Analog SFF, July-August 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

“Oh sure,” Scarborough said. “But she wags the world, you know.”

  “So I hear,” Fred answered. “Only, comes a time the world wags back.”

  Scarborough grimaced, but nodded also as he turned back to Don. “Miz Ell says—” he said, voice back to normal, but with eyes turned eyes oddly to make clear it was a vacuous expression. “—give you her love and she'll talk to you when we land.”

  “Uh huh,” Don said neutrally. “This is besides the web people?”

  “Before,” Scarborough said.

  So, whoever this Miz Ell was, she had some words to stuff in his mouth. Well, find out the words, then decide. Questions took shape on his tongue, but Scarborough spoke before they broke free.

  “Where were we? Oh yes. Your medical problems. It's none of their business, but the web people are sure to ask.”

  It wasn't where they'd been, but Don let it pass. “That's for the docs to figure out,” he said. “Doc Hilliard couldn't.”

  Scarborough offered a wry grimace. “Well, yes. But, well, how would you describe?”

  How much to tell this man? How much to tell the world? Don shrugged. “Doc Hilliard said it came out of stress, which was something of a joke we had. Every now and then the gut clutched up, sort of like a turbine with its bearings shot. That's as far as he could take it. Most times medicines—if we had—and a few days of do nothing would fix it, but pretty bad when it came on. Not easy, either, if stuff we couldn't put off happened while I was trying to shake it, which is how things went most of the time.”

  “Umm. Well, I suppose we'll have to leave that for the doctors to work out. No problems otherwise?”

  “Not that I know about. Doc didn't always say all he knew.”

  “They never do.” Quick glance then to his unit. “Now, during your long trip home, I'd expect you thought about what you'd do. After being away so long, and the hardships...”

  Oh, he'd thought. “No sense to make plans until the docs are done with me.”

  “True,” Scarborough admitted. “But given that, surely...”

  “Nothing big,” Don said. “Try to make some noise about getting the rest of us home, like we've already talked. Go out to the home spread. Get caught up with the folks. See what weather and the varmints have done to my trailer. I left it there. Pretty soon, try to find work.” That would be tough; he wouldn't know all the new tricks and changed standards of the profession. “And if I can't get myself back to standard G, may have to go live on the Moon.” Another wry thought. “Or back to Mars.” He paused then. Maybe he'd said enough. Scarborough, though, stayed quiet. “Don't have a lot of working years left, either,” he went on. “And my retirement fund ... left it for Larry to manage, and they had to dip into it when Pops got his heart patched. And that comes after I had to dip into it after Antarctica. So, well, don't know what sort of shape it's in.”

  Maundering, he decided, and stopped.

  “It should be better than you think,” Scarborough said after touching his unit a time or two. “When we bought the Lowell and the Bradbury, with the repatriation project starting up, the money wasn't paid to the corporation. It went into an escrow fund to continue, more or less, the wages of Mars-based personnel, to be apportioned to returnees if and when. Otherwise, dependents or heirs.”

  Twenty years’ back pay stacked up? Don felt a strange numbness. “I hadn't heard that.”

  “It was in the legislation when the purchase was authorized,” Scarborough said, and shrugged uneasily. “Technically, it's compensation for you being stranded up there and being put in danger of your lives. A lawyer acting for you would have argued that the corporation was negligent, so any other application of the money—say, toward other debts—would have been a misappropriation. Congress must have realized that. Naturally—even back then it was billions already—some of Petro's big creditors dragged it through the courts. The whole thing took years.” Another shrug. “They lost.”

  Since when, Don wondered, did congressmen trouble themselves over things like that? “Who do we thank?” he asked. Somewhere, he suspected, some sort of payback was owed.

  “I have no idea,” Scarborough said. “Could have been some anonymous staffer. A lot of things happen that way.”

  In other words, Don thought, he'd have to ask someplace else; but Scarborough was still talking.

  “As for finding work—with the settlement, I don't know if you'll need to—”

  Not have to work again? Ever? More stuff hard to believe.

  “—we have a file of people who want talk with you. Consultant. Corporate board. That sort of thing. And if Mars Petro resurrects—”

  “'Scuse please, folks,” Fred's voice came over the intercom. “Flight program says descent starts, one minute. Recommend you make secure.”

  So soon? Don checked his seat belt; seemed all right. Scarborough cinched his.

  “Best to have your chair faced forward when we touch,” Scarborough said. “The thrust can hit pretty hard.”

  Don wasn't sure he understood; a fast aircraft coming down, wouldn't the backward thrust of slowdown throw a passenger forward? On top of that, he was still wondering: Him? Corporate board? Uncertainly, he shifted his chair; nothing seemed to hold it to the deck, so how did it make him secure? Too much about this world he'd come back to that he didn't understand.

  The wait had a long, slow feel. In silence Scarborough let it happen. Then, on the forward display, the whole world seemed slowly to rise. Don recognized Cape Hatteras, though westward from there much else was obscured by patches of cloud. Every part of his body felt the drag of gravity relax. “Ah,” he uttered. Hadn't realized how oppressive it had been.

  “We'll be there in minutes now,” Scarborough said. “Miz Ell wants to talk with you privately. Just you and her. She'll be in the VIP lounge. That's first. Then the web people.”

  “So you said,” Don said guardedly. “Who's she?”

  “Senator Trombley's chief of staff.” Scarborough let a heartbeat pass, then corrected himself. “Actually, right now, chief of staff of his subcommittee. When he's chairman, like now, she switches over. I don't know if you know how it works; when his party has the majority—”

  “Got told about it once,” Don said. “Back when I was in school. Not an efficient system, but I get the idea they don't want it efficient.”

  “It's been commented on,” Scarborough admitted. “Depends what you mean by efficiency. There's getting things done, and there's getting them done in a way that everyone's willing to live with.”

  “So I've heard,” Don said. He'd talked through the theory and practice of decision achievement with Jeni too many times. Different people put different price tags on things. Not always in money. “What does she want?”

  “She didn't say. For a guess—just a guess, understand—wants you to remind the web people her senator had a lot to do with the repatriation project. He doesn't go for reelection for another three years—if he runs; he's seventy plus already—but it's never too soon to start the campaign.”

  Likely, Don supposed, and it would fit with his own objectives. Churlish, besides, to refuse. Nevertheless...

  “What's he like?”

  Scarborough arched an eye; so he understood Don's caution. “Decent. Takes his job serious. Sometimes stands for things that would be nice but not a hope of passing. Some would say he's too ready to spend federal money on things not practical; like—” He gestured uncomfortably. “—sorry—your repatriation project. He's got enemies, of course, but mostly they're the sort it's an honor to have. Longtime congressman; moved up to the Senate, oh, something like fifteen years ago. Third term puts him fairly high on the seniority list.”

  Don considered. A political record wasn't the whole man. Jeni had complained that too many shaped what they stood for according to poll numbers; could be his good deeds were nothing but the outward show of a cold-blooded reptile. “You don't know him all that well,” he inferred.

  “Only been face to face with him two or
three times. Mostly, when I have to coordinate with his office, it's Miz Ell I talk to. Her, or somebody farther down the totem pole.”

  “Like now,” Don said.

  “Exactly.”

  “So it's her I deal with.”

  “Oh, you'll meet the senator before you're done. Talk to his committee and so forth. That's another thing she'll maybe want to talk about.”

  “But right now it's her,” Don said.

  “Well, yes.”

  “So what's she like?”

  Scarborough considered. “In my experience, all business. No small talk. Been with the senator a long time and runs his office like a clock. For us in Space Ad, what she says, it's like he said it.”

  So he'd be boxed in a corner and given instructions. Well, maybe. “You're saying, play along.”

  “My impression, we have the same goals. Like we've talked, the repatriation project's not finished by quite a margin, and if Mars Petro does come back there'll be a lot of details to nail down. Maybe, with them wanting to move cargo to and from, we can get them to take over the job. Sell them the ships, maybe for dime on the thousand, but with some understandings. Fix it so everyone wins. Things like that.”

  Possible, Don thought cautiously, and probably already being talked about where nobody watched. Nothing guaranteed, though. A lot of ifs to be transformed into something more solid; not a chance he'd have the final say. The best hope, that he could nudge things one direction instead of another.

  Beginning with Miz Ell.

  “Where's she from?” he asked. People from different parts of the country had different ways of thinking. An individual wouldn't automatically fit the template, and Scarborough had implied she'd been in Washington a long time so it might not be much help. Regardless, every scrap of information had to be gathered.

  Scarborough's answer came doubtful and slow. “Could be New Jersey. Senator's from there and she might have come with him. But the District's full of professional aides and it's smart, a new man in town, to take on some staffers who know the turf. Her, nobody's ever mentioned. To me, that is.”

  Information that didn't inform. “Been with him since forever, you said.”

  “Since he was just a congressman, what I'm told. I wasn't here, then.”

  “How old? Fifty? Sixty?” Some people, getting older, got testy and inflexible. Positions of power made them worse. Maybe he was coming across a bit crotchety himself.

  “You got me. Women, you know how they make themselves look younger than they are, even when it's obvious they're not.” But he caught Don's thought. “She's okay, though. Even lets us call her Miz Ell to her face. Like somehow it amuses her.”

  Don's ears pricked. “That's not her name?”

  “It's what we call her. Actually, it's ... oh, one of those names, you see it written, you don't know how it sounds. Say it wrong, you're on the wrong foot from word go. So we call her Miz Ell and everyone's happy.”

  “Uh huh,” Don said, and let the wait drag long.

  “Actually,” Scarborough said, “it's ... well, I'm told the French would say Latoosh. Otherwise, maybe you'd think L'tutch. Maybe La-too-shay. How she says it, it's Latowsh.”

  * * * *

  XIV

  Somewhere along the line, Don had learned to keep his face plain when he had to. And, piece of luck, this time he'd had a moment's warning. Last seen, he thought numbly, headed for a summer job in Washington, then gone as if the earth had swallowed her.

  A surge of gravitational force as their aircraft changed its flight path saved him from having to speak at once; preparing to touch down already? Tread careful, he decided. Too many times, he'd looked through phone lists that showed how many people in the world had that for a last name. “What's her first name?” he asked, perhaps too sharply.

  Scarborough cocked an eye. Odd question? Let him wonder. “You've got me,” Scarborough said after a pause. “All I have are initials. How she signs her memos. J.L.L.”

  Jeni's middle name had been Lyn; just one n, naturally. Hardly ever used it, though, in spite of the lilt it gave. How far could ordinary coincidence be stretched? How far did he dare?

  Slowly though, as his world skidded sidewise, he understood that he and his people had been saved by something other than a politician's whim and the chancy roll of dice. Unless, that is, he quibbled over when the dice were thrown. It fitted. All of it.

  No such thing as a closed system.

  “And she keeps an unlisted phone,” he said.

  “With all the hackproofing hard cash and a top line classification can buy,” Scarborough confirmed. “How'd you know?”

  “Got told once how people in that line of work rig it.” By Jeni herself, he realized with a pang and then an ironic jolt. She'd complained how people in positions of power set themselves apart from the rest of humanity. Unavoidable, he'd told her, straight from the course he'd taken in communications design. People worth talking with would know the number. Others, let them call the office and leave a message on the memory for a staffer to sort through, summarize, and pass upward to be dealt with. Or not. Otherwise the torrent of talk would devour their days.

  “Never had the privilege, myself,” he said, but cautioned himself that the obvious conjecture still might be wrong. False hope could fool a man.

  Well, he'd know soon enough. If it wasn't Jeni, after a lifetime of letdowns, he could survive one more.

  “What school she go to?” he asked. Maybe that would nail it down. “What she study?”

  It got him a shrug. “For all I know, the Senator hired her out of kindergarten.”

  Another blank line. As if she'd schemed things so that nothing would be known about her but that she did the Senator's work. “What's her husband do?” he asked.

  Scarborough frowned; another off-center question? “Don't know if she has,” he said at last. “Kids either. Like I said, with me anyhow, no small talk.”

  Information that was not information. More troubling, why had he asked?

  Don't think about it. He felt the shifting G forces as the aircraft settled its flight path. With a gentle thump the wings extended and locked. On the displays the world steadied and enlarged. Highways sprawled and tangled. Dendritic rivers caught glints of the Sun. Deliberately nonrectangular suburb enclaves filled space between clusters of taller structures. Patches of green were either parks or golf links. Off to the left rumpled ridgelines crowded one beyond another, smoky with haze.

  “Anything else I should know?” he asked. A million things, he thought, but most of them this man wouldn't have.

  “You're the man with a story to tell,” Scarborough said.

  And a message to deliver, Don thought. Surely, she would help with that. Maybe it was what she wanted to talk about. Probably, now that he thought, all she'd want to talk about. Nothing personal. No small talk.

  But he'd see her again.

  After too many years and too much wandering, he told himself. Nothing to be hoped for but another disappointment.

  The aircraft was settling more quickly now. It felt like being up on Mars again, but on the displays the world was coming up to meet. The real world, where a man could walk out under the Sun and breathe real air. He could make out individual houses now, and a vast parking lot full of neatly ranked, bug-sized vehicles and a cluster of interconnected, ill-matched buildings at the center. Swiftly now the ground came very near. To forward, abruptly, space opened out. A wide strip of pavement lay below as if coming up to kiss, and to the right a hulking, huge aircraft crouched to let them pass. He felt the slight bounce as the cushion of air replaced aerodynamic lift. Earth strength G-force took his breath and the world seemed to whirl as the aircraft spun a full one-eighty. G-force surged against his back as the jets opposed their momentum; strong at first, then softening. Odd, he thought, that engineers would think it was the best way to do things in spite of the problems it entailed; maybe someday, when nothing more immediate pressed, he'd ask.

  In the displays the
speed of the world became mere drift. That changed, though, as—still on its cushion of air—the aircraft turned to taxi toward a distant terminal around which other aircraft huddled like cattle at a water tank.

  “Welcome home,” Scarborough said.

  As if he'd ever had one, Don thought. In the left hand display he saw an aircraft, small in distance, leap skyward. The same one he'd glimpsed as they came down? Did it matter? Everyone was going somewhere.

  That reminded him. “VIP lounge, you said. I qualify?”

  “I'd say so,” Scarborough said. “It's an informal classification. Anyone who needs to be insulated from people in general. Anyway, if you don't, she does.”

  “Uh huh.” With a shrug, Don let it go.

  “It'll be a bugproof suite. Between users they sweep it, and it's got active interference systems. Anything said goes no place. She instructed me to tell you.”

  Nice to know, Don supposed. As if anything he might say would need that sort of protection.

  Now the terminal was very near. Their aircraft turned to a new taxiway and coasted past an assortment of backswept tailfins, found an open slot, and nosed in.

  “You said private,” he said, and a new uneasiness came. “You'll be showing me where?” When they met, if it truly was Jeni and not some alien Miz Ell, it should be for their eyes only. Ears likewise. And what could he say? He felt the aircraft settle as its flotation deflated. The skids touched. The aircraft's subliminal trembling stopped and the displays went grey.

  “Someone from the terminal will take care of that,” Scarborough said.

  Fred came back from the cockpit to unseal the overhead door. Almost at once the forepart of a boarding steps assembly came down, found the deck, and stabilized.

  “While she's talking to you—” Scarborough touched up his unit as he spoke. “—I'll background the web people. Then she'll bring you out. Half an hour, give or take, she said. All right?”

  All business, Don thought. Well, after so long, ridiculous to think it could be anything more. “Should be,” he said, and tried to believe it didn't matter. “You'll tell them what to think?” he asked.