Nancy Kress - Borovsky's Hollow Woman

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BOROVSKY'S HOLLOW WOMAN

by JEFF DUNTEMANN and NANCY KRESS

[first published in Omni October 1983]

[VERSION 1.1 (Jan 28 02). If you find and correct errors in the text, please update the version number

by 0.1 and redistribute.]

Laura walked the Low Steel above the stars, searching for her man.

It was 2.3 klicks across the skeletal terrain by the most direct route - the e blue line on the diagram of

the construction zone burned in the eye of Laura's mind. No one but Mikhail Borovsky would take that

particular route across the unfinished girders of the titan cylinder's outermost level, and even - he would

not take it without her.

One foot before the other, lift, swing, step. The pilot beam was solid monocrystal steel, I-section, one

decimeter wide. One hundred meters to her left and right identical girders glittered in the always-

changing light. They were the primary structural support of the latest, lowest level of George Eastman

Nexus. Each girder was a single crystal of iron atoms, one hundred nineteen kilometers in

circumference, and strong enough to rest an artificial world on.

For a kilometer ahead and behind, it was Laura and her beam.

A man in the saddle of a six-wheeled yoyo swung under the horizon far away antispinward and

quickly approached her, soon passing to the rear and vanishing. Borovsky's yoyo was a four-wheeler.

The earth swung up behind her and made blue highlights creep across the dull gray steel plates ten

meters above her helmet. It slipped above the horizon and was gone again for another forty minutes.

Laura adjusted the magnetism in her boot soles. Just enough to add a little friction, a little sureness. If

she fell outward from the rotating structure into the starry darkness the steelworkers called the Pit, no

one would fall after to her rescue. But she would not fall. Steel was her medium, just as it was

Borovsky's, and she loved it. Steel was sure and clean and true. It could be trusted, as Borovsky could be

trusted when he wasn't-

No. She would not allow that thought to be completed.

Where had they gone? Borovsky, in rubber underwear, off on a yoyo to fight a man twice his size,

somewhere on a level swinging more than 1.6 g. Falling on your face could flatten your skull on E

Minus Seven. Fighting could dock you a week's pay. Ignoring a challenge could get you called a phobe.

A coward. A . . . woman.

Where?

Step following step, body bent forward, using the artificial gravity to help carry her onward, Laura

searched. She scanned the chatter on the CB and the bloody-murder band. Nothing spoke of a man in

rubber hurt on E Minus Seven.

Less than five hundred meters of open steel remained. Far ahead Laura saw something streak through

the shadows toward the sucking stars. She followed desperately with her eyes and saw it catch the sun

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beyond the great cylinder's shadow. Four-wheeled gantry, cable, saddle: It blazed brilliant yellow for a

moment and was gone, falling forever.

His yoyo, unridden, alone. Damn the Pit! Laura broke into a run, each boot hitting the beam safely

though without thought, each magnet grabbing just so much. Raw dawn broke behind her and cast

lurching shadows against the unfinished steel ahead. The sun was beneath her feet as she stepped from

naked monocrystal onto gray steel plates.

Above was the port from which the yoyo had fallen. She pulled herself up a ladder and stepped out

onto E Minus Six. A little lighter, a little less deadly.

No sign of fleeing men. Six was a big level, one hundred meters thick. Heavy chemical industry, she

remembered.

Before her a dozen huge steel tanks squatted against the floor like brooding hens. Each was ten

meters high, with a ladder leading to a dogged circular hatch.

She scanned the tanks. All were alike, save that one of the hatches had dog-handles twisted

differently from the rest. In moments she was at the hatch, pushing the dogs aside.

The tube was a simple pressure lock. Laura pulled herself in, dogged the outer hatch, and released the

inner.

With a rising rush there was sound all around her. She pushed the inner hatch wide and found her

man.

Mikhail Borovsky lay naked in a heap, blood leaking from his mouth. Laura cried out, and for an

awful moment she lay immobile in the tube until she heard a rattling breath. She slid to his side and

squeezed his wrist until her gauntlet felt his pulse. Drugs - he needed drugs to stir his system out of

shock.

His rubber suit lay on the floor. Laura kicked it scornfully aside, reached to her throat, and undid its

latch. Quickly she eased her helmet back. She pulled her ventral zipper down, flipping the hooks aside

with her fingers as they went. Eagerly she spread her ventral plates apart, pulled her pelvic plate

forward, then pulled the zippers down each of her legs almost to each knee.

She lay on her back beside him, plates gaping, helmet folded under. The eyes in her wrists and in the

toes of her boots helped her lift Borovsky above her. Gently she eased his legs down into her legs and let

the slow peristalsis of her inner layers draw his feet into her feet. Her ventral plates stretched wide to

clear his hips. She placed the Texas catheter over his penis and pulled her pelvic plate back into position.

Wriggling slightly, she guided his arms down into her arms, where her inner layers did the final

positioning.

Each finger was drawn into place and continuously massaged. Laura zipped and hooked her ventral

plates and finally eased her helmet over his head.

For a Rabinowicz Manplifier Mark IX space suit, walking steel empty was too lonely to bear.

Without her man inside her Laura felt herself a hollow mockery, less than even a woman, not worthy of

the soul Borovsky had paid so much for. Never again, she said to unconscious ears. Never again. Stay

inside me. You are mine.

Slowly she stood, whole again. Up from his toes the hydraulic rings pressed in smooth waves,

helping his blood back toward his head and heart. A tiny needle jabbed into his buttocks, sending a

careful measure of stimulant into his bloodstream.

This was no place to be caught by a boss. Laura moved slowly as she climbed from the tank. It had

been some time since she had carried his dead weight asleep, and never unconscious. She gave the torn

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