Half the Day Is Night (3 page)

Paranoia, he sang to himself, par-a-noi-ah. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't really out to get you. If he lost Bennet he would turn around and try to head back for the dome but there was a good chance he would miss it in the darkness, particularly with his tendency to veer. His recyc unit would go on taking oxygen out of the water for days, but already the cold was making his hands stiff. How long until hypothermia? He would die of exposure in a couple of hours. Very convenient for Bennet. He could say he'd thought David was behind him, and he didn't know when they'd gotten separated. In a few hours, would he find another dome?

Bennet stopped suddenly, with a graceful swirl of hands and arms, and hung. “Don't go swimming alone,” he said, “It's easy to get lost.”

“Paranoia,” sang in David's head. “How do you know where to go?”

“I used to be a fish jockey, I've got an implant in the back of my head that tells me what direction Port Authority is. You can get one if you really want to, but you don't need it unless you plan to do a lot of swimming.”

“Which way is the dome?”

Bennet pointed slightly to the right of the way David thought they had come. He peered into the dark but all he could see was the cone of light from their headlamps. Bennet's headlamp went out on his right, and as he turned, the Australian made a couple of strong kicks that took him out of the cone of David's light.

Abruptly he realized he had been moving for the space of half-a-dozen kicks in the direction Bennet had vanished. He didn't remember moving. No sign of the reflecting bands on Bennet's recyc unit, and he should have been able to see them. He halted. Was he paranoid if he was correct? He turned in a full circle to see if he caught the glint of silver off Bennet's fins or unit. Bennet could go anywhere, up or down as well as any direction. Turning had been a big mistake, without anything to orient, he wasn't sure how far he had turned or what direction Bennet had gone, what direction was the dome, from here no way to even guess direction, he was fucking well lost in the night and the amber lights of the indicator were flickering as his respiration went up; slow down, slow down, slow down. Think. He could turn off his headlamp. With his off he would stand a better chance of catching sight of Bennet's light—if Bennet's was still on. With his on he was visible to Bennet. He reached up and tapped his headlamp twice, had to do it a couple of times. His light finally went off.

Instantly, the black rushed in at him. He saw movement in the nothing, things, shapes, shells, bullets, streams coming at him, his mind making something out of the absence of sensory information, son of a bitch, he couldn't handle the dark, even if it made good sense he couldn't do it, the amber letters of the telltale going up and up, his respiration climbing, he fumbled for the lamp, cold fingers missing the plate while the only light, the amber letters of the telltale told him he was approaching hyperventilation, he used both hands and the light came on and shapes swirled only at the periphery of his vision. Panic, frigging anxiety attack, come on, he thought, be calm, you can die if you aren't calm. He whirled again, circling to find someone, nothing, but hanging there in the water his headlamp was a beacon, he was vulnerable, a still target, he had to think, think think think, think about the dark. Don't think about the dark. What would orient him? Nothing around but water, 250 meters of water between him and the sun above, below, below there was ground. Bottom. Under water ground was called bottom, swim down, folding in the water, not sure if this direction was really down but it must have been because almost instantly he saw sand and rock. The indicator said his breathing was down a little. He touched bottom, solid bottom, hard and rocky, not much sand, like the Kalahari which really had very little sand at all, groped and found a rock as big as his fist, hefted it, feeling how heavy it was, how slow he would move it in the water.

A headlamp came on close by and he turned to face it, his rock held ready, slightly behind his body, because he'd have to get real close to Bennet to use it. Bennet said matter-of-factly inside his mask, “That's exactly what you should do if you're ever lost, head for bottom.”

David held the rock, waited for the other to come closer, he would be slower in the water, he would have to wait until the other was very very close. And he did not know if Bennet was armed.

“Around here you can always switch to band eleven,” Tim said. “Somebody will be on the band, around here there's always someone. Of course, I was close. Sorry about that, but that's the way I was taught, you don't forget a lesson like that. You ready to go home?”

David nodded.

He dropped the rock about halfway back. Later he realized that if he'd brained Tim he'd never have been able to find his way anyway.

2

Funeral Games

Mayla did not read about Danny Tumipamba's murder in the paper because that morning she didn't get a chance to finish it.

Most mornings Mayla got into the kitchen before Tim. She made her coffee and listened for signs that he was awake. She hated to admit that she ordered her life around Tim, but there it was. She hated when he was there, and the quiet time before he came down was ruined by anticipation.

She heard his feet on the stairs from the loft. She looked at her paper.

“Morning gorgeous,” he said. Some mornings he came downstairs furious, some chipper. He touched the side of the coffee pot. “Cold. Christ, Mayla,” he said, “how can you drink this stuff?”

“Practice,” she said. No one really drank coffee at boiling, not even in Los Etas. Tim had a special coffee maker in the loft. He didn't really need to use the kitchen but most mornings he did. Mostly to bitch about her coffee. He said he didn't like Caribbean coffee, that it was bitter and weak. She didn't like surface coffee, it tasted wrong, bland. And on the surface coffee stayed too hot, too long.

He rummaged around the cupboards while she read about Mandatory Sterilization for Incorrigibles, particularly women who were addicted to neuro-stimulation. He was looking for the jar he used every morning. “Why don't you use that vacuum thing in the loft?” she asked.

He found the jar. She kept pushing it to the back of the cupboard but he kept finding it. He poured coffee in and tightened the lid.

“One of these mornings it's going to explode,” she said.

“Nah,” he said. The coffee boiled almost instantly, frothing until it filled the jar. He left it, letting it build up pressure, a tiny little storm of coffee.

Mayla could sympathize with the jar. Don't, she thought. Just relax, don't let him get to you. If it breaks, then it breaks. The worst that would happen was that it ruined the flash. She could buy a new flash.

The jar didn't break, it never had yet. Jars didn't break for the Tims of the world, she reflected. If she stuck a jar in the flash there would be coffee everywhere. It would look like the scene of a murder. The flash binged and he pulled it out, opened the lid and the room smelled of coffee. He had to hold the jar with a dish towel to pour. “Ah,” he said. “That's what coffee should be. You know, cold coffee is what destroyed the Roman Empire.”

She nodded, pretending to look at the paper. Mandatory Sterilization, the headline she had already read. Too late, she thought, he's already born.

“Oh,” he said, eyebrows quirked. “Cranky this morning.”

“I've run out of things to say about coffee,” she said. Her voice was flatter than she intended.

Tim just turned from her and sipped his coffee. The only way he knew how to talk to people was to joke.

She waited for him to say something. If Tim wasn't talking he was mad. “Want the sports?” she asked.

He shrugged.

Another long pause. He wasn't going to be here much longer. She could be polite. “How are the driving lessons going?” she offered.

“Okay,” he said, his back to her while he fiddled with his coffee. Now he wouldn't talk in the car, either. She should just enjoy it when he didn't talk but she never could. He had all this energy in the morning—he had all this energy, period—but mornings she was murky and he was ready to fight, to be angry.

“Maybe David could drive this morning?” she said.

He shook his head. “I dunno,” he said. “He really isn't ready, yet.”

“Ready for what?” she said. “He gets on the belt and puts it on automatic, and when he comes off the belt he's at the bank.” She certainly sounded cranky. She wanted to sound reasonable.

“He can't drive very well yet,” Tim said.

“This way he could get some practice.”

“Give him a break, Mayla,” Tim said, sounding aggravated.

“Give
me
a break,” she said.

“What is your
problem
this morning?” he said, turning around.

“I want David to drive the car,” she said. Take your place, she was saying, and he knew it.

“And you don't give a damn whether he's ready or not,” Tim said. “Fine.”

“You wouldn't say he was ready if he could—” she couldn't think of an example of expert driving, her mind didn't work in the morning, “—if he could, I don't know, drive like a race car driver.”

“Fine,” he said again. “And what am I supposed to do?”

“Go back to bed,” she said, “enjoy the time off.”

“Hijo de la chingada,”
he said. “Son of a bitch.” Except that no one but an anglo would use it that way. When Tim swore in Spanish he sounded even more like a foreign
gabacho
than he normally did.

He would be gone in a month, she told herself. A month, at the most. As soon as David was ready to take over.

*   *   *

When she told David that he would be driving that morning he looked uncomfortable. He came out to the kitchen to get a coffee cup—unlike Tim
he
used the coffee maker in his rooms. He was dressed but his hair was still wet and slicked back from the shower.

“You don't have to unless you feel ready,” she said. “Tim can drive me.”

“Oh,” he said. Which wasn't really an answer. It was hard to be sure how good his English was. He spoke pretty well but sometimes she got the feeling he was nodding without understanding. But he didn't say he wouldn't drive and he was waiting in the kitchen when she was finished getting ready.

He drove cautiously and he seemed to regard stop signs as little time outs. He got to the intersection at the end of her street, stopped the car and sighed, then carefully looked around and drove on. She wanted to turn on the news but felt that if she moved she would distract him, so she decided to wait until they were on automatic. He was all white knuckles getting onto the beltway until he could reach forward and punch 2 on the automatic guidance—preprogrammed for the bank. Then he sighed again.

The news was still talking about mandatory sterilization for incorrigibles and what a wonderful idea it was and how it would work to break the cycle of poverty. That was the only thing she had read in the newspaper this morning so she half-listened and half-watched traffic. At least David's silence was language-related, not directed at her.

“—Danny Tumipamba, an executive in a subsidiary of Marincite Corp.,” the news said. The name snagged her. “Although there is no confirmation from Marine Security, it is widely believed that radical extremists are behind the killing. If so, Tumipamba would be the seventh Marincite executive to fall victim in the last nine months.”

“I know him,” she said, startled into speaking out loud.

“I am sorry?” David said, not having heard her. Or maybe not having understood.

“Shhh!” she said, but they were talking about someone named Ybarra who'd been killed ten weeks ago. “I know him,” she said. “The man in the news. I am working with him on a bank deal.” Her Marincite deal, a very big bank deal.

“He was arrested?” David asked.

“No,” she said, “He's dead. He was murdered.” Murdered. It seemed melodramatic when she said it. Tumipamba was murdered. She knew someone who had been murdered. Had anybody at the bank heard?

“He was a friend of yours?”

“No,” she said. Not a friend at all. Danny Tumipamba had a broad Mayan face and hook nose; a face like the Olmec man. He was hard to work with because she never knew where she stood with him, or what he thought of either her or the bank. And now he was dead. A bomb? she wondered, or shooting? She should have been paying attention.

“I'm sorry,” David said uncertainly, but the car was slowing down to come off the beltway and his attention was taken by the intricacies of driving.

She didn't have the deal yet, they had still been courting. No papers signed. And now he was dead. Another dead executive in Marincite City, Christos, was it open season on executives over there?

She tried to think of how she felt. Murdered. Dead. Tumipamba was dead.

Dead was something that she didn't understand when someone told her. It was like when her Gram had died, it was the little habits of thought that made her understand Gram was dead. Like thinking that she had to call Gram, she hadn't talked to her in—and then when she started to think about how long, when she started to really think about it, she'd realized that Gram was gone.

Danny Tumipamba was dead. She didn't have a deal with Marincite yet. She needed that deal.

She would have to talk to her boss. She would have to find out who was taking Tumi's place. She couldn't call this morning, the place would be coming apart. The bank should send flowers, she should find out when the funeral was going to be.

If she was going to get the loan with Marincite Technical Exchange she was going to have to find out who would be deal making.

Maybe she could go to the funeral and see who represented the company. At the funeral she might be able to talk to someone, get a sense of how things might shake down. A couple of hours in a sub, and if the funeral was early she could go in the morning and come back in the afternoon. She would only lose half a day. David could go with her, there was no driving in Marincite. She wouldn't have to take Tim at all.