For practical purposes, they looked ordinary enough.
He put the glove back on, pulled his cloak around his left shoulder, then his right and, at last able to use both hands, adjusted the head-mask.
His cheeks were still warm. On both, he knew, would be mottled, red blotches, just beginning to fade.
In the cafeteria, he was sitting at a just-plain-eating booth, pinching at the folds of a half-collapsed coffee bulb, when, glancing up, he saw Audri with her tray. “Hi, there,” she said and slid in across from him. “Ah ... !” She put her head, half masked on the left (clean and bright as a silver egg with an eye), against the padded back. “This has been a day!”
Bron grunted.
“My feelings exactly!” Silver covered the left side of Audri’s neck, her shoulder, one breast, down (below the tabletop now) over one hip, in a tight plastic skin that would have been quite svelte on anyone with less corners than Audri.
Bron reached up, lifted off his head covering, placed it on the wooden (an artificial cellular fiber indistinguishable from wood on any but micro graphic level) table, and looked at the puddle of dark veils, the shaded eye-holes, the black sequins that damasked the whole basketball-like affair. “Sorry about that transfer this morning. I hope she didn’t give you as much trouble about it as she gave me.”
Audri shrugged. “Yeah ... well, you know—I told her you weren’t the type to change your mind about something like that. It has happened before. She sighed, picked up something long and dark and sprinkled with nuts, looked at it disapprovingly. “She said that there might be extenuating circumstances, though, and she wanted to talk to you. I tried to suggest as politely as possible that she might as well not bother. But, finally, I couldn’t very well say no. I felt sorry for her, you know? She’s been shuttled all over the whole hegemony and it really wasn’t her fault. It’s just the general confusion.”
Bron grunted again. “I didn’t know this would be her last chance. It never occurred to me she was going to be out of a job entirely.”
Audri grunted back. “That’s why I asked you to see if you couldn’t do something with her when I brought her in.”
“Oh. Well, yeah ...” Had Audri made some special request of him about the girl? Bron frowned. He certainly didn’t remember it.
Audri sighed. “I held the green slip back until she’d come from talking with you about it—”
Bron looked up from the crumpled bulb. “You mean it wasn’t final?” He let the frown deepen. “I’d thought the whole thing was already a closed matter ... If I’d known that, maybe I would have ...” No, he wasn’t really lying. It hadn’t occurred to him that the slip had not been sent. “She should have told me.”
“Well—” Audri took a bite of the nut bar—“it’s sent now. Besides, everything’s so messed up right through here anyway with the situation between us and the worlds, I’m surprised we’re still here at all. Our accounts are all over the moons—even Luna. And what’s going to happen there? Everybody knows that they’re going to be a lot of people out of work soon, and nobody knows who. Who even knows what you and I’ll be doing in six months ...” She nodded knowingly. Then said: “Don’t worry, I’m not threatening you.”
“No, I didn’t think you were.” He smiled. “You’re not the threatening type.”
“True,” Audri said. “I’m not.”
“Hey,” Philip said above him, “when are we going to see some work on Day Star, huh? Audri sent you an assistant yesterday and you send her back today. Move over—”
“Hey, come on—!” Bron said.
Philip’s tray clattered down next to Audri’s. “Don’t worry, I don’t even want to sit next to you.” Philip, today in tight pants, bare-chested (very hairy), and small, gray, shoulder cape, fell into the seat next to Audri. “Has this ever been a day—! Hurry up and wait; wait because I’m in a hurry.” He frowned through his curly beard. “What was wrong with her?”
“Look,” Bron said to the burly little Philip, “when are you going to get me an assistant I can use? This one was into ... what was it? Cryogenics or something?” Bron really disliked Philip.
“Oh come on. You don’t need a trained assistant for that—” Philip’s fists (hairy as his chest) bunched on either side of his tray. “You know what I think—?” He looked down, considered, picked up something messy with his fingers, and ducked to catch it in his mouth before it fell apart—“I think he just doesn’t like dykes.” He nodded, chewing, toward Audri, sucking one finger after the other, loudly. “You know?”
“What do you mean?” Bron demanded. “I like Audri, and she’s ...” Then he felt ridiculous. By intentional tastelessness, Philip had maneuvered him into saying something unintentionally tasteless and was (no doubt) wracking up points, behind that congenial leer. Bron looked at Audri (whom he did like); she was twisting open the spout of a coffee bulb.
“With friends like you ...” Philip said, and nodded knowingly. “Look, we’re all at loose ends around here right now. It’s confusion from one side to the other.” Philip’s left nipple was very large. There was a bald ring around it. The hair follicles had been removed. The flesh over that pectoral was somewhat looser than that over the right. Periodically, when a new child was expected at Philip’s commune, out on the Ring, the breast would enlarge (three pills every lunch-time: two little white ones and one large red), and Philip would take off two or three days a week wet-leave. Bron had been out to the last Sovereignty Day blow-out—
“Look,” Philip said, sucking one thick finger then another (He was a head shorter than Bron), “I’m a very straightforward guy—you know that. I think it: I say it. If I say it, you know I’m not holding it against you—unless I say I am.”
“Well, I’m pretty straightforward too.” Bron ran his gloved thumb carefully over the last of the mashed lentils on his tray, put his thumb into his mouth, and pulled it, carefully, out. “At least about my emotions. I—”
One of the junior programmers, wearing a blue body-stocking with large, silver diamond-shapes, said, “Hi, Bron—” then realized a “discussion” was going on, ducked a diamond-eyed head, and hurried away.
“I didn’t like her,” Bron said. “She didn’t like me. That’s not a situation / can work in.”
“Yeah, yeah ...” Philip shoveled up more food. “The way the whole emotional atmosphere around here is getting with all this war scare, I’m surprised anybody can work, period.”
“Bron is one of your better workers, too.” Audri took another bite of the long thing with nuts. “So just get off his back, Phil.” (There were times his liking for Audri almost approached a sort of platonic love.)
“I’m off. I’m off. Hey, you’ve been at your new place practically six months now. Frozen in yet?”
“It’s okay,” Bron said. “No problems.”
“I thought that’s where you’d end up feeling most at home.” In one of those heart-to-hearts Philip was always initiating without your knowing it, back when Bron used to put up with them, Philip had actually given Bron the name of Serpent’s House. “I just had a feeling you might find things easier there. I’m glad you have. Other than the Day Star business—no, I haven’t forgotten it—” Phil waved a thick, hairy, wet forefinger—”/ certainly don’t have any complaints about your work. Don’t worry, we’ll get you an assistant. I told Audri, gay-male and normal or straight-female su-perwoman ... to which Audri said, I’ll have you know: ‘Well, he likes me!’” Philip laughed. “We’ll get you one; and with the proper training. That’s the kind you can relate to—speaking of gay males ...” Philip swallowed, his hand, on its hirsute forearm, dropped below the table; the forearm moved back and forth, and the hand emerged, somewhat drier. “Marny—you remember her from my commune, Marny? Small, dark—?” The other hand came up and together they described a near callipygous shape. (From the Sovereignty Day shindig Bron remembered her very well.) Philip nudged Audri, winked at Bron. “She’s the one who’s the ice-engineer—climbing up an
d down the cold-faces like something out of a damn ice-opera! The last two kids she had, I was the dad. Anyway, she’s going to have another one. And you’ll never guess who by—Danny!” He turned to Audri, then to Bron. “You remember Danny ... ?” Philip frowned. (Bron remembered Danny, and with some distaste.) Philip’s frown reversed. “Anyway, this is only the second kid he’s ever had in his life—and the first in this commune.” Philip’s fist fell to the table, relaxing—like a spilled sack of potatoes. “You know how important kids can be to gay guys—I mean, most of the time they think they’re just never going to have any, you know? Now I don’t care about kids. I got six of my own here and—
Lord, I must have kids all over the Solar System. Let’s see, three on lo, one on Ganymede, even one back on Luna, and a couple out on Neriad—” He frowned, suddenly. “You got kids, Bron? I mean, I know about Audri’s.”
“A couple,” Bron said. Back on Mars a woman had once announced to him she intended to get pregnant by him. In the first year of his emigration, a letter had even followed him out here, with a picture of a baby—a double-chinned infant suckling at a breast much larger than he remembered it. He had been singularly unmoved. “On Earth,” Bron added finally. Conception had taken place on Mars; but the letter had come from Earth.
“Mmmm,” Philip said, with a licensed sectarian’s discomfort at mention of things too far in the past. “I never had any on a world—anyway: I asked Danny if he was going to help nurse.” (Unlicensed sector people, Bron reflected, went on about the families they’d come from. Licensed sector people went on about the families they had. For all the latter’s commitment to the here and now, Bron sometimes found both equally objectionable.) “—I mean because Marny wants someone to switch off with. Anyway, you know what he told me? You know what he said? He’s worried about his figure!” Philip shook his head, then repeated: “Worried about his figurel Well, you know what that means for me.” His hand came up and made a suggestive curve before his looser pectoral; his heavily-lashed lids lowered as he regarded himself. “Two little white ones—”
“—and one big red one.” Audri laughed. “Well, congratulations to you all.”
“His figure!” Philip shook his head, smiled fondly. “I mean Danny’s part of my damn commune and I love him. I really do—but, sometimes, I wonder why.”
Bron decided to put his mask back on; but Philip suddenly pushed the red plastic button on his corner of the table.
Philip’s tray, with its smeared remains, shook, shivered, dissolved, and was sucked through the grid below: Whooooshl While it was Whoooshing, Philip rubbed his hands over the grid, first backs, then palms, and, satisfied, stood. The Whoooosh died. “Look, when I came over here, I figured I was interrupting a delicate situation. I thought it might need interrupting and took my chance. You know you got Audri pretty upset over getting that woman canned.” To Audri he said: “I want to talk to you about what we tell the Day Star Plus people about Day Star Minus when I have to explain to them why no metalogical reduction yet. And soon.” He turned to Bron: “And that’s an excuse for Audri to cut out on you if it gets too rough, understand? All open and aboveboard. And you—you want your chance to stomp my nuts? You get Day Star out of the way inside a month! I’ve been telling people for a week now there’s no way possible we can have it ready inside three. You finish it under that, and my face will be red all over four departments. See you both around.” He slipped from the table and lumbered (neither tall nor broad, just thick, Philip still gave the impression of lumbering everywhere) across the cafeteria.
Bron looked at Audri. The hair showing on the right of her head was a riot of green, gold, purple, and orange. The visible half of her face was set, sullen, and preoccupied.
“Hey,” Bron said, “were you really that bothered because I ... ?”
“Oh,” Audri said. “Well, yeah,” which were words they used frequently with one another, sometimes phatically, sometimes not.
“Well, if you’d—” The thought came obliquely, sat a moment on his mind’s rim, threatening to fall either in or out like an absurd Humpty Dumpty; then, suddenly, it didn’t seem absurd at all: “Hey, did you see Miriamne later, yesterday? I mean you didn’t go meet her somewhere after work ... ?”
Audri’s eyes came back to his from somewhere behind him. “No. Why? I never saw her before Personnel sent her down yesterday morning.”
“Oh, because for a moment I ...” Bron frowned; suddenly he picked up the veiled and sequined head—
covering and put it on. With the thought had come the sudden recollection of exactly when (in the gray, canyon-like alley leading to u-1!) and why (that fanciful, unfounded relation between Miriamne and the Spike!) he had decided on Miriamne’s transfer. Now it seemed ridiculous, cruel (he did like Audri), and self-centered. If he could have, he would have kept her on now. But the green slip—“I don’t suppose she’s still ...” His voice was hollowed by the dark shell.
“Mmmm?” Audri said, sipping; his own bubble rattled loudly, collapsed completely. If the thought had been a world, the one that came with it, circling it like a satellite, was: Miriamne was the Spike’s friend. Some version of all this would in all likelihood get back to her. What would she think? “Audri?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
“What am I like? I mean, what do you think of me ... ? If you had to describe me to somebody else, how would vou do it?”
“Honest?”
He nodded.
“I’d say you were a very ordinary—or special, depending on how you look at it—combination of well-intentioned and emotionally lazy, perhaps a little too self-centered for some people’s liking. But you also have an awful lot of talent at your job. Maybe the rest are just the necessary personality bugs that go along.”
“Would you say I was a louse ... but maybe a louse who was—never mind. Just a louse.”
Audri laughed. “Oh, perhaps an off-Thursdays—or on every second Tuesday of the month—some version of that thought flickers through my addled brain—”
“Yeah.” Bron nodded. “You know, that’s the third time in three days someone’s called me that.”
“A louse?” Audri raised one multicolored eyebrow (and lowered one silver one). “Well, Ym certainly not one of the ones who did—”
“You mean Philip, sometime earlier today, he ... ?”
Both Audri’s eyebrows lowered now. “No, doll. You did—just now.”
“Oh,” Bron said. “Well, yeah.”
Back in his office, Bron sat and ruminated and flung more collapsed coffee bulbs into the corner heap.
They don’t understand, he thought; then thought it over. Philip and Audri and Sam and Miriamne and Lawrence—even Danny (whom he remembered) and Marny (whom he remembered with some affection) didn’t understand. And Alfred probably understood least of all—though from another point of view, Alfred probably understood the best; that is, Alfred certainly didn’t understand him—Bron—but Alfred certainly understood by first-hand experience the feeling of having nobody understand you; and—Bron could allow himself the self-flagellation—in a way Alfred’s particular type of nonthinking was probably pretty close to his own. Yes, Alfred understood by experience, even if he had no articulate awareness of that experience as a possible point of agony for any other human being but himself. And didn’t (Bron was still thinking, five minutes after closing as he walked, with rustling sleeves and cloak, out of the lobby and onto the Plaza) Alfred’s complete refusal to offer anyone else any interpretation—speculative, appeasing, damning, or helpful—of their own psychological state represent a kind of respect, or at least a behavior that was indistinguishable from it? Alfred just assumed (but then, didn’t everybody assume, till you gave them cause to do otherwise) that you knew what you were about .. •
Miriamne!
And Alfred’s drawn, adolescent face was blotted out He’d wanted to start an affair with her! She was his type. And now his own, involved, counterespionage against himself had lost her a jo
b. His own responses that he should have used as flexible parameters he had taken as rigid, fixed perimeters.
Miriamne!
Of course she didn’t understand either.
Poor Miriamne!
How could she know the how or the why behind any of what had happened to her?
Suffering the wound of having wounded, he thought:
Help me. He made his way through the crowded Plaza. The upper edge of the eyeholes completely cut away the sensory shield with a darkness complete as the u-l’s roof. Swathed and black, he made his way across the bustling concourse, thinking: Somebody help me ...
Just like Alfred (he thought), alone in his room, his nosebleed already diagnosed, Sam and the others gone, wishing desperately, now that the catastrophe had abated, that someone, anyone, would stop by and say hello.
Bron’s jaw tightened.
The mask slipped further down, so that—the thought came brutally as pain, and, with it, he swung his cloak across his shoulder and hurried on—had anyone tried to meet his eyes, with gaze friendly, provocative, hostile, or indifferent, he would not have been able to tell, since all but the very shortest in the crowd were now, muzzily, decapitated.
But if you want help that badly (bitterly he ground his teeth as someone brushed his shoulder; he jerked away, knocking into someone else’s) and you still can’t get it, the only thing to take your mind off the need is to help someone else:—which revelation, since it was one of the rare times he’d ever had it, brought him up short in the middle of the Plaza.
He stood, blinking: two people in succession bumped his left shoulder; one person stumbled against his right. When he stumbled, someone else hit him on the rebound and said: “Hey, watch, will you? Where do you think you are?”
And he still stood, still blinking, in the half-veiled dark.
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