If I went back, I'd be going without Douglas. And maybe without Stinky too. And even though I always used to joke about wanting to be an only child—or even an orphan—now that I had the chance to decide who I wanted to live with, it was suddenly a much bigger decision than I'd realized. This was like running away from home. Only worse. Because we could never go back again. This was a one-time deal.
"Charles?"
"I don't want to leave my mom," I whispered. "But I don't want to lose my dad either. I don't know."
Georgia sighed. She turned to Olivia. "I've heard enough."
"You haven't talked to the little one."
"Do you think that's going to be any better?"
"No. I guess not."
Georgia patted me on the shoulder. "You did well, Charles. You told the truth. You made my job a little harder, but that's okay. We'll try to find a way to sort this out."
"Listen, wait—" I said. "If I could just talk to my Mom. Just to say good-bye. Just to tell her that ... well, you know ... that I love her and not to hate me, please. That would ... I think that would make it all right. Maybe. Because I do want to go with my dad."
"I understand," Georgia said. She patted me on the shoulder one more time, then wheeled her way over to Olivia. "I'm not going to vacate the order. Howard has a case. At least enough for a hearing. You'd better be well-prepared tomorrow, Counselor. Thanks for the pizza."
"Wait a minute, Judge—" Olivia scooted her own chair in front of Georgia's, effectively blocking her access to the door. "You've heard Mickey's testimony about conditions downside. You can't send these children back down into that."
"Are you invoking the Evacuation Act?" Georgia asked.
"I think I'm going to have to."
"It's never been applied to a whole planet. No matter how I rule, it'll be certain to come up for review."
"Georgia, you said that you have to rule on this case based on what's best for the children. That overrides both the mother's claim and the father's. Remember the father has a viable custody action too. I'm asking for both of those to be set aside on the grounds that the Earth no longer represents a safe environment for these children, and that the custody cases are therefore irrelevant until such time as both parents are available to this court to present their claims. In the meantime, I'm arguing for assignment of custody to the only parent who is available."
Georgia frowned in thought. "If I even entertain that theory in court, you know it'll go right up the ladder of appeals, Counselor. And that's not a direction I want to go. And even if I were to find for the children under such grounds, I'd still have to compel residence until such time as the appeals played out. Do you really want to pursue that course?"
Olivia came right back at her. "Georgia, these are children, for God's sake! Do you want to send them back down? You heard what Mickey said. Maybe he's wrong—and maybe he isn't. But what if he isn't? What if the whole thing is finally coming apart?"
"And what if you were on the other side of this case, Counselor? What would you be arguing?"
"I'd still be arguing for the children."
Georgia gave her a skeptical look. "Olivia, you and I are like sisters. We have argued about everything that two human beings can possibly argue about. We're both passionate about justice. And we're both passionate about finding the laws that will guarantee it. And sometimes we both get passionate about finding ways around the laws. I don't even have a problem about that either, when what we're in search of is justice. But I do have a problem with this case. A big problem. Where's the justice in this one? I don't see it yet. And we're not going to find it in precedents or emergency acts or anything else. I'm terribly afraid that this is one of those cases where there will be no justice for anybody and everybody is going to end up hurting. We're already quite a way down that slippery slope, and I'm not going to sleep very well tonight, and I don't think you are either. Now, if you'll please—?"
Olivia stood up and pulled her chair out of the way. Georgia wheeled backward and swiveled toward the door. "Mickey, give me a hug. Nice meeting you, Douglas, Charles, Bobby—under different circumstances, I might say the same thing to you too, Max. See you in court tomorrow." She wheeled out and the room was painfully silent.
Nobody looked at me, but it was my fault. What I'd said to Georgia hadn't been good enough. I'd screwed up everything. Again.
PLANS
I said a word. The word. The word that Dad keeps telling me not to use, and I keep using anyway. "All right," she said. "Let's try something else." She went back to her console, while Mickey began clearing the table. Douglas got up to help him and the two of them exchanged sad smiles.
Stinky had fallen asleep on the couch. The monkey was beside him—picking its nose, pretending to examine imaginary boogers, and then flicking them at me. Ha ha.
After a while, Dad got up and walked over to Olivia's desk. "Now what?"
She looked at him, almost startled, as if she'd forgotten we were all here. Then she snapped back to reality and said, "Okay, we go back to Plan A. We get your ass off this station as fast as we can. You'll have to fire me—sign that—and then you can hire Mickey as your agent instead. The placement will be on his license and he'll collect the fee. I'll be out of it. Here's his authorization, only don't date it until tomorrow. Otherwise, you'll be putting him in violation of the law when you leave the station."
Dad looked at me. And Stinky. "What about the kids?"
Olivia shrugged. "They're your kids. You know them better than I. Will they be all right with it? Probably not. They're going to have a lot of anger to work out—just like before—only this time you'll get the brunt of it."
Dad didn't answer that. He just nodded in acceptance of the truth. Finally, he said, "I suppose I should tell you that I really appreciate what you're doing for me, but—"
"I'm not doing it for you," Olivia snapped. She looked up from her keyboard. "I'm doing it for the children."
She stood up to look Dad straight in the eye. "I hate cases like this. I hate family kidnappings. Even when they're justified. And this one isn't. This one is about you being selfish enough to think you know better than everybody else. The fact that I agree with some of your conclusions about the Earth and about what's best for your kids still doesn't mitigate the appalling selfishness of your actions. So even though I'm your attorney—until you fire me—and I'll fight like a pit bull for you because Mickey asked me to, please do not make the assumption that I am doing this for you, or even because I agree with you. And certainly do not assume that I even like you. I don't. I'm doing it because I'm your lawyer and it's my job to represent you. It's also supposed to be my job to keep you out of trouble, not get you in deeper, and I'm doing a lousy job of that too, thank you very much. I just don't want to see your kids thrown back down the Line. That's the only thing you're right about. There is no future left down there. Everyone knows it's all coming apart." She glanced up. "Mickey? How long will it take you to pack?"
"Huh?"
"You said you wanted out. Well I've got six reservations on the midnight elevator, and Betsy is holding reservations on the next lunar shuttle. Make up your mind, right now—"
"Uh—" Mickey looked to Douglas. Douglas didn't look like Douglas anymore. He nodded shyly. Mickey turned back to his mother. "I'll go."
"Good. Then that'll settle the Dingillian placement too. I'll file it right now." She looked to Dad. "You're a lot luckier than you know. You'd better spend some serious time thanking Douglas and Mickey." She dropped back down onto her chair and rolled up to her keyboard. She started typing immediately, and whispering instructions to Betsy as well.
"Where are we going?" Douglas asked Mickey.
"Wait a minute! Wait a minute—!" said Dad. "It's my turn now."
Olivia stopped and looked at him. "Is there a problem?"
"I think I'm going into overload," said Dad. "With everything that's been happening—and it's all been happening very fast—I want to get straight on a few
things."
Olivia looked at her watch. "Fifteen minutes."
"This is getting out of control."
"What is?"
"Everything. I violated the terms of a custody agreement in Texas. Now you want to put me in violation of a court-ordered hearing at Geostationary. And what's going to happen on Luna? I'm leaving a trail of angry lawyers behind me."
"Why should you care? You're not coming back."
"This is not the example that I want to set for my children. We don't run from our problems."
Olivia raised an eyebrow at Dad. She gave him the look. Definitely a 10. "Excuse me? You should have thought of that forty-five-thousand kilometers ago, back in Texas, when you violated the first custody agreement."
"I saw what she was doing to the boys. I had to get them out of there. And when Douglas told me about—well, I just didn't want anyone messing with his brain. So yeah, maybe I had a lot of good justifications—she was grinding us all down."
Olivia looked at her watch impatiently. "And your point is ... ?"
"My point is, all I wanted was a way to sidestep this mess, not make it worse. You said you were going to set all that Earth stuff aside. This is a higher court and all that? Remember? Now you're going to have us running from one more jurisdiction—and how far does the reach of this one extend?"
"Far enough. That's why you need a placement fast. And a strong corporate sponsor. Only it may be even worse than you think." Abruptly Olivia turned to her son. "Mickey? What's the rest of it? The stuff you didn't tell Aunt Georgia."
Mickey looked unhappy. "In front of the ... "
"In front of the ... yes. Christ, this is a mess. Let's not make it any worse. What's the part that panicked you so badly?"
Mickey looked very unhappy, but he stepped over to his mother and spoke quietly to her. "We had a meeting downside, yesterday morning. Elevator Security. They wanted to brief us about our responsibilities should the, uh ... cable have to be shut down. Someone asked if they were thinking about it and they said that the corporation was currently examining all of its options if civil unrest should break out. The first step would be to restrict all passenger travel except to corporate passengers, which it looks like they're already doing—"
"Rats leaving the ship?"
"And their lawyers—sorry, Mom. The second step will be to restrict all dirtside access entirely. Nothing at all will move between Terminus and One-Hour. The, uh ... the third step would be—more drastic."
"What's more drastic than shutting down traffic?"
"Breaking the cables at Terminus and letting the beanstalk pull itself off the planet altogether—"
"What?!!" Olivia came out of her chair so fast, it went flying backward and ricocheted off the wall. "You can't be serious—no, they can't be serious."
"Yes, they are, Mom." Mickey's voice was deadly quiet. "The Line has been self-sustaining for nearly a decade. There's enough farms up and down the Line, there's enough supplies stashed in the various pods, if we had to break free, we could. The corporation is prepared to pull anchor and hang free for as long as it takes, and not reestablish a ground base until Earth's governments can guarantee Line security."
"It'll never work!"
"It's already happening, Mom! They're using the hurricane as a first-stage drill. They're already moving the balance-pods down the Line. They have this thing all planned out. I'm telling you, they briefed us on it—on what we would have to do in every eventuality. And the briefing officers looked scared, as if they knew more than they were saying. If we go to stage two, every elevator attendant automatically becomes a member of the Line Security force. There are stun-guns on every car now, and they're going to start advanced stun-gun training immediately. You don't make plans that detailed and you don't brief that many people as a readiness exercise or a thought experiment. It was scary, Mom. Some of the women were in tears. The briefing officers made it sound like it was going to happen any day now and we had to be prepared."
"Why didn't you tell this to Georgia?"
"Mom! Think about it. Georgia has to know already!"
"Don't be silly—" But she stopped herself and turned to her keyboard.
"What are you doing?"
Olivia shook her head. "You don't need to know the details." She typed in a last command, then whirled to the wall behind her. She slid a panel sideways and unclipped three memory cards from their stations. She put one in her business bag, handed one to Mickey, and the third one to Dad. "Stash that in your luggage. Don't worry what it is. It's not illegal, and it's encoded. Your courier fee equals my legal fees. We're even." To Mickey, she said, "Get packed and get out of here. If I'm not at the station tonight, go without me. Can you get aboard through the cargo access?"
Mickey scratched his ear. I didn't feel so bad about rubbing my head so much. He said, "If Alexei's on duty, we can board in a cargo bin—"
"Eh?" She raised her eyebrow.
"Mom, an empty cargo bin can be very useful for ... you know."
"No, I don't know. And I don't think I want to hear any more. Go get your bag."
"Excuse me?" said Dad. "What's going on?" He waved his hand to indicate he meant the whole thing.
"Nothing, I hope," said Olivia. "But I'm too old to be taking these kinds of chances." She stopped long enough to look at Dad. "You picked a lousy time. You're trying to leave town in the middle of a corporate war. And this could be particularly bad news for you, because Security is going to lock down the entire Line. Even if we get you on a car, it's going to be tricky. It depends on how screwed up things get. Mickey—are you packed?"
Mickey came back out of the other room, carrying a silvery briefcase-purse thing over his shoulder. He looked like he was on his way to the gym or the skating rink; he was all scrubbed and shiny again. I could see why Douglas liked him so much. Even though I still didn't.
"All right," mickey said. "you're going to have to do exactly as I say. There isn't going to be time to explain everything. Is that all your luggage? Just those backpacks?" He made a face. "That's still too much. It's a giveaway to anyone watching. You'll have to leave them here. Mom, can you repack them and have them sent on as yours? Or do you think that's too risky?"
Olivia studied our carryalls with a thoughtful expression. She shrugged. "I think we're all better off traveling as light as possible."
"All right, I'll trust your judgment. I don't think we're being watched—yet—but let's not take chances." Mickey turned back to us. "Take only what you would carry if you were sightseeing. If you can't put it in your pocket, don't bring it. Douglas, here, take this shopping bag. Anything that you really need, that you can't fit in your pocket and you can't replace, put it in here, so it looks like you've been souvenir-buying. Mr. Dingillian, that memory card that Mom gave you, toss it in here too. This is all the luggage you've got. Anything else you need, you'll pick up later. Doug, you'd better carry Bobby. No, leave the monkey—we'll get him a new one."
"Uh-uh, no way—" I said. "You've never seen a Stinky tantrum. I'll carry the monkey. I'll pretend its mine." I was already opening it up to switch off all of Stinky's programs. "Hey," I said. "Give me that memory bar. There's room in here for one more. The monkey's a perfect place to hide ... " I stopped in mid-sentence and looked at Dad. He'd gone white as a scream. " ... stuff," I finished lamely. I looked to Doug. He'd gotten it too—at the exact same time. We both looked to Dad. He saw the expressions on our faces and he knew that we knew. And we knew that he knew that ...
Douglas recovered first—neither Mickey nor Olivia had noticed, or if they had, they were better actors than we were. They were talking about Olivia's connections; she'd be traveling separately. Doug tossed me the memory card and I shoved it into the last socket and closed up the monkey again, and we both pretended to busy ourselves with other stuff for awhile. Dad too. But for a few seconds, it was very uncomfortable.
Then Mickey said, "Well, what are we waiting for? Is everyone ready? Let's go—"
SH
OPPING
We followed Mickey up a level to a promenade and shopping level; he delivered a running commentary as we walked, pointing things out and explaining them as if we were nothing more than ordinary tourists and he was merely a hired guide. " ... You can't see it from here, but it's something you're definitely going to find interesting—the launch bays on Disk Seven. Let's say Brazil wants to launch a communication satellite. They send it up the Line, we push it out the airlock, right? Not quite, but almost. We're geosynchronous, so the satellite still has to get itself into position over its target site. A little burn speeds it up or slows it down, putting it in a lower or higher orbit, depending on which way it wants to go, east or west—call it geosynchronous with deliberate drift. Sometimes it takes awhile for a satellite to work its way around, a week or a month, whatever, but when it finally gets there, it fires its boosters to slow down or speed up, whatever, and put itself back into a geosynchronous position. Voila! There you have it. It's possible to put a satellite into almost any orbit you wish from the Line. But we don't do as many launches from here as we used to, when the Line was first built, because the lower stations have the advantage of being able to impart a lot of thrust almost for free—because they're not geosynchronous, you understand? So the launch facilities are now used mostly for direct-docking of shuttles. We get four a day. It's very impressive. Perhaps we'll have time to see one come in tomorrow, after the hearing." Mickey made sure to say this last part loud enough so that the fat lady behind us could hear, the one in the bright red-and-yellow flowery dress. She didn't appear to notice.
Douglas looked to Mickey curiously. Mickey smiled guilelessly. "Come on, let's get some ice cream."
Almost on cue, Stinky woke up, rubbing his eyes and looking around. "I didn't get dessert—" he started to whine. Douglas lowered him to his feet; he wobbled for a second, then hung onto Doug's arm, looking confused and unhappy.
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