by Sage Walker
“Yeah?”
“You’re really good. The parameters you set up on the opinion currents are going to work like a bastard.”
“Thanks,” Jimmy said. “Paul, I’ll do what I can. Give me a minute, okay?” In the Seattle room, Jimmy’s helmeted face stared at the flatscreen in front of him; his hands worked at the keyboard.
“Jimmy?” Pilar asked. Already tracing signals from a woman he said he didn’t know, he didn’t seem to hear her. “Jimmy, what is it that keeps you here, catching all this shit?”
“Family,” Jimmy said.
“Family?” Pilar asked. “What family?”
“Yours,” Jimmy said. “The one I want to be a part of. I can talk here, you know?”
Because he could talk? To Edges? Could this be the structure he wanted, could this loosely knit bunch of eccentrics feel like warmth, security, family to Jimmy? His search implied an isolation appalling in its immensity, if he searched out this group to hear him.
Try as she might, and Pilar tried for a long time, staring into space, she couldn’t conjure Jimmy into anything other than what he seemed to be—a lonely human, mute in most situations, trying to find a place where someone understood his individual, idiosyncratic language.
Pilar switched to the net and tried to find photos of the British delegate’s wife to send to Janine. A polite glance of recognition could hardly hurt. After a time, Pilar began to hear the music she had scored to underlay her search, music called up with no conscious thought. She listened to the sound of booming surf and the cries of gulls, a basso counterpoint to the routines of her work, that filled the Seattle house with rhythms of wordless grief.
“See what I mean?” Jimmy asked her.
SEVENTEEN
“My name’s Red,” the pilot said.
“Signy.”
“We’ll be about eight hours getting there.”
“That long?”
“That long.”
Signy went numb and timeless in the roaring plane, feeling as tiny as a cursor on a giant screen of sky and tossing seas. Red blinked at the midnight sun and smiled at whatever music played in his headphones. The listener lights at Signy’s wrist were all dark and they stayed that way. She was off-line, out of contact, lost. Recording the sky and the noise of the plane seemed a waste of time. Timeless and trapped. So slow, more than a day now since Paul woke her with his scream; if Jared lived, Signy didn’t know that she would be any help at all to him. It occurred to her that she might be offering harm, not assistance, that her presence might snarl the tenuous skeins of accident or intrigue that had claimed him. Trapped and helpless.
At times Signy dozed, exhausted from playing out scenarios based on imagination, scenarios where she arrived too late, stepped in too early, said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time.
She woke as the plane began to descend, and Red seemed to notice her bemused attention to the sights outside the windows, broken stretches of water and the steaming crest of Mount Erebus. The world looked as if it had been shot in black and white. Red took the plane down past the tremendous sheer cliff that was the Ross Ice Shelf, the cycle of the earth’s weathers written in strata of pure water, immense, silent, and lethally close to the flimsy metal of the plane—but Signy arrived awake, and might have thanked him for it. They had not spoken since they left Christchurch, Signy realized, so she didn’t break the silence now.
McMurdo’s Tinkertoy domes looked pathetic; they were ugly blemishes scattered on the ice. The sunny air was not as cold as she’d expected, it was no colder than midday in a Rocky Mountain winter. Barren rock and windswept snow stretched to the mountainous horizon. Signy had expected silence, but the sounds that came to her were the huffing of fans and engines, the noisy exhalations of machines that kept the settlement alive. Ugly, barren, man-stained, at least outside, McMurdo’s flat plain breathed indifference, an impersonal anomosity. Signy stamped snow from her boots into the grate just outside the airlock-styled double doors, ready to dislike the place before she entered it.
A simulacrum of a Mars habitat, McMurdo was open to researchers only, except for areas where personnel from supply ships could come and go. Red nodded to her, a half salute of dismissal, and headed for a prefab hut marked by a neon palm tree and a sign that read HOTEL CALIFORNIA. Nashville sounds wailed from the opened door, cut off in midphrase as the door closed behind the pilot.
Unmet, alone, Signy stood in greenish light filtered through translucent hexagons, under a Fuller dome that arched over corrugated steel buildings and wormish lengths of giant pipe. Walkways of latticed brown plastic were laid out across the snow. Moist air brought her the smell of humans and old socks. McMurdo didn’t recycle air, it brought in the clear atmosphere from outside, a violation of its Mars research charter that had caused some displeasure among its U.S. and Euro sponsors. Signy looked for a YOU ARE HERE sign. She couldn’t see one anywhere. Two bearded men in bright flannel shirts walked past her without a word and disappeared behind unmarked doors.
Signy waited. No one came for her.
Three bundled people came through the airlock doors. Signy couldn’t tell their gender; their parkas were tied tight over their goggled faces. As she walked toward them they made a sharp right and vanished between two prefabs. Signy followed, her duffel slung over her shoulder and getting heavier by the minute. They opened a door into a long and brightly lighted hallway.
“Hey!” Signy shouted.
The third figure, male, she saw now that his parka was loosened, let the door close behind him. Signy opened it and followed him. The man walked down the hall and ducked into a room. He closed the door just as she reached it.
Signy knocked. Damn it, the man had seen her, unless she’d gone invisible and hadn’t noticed. She heard him step heavily toward the door.
He opened the door a crack and frowned, a black-bearded face with the dark almond eyes of the Mideast. Behind him, an inflated plastic camel clung to a wall covered with layers of thumbtacked printouts, posters that featured plump smiling girls and palm trees, and Ziplocs filled with small nondescript rocks. A tiny desk held a welter of hammers and chisels that were bright with use, and faded rucksacks that bulged heavily.
“You’re new,” he said, his eyes not on Signy’s face but on her duffel.
She nodded.
“The office is the door at the end of the hall.” He shut his own, firmly.
Friendly place. Signy trudged toward the door at the end of the hall, marked with smeared back stencil letters at nose level. BASE OPS. She shoved it open.
The room she entered was small and filled with desks, monitors, and wall screens, one of them dotted with tiny icons that moved slowly across a stylized map of the base and surrounding territories, if the tiny cone was Erebus and the rectangle was the airstrip.
“Hello?” Signy asked.
She heard someone sneeze. A man appeared from behind the map screen. Short, plump, and deliberate, he looked like a porcupine sans quills. He favored her with a lazy stare, waddled to a desk, and sat down.
“Thomas, is it?”
She nodded.
“You’ve quite the introduction.” His voice was a high-pitched whine. “Tanaka rents an office and bunk here; it’s yours and you don’t have to share it with anyone. That’s likely to cause some jealousy; don’t trot around bragging about it.” He rummaged through a desk drawer and came up with a dog-eared pamphlet. “You’ll need to read this.”
Signy took the booklet from his outstretched hand.
“Excellent,” she said. “If you’ll tell me how to find my quarters?”
“You’ll need to read the manual before you go anywhere.” He looked hurt, as if he were disappointed that she hadn’t known.
“Sure,” Signy said. “Okay.” She looked around and found a chair that had only one stack of papers on it, picked them up, put them on a clear space on the gray carpet, and sat down.
Jared, Tanaka, any likelihood of doing what she had come here to
do, seemed distant constructs, impossibly difficult to regain. It had been so long, so many years, since Signy had dealt with forms and rituals that could not be bypassed with a keystroke. Well, there was Edges and all of its interactions, often in real time, and the business of living that involved groceries and grounds maintenance and trips to different companies, when she couldn’t talk Janine or Pilar into doing real-time liaison. Still, bureaucrats rankled. Patience, Signy cautioned herself. She couldn’t delete this man, this porcupine, and go beyond him. What would he do if she balked? Put her out in the snow and say, “Walk home?”
He just might.
Signy opened the manual and began to read. It was a survival guide, and discussed frostbite, exposure, protection from wind. It was specific about equipment needed for going out on the ice, and about hygiene. “If you can’t bathe,” it told her solemnly, “wipe your skin with a clean dry cloth.”
Signy looked up to find Porcupine watching her intently. Signy was a speed-reader, but she dropped her eyes and stared at the pages for what she thought Porcupine would think was a long enough time to digest the manual’s contents and then she nodded and stood up.
“Valuable,” Signy said.
“There’s a copy in your room,” Porcupine told her.
But the rules wouldn’t let her read it there. No, not where she might be comfortable. “Could we go there?” she asked. Please, Porky, before I lose my temper completely and flatten your pointed little nose. I’m tired, damn it.
He walked to the door and kept his hand on the knob. “Mess is in Orange section. Rec is in Green. Don’t try to go into Yellow or Blue. Okay?”
“Okay,” Signy said.
“I’ll take you to your quarters.” Porky opened the door and led her down the hall. “Transients usually can’t find their ass with both hands for a few days down here. Are you hungry?”
“Not really,” Signy said.
“Maybe I’ll find you for breakfast tomorrow,” Porky said.
Maybe he was trying to be friendly. Signy followed him down a maze of corridors, out across echoing spaces filled only with dome and flooring, and into another building that Porky told her was reserved for temp offices.
“What time is it?” Signy asked.
“Nineteen hundred hours,” he said. “We run on Greenwich plus twelve.”
The plane had landed into the sun, in a bright midday light. But, okay, this was dinnertime. Porky stopped before an anonymous door and handed her a keycard.
“Thank you, Mr.—”
“Snead,” he said. “I’m Jim.”
He turned on his heel and strode away. Signy had no idea where she was in the maze they had just traversed, nor had she seen anything that looked orange, green, or any other color. She didn’t for the moment, care.
The keycard let her into an entryway where a shoe rack on a polished wooden floor announced that shoes were not expected. Perhaps the soles of skinthins counted as shoes, but Signy was damned if she was going to take off her suit. The boots, though, yes, and her feet tingled with relief as she got out of them.
The stone floor was warm as blood and she began to shudder, suddenly chilled through, fatigue and the relaxation of privacy taking the last of her reserves and leaving her limp. But she got to the wall of screens, her feet happy with the lush pale carpet, and opened a pathway to Paul, to Pilar, to home. In the back of Signy’s mind was the thought of hot tea, and she felt sure she would find a chop-chop efficient little tea maker somewhere in here, easy to operate. She hoped that the supplies wouldn’t be limited to that thick green stuff and nothing else. Tea, or coffee or brandy—
Paul’s study was empty.
In Seattle, Pilar had left a minor production running, fractal ferns waving over shadowed writhing shapes, all in black greens and purples. Rough harmonics seethes along the lower range of hearing, melodic cacophonies that could have been the crashes and sighs of feeding giants, and an inhuman voice called “Go?” or “Oh?” or “Woe?” Wistful, threatening, forgotten as soon as the shapes and sounds were seen or heard, Pilar’s entrancements meant “go away.”
Janine was off-line as well.
Signy began to search for the elusive tea maker and investigated the tied roll of a thick, black cotton futon, which looked to be the only available bed equivalent. A black lacquer screen shielded it from the rest of the room.
“Signy Thomas?”
It was a woman’s voice, contralto, soft. Signy stuck her head around the screen and looked at the row of consoles.
“I’m here.”
Anna de Brum’s face appeared on one of the screens.
“Hello,” Signy said. “Anna, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I don’t remember…”
“I’ve seen you with Jared.”
“Right. I’m coming to McMurdo to pick up some sick-bay supplies. I’ve been told to bring you back with me. We’ll be in to get you at about 1100 tomorrow.”
That was tomorrow. That was forever. “It will take that long?” Signy asked.
“It will take that long. I’m sorry about Jared. We grieve for him.” Anna’s face showed sympathy; a warm, sorrowing mother-comfort seemed to permeate her screened face and recorded voice.
“Thank you,” Signy said.
“Signy Thomas, you should rest now. You are tired, I think.” Anna frowned at the screen and Signy reached a hand to touch her own face, tracing with a fingertip the hollows under her eyes, the oily travel grit on her skin.
“I think you’re right,” Signy said: “But what’s been done? Is anyone looking for Jared? We saw a Zodiac where he went down, a face—” Anna’s expression went wary. “You haven’t seen it?” Signy asked. “What Jared saw, I mean?”
“No,” Anna said.
“Oh, God.” The recording had gone to the Siranui’s captain; Signy was sure Paul had insisted that the captain see it. But not to Anna’s eyes, perhaps not to the captain of the Kasumi. Actually Signy didn’t know that Paul had sent it—
“Anna, where are you?”
“Where am I? I’m on the Siranui.”
“Yes, but which room?”
“I’m in sick bay.” And you’re nuts, was what Anna’s expression said.
“Can you get into the medic’s cabin? Where Jared slept? I want to show you something,” Signy said.
“Sure.”
“Call me when you get there.”
“I will,” Anna said, and disappeared.
No questions, not later, Anna moved now, and Signy loved her for it. Jared had warmed to this woman; Signy began to understand what he had liked. Had liked. Oh, shit.
Signy turned from the blank screen and rummaged through her duffel until she found the chip copy she wanted, diddled with Tanaka’s banks of equipment until she got the transmission up and ready on Kihara’s cabin screen, and then paced the confines of the little suite, waiting for Anna. Impersonal, a way station, this McMurdo office. The teapot was in a cubby underneath the banks of monitors, at hand to someone working the screens, and Signy filled it and punched it on. Behind a jar of Nescafé Gold was a bottle of Glenfiddich, unopened and welcome. Signy fought with the seal and broke a thumbnail. The hell with tea. She poured a generous inch into a thick green mug and sipped. The whiskey burned a glowing line all the way down to her stomach.
“I’m in sick bay,” Anna said.
“Watch this,” Signy said. “And do whatever you can, or whatever you think you should. Then come and get me. Please, come and get me.” Signy keyed up Jared’s walk on the Kasumi’s deck for Anna. “I need Jared’s records, any recordings he may have made, and I can’t be sure I have everything until I sort through his gear myself. Help me, Anna. Get me there.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Anna said.
Anna would do it because Anna was one of those people who couldn’t leave someone in pain. Yes, Signy felt pain. And fear, fear that someone, someone Anna probably knew, sought to hide the circumstances of Jared’s disappearance, to obscure whatever discoverie
s Edges might make. Someone tried to slow things down and hide them away, and that knowledge hurt. Signy couldn’t let herself trust Anna completely, couldn’t share her fears with this woman she had just met. That hurt, too.
“You should rest now,” Anna said. “I will come for you tomorrow.”
“I’ll rest now.”
Signy set the room’s system to call her for any accessor at all, tried another sip of the Scotch, and grabbed the futon from the alcove. She shoved her duffel next to it and sat cross-legged on the puffy fabric, tonguing at the Scotch and staring at the screens. Her hands moved through the jumble of clothing and cosmetics in the duffel, searching for a toothbrush and the energy to use it. Smooth and tiny in her fingers, she clutched a handful of chip copies instead, tossed in unsorted and unmarked in her rush to leave the Taos house.
Signy was not sleepy. She was exhausted, yes, but sleep seemed a ridiculous idea. The room’s light was soft and there were no outside windows, so she couldn’t have the confusion of constant sunlight that the manual had warned her about, not yet, anyway. Odd, this wakefulness. No, not odd. Here to work, and she couldn’t work. Here to find Jared, and trapped in an ice world where transportation, even the chance of taking a walk, were in someone else’s hands. The room was warm but she felt cold. She should get some food. Definitely not a good idea, her stomach told her.
Signy swallowed a good mouthful of the Scotch. Paul and Pilar were still off-line; Janine? Janine wasn’t what she wanted. Idly, she slotted a chip to the small holo stage and keyed her skinthin to it. Small, yes, but the setup carried full sensory hookups and even a scent bank. The little rig was sleek and expensive. Tanaka bought good equipment. Signy scratched the itchy spot beside her left eye and turned on the rig.
* * *
A rain forest. Not the rain forest, but a forest fantasy out of Green Mansions, where birds that might have been macaws or parrots preened their psychedelic wings and screamed, discreetly, like women making love.
Pilar had recorded those screams and never said where they came from, dastardly girl.
Mists obscured and then revealed delicate traceries of leaves that massed like clouds. The setting promised utter privacy. It smelled of exotic flowers, and brown rivers, and rut. All of the flowers were white, granular white.
