by Matt
"A suite? Using my room? What in God's name, Shane..."
"Don't ask me, Marika," said Shane swiftly. "Ask the high and mighty."
"You've got to know something more about this than I do!" said Marika Schulerman. 'Tell me what you know!"
"Only that Maria here's to be my special assistant in a series of runs I've got coming up." Shane was beginning to feel definitely out-womaned in the small, if efficient, room that now held four human bodies in what was something other than a pleasant social gathering. "Lyt Ahn's orders."
"Well, where do I go then?" Marika turned on the Maintenance worker, who shrugged.
"Not my department," she answered. "They'll probably tell you. Sorry, didn't occur to me somebody might be in there."
"If that thing cuts through walls, you might have killed her!" said Maria unexpectedly to the Maintenance woman.
"No, no! No chance!" The woman held up the pencil-shaped tool. "It only works on walls, nothing else—one of the alien gadgets. Perfectly safe. Look!"
She put the point of the object against the palm of her left hand and pressed what seemed to be a sliding control stud on its barrel with the thumb of the right hand, with which she was holding the tool. "It goes through any wall, thick as it is, but it won't do a thing to anything else. It's programmed somehow. That's the best guess—but who really knows?"
She turned and went out into the corridor, to return bearing a door, carrying it with a muscular ease that made Shane envious. She placed the door in the opening she had made and did some things to both one edge of the door and the corresponding cut face of the wall.
"Marika, this is Maria Casana," said Shane. "As I say, she's to be my special assistant on a set of runs that're presently secret."
"Oh? Glad to meet you," said Marika, turning to Maria. "So you're the reason they're moving me. What's your area?"
"Area?" echoed Maria, staring at her.
"Orient? Middle East? Romance?" said Marika impatiently.
"Maria's not a linguist—at least in the Corps sense," said Shane quickly. "As I say, the whole thing's presently a secret."
"I wonder why?" said Sylvie. "Usually when the Aalaag don't want us to know something, they just don't tell us."
"They're just not telling you, now," said Shane. "But the thing is, they've told me; and I'm the one who's supposed to keep it secret."
"Bet you it's something we won't like—something nobody but an Aalaag'll like," said Marika gloomily. "Well, I'm going to look up our own Corps First Officer and find out if he knows where they're going to put me and whatever else he knows about this. Pleased to have met you—"
She nodded at Maria and went out.
"I should be going, too," said Sylvie. "I just dropped by to welcome you back, Shane. So pleased to have met you, Maria."
"I'm happy I met you," said Maria.
Sylvie went out. Maria stared at Shane but said nothing. The worker from Maintenance was still busy fitting the door into the opening. She finished in a few more seconds and stood back, looked over her work critically, then opened and shut the door a couple of times.
"That should do it," she said. "See you both again sometime."
She turned away.
"Just a minute," said Shane. "Are you issued that door-making device, or do you have to draw it from someplace each time you need it?"
"It's issue," said the woman. "If something goes wrong with it, of course, we turn it in and get a new one at the central Supply Shop. Why?"
"Just that I'd hate to see a drunken party some night get hold of one of those and start making their own doorways into my quarters," said Shane.
"No danger," said the worker. "I said it's issue, but we have to account for it, like all the other alien tools we're issued at the beginning of each work shift. Of course, after that, it's simply hung up on your own peg in the ready room of the Supply Shop, where anybody could go get one. But no one with any sense is going to risk getting hung on the hooks for misusing a tool like this. Believe me! I'll see you."
And she, too, finally left. The two of them were alone at last.
"It is all right, then?" Maria said to Shane as the door closed behind the worker. "The First Captain thought I was all right?"
"Of course," said Shane. He had forgotten that Maria would not have understood Lyt Ahn's last words in Aalaag about Shane continuing to tutor Maria in the alien language while she accompanied him around to the places on the globe where Governor Projects were to be set up. "Things couldn't be better. You heard what I told Sylvie and Marika. You're to go with me on a series of runs—that secrecy bit was something I came up with on my own—and I'm to go on coaching you in Aalaag, as we travel. Things couldn't be better. I wanted you with me and both of us out of here, if possible; and Lyt Ahn wanted a way of making translators without waiting for a whole new generation to grow up. Since we were both after the same thing, it was a shoo-in."
"Shoo-in?" echoed Maria—for Shane, like all the rest who had been in the room, had been talking English.
"Absolute certainty," explained Shane.
He told her about the Council meeting to which he had been summoned and the plan to raise human children in Aalaag households. Having done this, he found himself getting deeper into explanations of the explanations; as to why Lyt Ahn preferred the quicker method of making adult translators that Maria's case offered, and why the Aalaag had been so revolted at the idea of human children being raised like their own, and in the same quarters.
When he was done, he became aware that Maria was standing with both arms wrapped around her body, as if she was cold.
"What is it?" he said.
"It's just that there's so much I don't know," she said. "I'm all alone here, except for you. I'm frightened."
"There's nothing to be afraid of," said Shane. As when he had left her in London, it required an effort not to put his own arms around her. He found he had folded them across his chest in instinctive self-denial, so that they faced each other almost like adversaries. "And in any case, we'll be out of here in a day or two."
He was optimistic. Nearly a week went by before he was again called to Lyt Ann's office.
"You'll leave at once," Lyt Ahn told him. "Taking that small beast you are training with you. Laa Ehon was interested to hear that I wished him to set up other Governor Units immediately at other points on this world. He did, however, suggest that the first additional one be set up at Milan, which —being his Headquarters city—would render him particularly knowledgeable about staffing it without delay. I gave him that order, accordingly; and therefore you will go first to Milan, in three days, by which time he will already have begun to set such a Unit in action."
Shane blinked grainy eyes. He had had a little more than four hours' sleep the night before and not much more than that on the preceding nights. He had had to report for duty daily at the regular hours, even though there had been nothing to do; and although he had been idle, he had needed to stay visible and in attendance—in no situation to catch up on his sleep.
The sleeplessness was the result of living with Maria in even closer quarters than they had in London. Maria had accepted his story that they dared not touch each other for fear the Aalaag would find out. The result had been that they had sat up and talked, night after night until late hours—in fact, into the early morning hours—after having talked themselves far beyond the point where they were saying anything of much import to each other, but continuing to put off the moment when going to sleep would require them to part. He would sit facing her, in a separate chair, a couple of arms' lengths distant, feeling the need to go to her like a steady hollow ache in him; and barred by the situation between them, the true dimensions of which she knew nothing.
And all the time he was being ridden by the knowledge that the empty days and the talk-filled nights were even harder on her than they were on him. Shane at least had his daytime duties to take him out of the two connected rooms. Maria, under any ordinary set of conditions, could h
ave gotten out, could have found people to meet and things to do. There were recreation areas, from lounges to swimming pools, for the Corps members. But to go to any of these, to meet others there, was to invite the curiosity that would arise when it became clear she was no linguist—by Corps standards, nowhere near one. Those she met might accept the story that Lyt Ahn had his own reasons for attaching her to Shane, but they were sure to be curious about all other matters concerning her background and her life.
Nor had Shane wanted the word to filter back, innocent as it might be, to any of the Aalaag that there was secrecy involved in Maria's connection with Shane. Not having ordered secrecy, Lyt Ahn, if the word got back to him, would want to know why Shane should use it; and inviting questions from any Aalaag at any time was not wise. In this case, it could be even more unwise than usual.
So now Shane made an effort to pull his wits together. He had been so stimulated by fear in his first few months of working in the House of Weapons, and particularly in moments of facing Lyt Ahn, that his mind had never been in less than top gear whenever he was with the First Captain.
With time, the fear had receded. But by then the habit of an almost unnatural alertness had been built into him. Never until now had he had to prod his brains to do a swift job of assessing what the other had told him and searching for the possibilities it uncovered. Sluggishly, therefore, but not so slowly as to attract Lyt Ahn's attention, Shane's mind worked.
"Since it will be three days before I am required to be in Milan," he said, "may I suggest to the immaculate sir that I and my trainee-assistant go first to London to take another look at the Governor Unit there? It may have developed in the time since I last saw it; and the immaculate sir will remember that except for the last day or so, when I was there, Laa Ehon was himself present and in command. It might be interesting to see it at a time when he is not so."
Lyt Ahn sat in silence, his gaze unfocused upon the image-less wallscreen opposite him.
Shane's mind, forced finally into top gear, raced, building upon the possibilities of what had just occurred to him. His short hours of sleep and his concern with Maria had given him other things to think about, so he had not made his usual estimate of what was likely to happen next. He was fully aware of the Aalaag habit of expecting something to be done immediately, once a decision had been taken and a command uttered. It was the other side of the coin from their tendency to leave things hanging in midair when something of greater importance summoned them. A servant who had been told to cease a certain activity could be forgotten and left for months, not merely in idleness, but in enforced inactivity, holding his position and waiting until some further order put him back into motion again, like a powered toy.
On the other hand, in the case of a decision made and a command given, literally no delay was expected or tolerated. Therefore, Shane told himself, he should have had his plans made for an order to move ever since the First Captain had told him that he intended to command Laa Ehon to start setting up other Governor Units. But Shane had never expected, of all things, to be sent to Milan first; and he suddenly realized he needed a great deal more information about the European Resistances, which Peter was the ideal person to give him—in a face-to-face situation.
London for three days would be perfect. He could tap Peter for necessary information and at the same time set up a worldwide system of communication with the other man. He would also be able to introduce Maria as his assistant to the junior Aalaag officers in the London Project and she could practice her Aalaag on them, without fear of word about her slow progress getting back to Lyt Ahn.
"No," said Lyt Ahn. "It will be better if you leave immediately, rather than in three days, but I desire you to go directly for Milan. You will be in position there to report to me later how Laa Ehon put together the staff and other necessary matters for the Project there, from the earliest possible moment."
Shane's plans came crashing to the ground like a building razed by demolition experts. Now that the chance had been snatched from him, he was realizing how very useful to him it would have been to talk face-to-face with Peter.
Well, if he could not go to Peter, the Resistance man would somehow have to manage to come to him, in Milan.
"This beast hears and will obey."
"You may go."
Shane returned to the area in the House of Weapons that housed the translators. Almost as soon as he stepped into the cross-corridor that led down past the recreation areas to the private rooms, he found Sylvie waiting for him. She was dressed in what plainly were off-duty clothes of a navy blue skirt and eggshell blue blouse under a blue and white checked jacket. She had changed the way she wore her hair, so that two light-brown wings now swept down on either side of her face, making it seem unnaturally white, with all the blue about her.
"There you are, Shane!" said Sylvie brightly. "Come and talk to me for a minute."
"I just got orders to make a run," said Shane. "You know how it is. I can't stop."
"You can stop for a few minutes, you know you can," said Sylvie. "Come and sit with me in Lounge One. There's almost no one in there right now."
There was a feverishness about her, in spite of the whiteness of her appearance. A turmoil of emotions churned inside Shane.
"All right. For a minute," he said, and followed her into the first doorway on the left.
The lounges had been originally designed by the Aalaag, but they had made no objection to a series of alterations at the requests of the Corps people. The result was that these places now had party areas, mixed with other corners that were filled with semi-enclosed booths where a certain amount of privacy was possible.
"Do you want a drink?" said Sylvie, as they slipped into one of these booths and sat, one on each side of its table.
"No, thanks," said Shane. "But go ahead, yourself."
Sylvie's hand dropped from the coding plate of the drink dispenser in the wall, toward which it had been reaching.
"So you're leaving," she said. "You know, I haven't seen you even for a second since the first moment you got back."
"I've been pretty well tied up," said Shane.
"Oh, I know," said Sylvie. Her narrow face was framed by the two wings of hair. In the shadowiness of the booth she seemed to look at him out of some depth of shadow, as a person trapped in a well might look up at a possible rescuer. "With your new assistant, and all."
"Well... yes," said Shane. "You see—"
"Please!" said Sylvie suddenly, almost violently, "don't explain." Her voice had begun to shake on the last two words. "I don't want to hear you explain. It's just the way it is. That's the way it is, for all of us, here...."
Tears glittered suddenly in her eyes, welled up and overflowed down her cheeks.
"Damn you!" she said. "Damn you! I wasn't going to do this. I wasn't going to do anything but tell you it didn't matter to me what you do."
"Look, there's nothing the matter—," said Shane.
"Nothing the matter? You bring her back with you, and all of a sudden—" The tears were coming faster now, but under them the expression of her face was still unchanged, still fierce. The voice was still held low and tense but under control. Then the voice did break. "Shane, what'll I do without you? The only way I could live with all this was because of you. You know what it's like, day after day! I need someplace to go, someone to go to; and there's no one now—no one in the whole Corps. There was only you! And you had to go outside to find someone who doesn't even need you!"
"You're talking about Maria," said Shane. "It's a different matter than you think—"
"Damn you, Shane!" she said tightly. "Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!"
She hid her face in her hands. With all this, she had kept her voice low. No one else in the room could have heard her but him.
He felt torn inside. Part of him was churned by guilt—although why he should feel guilty, he had no idea. Another part wanted to shout at her in fury. What did she know about it? A woman he had never touche
d. A woman he never would touch until the day Maria found out what he was really doing, after which she would not be touching him if her life depended on it.
"—Sylvie, listen to me," was what he actually said, out loud, "just listen a minute. I can't explain it now, but if you'll be patient, I swear to you the time'll come when there simply won't be any Maria there; and you'll understand that nothing ever happened between her and me. But I can't tell you about it now. You just have to trust me."
"No," she said, her hands still covering her face. "No! It's no use, Shane! I knew it was no use. I shouldn't even have tried to talk to you—"
She fumbled blindly out of the booth, with her hands still hiding her wet face, but parted enough to let her see a little of where she was going; she turned and hurried away from him.
He heard the heels of her shoes on the uncarpeted floor, tapping away into silence, and sat, mired in his sense of guilt and anger and unhappiness. After some minutes, he sighed heavily, got to his feet and made his way out of the lounge, turning toward the rooms where Maria waited for him. By the time he got there he had almost succeeded in pushing Sylvie into the back of his mind.
