"I want to go out and see the lights," Benjy said. "Will you come with me, please, Ellie?"
Ellie Wakefield stood up and took Benjy by the hand. The two of them said good night politely and were followed out the door by Katie and Patrick. "We're going to see if we can find anything exciting to do," Katie said as they departed. "Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe. Mother, we'll be back in a couple of hours or so."
Nicole shook her head as the last of her children left the house. "Katie has been so frenetic since the Pinta arrived," she said in explanation, "she is barely even sleeping at night. She wants to meet and talk to everybody."
The Lincoln biot, who had now finished cleaning the kitchen, was standing unobtrusively by the door behind Benjy's chair. "Would you like something to drink?" Nicole asked Kenji and Nai, motioning in the direction of the biot. "We don't have anything as delicious as the fresh fruit drinks that you brought from Earth, but Linc can whip up some interesting synthetic concoctions."
"I'm fine," Kenji said, shaking his head. "But I just realized we have spent the entire evening talking about your incredible odyssey. Certainly you must have questions for us. After all, forty-five years have passed on Earth since the Newton was launched."
Forty-five years, Nicole suddenly thought. Is that possible? Can Genevieve really be almost sixty years old?
Nicole remembered clearly the last time she had seen her father and daughter on Earth. Pierre and Genevieve had accompanied her to the airport in Paris. Her daughter had hugged Nicole fiercely until the last call for boarding and then looked up at her mother with intense love and pride. The girl's eyes had been full of tears. Genevieve had been unable to say anything. And during that forty-five years my father has died. Genevieve has become an older woman, a grandmother even, Kenji said. While I have been wandering in time and space. In a wonderland.
The memories were too powerful for Nicole. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. There was still quiet in the Wakefield living room as she returned to the present.
"Is everything all right?" Kenji asked sensitively. Nicole nodded and stared at the soft, open eyes of her new friend. She imagined for a brief moment that she was talking to her fellow Newton cosmonaut Shigeru Takagishi. This man is full of curiosity, as Shig was. I can trust him. And he has talked to Genevieve only a few years ago.
"Most of the general Earth history has been explained to us, in bits and snippets, during our many conversations with other passengers from the Pinta," Nicole said after a protracted silence. "But we know absolutely nothing about our families except what you told us briefly that first night. Both Richard and I would like to know if you've remembered any additional details that might have been omitted in our first conversations."
"As a matter of fact," Kenji said, "I went back through my journals this afternoon and read again the entries I made when I was doing the preliminary research for my book on the Newton. The most important thing that I neglected to mention in our earlier discussion was how much your Genevieve looks like her father, at least from the lips down. King Henry's face was striking, as I'm certain you remember. As an adult Genevieve's face lengthened and began to resemble his quite markedly… Here, look at these, I managed to find a couple of photographs from my three days at Beauvois stored in my data base."
Seeing the pictures of Genevieve overwhelmed Nicole. Tears rushed immediately into her eyes and overflowed onto her cheeks. Her hands trembled as she held the two photographs of Genevieve and her husband Louis Gaston. Oh, Genevieve, she cried to herself, How I have missed you. How I would love to hold you in my arms for just a moment.
Richard leaned over her shoulder to see the pictures. As he did so he caressed Nicole gently. "She does look something like the prince," he commented softly, "but I think she looks much more like her mother."
"Genevieve was also extremely courteous," Kenji added, "which surprised me considering how much she had suffered during all the media uproar in 2238. She answered my questions very patiently. I had intended to make her one of the centerpieces of the Newton book until my editor dissuaded me from the project altogether."
"How many of the Newton cosmonauts are still alive?" Richard asked, keeping the conversation going while Nicole continued to gaze at the two photographs.
"Only Sabatini, Tabori, and Yamanaka," Kenji replied. "Dr. David Brown had a massive stroke, and then died six months later under somewhat unusual circumstances. I believe that was in 2208. Admiral Heilmann died of cancer in 2214 or so. Irina Turgenyev suffered a complete mental breakdown, a victim of 'Return to Earth' syndrome identified among some of the twenty-first century cosmonauts, and eventually committed suicide in 2211."
Nicole was still struggling with her emotions. "Until three nights ago," she said to the Watanabes when the room was again silent, "I had never even told Richard or the children that Henry was Genevieve's father. While I was living on Earth, only my father knew the truth. Henry may have suspected, but he didn't know for certain. Then, when you told me about Genevieve, I realized that I should be the one to tell my family. I…"
Nicole's voice trailed off and more tears appeared in her eyes. She wiped her face with one of the tissues Nai handed her. "I'm sorry," Nicole said, "I'm never like this. It's just such a shock to see a picture and to recall so many things…"
"When we were living in Rama II and then at the Node," Richard said, "Nicole was a model of stability. She was a rock. No matter what we encountered, no matter how bizarre, she was unflappable. The children and Michael O'Toole and I all depended on her. It's very rare to see her—"
"Enough," Nicole exclaimed after wiping her face. She put the photographs aside. "Let's go on to other subjects. Let's talk about the Newton cosmonauts, Francesca Sabatini in particular. Did she get what she wanted? Fame and riches beyond compare?"
"Pretty much," Kenji said. "I wasn't alive during her heyday in the first decade of the century, but even now she is still very famous. She was one of the people interviewed on television recently about the significance of recolonizing Mars."
Nicole leaned forward in her chair. "I didn't tell you this during dinner, but I'm certain Francesca and Brown drugged Borzov, causing his appendicitis symptoms. And she purposely left me at the bottom of that pit in New York. The woman was totally without scruples."
Kenji was silent for several seconds. "Back in 2208, just before Dr. Brown died, he had occasional lucid periods in his generally incoherent state. During one such period he gave a fantastic interview to a magazine reporter in which he confessed partial responsibility for Borzov's death and implicated Francesca in your disappearance. Signora Sabatini said the entire story was 'poppycock—the crazy outpourings of a diseased brain,' sued the magazine for a hundred million marks, and then settled comfortably out of court. The magazine fired the reporter and formally apologized to her."
"Francesca always wins in the end," Nicole remarked.
"I almost resurrected the whole story three years ago," Kenji continued, "when I was doing the research for my book. Since it had been more than twenty-five years, all the data from the Newton mission was in the public domain and therefore available to anyone who asked for it. I found the contents of your personal computer, including the data cube that must have come from Henry, scattered throughout the trickle telemetry. I became convinced that Dr. Brown's interview had indeed contained some truth."
"So what happened?"
"I went to interview Francesca at her palace in Sorrento. Soon thereafter I stopped working on the book—"
Kenji hesitated for an instant. Should I say more? he wondered. He glanced over at his loving wife. No, he said to himself, this is not the time or the place.
"I'm sorry, Richard."
He was almost asleep when he heard his wife's soft voice in the bedroom.
"Huh?" he said. "Did you say something, dear?"
"I'm sorry," Nicole repeated. She rolled over next to him and found his hand with hers underneath the covers. "I should have told you about H
enry years ago… Are you still angry?"
"I was never angry," Richard said. "Surprised, yes, maybe even flabbergasted. But not angry. You had your reasons for keeping it secret." He squeezed her hand. "Besides, it was back on Earth, in another life. If you had told me when we first met, it might have mattered. I might have been jealous, and almost certainly would have felt inadequate. But not now."
Nicole leaned over and gave him a kiss. "I love you, Richard Wakefield," she said.
"And I love you too," he responded.
Kenji and Nai made love for the first time since they had left the Pinta and she fell asleep immediately. Kenji was still surprisingly alert. He lay awake in bed, thinking about the evening with the Wakefields. For some reason an image of Francesca Sabatini came into his mind. The most beautiful seventy-year-old woman I have ever seen, was his first thought. And what a fantastic life.
Kenji remembered clearly the summer afternoon when his train had pulled into the station at Sorrento. The driver of the electric cab had recognized the address immediately. "Capisco," he had said, waving his hands and then heading in the direction of "il palazzo Sabatini."
Francesca lived in a converted hotel overlooking the Bay of Naples. It was a twenty-room structure that had once belonged to a seventeenth century prince. From the office where Kenji waited for Signora Sabatini to appear, he could see a funicular carrying swimmers down a steep precipice to the dark blue bay below.
La signora was half an hour late and then quickly became impatient for the interview to be over. Twice Francesca informed Kenji that she had only agreed to talk to him at all because her publisher had told her he was an "outstanding young writer." "Frankly," she said in her excellent English, "at this stage I find all discussion of the Newton extremely boring."
Her interest in the conversation picked up considerably when Kenji told her about his "new data," the files from Nicole's personal computer that had been telemetered down to Earth in the "trickle mode" during the final few weeks of the mission. Francesca became quiet, even pensive, as Kenji compared the internal notes that Nicole had made with the "confession" given by Dr. David Brown to the magazine reporter in 2208.
"I underestimated you," Francesca said with a smile, when Kenji asked if she didn't think it was a "remarkable coincidence" that Nicole's Newton diary and David Brown's confession had so many points of agreement. She never answered his questions directly. Instead she stood up in the office, insisted that he stay for the evening, and told Kenji that she would talk to him later.
Near dusk a note came to Kenji's room in Francesca's palace telling him that dinner would be at eight-thirty and that he should wear a coat and a tie. A robot arrived at the appointed time and led him to a magnificent dining room with walls covered in murals and tapestries, glittering chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings, and delicate carvings on all the moldings. The table was set for ten. Francesca was already there, standing near a small robot server off to one side of the enormous room.
"Kon ban wa, Watanabe-san," Francesca said in Japanese as she offered him a glass of champagne. "I'm renovating the main sitting areas, so I'm afraid we're having our cocktails here. It's all very gauche, as the French would say, but it will have to do."
Francesca looked magnificent. Her blond hair was only slightly tinged by gray. It was stacked on top of her head, held by a large carved comb. A choker of diamonds was around her throat and an immense solitary sapphire dangled from an understated diamond necklace. Her strapless gown was white, with folds and pleats that accentuated the curves of her still youthful body. Kenji could not believe that she was seventy years old.
She took him by the hand, after explaining that she had quickly put together a dinner party in his honor, and led him over to the tapestries against the far wall. "Do you know Aubusson at all?" she asked. When he shook his head, Francesca launched into a discussion of the history of European tapestries.
Half an hour later, Francesca took her seat at the head of the table. A music professor from Naples and his wife (supposedly an actress), two handsome, swarthy professional soccer players, the curator of the Pompeii ruins (a man in his early fifties), a middle-aged Italian poetess, and two young women in their twenties, each stunningly attractive, occupied the other places. After some consultation with Francesca, one of the two young women sat opposite Kenji and the other beside him.
At first the armchair opposite Francesca, at the far end of the table, was empty. Francesca whispered something to her headwaiter, however, and five minutes later a very old man, halt and almost blind, was led into the room. Kenji recognized him immediately. It was Janos Tabori.
The meal was wonderful, the conversation lively. The food was all served by waiters, not by the robots used in all but the most fashionable restaurants, and each course was enhanced by a different Italian wine. And what a remarkable group! Everyone, even the soccer players, spoke passable English. They were also both interested in and knowledgeable of space history. The young woman opposite Kenji had even read his most popular book on the early exploration of Mars. As the evening wore on, Kenji, who was a bachelor of thirty at the time, became less inhibited. He was aroused by everything—the women, the wine, the discussions of history and poetry and music.
Only once during the two hours at the table was there any mention of the afternoon interview. During a lull in the conversation after dessert and before the cognac, Francesca nearly shouted at Janos. "This young Japanese man—he's very brilliant, you know—thinks he has found evidence from Nicole's personal computer that corroborates those awful lies David told before he died."
Janos did not comment. His facial expression did not change. But after the meal he handed Kenji a note and then disappeared. "'You know nothing but the truth and have no tenderness,'" the note said. "'Thus you judge unjustly.' Aglaya Yepanchin to Prince Myshkin. The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky."
Kenji had only been in his room for five or ten minutes when there was a knock on his door. When he opened it he saw the young Italian woman who had been sitting opposite him at dinner. She was wearing a tiny bikini that revealed most of her exceptional body. She was also holding a man's bathing suit in her hand.
"Mr. Watanabe," she said with a sexy smile, "please join us for a swim. This suit ought to fit you."
Kenji felt an immediate and enormous surge of lust that did not quickly abate. Slightly embarrassed, he waited a minute or two after dressing before he joined the woman in the hall.
Three years later, even lying in his bed in New Eden next to the woman he loved, it was impossible for Kenji not to recall with sexual longing the night he spent in Francesca's palace. Six of them had taken the funicular down to the bay and swum in the moonlight. At the cabana next to the water, they had drunk and danced and laughed together. It had been a dream night.
Within an hour, Kenji remembered, we were all happily naked. The game plan was clear. The two soccer players were for Francesca. The two Madonnas for me.
Kenji squirmed in his bed recalling both the intensity of his pleasure and Francesca's free laughter when she found him entwined with the two young women at dawn in one of the oversized chaise lounges beside the bay.
When I reached New York four days later my editor told me that he thought I should abandon the Newton project. I didn't argue with him. I probably would have suggested it myself.
11
Ellie was fascinated by the porcelain figures. She picked one up, a little girl dressed in a light blue ballet gown, and turned it over in her hands. "Look at this, Benjy," she said to her brother. "Someone made this—all by himself."
"That one is actually a copy," the Spanish shopkeeper said, "but an artist did make the original from which the computer imprint was taken. The reproduction process is now so accurate that even the experts have a hard time telling which ones are the copies."
"And you collected all these back on Earth?" Ellie waved her hand at the hundred or so figures on the table and in the small glass cases.
"Y
es," Mr. Murillo said proudly. "Although I was a civil servant in Seville—building permits and that sort of thing—my wife and I also owned a small shop. We fell in love with porcelain art about ten years ago and have been avid collectors ever since."
Mrs. Murillo, also in her late forties, came out of a back room where she was still unpacking merchandise.
"We decided," she said, "long before we learned that we had actually been selected as colonists by the ISA, that no matter how restrictive our baggage requirements were for the voyage on the Niña, we would bring our entire collection of porcelain with us."
Benjy was holding the dancing girl only a few centimeters from his face. "Beau-ti-ful," he said with a broad smile.
"Thank you," Mr. Murillo said. "We had hoped to start a collectors' society in Lowell Colony," he added. "Three or four of the other passengers on the Niña brought several pieces as well."
"May we look at them?" Ellie asked. "We'll be very careful."
"Help yourself," Mrs. Murillo said. "Eventually, once everything settles down, we will sell or barter some of the objects—certainly the duplicates. Right now they're just on display to be appreciated."
While Ellie and Benjy were examining the porcelain creations, several other people entered the shop. The Murillos had opened for business only a few days before. They sold candles, fancy napkins, and other small household adornments.
"You certainly didn't waste any time, Carlos," a burly American said to Mr. Murillo several minutes later. From bis initial greeting it was obvious that he had been a fellow passenger on the Niña.
"It was easier for us, Travis," Mr. Murillo said. "We had no family and needed only a small place to live."
Rama: The Omnibus Page 98
