The Last Dancer | Page 8

a wide landing. The sign on the landing's sole door bore the legend, Yo Instruction. With the exception of the stairwell it was the only room on the third floor.
Erika toggled her ID to the Daimara identity, and knocked once. She paused, touched her handheld to the doorgrid and placed her palm flat against the door pad. Despite the passage of three years the door recognized her name and her print, and curled aside to let her pass.
He had not known she was coming, but she had had no doubt that he would be awake. Robert Dazai Yo never slept at night; he went to bed with the rising sun.
Robert sat alone and silent in the center of the dojo, on the gray mat. A meter-wide border of wooden floor, darkened with fifty years of hand scrubbing, surrounded it on all sides.
The glowpaint shone so dimly it actually flickered slightly, sheets of brightness running across the high ceiling at irregular intervals. It could not have been bothering Robert; he sat with eyes closed, breathing deep and slow. He wore a black gi, tied at the waist with a simple white belt. His hands rested flat upon his knees, palms down. Though he was culturally American, stretching back five generations, his features were pure Asian, undiluted by interbreeding.
She knew, because Robert had told her, that he was in his early fifties. Otherwise she would not have been able to guess his age for sure within twenty years in either direction.
Rows of weapons hung from the dojo's walls. Many were modern, multifrequency lasers and flechette guns among them; some, such as the katana that hung by itself against the east wall, would not have been out of place in the court of the twelfth-century shogun Minamoto Yoritomo.
Standing at the edge of the long gray mat, Denice Daimara, once Denice Castanaveras, sometimes Jasmine Martinez and Erika Muller, removed her sandals. She left her sandals and bag at the edge of the mat and walked forward to where Robert sat meditating. Without a word she sank into lotus immediately before him, sat waiting for him to acknowledge her presence.
After several minutes he opened his eyes and looked at her.
"You've had biosculpture," he observed. "The Asian touch is nice. It suits you."
"I wasn't sure you would recognize me."
"I know no one else who walks the way you do. Dancers are as smooth, but not so silent; those trained in combat are rarely so graceful."
"Graceful? Your eyes were closed, Robert."
Robert shrugged and smiled, eyes lit with deep amusement. "So I peeked. Anyway you're the only person other than myself that door's ever been keyed for. Where have you been?"
"On vacation."
"For three years?"
"Studying," Denice said.
"What?"
"Wicca, mostly. Feminist theology."
"Indeed? You studied Wicca?" Robert was silent for a moment, clearly not expecting a response from her. When he continued one might have thought he had changed the subject: "Why did you leave us so suddenly?"
"Someone tried to kill me. Man named McGee--you wouldn't know him, I don't think."
"Did you kill him?"
"Oh, no!" Denice blinked. "He was a nice man."
"I see."
"It was a misunderstanding. So anyway, I took care of it. When I was done I didn't feel like coming back for a while."
"Oh." Robert nodded, thinking. "We missed you. I had to get a new instructor for the morning classes."
"I'm sorry."
"So was I. You worked cheap."
They were silent together for a long while then. Denice's breathing slowed, and she felt herself dropping into rhythm with Robert, her breathing matching itself to his. The warmth and stillness enfolded them like a blanket.
When Robert finally spoke he sounded almost sleepy, though his eyes were clear and steady. "What did you learn of the subjects you studied?"
"I'm not a very good feminist; I agree with them much of the time, but we part company when they wish to define me as a woman before all else, when I am a person before all else." Denice grinned suddenly. "The man who tried to kill me, McGee; I asked him once what he thought of women, and he said he found them useful for sex, and for making babies."
Robert lifted a single eloquent eyebrow.
"It made me angry. I asked him if he was joking, and he said no; that he found people fascinating, but that when I phrased things in terms of men and women, what else could I be talking about? The point stuck. It made it impossible for me to become a feminist the way--the way the people I was with wanted me to. To define myself as a woman, and then as a Wiccan, accept the worship of the Goddess, and call myself a witch and mean it sincerely; I'm a person first, and I couldn't do it. The things those words represent have little to do with who I am.