“Was this a mistake?” I whispered.

“No,” she whispered back. “Unless…”

My heart pounded. “Unless what?”

“Unless you didn’t get those shots in the Home Guard that I’m sure you got,” she whispered. I was so anxious that I did not hear the teasing quality in her voice.

“What? Shots? What?” I said, rolling onto my elbow. “Oh… shots… shit. You know I did. Jesus.”

“I know you did,” whispered Aenea and I could hear the smile now.

When we Hyperion lads had joined the Home Guard, the authorities had given us the usual battery of Pax-approved injections—antimalaria, anticancer, antivirus, and birth control. In a Pax universe where the vast majority of individuals chose the cruciform—chose to attempt to be immortal—birth control was a given. One could apply to Pax authorities for the antidote after marriage or simply buy it on the black market when it was time to start a family. Or, if one chose neither the way of the cross nor a family, it would last until old age or death made the issue moot. I had not thought of that shot for years. Actually, I think A. Bettik had asked me about those shots on the Consul’s ship a decade ago when we were discussing preventative medicine and I had mentioned the Home Guard induction battery, our young friend of eleven or twelve curled on a couch there on the holopit level, reading a book from the ship’s library, seemingly not paying attention at all…

“No,” I said, still on my elbow, “I mean a mistake. You’re…”

“Me,” she whispered.

“Twenty-one standard years old,” I finished. “I’m…”

“You,” she whispered.

“… eleven standard years older than that.”

“Incredible,” said Aenea. Her whole face was in the moonlight as she looked up at me. “You can do math. At such a moment.” I sighed and rolled over on my stomach. The sheets smelled of us. The wind was still rising and now it rattled the walls. “I’m cold,” whispered Aenea. In the days and months to come, I would have held her in my arms if she said such a thing, but that night I responded literally and stood to slide shut the shoji screen. The wind was colder than usual.

“No,” she said.

“What?”

“Don’t close it all the way.”

She was sitting up with the sheet raised to just below her breasts. “But it’s…”

“The moonlight on you,” Aenea whispered. Her voice may have caused my physical response. Or the sight of her, waiting for me in the blankets. Besides holding in our own scents, the room smelled like fresh straw because of the new tatami and the ryokan in the ceiling. And of the fresh, cool air of the mountains. But the cold breeze did not slow my reaction to her. “Come here,” she whispered, and opened the blanket like a cape to fold me in. The next morning and I am working on setting the overhang walkway in place and it is as if I am sleepwalking. Part of the problem is lack of sleep—the Oracle had set and the east was paling with morning when Aenea slipped back to her own pavilion—but the major reason is sheer, simple stupefaction. Life has taken a turn that I had never anticipated, never imagined. I am setting supports into the cliff for the high walk with the high riggers Haruyuki, Kenshiro, and Voytek Majer moving ahead, drilling holes in the stone, while Kim Byung-Soon and Viki Groselj lay brick behind and beneath us and carpenter Changchi Kenchung begins work behind me on the laying of the wood floor of the terrace itself. There would be nothing to catch the high riggers and me if we fall from the wooden beams if Lhomo had not done his free-climbing exhibition yesterday and set fixed ropes and cables in place. Now as we jump from beam to beam, we just clip one of our harness carabiners into place on the next rope. I have fallen before and had the fall arrested by this sort of fixed rope: each can hold five times my weight. Now I leap from set beam to set beam, pulling along the next beam as it dangles from one of the cables. The wind is coming up and threatens to hurl me off into space, but I balance myself with one hand touching the hanging beam and three fingers on the rockface itself. I reach the end of the third fixed rope, unclip, and prepare to clip on to the fourth of seven lines Lhomo has rigged.

I do not know what to think about last night. That is, I know how I feel—exhilarated, confused, ecstatic, in love—but I don’t know how to think about it. I tried to intercept Aenea before breakfast in the communal dining pavilion near the monks’ quarters, but she had already eaten and headed far out to where the terrace carvers had run into trouble on the new eastern walkway. Then A. Bettik, George Tsarong, and Jigme Norbu had shown up with the porters and an hour or two was consumed sorting materials and transporting the beams, chisels, lumber, and other items to the new high scaffolds. I had headed out onto the eastern ledge before the beam work began, but A. Bettik and Tsipon Shakabpa were conferring with Aenea, so I jogged back to the scaffolds and got busy.

Now I was jumping to the last beam set in place this morning, ready to install the next one in the hole Haruyuki and Kenshiro have chiseled and blasted into the rock with tiny, shaped charges. Then Voytek and Viki will cement the post in place.

Within thirty minutes, it will be firm enough for Changchi to set a work platform on. I’ve become accustomed to leaping from beam to beam, catching my balance and squatting to set the next beam in place, and I do so now on the last beam, pinwheeling my left arm to keep my balance while my fingers stay in contact with the beam balancing from the cable. Suddenly the beam swings out too far ahead of me and I am off balance, leaning into nothing. I know that the safety line will catch me, but I hate to fall and be dangling here between the last beam and the newly drilled hole. If I don’t have enough momentum to kick back to the beam, I’ll have to wait for Kenshiro or one of the other riggers to kick out and rescue me.

In a fraction of a second, I make up my mind and jump, catching the swinging beam and kicking out hard. Because the safety rope has several meters of slack before it will catch me, all of my weight is on my fingers now. The beam is too thick for me to get a good grip on it and I can feel my fingers sliding on the iron-hard wood. But rather than go dropping to the elastic end of my fixed line, I struggle to hang on, succeed in swinging the heavy post back toward the last beam in place, and jump the last two meters, landing on the slippery beam and flailing my arms for balance.

Laughing at my own foolishness, I catch my balance and stand panting for a moment, watching the clouds boiling against the rock several thousand meters below my feet. Changchi Kenchung is leaping from beam to beam toward me, clipping onto the fixed ropes with a rapid urgency. There is something like horror in his eyes, and for a second I am sure that something has happened to Aenea. My heart begins beating so hard and anxiety washes over me so swiftly that I almost lose my balance. But I catch it again and stand balancing on the last fixed beam, waiting for Changchi with a sense of dread.

When he leaps to the last beam with me, Changchi is too winded to speak. He gestures toward me urgently, but I do not understand the motion.

Perhaps he had seen my comical swing and dance and leap with the dangling beam and was concerned. To show him that it was all right, I reach up to my harness line to show him that the carabiner is locked tight to the safety line. There is no carabiner there. I never tied on to the last fixed rope. I have been doing all this leaping, balancing, hanging, and jumping with no safety line. There has been nothing between me and…

Feeling a sudden stab of vertigo and nausea, I stagger three steps to the cliff wall and lean against the cold stone. The overhang tries to push me away and it is as if the entire mountain is tilting outward, pushing me off the beam.