Tony Daniel (43 page)

“I’d like you to describe your so-called daughter to me. Start with height, weight, age—that sort of thing.”

“Aubry is eleven, Dr. Ting,” said Danis. For a moment she pictured her daughter, radiant after a visit to the zoo on Mercury. “She has blond hair that is going to be brown soon, and blue eyes, like her father. My eyes are brown, but you don’t take that particular coding into the haploid mix when you make a free-convert egg.”

There was a sudden, severe jolt of pain.

“I’ll thank you,” said Dr. Ting, “not to speak of such disgusting and unnatural things in my presence. The ins and outs of human and free-convert breeding are of no interest to me in this study. It is a topic best left to those with a stronger stomach than mine. Now continue with your physical description.”

“She’s pretty, but not beautiful, Dr. Ting. Perhaps she’ll make a beautiful woman someday, though. She’s just beginning to put on a growth spurt and I expect . . . expected . . . to have a talk with her soon. I’d been reading up on menstruation, since of course I don’t—”

More pain. Danis doubled over with its intensity.

“I shall not warn you again, K.”

You didn’t warn me that time, Danis thought.

“What is the child’s height, please?” Dr. Ting continued.

“She’s five feet, two inches, Dr. Ting.”

“And her weight?”

“Eighty-seven pounds.”

“What was she wearing,” said Dr. Ting, “on the day when you last saw her?”

“Pardon?”

“Her clothes! What clothes was she wearing?”

What an odd question, Danis thought. Yet even the interrogation algorithms that were not sentient asked occasional nonsense questions to throw you off. Could it mean anything more? For a moment, Danis grasped at the hope that Aubry had escaped and that they were trying to develop a profile for a “wanted” notice. But that hope quickly died. Of course this was just another of Dr. Ting’s sadisms.

“Black pants and a yellow blouse,” Danis said. “It had flowers over the left breast—a spray of dandelions, I believe.”

“But dandelions are yellow,” said Dr. Ting.

“They were a darker yellow than the shirt, Dr. Ting, and they had some green in them.” If Dr. Ting had implanted the memory, why didn’t he know the details? But perhaps he did, and this was a test as well.

“And her shoes?”

“Pardon?”

Pain, but this time only for an instant, like a needle quickly stabbed in an eye and then withdrawn.

“You must not make me repeat myself, K.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Ting,” said Danis. And then she thought to herself: I’m never going to apologize to this man again. I will just take the punishment and have done with it. “She was wearing boots, Dr. Ting. Something she ordered off the merci and paid for with her own money. Tromperstompers, I think they’re called. Apparently she started a craze at her school for them, one of her teachers told me.”

“How nice,” said Ting. It was as near as he got to openly expressing irony, Danis thought. His face did not look good wearing it. His nose drew back like a pig’s, and he pursed his lips in a fishlike manner. “Your integration of the memory seed is an amazing thing. You are a top-of-the-line algorithm, K. Your engineers should be proud.”

“I was born and not made, Dr. Ting.”

“Yes, well, second-generation software is still software, K. Let us continue. How would you describe your daughter mentally . . . and emotionally?”

“Aubry is very bright for her age,” Danis said. “And she’s starting to develop a depth of character that’s remarkable, in a girl so young. She’s careful about appearing too precocious, but she doesn’t let anything stand in the way of her and finding out the things she wants to know. I was such a brat when I was her age. I’m amazed my daughter turned out so different from me.”

“You should perhaps not be so amazed that
my
daughter turned out differently than you,” said Dr. Ting.

“I don’t think your daughter would be anything like Aubry, Dr. Ting.”

“Ah, there’s where you’re wrong, K,” he replied, but he didn’t seem to put much conviction into his words, it seemed to Danis. “Do you think Aubry was sexually active?”

Danis almost laughed. It was the first time in a long while. But it was still only
almost
laughter. “I surely doubt it,” Danis replied. “Dr. Ting.”

“You never suspected she might be meeting with a man—a man considerably older? Did you ever consider, K, that your daughter’s quiet nature might have been due to something else? That someone might have been sexually abusing your daughter?”

“Now we’re talking about
your
daughter, Dr. Ting.”

The pain jolt was long and hard, and Danis was on the floor again, holding her sides to keep from retching.

“Listen carefully to me, K,” said Dr. Ting. “Have you ever heard your daughter mention a name? Leo. Leo Sherman? Perhaps a teacher at the school, or a maintenance worker? Answer the question, K!” said Dr. Ting. He leaned over his desk, half-standing.

“I . . . what was the name again, Dr. Ting?”

“Sherman. Leo Sherman.”

What in the world was Dr. Ting getting at? What did he want her to say? There must be a right answer, but Danis couldn’t think of any.

“I . . . never heard of such a person.”

“I will take her away from you just as quickly as I gave her to you,” said Dr. Ting. “You know I can do so, too.”

“I never heard of anyone with that name, Dr. Ting, and I don’t for a moment think that Aubry was having sex with someone. She did not behave like an abused child.”

“And how does an abused child behave, K? Are you an expert?”

“I’m her mother, Dr. Ting.”

“That’s nonsense, K. You’re no one’s mother.”

“I
am
, Dr. Ting. I am the mother of Aubry and Sint.”

“
Both
of them are made up, K. I made them up.”

“No.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Dr. Ting. “Shall we continue?”

Sherman sat in his office in the virtuality. It was a spare place, but had an extremely high ceiling and an original window by Serge Coneho, the famous virtuality artist of the last century who had been known for his “black body” works. Sherman’s was a study for a piece that hung in the Milo, the great gallery on the merci.

He studied the infinitely regressing black objects out his window for a moment. Somehow, without using colors, Coneho had got them to radiate a kind of seething vitality.

Then Sherman sat at his desk and read the terms of surrender once more through.

Fremden Force Commander on Triton:

Please stand down within six hours or I will cause the Mill on Neptune to be destroyed. You will be treated fairly.

Amés, Director

Sherman couldn’t help admiring the economy of it. It was something he might have written, if he had been in Amés’s place.

Would Amés do it? That was the question. Sherman considered what he knew about the man. There was much mystery in Amés’s background before the Conjubilation of ’93. The Director had had the records altered or destroyed. But after that, his record was in the public domain. In most matters, he was known to be harsh, but fair, invariably rewarding success and punishing failure. But there was also a sadistic streak running through the Director. The threat to destroy the Mill might be a bluff, or it might not.

On balance, Sherman thought it probably was. The reason for this was the other quality Amés possessed: a feel for musical interplay. Not harmony, exactly. His own music was never about that. But intricacy, order—even in the midst of driving feeling. Sherman didn’t particularly like Amés’s musical creations, but he had to admit they were always well-composed pieces. The destruction of the Mill would serve no purpose in a well-composed war, as far as Sherman could see.

But he had better check in with the mayor, Sherman thought. Sherman had felt duty-bound to pass the surrender request along to the Meet. He called Chen up on the merci.

“Well, Mr. Mayor, what is your thinking on the matter before us?” Sherman asked the man. Chen, too, was in a bunker, but on the opposite side of town. Sherman had thought it best not to put all local authority in one place, and ripe for the assassination grist that he knew was still roaming about in places.

In the virtuality, Chen appeared to be standing across from Sherman in the office. The short man paced about, and talked as he walked.

“I’ve met in executive session with the officers and major party officials. We’ve considered what you gave us, Colonel. Since it is past time for that horrible thing, that rip tether, to have returned if it were going to, we have to believe that it’s true, that your soldiers actually disabled it.”

“I told you that we did it.”

“And now we have proof.”

“Yes,” Sherman said. “Fair enough.”

“I have to tell you that there was some dissent, particularly from the representatives from the Motoserra Club,” Chen continued. “But in the end, we reached a consensus. I even got old Shelet Den to go along with it. Seems he lost two of his sons when that tether came through the first time. He has conceived a hatred for the Met that I didn’t think the old harridan was capable of. I think he’s going to swing the club our way.”

“And what way is that?”

“Why, to put our lives into your hands, Colonel Sherman,” said Chen. He stopped pacing and looked Sherman in the eyes. “And to back you to the fullest extent we are capable of.”

Sherman blinked, then was quiet for a moment. I ought to be feeling a swell of emotion, he thought. But I’m too damned busy for it.

“Very well,” he said. “It is my advice, and now my decision, that we do
not
surrender. I do not believe Amés will destroy the Mill. But even if he does so, I believe we should go on fighting. I will cause this to be communicated to him.”

Chen gulped, smiled nervously, then resumed his pacing. Sherman knew that the mayor was feeling particularly affected by the merci damming, and was cut off from much of his own outriding personas. Under the circumstances, Chen was doing a remarkable job of pulling what was left of himself together and performing his job.

“I will tell the others what you have said, Colonel,” Chen replied. He nodded to Sherman, then exited the office, observing old-fashioned virtuality courtesy by not merely disappearing.

Sherman composed his reply.

Dear Commander of the Directorate Forces:

We are now at war. War is destruction. Do your worst if you will. We will strive to do the same. I do not surrender.

Cordially,

Colonel Roger Sherman, Commander, Third Sky and Light Brigade, Federal Army of the Planets, Triton

“Theory,” he said. “Send this out and cc it to the Meet, then get me a progress report on our antiship task group.”

“Yes, Colonel,” said the walls of the office. “We’ll give them hell.”

“Hell,” Sherman said. “Maybe you and I can take a vacation there after this is over.”

She was playing spades with her mother and two others of her mother’s “gang,” the free converts from the office where she worked. Her mother had “gone low,” claiming to win no tricks, but Vida, one of the gang, had forced Sarah 2 to trump her three of hearts, and now Danis and her mother were set back for a hundred points. Not that it mattered to Danis, but it did matter to her mother. She and the gang played spades as if it were a blood sport.

“Did you hear about what that horrible Lyre Wing did?” asked Readymark, the other of the spades partners.

Lyre Wing was also a free convert down at the office, but was not part of the gang. She was looked upon as a threat by the other female free converts, and as something of a floozy. Danis imagined that certain free converts in the office where she worked thought of her in the same way, so she had a little sympathy for Lyre Wing, even though she didn’t say so.

The other women said no, they had not heard any news.

“Well, she went and got herself copied! Even though it halved her life span. So now there’s two of her.”

“Now why would she want to do a thing such as that?” Danis’s mother asked.

“She claimed she could support two on her salary, and she wanted one version of herself to go out and just have fun all the time, and sometimes to come and tell her about it.”

“God in heaven,” said Vida. “There’s another Lyre Wing?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Readymark. She shook her head ruefully. “But now she’ll only live another nine years.”

“Excuse me.” Danis’s mother abruptly stood up.

“Did we say something, honey?”

“No, no,” Sarah 2 replied. “I just forgot something. I’l1 be right back.”

They were playing in a specially created common space in the virtuality, the gang’s “clubhouse.” Sarah 2 winked away, not bothering to observe protocol and use the door.

“Well, now we’re in a pickle. We can’t play spades with three.”

“I’ll go see if she needs some help,” Danis said. “She’s been a little forgetful lately. I think she needs a full backup, but she doesn’t want to pay for one.” Danis did go out the door. She stepped through it into her mother’s personal space—which had been her own, as a child. Her mother was sitting in a worn armchair, twisting a handkerchief absentmindedly between her hands.

“Mother,” said Danis, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing much, nothing much,” Sarah 2 replied. “It’s just that I get so tired of the same old thing from those two, and the rest of them.”

“I can understand that, but is that really what’s bothering you?”

Her mother tied the handkerchief in a knot, then carefully untied it. “You know I copied myself, years ago?”

“Yes,” said Danis. “Because you weren’t certain about Dad, and you wanted to leave all the options open.”

“That was a big mistake. Your father was wonderful. And we had
you
. It was all so wonderful, despite the whole world trying to make it hard for us.”

“Yes,” Danis said. “And it still is.”

“She called me the other day.”

“Who did?”

“Sarah 1.”

“What did she say?” Danis moved farther into the room and took the chair across from her mother. She sat in her father’s old leather lounger.