He cut down to taxi and rolled up close to the waiting group of staffers. Jael’s flier was out on the strip, being washed and tuned up. Two more Saunder aircraft sat on the auxiliary strips, apparently being readied for trips to the mainland or to other islands. Dark shapes inside the hangar were surrounded by large piles of tools and equipment. Todd wondered what sort of repairs would necessitate that much hardware.
He closed the comp log and cued the door. Softly, the ports swung open wide like unfolding wings, and steps with safety handrails untelescoped from the flier’s side. Staffers were already back by the cargo bay, ready to start unloading when Todd released the seal. A maintenance tram was maneuvering at the ship’s nose, hooking up to tow her in close to the hangars for checking over and refueling. A couple of fringed-canopy tray-carts waited nearby. Staff were already loading the second one with the baggage.
Despite the handrails, eager hands reached up to steady Dian and Mari and Todd as they climbed down the steps. Todd politely shrugged off an attempt to take the holo-mode case from him. He arched his back, stretching, drawing a deep breath. The atmosphere at Saunderhome always seemed cleaner and more invigorating than air anywhere else on the planet. Perhaps it was boyhood impression, deeply ingrained. Whenever they had flown to Saunderhome during those bad years, it was an escape from pandemic, conflagration, the rat population explosion, and all variety of disasters. The landings here on the island brought freedom, a sense of having been let loose from prison—or from a death sentence.
A stocky black man separated himself from the other bustling staffers and hurried toward them. Todd noticed a slight hesitation in his gait. The man’s face was whole, a masterpiece of electro-stimulus healing and surgical reconstruction, a lot of that. He was smiling at them, his broad dark face split in a wide grin.
Roy Paige. Alive. And yet Todd saw him half dead, memories ruthlessly thrusting him eleven years into the past. Reminders, appropriate to the reason for this family reunion. Roy Paige was the last person to see Ward Saunder alive, before the waves had closed over him forever.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ooooooooo
Homecoming
“Hi, there!” Paige called to them. “Good flight?”
“Fine! Smooth as—” Todd broke off, realizing the older man wasn’t listening. He was looking past Todd, at Mariette. Todd moved aside as the two of them moved toward each other, embracing warmly. When the emotional moment eased up, he said, “Dian, this is Roy Paige, an old friend, a very good friend. Roy, Dian Foix.”
Paige let go of Mariette and offered his hand. “I’m very proud to meet you, Dr. Foix. I mean that sincerely.”
Dian didn’t look down at the myoelectrically operated fingers gripping hers. She reacted to the warm yet lifeless touch very nicely. Todd had seen people recoil involuntarily from contact with Roy’s prosthesis, even though the limb was a superb copy of a human arm and hand.
“I’m honored to meet you, too, Mr. Paige. Read about your work with Ward Saunder. One article said you taught him everything he knew.” A lilt was creeping into Dian’s voice. She was beginning to drop certain sounds and slur others, recognizing a fellow United Ghetto States expatriate.
Paige, too, slipped into former inflections. “That’d be a brother’s article. Didn’t hardly happen that way. The boss taught me. Wish I’d been smart enough to take it all in. Heard ‘bout you. I ‘member your grandmother. Immortal lady. Im-mort-al. You take after her. I see you been workin’ on this one,” he said slyly, jerking a thumb in Todd’s direction. “Long overdue for shapin’ up. You’ll make him straighten out and fly level. Glad he’s finally gettin’ some taste in his women . . .”
“You say that ‘bout all the ComLink women you meet?” Dian said, enjoying the flattery but not swallowing it. Mariette was smirking at them both. So was Todd.
“Huh! I would if he’d bring ‘em to Saunderhome. First chance I’ve had to look you over.” Paige waved at the lead tray-cart. “Got orders to hustle you on over to the main island before it gets too hot. Shall we go?”
Mari and Roy Paige led the way, Todd and Dian a few paces behind. Todd watched his sister and Roy, countless similar scenes replaying in his mind. Mariette was taller than the black man now. But there was a time when she had skipped along by his knee, her tiny hand hidden in his big brown one. After the accident, Mari was the one who made the quickest adjustment to Roy’s prostheses. Then, as now, she would slow her long stride to allow for his occasionally hesitant steps. He barely limped at all, but there were limits to what medicine could do. The teasing, uncle-and-niece relationship remained as warm as ever.
Dian slid across the narrow tray-cart seat to make room, and Todd climbed in beside her. Mariette sat up front with Roy. The canopy fringe waved in a warm breeze as they rolled away from the airstrip, taking the paved path leading toward the mansion. Glass and metal reflected sunlight dazzlingly, and the sea and the waters inside the reefs shimmered and sparkled. Todd was forced to squint against the glare despite the tinted lenses he was wearing. The tray-cart rode silently over a little rise, snaking between a row of tall palms. Ahead, beyond the bridge, Saunderhome loomed like a fairy castle transported to the tropics.
Dian snuggled close to him. “It’s beautiful. And the air’s so clean!” Todd smiled contentedly, his arm about her, the precious case riding securely at his feet. “That’s a lot of sunlight,” Dian added thoughtfully. “With the eroded ozone and this heavy solar input . . .”
“Saunderhome has its own medical facility,” Todd said, amused by her concern. “It passes out sunscreen with breakfast every day. No problems.”
“Well, that’s good. I mean, Roy and us other properly skinned folks are okay, but I wouldn’t want you to get UV-scorched, lover.”
Dian made it sound like a joke, but Todd wished she hadn’t brought the matter up. Ozone erosion. Another marvelous goody left over from some of the turn-of-the-century wars. It was one of the details Goddard Colony’s planetside political supporters kept bringing up in their orations—hammering home how mankind had nearly wrecked its planet and made it unsafe for life. Earth First countered by promising to salvage Earth and not repeat past mistakes. After all, humanity had coped with the ozone depletion with human ingenuity and modern pharmaceuticals.
And the debate went on.
Todd noticed several men walking along the inner reef near the bridge. Not regular staffers, but they didn’t look like Saunderhome’s sort of outside visitors, either. They weren’t in uniform and he saw no guns. Yet he knew they were security guards. They displayed the ever-on-the-alert manner and posture that went with the breed. Saunderhorne hadn’t needed armed security guards on patrol like this since the early Thirties, when the Chaos started easing off. Why was it necessary now?
The trav-cart rolled out onto a gridded metal span, rising up over the pellucid waters girdling the main island. The bridge looked fragile, but Todd had read the design specs and knew the structure could last out a hurricane. Indeed, it already had survived several such and countless tropical storms. Dian leaned over and peered at the fish darting among the water plants below. “I can count the pebbles down there,” she marveled. “I didn’t think planet-side water could be this pure any more.”
“Most of it isn’t,” Todd said. “This wouldn’t be, either, but it’s a small area, and we’ve got a good filtration barrier on the outer reefs. Self-contained throughout, that’s the family’s humble home.”
“Your daddy built a hell of a place. And no patent fees to pay,” Dian baited him. Todd, too busy enjoying the familiar scenery, wouldn’t rise to the lure.
The house and hill bulked too large to see fully now. The trav-cart drove off the bridge onto the beltway path at the water’s edge and turned left. Roy followed the curving pavement north for fifty meters, then angled sharply, starting up the hill toward the mansion. Foliage grew close to the pavement. Bamboo canes waved in the easterlies. A riot of tropical flowers filled the air with fragrance. Palms
cast welcome shade. Fronds and trailing vines had been trimmed back so that the lane was free. Yet the effect was one of riding through a jungle. The air became heavy with the smells of damp earth and bark. Todd showed Dian that the mossy, vine-laced rocky hillside directly ahead of them was only partly natural. A large door was cleverly designed to blend in with the existing landscape. As Dian admired it, Todd noted that sections of the main house which had formerly been open to view were now also hidden behind rocky camouflage. Again he wondered why. Had these changes been taking place for months and he had simply overlooked them, or were the alterations new, like the security guards?
The door opened at their approach and Roy Paige drove inside. Artificial lighting replaced the Sun’s radiance, and Todd’s lenses adjusted rapidly to accommodate the shift. Dian looked up at the massive door as they passed underneath. Todd explained, before she could ask, that the reinforced door was part of Saunderhome’s elaborate hurricane protection system. The place could be buttoned up tightly in a matter of minutes, shutters and doors locking into place against the terrible winds and rains. In fact, from the appearance of the main house, Todd judged Saunderhome could be sealed even more thoroughly than it ever had been, sufficient to bury the place until a hurricane passed . . . or till it rode out a hostile aerial assault?
The lowest level of the house was a combination receivables warehouse, storage facility, and parking garage for tray-carts. Paige didn’t go far into the cavernous stone-walled expanse. He parked in one of several slots beside a bank of elevators. The other tray-cart was nearby, already empty. By now the luggage had probably been delivered to the travelers’ suites.
They took the elevator up two levels and exited into an expensively decorated foyer. Two doors opened off that. Staffers, having finished putting the luggage in the rooms, were returning to the garage level. Roy made them wait until he could double-check the suites to be sure the job had been done right, then dismissed them. As they disappeared into one of the elevators, Roy also checked the service monitors in the hall. Apparently satisfied, he gave Mariette a parting embrace. “I’ll tell Jael you’re here. It’s good to have you back, little Mari. Good to meet you, Dr. Foix. And you, behave yourself,” he warned Todd, his grin spoiling the lecture. He backed into the waiting elevator and left them alone.
Mari tapped her toe. “As if Jael hasn’t had a running progress report on us all the way down from orbit.” She looked at her feet and scuffed the edge of her boot across the carpeting. “This is new, isn’t it? Lovely. Silicate. At least she doesn’t refuse to buy an occasional Goddard product.”
“Don’t start,” Todd pleaded.
“Not if I don’t have to. Not if she and Pat don’t make me. Oh, why couldn’t they have left things the way they were?” Mariette cried suddenly. She swung around and trotted across the foyer to her suite. The door wasn’t built for slamming, but somehow she cued it with enough firmness to communicate her irritation.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for more of her moods,” Todd said wearily.
“What set her off this time?”
“It’s safer not to ask. Maybe it was the long ride down from Goddard. Come on.” He touched Dian’s elbow lightly and escorted her into his own suite.
The luggage was sitting on courtesy racks, awaiting their convenience. Closets, elegant furnishings, well-stocked dispenser, spanking clean refresher units—everything polished, neat, and the very best. The drapes at the outside window-wall had been opened partway. Dian strolled over and looked out. “Fancy view, to put it mildly.”
Todd set the holo-mode case on the bed and thrust his hands deep in his pockets. “Yes. Beautiful. Everything at Saunderhome’s beautiful, more so than it used to be. That’s one good thing about this new wing—the view. I used to have to climb up top to the weather tower to get this kind of panorama. Dad and I spent a lot of hours up there, making com test runs and playing with his new scanners. He perfected at least twenty patents in that tower. The view from there looks different—in clear, as you might say.”
The window-wall was tinted according to the latest medical recommendations to protect eyesight and skin. The suite overlooked a steep slope blanketed with vegetation. Below, a cabana opened onto a private, fenced beach. Absently, Todd explained that there was a direct-access elevator off the refresher, should Dian want to swim. Beyond the sand and the inner waterways and reefs, the Caribbean stretched to a misty, cloudless horizon. Surf chopped at the rocks bordering the perimeter. Todd couldn’t quite make out the camouflaged bunkers on that defense line. Gulls wheeled above the little supply boats heading for the outer islands. In the far distance to the north, a blackness past the blue-green waters marked the beginnings of the Puerto Rican Trench.
“That’s almost the bottom of the Atlantic,” Todd said, indicating the area.
“I know. Deep waters. Very deep. As you said, it’s a big drop down from Goddard and Geosynch.” Dian cocked her head. “The haunts of the very rich. I used to dream about things like this. Saw it on vid dramas, but never believed anyone really lived this way. All this posh. All this money. And a view a vid producer would kill for to get in his next romantic production. All this . . . and you don’t like it.”
“Not the way it is now. I guess I don’t, no. Mari was griping for both of us. Jael’s changing things, maybe to keep up with the enlarging Saunder image and Pat’s advancing career. But this isn’t what Mari and I think of when we remember Saunderhome. That’s gone. The original house was where that garage is now. A roomy place, protected from hurricanes, safe and cozy. Jael always hated it, though. Said it made her feel like a mole. What she really meant was, it wasn’t grand and sprawling and impressive. She started adding on even before Dad died, so the V.I.P.’s would be impressed. But, dammit, we were a real family when Saunderhome was less pretentious. When we were less pretentious.”
Dian let him ramble, holding him, staring out at the magnificent land and seascape.
“I’ve been coming back here less and less often of late,” Todd said wistfully. “Especially since Jael built these new wings. This suite’s been here five years. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. But I’m not. I never felt comfortable. Maybe it lacked something. You, I realize now. This time maybe things will feel right, just as they do at my place in New Washington or North L.A. or Bonn or Bangkok. Well, we won’t have much to spend in any one place, for a while. Lots of things about to happen . . .”
The alien messenger. He held back, not saying that, not sure why. He had almost whispered his last sentence, hinting at the revelation, as if he were afraid of eavesdroppers.
Idiocy. It wasn’t going to be a secret any more, not after tonight. Ward’s birthday anniversary—the perfect time to tell them, especially if one believed in the survival of the soul, of Ward’s soul. If he were watching tonight, he would be proud of them.
And yet . . .
Todd wanted to hurry the clock forward. And he wanted to stop it, turn it backward through the years. The once-in-a-lifetime announcement could only happen once. Once in his lifetime, and once in humanity’s lifetime. Part of Todd wanted to be a kid again, able to ask Ward’s advice, taking that strong guidance, letting Ward drop bombshells on the world consciousness with his inventive breakthroughs in a dozen scientific fields. But Ward was dead. It was up to his son to carry on the tradition.
One hell of a bombshell, Dad. Like nothing we’ve encountered, ever.
The page monitor chimed pleasantly, followed by Jael’s filtered voice. “May I come in, Todd?”
“Of course, Mother!” Todd fought an aberrant impulse to move away from Dian. Foolish. He wasn’t a kid, smuggling a girl up to his room. What had made him react that way? Jael had never been one of those reactionary neo-moralists, even if her own life style had been rigidly monogamous.
Nonetheless, he put his hands elsewhere, and Dian stepped back on her own volition. Jael didn’t hurry into the room. There were times when it was necessary for her to rush, but even then
she created the impression she was strolling elegantly. Old-money upbringing and upper-class manners. She had never let go of those. Surplus kilos hadn’t diminished the former society belle’s grace. Todd bent his head and met her kiss, her small, plump hands touching his face and shoulders.
“Let me see you,” she said, looking him over maternally.
“Mother, it’s only been a few weeks, for God’s sake. You act as if I’ve been in prison for twenty years.”
Jael ignored his embarrassed protests. “You’re too pale. Don’t you use med lamps in those space stations of yours? There’s such a thing as too little ultraviolet.”
“Satellites, not space stations.”
“He says he gets busy and forgets his turn at the health and fitness rooms.” Dian aided and abetted Jael’s nagging.
“It’s all her fault,” Todd accused Dian. “I can never tan up as well as she does, so why bother?”
A blush didn’t show well on Dian’s creamy brown skin, but Todd detected a bit of reddening and chuckled. He realized that Jael had been somewhat tense when she entered the suite. Now she was relaxing.
“And you, Mother, you look great.” Todd brushed aside her ritual complaints. Jael specialized in modest self-denigration. She was getting too fat. Her hair needed a specialist. Her hands were a mess. Her clothes were dowdy. The new doctor wasn’t prescribing enough nutrisupplements to keep her energy levels up. He had heard it all for years and sympathized for years and reassured her none of it made any difference. It didn’t. Her energy was awesome. Her clothes were the ultimate in fashion. Her hands were soft and beautiful. Her lustrous hair, stylishly middle-length, displayed that attractive white streak that was Jael’s trademark. She covered her excess weight with loose, long-sleeved tunics over pants or half saris. The outfits flattered her busty figure. She was really doing fine, and she knew it. She just wanted to hear her devoted family tell her so.
Tomorrow’s Heritage Page 14
