Whiteout

by Sage Walker

  “It’s difficult to explain.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Janine shifted on her feet and crossed her arms over her chest. She did not invite Kazi to sit down. In the lenses of his sunglasses, she saw twin reflections of her face. Her topknot was standing straight up, and Kazi seemed to be focusing on that and nothing else.

  This is me. This is how I look when I’m hurting, Janine wanted to say, and didn’t.

  “There has been much I have not been free to tell you,” Kazi said.

  “Tell me now. I don’t want any more surprises. Throw me one more curve and I’ll be out of here on the next flight.”

  “We learned—the morning of the opening session, only then, I promise you—that the Arab states plan to support the ban. Their votes should insure that it passes. But they oppose a new Japanese-Israeli project in Ethiopia. We’re are working there on a project, a project that has not yet been publicly announced. Tanaka will provide the tech for vat biomass production, a joint venture for us with the Israelis and with a U.S. company, Pacific Biosystems. If Japan votes for the ban, the Arabs will vote against it.”

  “They can’t be that naive. You can’t be that naive.”

  “We think it will work.”

  “You’re crazy. You could have told me,” Janine said. Stepping from side to side, so that she could watch her twin reflections move back and forth in Kazi’s stupid mirrorshades.

  “We had no time. And there were listeners.”

  “You are sure we aren’t bugged right now?”

  “No. But I am telling you everything I know. As fast as you will let me. You are important to me, more important than the risk of losing this vote.” Kazi looked worried. He looked like he meant what he said.

  “It’s too late for us to change anything,” Janine said. “You know that. My people … are distracted.”

  Make that nonfunctional. Make that: My people are gone, destroyed, off-line, and in several major ways, nonexistent. Unless they get their act back together in a hurry—

  “It’s primitive, this gamble of yours,” Janine said. “We might have helped you, run some projections to see if this childish gambit has a chance of flying.”

  And Jared is dead. Killed by what seems to have been a childish gambit.

  “You’ve killed one of us, remember?” Janine turned her back on Kazi and walked to the blank, blank screen at the desk. “You let it happen. That was an error, Kazuyuki Itano. That was a fucking error. For all you know, we’ve spent the last two days altering the parameters on every bit of virtual you’ve paid for, in ways too subtle for you to figure out. Think about it.”

  Janine sat down and slapped at her notebook. It responded with random flashes of light. She lifted her hands away. Behind her, she heard a rustle of silk, a thud.

  Janine spun around in her chair and found Kazi kneeling at her feet, his hands clasped. He looked like a Victorian suitor about to propose marriage.

  “What?” Janine tried not to smile. “What the hell?”

  “Janine. Janine, I think you have not done this.”

  “I haven’t. Yet.”

  “Listen to me. There is something behind what we are doing, something you should know. The fishing ban means so little compared to this. I have been honest when I told you we have little concern for it. We want something else from Antarctica.”

  “Not fish?”

  “Janine, we want the ice. We want to harvest the ice. You see, if we lose the ban proposal, we can accept a modification, with good grace, of the minerals provisions in the treaty. A modification that will seem to be only theoretical, you see? Ninety percent of the Earth’s fresh water is frozen in Antarctica. Pure and cold, and great chunks of it are calved from the glaciers every year and wasted. It’s impossible to harvest, people think. The difficulties—are enormous. But the need is great.”

  “You want to harvest icebergs?”

  Kazi bowed his head over his clasped hands, a Buddhist monk in tailored silk.

  “I think you mean it,” Janine said.

  “We do.”

  Ho, damn, when Pilar heard about this one …

  Kazi meant it. God, the engineering it would take.

  Signy? Paul? Janine looked behind her at the notebook’s blank, blank screen.

  “Kazi?”

  “Yes?” He was still on his knees.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No.”

  “You should be.” Janine tapped room service and ordered champagne. “Come and sit on the bed. Come tell me all about this, would you?”

  * * *

  All day, the air lay gray and heavy around the Taos house, velvet quiet. Banks of cloud moved in from the west, with no wind to drive them. Signy sprawled on the big bed, watching Paul, who sometimes slept and sometimes did not. Paul would wake near dusk, when the storm came.

  Signy drowsed beside him, not touching him, and she idly listed what food was in the house—likely the storm would pass with only a foot or so of snow, but sometimes a big one rolled up out of Baja and left drifts that lasted for days—plenty in the freezer, and tea and coffee, enough, yes. There was nothing fresh, but Signy doubted Paul would notice.

  When Paul stretched and woke, Signy was ready for him, ready with an idle distraction that had crossed her mind while she drifted, drifted, in and out of dazed, calm, numb daytime sleep.

  Quick, quick, padding lightfooted across the chilly floors, Signy found a sequence and sent it to Paul just as he sat down at Jared’s console.

  —the coughing sounds of the engine, the helo slewing sideways into the sea, the world going tilt. Signy added a pastiche of San-Li’s words and her own sleepy conversation with Alan, set them to loop.

  “I have sent a recording of the events of the crash to Kobe.” San-Li, her precise soprano voice.

  Alan’s Southwestern drawl: “It’s a shame that chopper went down when it did.”

  * * *

  Paul shook his goggled head.

  “Find all the little parts. Piece them together,” Signy whispered. “San-Li killed Jared. Get her, Paul.”

  Paul didn’t answer, lost, his fingers searching, bringing up screens.

  Signy brought tea to him and put it down near his left hand, where he could reach it if he would.

  Janine waited, still, for some support, some direction, poor baby. Signy found the Lisbon screens dark, set to transmit only audio, to accept only messages from Edges.

  —In the dark hotel room, Janine giggled. The deep baritone of Kazi’s voice said something Japanese or incoherent, or both.

  Seattle showed this message:

  [Jimmy] I’ll bring her.

  The Seattle house was closed, quiet, shut down.

  Signy called up the Tokyo market reports, set them running in a sidebar, and sent them to Paul’s screen.

  “Thanks,” Paul said.

  Just as if he were going to look at them. Signy grinned to herself, all cheered up as if the worst were over, and she didn’t think it was. Get Paul healed, and then she could die. Signy got up and walked around, pacing the house in a habitual way, watching the evening. Outside, snow began to fall, solid and flakily determined.

  This looked like an all-night storm. Signy wondered when Jimmy and Pilar would get to Taos. She wondered if Jimmy could really convince Pilar to make the trip.

  * * *

  “This could be quite a storm,” Jared said. He stood beside Signy at the window.

  “How did you get here so quietly?” Signy asked.

  Jared looked down at the wool socks on his feet.

  “I see.” Signy twitched the corner of her left eye, to signal her headset to give her back real-time vision. Jared vanished. The snow-streaked window began to swirl with colors, Signy’s headset confused by the signals her salt tears left, running down her cheeks.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Before she pulled Kazi into bed, Janine set her console to tell any callers to keep quiet, do not disturb. The silence at home disgusted h
er. Signy was back in Taos, she knew that much, and the Seattle house was locked tight and empty. The console saved Kazi’s chatter; Janine planned to get him talking.

  Janine pushed Kazi’s hands away from her breasts. “You have to promise me you’ll do something about San-Li.”

  Kazi rolled onto his back and locked his hands behind his head. “You believe she killed your friend.”

  “Even if she didn’t. Convince me you had nothing to do with it.”

  “Convince you?”

  Naked, both of them, in some ways vulnerable. And Kazi’s guards, if they waited in the hall, might not get to him in time if Janine did something violent and swift. She wished, sort of, that she had thought in advance about something she could do.

  “Let me try.” Kazi blinked at the ceiling. “You must find your own answers to your questions, I think. You will look at every record available, or your friends will. I do not have any information that says San-Li damaged the helicopter that crashed.”

  “What if we find out that she did? What will happen to San-Li?”

  Kazi reached for Janine’s hand, very hesitant in the way he moved. “Nothing good,” Kazi whispered.

  They nuzzled for a while, and began to talk—of ice, and engineers, and Kazi’s weekend work. Janine found herself intrigued, awakened, by the gonzo energy of Tanaka’s plans for the ice. Beautiful, crazy plans. The hell with home.

  Kazi talked, under the stimulus of Janine’s questions, until he was hoarse.

  Janine was rough with him, demanding and directive, while they made love. Kazi liked that. So did she. Janine didn’t let him rest, not until she was tired herself. They talked until they fell asleep.

  * * *

  When morning was upon them, Janine ordered coffee and juices brought to her room. Across the tiny table, Kazi sat rumpled in his shirt, taking his coffee with tiny, whispering sips.

  “When you come to Kobe,” Kazi said, “I will find a nice apartment for you.”

  “What do you mean, when I come to Kobe?”

  “You must. You can continue your work with your company after this treaty is settled, of course. But you can do that in virtual. And I will be very attentive. We have many holidays, you know.”

  “Yes. Where will you be living, while I’m waiting for your holidays?”

  “In my own house. It is a very nice house.”

  “Of course.”

  Janine steered the conversation back to the ice. Kazi didn’t seem to notice.

  Alone in the shower, after Kazi had gone to his room to change for the day’s work, it occurred to Janine that someone might be awake in Taos. Wet and dripping, she checked the console. Signy had called in, but she’d left no message. Janine was running late.

  [Janine] NEWS. DAMN IT, I HAVE NEWS.

  Janine sent the message to Taos and left it flashing while she got her makeup on. Her eyes looked more tired than she felt. Kazi knocked at her door, to escort her to the day’s work.

  In the wan Lisbon morning, light from narrow windows cut slanting stripes across the dull florals of the carpets as they walked toward the conference hall. Kazi’s twin guards appeared in the hallway and followed them at a discreet but obvious distance. On duty, Monday morning, they looked sleek, efficient, and quietly pleased, as if they knew the boss had enjoyed his night with the gaijin woman. Perhaps they figured Kazi would be calm, and their day would go well.

  Janine felt Kazi stiffen and looked up to see Señor Abeyta, the delegate from Chile, approaching with definite plans for eye contact and an agenda on his face.

  The language of diplomacy suddenly appalled Janine, the pirouettes and sidesteps, the dance itself. It was only money. Money, an abstract, drove real forces of hunger and starvation and death, forces that these two idiots wanted to discuss so delicately. In their own terms. Of course. It was time to change a few rules around here. As Pilar would say, let’s fucking cut to the chase.

  Janine stepped in front of Kazi, between him and the diplomat from Chile.

  “Good morning, Mr. Abeyta.”

  Abeyta drew back slightly. He hadn’t expected a subordinate to be the initiator of this conversation. Good. “You planned to use the sinking of the Noche Blanca as a lever to keep Tanaka quiet about your rather lax reporting of the tonnage you’ve been pulling out of the water. Tanaka planned to cooperate, because they’ve been a little lax themselves. Between you, you could have traded off damage for damage, and kept the whole thing quiet.

  “But the Sirena went down and the Skylochori woman gave the straight story to anyone who’s here. So you’re both looking pretty dumb.”

  Abeyta opened his mouth to reply but Janine didn’t give him time.

  “Whether or not this ban goes through, there are going to be spy-eyes all over the Southern Ocean from now on. So if you’re still fishing, you’re going to have to behave when you do.”

  “Janine!” Kazi growled her name, a warning. Kazi Itano stood as rigid as a tin soldier, and his lips did not move.

  “Remain calm, Kazi.” Janine smiled at Señor Abeyta. “My friend Itano, here, has an offer for you. If you help the ban get into operation, you get aquaculture tech and loans. You can get quite a few tubes of anchovy paste out of vat cultures, and Tanaka’s wizards can show you how to do it. That way you both come out all right. Or you can fish for what’s left, both of you. And you know the bucket’s almost empty. Think about it.”

  Abeyta looked tempted. “But—”

  “But this isn’t how it’s done. I know. Chile, do we have a deal?”

  “I…”

  “Work it out with Kazi,” Janine said. And walked on down the hall, leaving them staring after her. The stripes of light from the windows cut across their startled faces, shadows of bars on a cage.

  * * *

  In the great hall, Alan Campbell paced back and forth behind Janine’s chair, waiting. Alan was a reminder, sudden and unexpected, of cold and terror and inexplicable death. And he was supposed to be in Antarctica, not here. Janine really thought someone might have told her. Damn.

  “Good morning,” Alan said.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Janine asked.

  “Didn’t anyone say?”

  “Nobody’s saying a goddamned thing. Nobody!”

  “Then there’s probably a lot to talk about. Want some coffee?”

  “Uh—I just had some.”

  “Watch me drink mine, then?”

  “I should…”

  “Nothing’s going to be happening on that stage for a few hours. Come with me, Janine.”

  Janine wasn’t sure how Alan did it, but he got her turned for the door. Alan offered his elbow for her to hold, as if she were very old, or very young. Alan nodded to Kazi, who was coming down the steps in a rush. Behind Kazi’s shoulder, the Tanaka security guards chattered out the morning’s store of information. They watched the crowd as they talked, their alert eyes marking them for what they were in spite of the camouflage of their discreet business suits.

  Kazi, looking startled, bowed to Alan.

  * * *

  There were tasks, social tasks. Signy didn’t have to do them, didn’t have to act as if things were in any way, shape, or form anywhere near normal. But she found herself staring at the list of messages that had made their way to the house. If she weren’t so numb, she might have screamed to all of the waiting world to fuck off, leave us alone, get lost. She might have screamed, “Hate me, for God’s sake! I killed him!”

  No, that would be mean. Act as if decency exists, Signy told herself. Don’t be mean.

  There were messages in the house files from people Signy didn’t know, people she vaguely knew. Signy fiddled with the phrasing on a recorded message that would respond to condolence calls, and then tagged them all with a bland, generic “Thank you. Jared’s friends deeply appreciate your concern.”

  Unviewed, Signy filed the calls away. Later, later, she would try to get up the strength to talk to the ones who mattered—to her? No, that
would be too selfish. The ones who mattered to Jared, but not yet, not just yet.

  We have no rituals for this, Signy realized. No set tribal ceremonies to mark a passage; our lack of procedural certainties is part of our determination not to follow our parents’ ways of dealing with life. We are not a part of any tradition but our own; we carry little scraps of societal courtesies that we have hauled along with us from our childhoods, things like thankyous and table manners. The rest of our rituals have come from business codes, ways to get jobs done.

  There was a poverty in it. If Signy were to light candles, turn mirrors to the wall, or set a vigil by an empty coffin and sing and tell stories, she would feel like a liar. Fasting, ashes, black crepe? How ridiculous. But they had been real symbols, once.

  One call had to be made. Signy phrased the message in her mind, and called Mark.

  —The Ottowa address gave her a background of a plain-Jane office; Signy thought manufacturing, or shipping or some such. It was late, well after office hours. Signy hoped to get an answering machine, but Mark, in a plaid flannel shirt, looked up at her from behind a battered wooden desk. His face was like and unlike Jared’s. A little brother’s face, so young.

  “Mark?” Signy asked.

  “Hello, Signy.” Jared’s eyes were like his. “What’s wrong?”

  There was no way to say this, no words that would ever be right. “Jared’s dead. Drowned, in a helicopter crash in the sea off Antarctica. There’s no way to recover the body. I’m sorry.”

  Pain and confusion and anger were what Signy read in Mark’s face, the anger extrapolated from what she knew of Jared’s facial muscles, a subtle change in the muscles of the jaw.

  “I see.” And then Mark’s face showed concern, concern for her. “This must be terrible for you. Is there anything I can do to help you? Anything you need?”

  “No,” Signy said. Jared’s brother, yeah.

  “I’ll take care of things here. There are some papers, and things. In some ways, this will make things simpler for Kelan.”

  “Kelan?”

  “Jared’s daughter.”

  Oh, Lord.

  “I didn’t know he had a daughter,” Signy said.