He: a top ranking military officer in an interstellar alliance fighting a protracted war against an overwhelming enemy. She: a starship captain with a military career, half-Chinese, heart-wrenchingly beautiful, and almond shaped eyes. Without warning, he suddenly becomes deeply smitten with her. He tries valiantly to hide his feelings, but she, with a powerful, finely tuned empathic sense verging on telepathy knows everything, and is deeply shocked yet paradoxically intrigued. And spite of this, they must continue to work together to save the Alliance from the Invaders. Admiral White Haven? Honor Harrington?
No, General Forester and Rydra Wong in Samuel Delaney’s novel Babel-17.
He leaves the bar where they met: My god, he thought, as coolness struck his face, all that inside me and she doesn’t know! I didn’t communicate a thing! Somewhere in the depths of the words, not a thing, you’re still safe. But stronger on the surface was the outrage at his own silence. Didn’t communicate a thing at all –
Rydra stood up, her hands on the edge of the counter, looking at the mirror. The bartender came to remove the glasses at her fingertips. As he reached for them, he frowned.
“Miss Wong?”
Her face was fixed.
“Miss Wong, are you – ”
Her knuckles were white, and as the bartender watched, the whiteness crept along her hands till they looked like shaking wax.
“Is there something wrong, Miss Wong?”
She snapped her face toward him. “You noticed?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper, harsh, sarcastic, strained. She whirled from the bar and started toward the door, stopped once to cough, then hurried on.
(from the end of Chapter 1)
