Fortunately, the question was moot.
Philip would intercede with Structural Authority on Nemily’s behalf. She was, for the moment, still a citizen. The SA lock had been taken off his personal accounts, his d.p. was back up and functioning smoothly, and Cambel still wanted them to work together, although, she said, she needed some time. He thought he understood that. Time was not enough by itself, but without it nothing else could heal.
He poured himself a glass of orange juice and drank it in the semi-dark of the touret.
That Philip worked for SA no longer surprised Mace. He understood, or thought he did. Coif had been a surprise—she had infiltrated both Reese’s organization and PolyCarb security Koeln had thought she was working for him because of the connection to Reese. Thinking about it, Mace felt like an amateur.
“Mace?” Helen said. “You know you still never opened your presents.”
“I forgot all about them.” He laughed. “Cart them out. I hope there weren’t any perishables.”
“My scans didn’t indicate so.”
The closet door slid open, allowing the dolly to roll forward, still laden with his presents from Hawthorne’s party
The wrapping paper varied from shimmery silver and blue to plain white to dark red. Most of the packages were small, less than twenty-five centimeters on a side. One thin rectangle looked to be about a hundred by eighty.
Careful of his still-healing knee, Mace sat down on the floor by his gifts. He took a package at random—mauve paper—and carefully pried up the edges and uncovered the hinged box. Inside he found a stack of discs. He lifted the first and felt a thrill at the faded label. It was old, very old—Shostakovich, Symphony II, a full-sized CD from the last century. He looked through the others quickly. All Shostakovich, all vintage recordings, no two from the same manufacturer or conductor or orchestra. This had cost someone a great deal. He did not even want to do the math for the freight. Eight discs, almost half a kilogram, and they had to have come up the well from Earth. Possibly from Lunase, but...
Unexpectedly, he felt warmly sentimental. He wondered who had gone to the expense. He could think of at least ten people who had been at the party who could afford it, but he would never have expected it. Who would have known that he had no Shostakovich? For once he wished custom permitted him to ask.
He set the box aside and opened another. Handmade earrings, small silvered pearls with a spark of corundum. Mace knew who had made them, he already owned some of her work. They were delicate things and he might wear them only once and then put them in the display case in his sensora room with her other gifts.
The next contained three handpainted kerchiefs, soft expanses of translucent fabric swirled in colors. No, he did not know who might have given him these.
Four of them had software packets, two revealed polished geodes— probably from the Belt—and five of them held rings, all of them purchased from one of the jewelers in Segment Three Mall, downshaft near Tsiolkovsky Park. The workmanship was impeccable. Mace slipped on a cobalt blue circle that held a gold plat with intricate carvings. It reminded him of old chip patterns, but it might as easily be a map of some city on the moon, or even a section of one of the old cities on Earth. The ring fit nicely.
He opened a heavy box and stared at the plastic wrapping for several seconds before realizing what it contained. He lifted it out and held it in his lap. Topsoil. Dark, loamy. He turned the bag over and a small printed label said “Idaho” and nothing else. It took an effort to put it back in the box and set it aside. Earth soil. Never mind the expense, he thought, just getting it through customs would require... he could imagine what Structural Authority would say
A small package contained a cube that held, suspended and possibly still alive, a dragonfly
The large one was, as he had thought, a painting. Tiny triangular flakes of color combined across the board to form impressions of clouds, blotches of light, fragmented spectra. Mace recognized the work. He decided to have it framed. He would hang it and invite the artist to dinner.
The envelopes all contained cards with birthday wishes and redeemables for various shops and artisans. One held five shares of stock in a new ore-cracking company.
One contained a letter. He unfolded the sheaf of pages and started to read. At the top the date indicated that it had been written over three years earlier, before Mars. He sat very still for a long time, staring at the opening line, unable to read further.
“My darling Mace, I have a feeling this will be my last opportunity to tell you how much you mean to me”
Table of Contents
an ebookman scan
One – Mars, 2115
Two – Mars, 2115
Three – Lunase, 2116
Four – AEA, 2118
Five – AEA, 2118
Six – AEA, 2118
Seven – AEA, 2118
Eight – AEA, 2118
Nine – AEA, 2118
Ten – AEA, 2118
Eleven – AEA, 2118
Twelve – AEA, 2118
Thirteen – AEA, 2118
Fourteen – AEA, 2118
Fifteen – AEA, 2118
Sixteen – AEA, 2118
Seventeen – AEA, 2118
Eighteen – AEA, 2118
Remains Page 37
