to me.
Samara said, "It's an Arabic translation."
I lay the papers to one side. "And?"
"And it contains information about the spaceport at Tangiers. It's a copy of the so-called sacred papers on which the Guardians founded their cult."
"I don't see-"
"Pierre, the Tangiers spaceport was where the supply ships would be launched from, before the departure from orbit of the Phoenix itself."
"Supply ships," I said, suddenly understanding. "You reckon they're still there, the supply ships, full of everything the colonists would need for the journey - food, water ..."
She laughed suddenly, disconcerting me. "Oh, I'm sorry, Pierre! You are so naive. No, the colonists would not need such supplies as food and water."
"They wouldn't?" I said, puzzled.
"The supply ships at Tangiers, some dozen or so, were full of the colonists. But they were frozen in suspended animation, and would be for the duration of their trip to the stars. Five thousand of them."
I stared at her. "Five thousand? That's ... that's a city," I said. "Christ, yes ... With so many, we could start again, rebuild civilization."
Samara brought me up short. "Pierre, you've got it wrong. We couldn't sustain a colony of 5,000. How would we feed them? What about