He really was a big man. He had height. He had width, too. It wasn’t simply the construction of his jacket adding to the illusion of shoulders.
It made her remember how small she really was. That didn’t happen often. Not anymore. Not since she had stopped worrying about being able to take down anyone, no matter their size or power.
She could take down Jonah. She had put him on the ground once already. But that seemed like a dim, distant past event.
Jonah didn’t do anything else. He held her hand and that was all. “I’m not the enemy,” he whispered.
Marlow swallowed. “I’m a parent.” Her voice was as bodiless as his.
Jonah breathed. She could hear it and see it lift his chest. “Taniel Error,” he said.
It didn’t surprise her that he knew who Erron’s father was. She had run out of the capacity to be surprised at anything.
“Are you together?” Jonah asked.
Marlow made herself breathe, just as he had. “We agreed. No…distractions. Not until Erron emerged.”
His lips parted, almost as if he was going to speak. Then he closed them. He let go of her hand and the back of it seemed suddenly cold. “You’re an honorable woman,” he told her. “I would rather you stay that way, than take what I want.” Then he bent and touched his lips to her cheek. “Goodbye, Marlow Fitzgerald.”
She watched him walk away, her cheek tingling, just like her hand was.
It was a long time before she stirred, put the bo stick away, switched on the broadband receiver and got back to work.
It was much longer than that before she could no longer feel his lips on her flesh.
* * * * *
When Roxanne opened the door twenty minutes later, David still had not moved from the chair in the far corner of the office. He had not been able to bring himself to sit in the chair behind the big desk.
He clenched his fist around the beads. “What is it, Roxanne?” he asked tiredly.
“I’m just checking to make sure you’re okay,” she said. “You’re sitting in the dark, David. Do you want me to turn on the lights?”
“No. Thank you. I should go home, anyway.” He didn’t move.
She took a half-step into the room, to just inside the door. “They don’t understand the decisions you must make.”
As his chief of staff, Roxanne had long ago learned how to read his mind.
David sighed. “If they did, if we explained it all to them, do you think they would no longer feel hungry?”
She was silent.
David nodded. “I didn’t expect it to happen there.”
“At the arena?”
“It’s just a game. Everyone likes tankball.”
Roxanne nodded. “Well…goodnight, David.”
“Thank you,” he said and waited for the door to close once more and leave him in the dark.
He held the beads between his palms and reached for the memories. That was all he had now. All he had was the memory of her.
Would Anna have understood?
He would never know.
Chapter Six
Peter had long ago rigged up a network connection for them that left no digital fingerprints and opened up a lot of system doors that would normally have been shut. Jonah had explored some of the dusty backrooms of the Forum before. Today, though, he was only interested in the news.
It was startling to find nothing reported about the game last night other than it was a hotly contested tie. There was no mention of protests, no arrests and apparently no trouble.
So Marlow had kept a lid on the arena after all. He couldn’t help but admire her effectiveness. Her people were very good.
On the personal profile pages there was some idle speculation about how Captain Sekar felt about the chanting at the game. That was all. Jonah had expected more.
He flipped through the pages and screens. Perhaps it was too early for anyone to be up and gossiping. Except that everyone who had a formal job—Roger, Peter and Siegel—had left hours ago. Agatha was in the kitchen area, working on a soup that was making the entire apartment smell delightful.
Soon, once the markets were busy with people, Jonah would have to head out to his own unofficial occupation. He had some new stories to offer in exchange for the long list of basics Agatha had given him. Flour of any sort, sugar, butter, milk, eggs. Meat of any sort. Also, any vegetables at all. There were a lot of Capitolinos who grew vegetables under artificial sunlight, in a corner of their slice apartment, for trade.
Roberto, from the Third Wall, grew tomatoes and said he might have some ready this week, so his little corner of the market would be one of Jonah’s first stops. Roberto just happened to like stories about old Terra, too. One of the new ones was an historical romance.
Jonah had often wondered why people liked made-up stories so much more than his essays. He couldn’t give the essays away and had instead reverted to leaving them up on the Forum where anyone who was interested could read them.
The fiction, however, always brought in more than he expected and seemed to rise in value with each passing month. Perhaps it was the harshness of shipboard life that made people turn to other worlds.
It also meant he spent more time writing stories than he did writing the essays he considered to be his priority.
A headline caught his attention and he flipped back to check it out.
Sekar Shouldn’t Be Captain At All!
“Finally,” Jonah breathed.
“Sorry, what did you say?” Agatha said.
“Talking to myself. Someone finally has something to say about the thing at the game last night.” He scrolled up to the top and started reading.
Is it any wonder that Captain Sekar has brought us to this low point of life aboard the Endurance? We are at the mercy of a man who doesn’t belong in the chair he sits upon. He demonstrates this fact with every shoddy decision he makes.
The Accouchement AIs did not select Sekar for his role. He was appointed by the previous incumbent, based on nothing other than personal bias. There was no decision process, no matrix of suitability. He did not match the profile of a candidate that the AI would seriously consider, however, I did.
Jonah sat up abruptly and put the board down. He glanced up at the top of the screen. “Agatha, have you ever heard of a man called Tomas Averill?”
“Should I have?”
Jonah tapped through to the man’s personal details. “Palatine,” he muttered. “That figures.”
“Snob,” Agatha teased.
“I meant it explains the sense of entitlement, that’s all.”
“What does he think he’s entitled to?”
“The Captain’s chair.”
Agatha laughed.
“He’s serious.” Jonah scrolled through the pages and pages of text that followed the first stirring paragraphs, picking out the details and thread of his argument. “He’s saying that the Accouchement AI selected him to be captain. If the ship was still using the mentor and protégé system, then he would be captain.”
“Except it’s not the Accouchement AI that picks candidates,” Agatha pointed out. “It’s the mentor AI. They just happen to be in the same institution.”
“That’s right,” Jonah agreed. “I’d forgotten a lot of this. No one talks about mentoring anymore. It’s all training and testing, now.” He kept scrolling and scanning. “The rest of his argument is all based on that one supposition, that it was supposed to be him.” Jonah frowned. “What does he think is going to happen by laying this out in public?”
“I imagine he thinks that people might want him to be captain,” Agatha said.
“Once they stop laughing at him, you mean?” Jonah said.
Agatha smiled her serene smile. “Now, Jonah. He sounds as if he is perfectly sincere. People don’t laugh at the earnest.”
“Not to their faces,” Jonah replied. He got to his feet and picked up the bag of databalls he had loaded up with his stories, then hit the switch by the front door
to call the spatula.
“You have the list, Jonah?”
Her mothering didn’t bother him. Agatha really did have a heart of pure gold. He tapped his pocket where the miniboard sat.
“If there is any fruit at all, that would be nice,” Agatha said. “Some berries, perhaps? I could make jam.”
The spatula alert beeped, even though he could hear the spatula touch up against the wall, outside.
“If there are any berries to be had, I doubt they would be in quantities enough for jam making. I’ll see what’s there,” he told her.
“So negative…” She smiled at him as he opened the door.
He kept the smile on his face until he closed the door, then let it drop. Agatha was too kind to be saddled with the cloud that darkened his thoughts these days.
* * * * *
Tomas almost flinched as his father pushed the screen in front of him. The projector scraped across the counter.
“I said write essays!” His father’s voice was strident. “Not declare your intentions for the entire ship to see!” A vein throbbed in his temple.
For the first time, Tomas realized how truly angry his father was. “It’s quicker this way,” he said. “Now I don’t have to write tiresome essays about the calories in a cup of oil.”
“The Palatine League will be furious,” Daniel replied. “They might decide you’re too much trouble and find someone else.”
Tomas snorted. “Good luck with that. I am the captain, remember? The AI said I was.”
“The AI picked candidates!” Daniel screamed, making Tomas jump and stare at him, his heart racing. “The Accouchement master picked the captain from those candidates!”
Tomas glanced around the kitchen. Where was his mother? She normally kept Daniel contained and under control and he didn’t like the way this was going. “Perhaps you should sit down…or something,” he told his father.
Instead, the man leaned even closer and shouted into his face. “If the selection records with your name on the list are out there, then anyone else could find them! They’ll find the other names, Tomas!” A fine spray of spittle landed on Tomas’ face, making him rear back in disgust.
“You said the copy you saw was destroyed,” he said and his voice sounded weak after his father raging tone.
“Digital records!” Daniel shouted. “The AI forgets nothing! Now that you’ve put yourself out there like this, how long do you think it will be before someone thinks to ask the AI to confirm it?”
“Good. Let them,” Tomas replied. “It will confirm exactly what I’ve said here. That I should be captain!”
Daniel sucked in a breath and held it. Then he let it out and sat back on his stool.
Tomas let out a shaky sigh of relief.
“Well, it’s out there now,” his father said. “We can’t take it back. There are too many views on it, already. Hundreds of people have already read it.”
“I told you it would save time.”
Daniel glared at him. “You need to get out there. Find Hayim and the others. Shore up your standing. Make sure they still like you.”
“I’m supposed to meet them again tomorrow night. I can talk to all of them then.”
“Now, Tomas!” his father roared.
Tomas jumped. He stared at his father again. Then he shrugged. “Fine. All right. Now, then.” He got off his stool and stalked to his bedroom.
Why couldn’t he just walk onto the Bridge and take back his chair and be done with it? Why all this stupid posturing and maneuvering?
Really, this whole thing was such a pain.
* * * * *
The problem with going to the markets, Jonah realized, was that everyone else went to the markets, too. Veda managed the Capitol market and she was a hands-on manager. Jonah had found the tomatoes and was hunting for Agatha’s berries when he came face to face with her.
Veda gave him a smile, her wrinkled face warming. She was a tiny woman, even standing. Jonah didn’t underestimate her, despite her diminutive appearance.
“You disappeared last night,” she said.
Jonah glanced around the market. People were standing and haggling, prodding produce and goods, paying them no attention whatsoever. “There was some trouble at the game last night. You saw the start of it.”
“The protests?” Veda asked. “I knew about them.”
“Then you know that Brendan Coin was the instigator.”
“Actually, I was the instigator.” Her smile widened, showing straight and very white teeth. “Brendan is very good at following orders.”
“Too good. He nearly got arrested.”
Her smile faded and for the first time she glanced around to look for eavesdroppers. That meant the conversation wasn’t going in the direction she wanted it to.
Jonah waited her out.
“How do you know that?” Veda demanded.
His gut clenched. Had he and Marlow been seen together by the wrong people? At no time while they had been in public had they looked anything like friends. Only, just standing and talking raised suspicions these days.
Jonah recalled an axiom an old friend had taught him. If you have to lie, stick to the truth as much as you can and pepper the lies in between.
He hefted the heavy bag of tomatoes, so the string didn’t cut into his fingers. “I know what happened to Brenden because I’m the reason he wasn’t arrested,” he told Veda. It was an outrageous bluff, yet it would explain why he had been seen talking to Marlow.
Veda was quick. “You have a relationship with Lieutenant Fitzgerald….” She said it slowly. There wasn’t a questioning note in her voice. Perhaps she had already had reports that they had been seen together.
“I know lots of people,” Jonah replied. “She happens to be one of them. The relationship is…strained. Probably even broken after last night.”
“She didn’t like you calling in a favor. That one wouldn’t.” Veda smiled. “Well, well, Jonah. You have more uses than I thought you did. You should pay a call on your lieutenant and mend bridges.”
His heart squeezed. “Why would I do that?” he asked, playing for time. He already knew the answer.
“Buellen is a slippery tool at best,” Veda said. “Besides, he’s Bridge division. Fitzgerald controls security on the rest of the ship. She could be useful, later on.”
“Later on, for what?” Jonah insisted.
Veda looked around the market again. Her faded eyes locked with his. “Things cannot go on as they are,” she said quietly. She pointed at the heavy bag in his hands. “Tomatoes. What did you give to get them?”
“A story.” He shrugged.
“How long did it take you to write the story?” she asked.
“I don’t know. A day or two.”
“So you exchanged two days of labor for a bag of tomatoes. No one can keep that effort up and survive, Jonah.” Her tone was almost sad. “Things must change.”
Jonah schooled his face to give nothing away, even though fear was crawling through his veins, making him shiver with it. “I don’t think I’m the person you think I am,” he said. “I know Fitzgerald, yes. Only, she’s Esquilino and more, she’s Bridge. I’m a bum who doesn’t have a job, living on basic rations in the Capitol and Fitzgerald already thinks I’m trouble.”
“You and I both know there is more to you than that,” Veda said, with a small smile and a twinkle in her eyes.
“There’s a man out there. Tomas Averill. He wrote an essay last night. It’s on the Forum. All about how he should be captain. You should talk to him. I don’t know what use you think I would be to you, Veda, but Averill must surely be a better fit than I am.”
“He might be,” Veda said, “except he’s patrician through and through. He still lives with his parents and they’re both Palatine to the core, as well. The Palatine League have Averill already. They’re going to groom him to take over, so no, he doesn’t fit my plans at all.”
“Then what do you want with me?” Jonah demanded.
“Why, you’re my Tomas Averill, Jonah.” Veda smiled and patted his cheek. “Go and see your lieutenant, there’s a good boy.”
* * * * *
Jonah couldn’t go to the Bridge and demand to speak to Marlow. He had no official reason to seek her out. The processing room where she worked didn’t have a skerrick of privacy anywhere in it — even the ready areas had no doors.
Above all, he wanted to be able to speak to her freely and in private, where there was no chance of being overheard. There would be no location like that anywhere on the Bridge.
He gave up one of his stories to get a return ticket on the train and travelled up to the Esquiline district. He could have walked there, only it would take time he didn’t want to spend.
The Forum gave him the location of Marlow’s quarters, on the other side of the market from the train platform.
The market square in the Esquiline was just as busy as the one in the Capitol. Everything seemed to happen at a slower pace, though. The frantic note that hung over the Capitol was missing here.
He walked through the stalls, stepping around people, trying to figure out his next move. He couldn’t just walk up to her front door and demand to see her. He didn’t even know if she was home. She was very likely at work and he would have to wait for her to return, then pull her aside somehow.
He was going to have to stake out her house and wait.
That didn’t make him any happier. He hadn’t finished acquiring most of the items on Agatha’s list and the household depended upon what he could scavenge and trade for. It had to be him. Agatha was too good-natured and tended to give away too much for the items she wanted. He could drive a harder bargain.
Marlow’s quarters were just off the end of the market, in a quiet corner of the district surrounded by a handful of other group dwellings. There was a café across from it where he could stretch a coffee for a few hours and watch the house.
Feeling uneasy amongst all the order and neatness and mortally aware of the day ticking away, he found a table at the back of the café area and sat down to wait.
* * * * *
It wasn’t often Marlow got a whole day to herself and this was the second day inside a week. It was a rare treat.
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