A CRASHING SOUND woke him. Bogdan squinted against the morning light and saw that he was still in the garden shed, but on a cot, not on the floor. On Sam’s cot. There was an odd thumping sound outside, but he wasn’t ready to wake up yet. He had been performing wonderful things for appreciative strangers in a dream.
Sometime later, another crash made him sit up and look out the shed window. Francis and Barry were carrying armloads of junk and dropping them on a large pile next to the shed.
The thumping sound was coming from the other side of the roof, where the soybimi racks were supposed to be. In their place sat a large tanker van with a CarboFlexion logo painted on its side. Several hoses ran from the tanker, and on the other end of the hoses were Tobblers.
Rusty’s face appeared at the screen door, and he said, “Looky who’s surfaced.”
“What’s going on?”
Rusty opened the squeaky door and came in. He pulled Samson’s elephant footstool next to the cot and sat down. “On this side, ladies and gentlemen,” Rusty said, gesturing toward the roof door, “we are currently inventorying our stairwell shelves while at the same time clearing a path for Samson’s lifechair. We’ve reached the seventh floor.”
“Sam’s still—?”
“Still hanging on. He’s bunking in Kitty’s room till we clear the stairs. Now, on this side,” he said, gesturing toward the van, “our good neighbors are busy injecting carbon resin down all the hollow spaces made by the material pirates. It’s a big project, and they’ve agreed to front us the cost and donate the labor in exchange for the use of roof space. We keep the shed and vegetable garden. They get everything else.”
Troy Tobbler was out there helping his ’meets. His arm was in a sling. Bogdan tentatively pressed his own nose and cheek. They were no longer tender, so he peeled the moleskin off.
Rusty examined his face and said, “Looks all healed up to me.”
“How long have I been down anyway?”
“Not quite a day and a half. We were worried when we found you up here and couldn’t wake you, but the autodoc said you were all right and just to let you sleep. Yesterday we called E-Pluribus to claim a sick day for you. Imagine our surprise.”
Bogdan hung his head. “I was going to announce it at the next Soup Pot.”
“I know it.”
“At least I get a separation bonus.”
“That’s important, and anyway, you’d have to give up that job when you moved out to Wyoming.”
Bogdan’s mouth fell open. Rusty smiled and looked out the window at the Tobblers. “They’re fixin’ the building because they figure it’ll all be theirs one way or another.”
“Are we—? Did we—?”
“Nothing’s official yet,” Rusty went on, “but it looks like we’re still in the running. The Beadlemyren are afraid of losing their own charter identity if they got folded into a big charter, like the Tobbs. So they decided instead to pick two little houses, and mash the three of ’em into a whole new one. We’re on their short list because of Hubert. The micromine project needs a mentar, and not a lot of little houses have one of their own like us.”
“You mean we’re not going to recycle him?”
“No, that was never the plan. Kale says they just wanted to shake him up a bit, make him think we would. You gotta admit, Hubert’s a lazy mentar. Sam’s spoiled him rotten.”
Bogdan looked out the window at Troy again. “You mean nobody told them about Hubert’s arrest?”
“Oh, they got told all right, more than once. They say they’re going to feed us some slack about it, though, and give us some time to straighten things out with the law. The Beadlemyren aren’t bad people, Boggy, once you get to know them. They also don’t mind a barroom brawl now and again and said someone oughtta show you how to duck.”
Bogdan got off the cot. There was a package of togs on the potting bench that April must have left for him. “But how can we get Hubert back if the hommers won’t even let us talk to him?”
“We’ll just have to figure that out. Kale’s talking to an autocounsel.”
When Bogdan was ready to leave the shed, he thought of something else to ask. “So, how’d your dates go at Rondy?”
Rusty pursed his lips and shook his head.
“Sorry.”
“But April got some good news. A matchmaker hit her up, and apparently there’s a big fish on the line.”
“April?” Bogdan vaguely remembered the Saurus woman in the ballroom. “That’s great!”
THE FASTEST WAY to pass a message into the null suite was through the radiation tunnel, a trip no living tissue or paste-based or mechanical mind or electronic device could survive. Meewee wrote a short note in Starkese on a scrap of paper and sent it through, hoping that by the time it arrived, its meaning in the metalanguage would still make sense to Wee Hunk’s backup. Then he went to the galley for breakfast.
Nearly an hour later Arrow said <Dr. Rouselle awaits you in the garage.>
Meewee hurried to the lifts and arrived in the garage just as Dr. Rouselle and a medbeitor from the null suite were lowering a hernandez jr. tank into the cargo well of a sedan. The portable tank consisted of a simple controller, a pump for recirculating amnio-foam, and a chrome chamber just large enough to accommodate a human head. Meewee looked around for the backup paste canister, but didn’t see it.
“Forgive me, please,” the doctor said in a lilting voice. “This—ah—biellette is loose?” She gave Meewee a meaningful glance and reached down to quickly open and shut the tank’s chamber door, just long enough to reveal Wee Hunk’s canister inside. Meewee reached down and pretended to check a coupling on the side of the tank.
“Looks tight to me,” he said and closed the cargo well. “Shall we go?”
Meewee and the doctor got into the car, and the fans revved up. <Arrow> he said <challenge the Wee Hunk in the tank.>
A moment later Arrow replied <Identity confirmed. The Wee Hunk in the tank says that the changing situation calls for a new Plan B for which we must make a detour to the federal building before proceeding to the clinic.>
<In that case, tell him to rehire the ’leens.>
FRED WAS CLEARING the breakfast table when the phone chimed. “It’s for you,” he called to Mary in the bedroom who was preparing for a day at the lake. Fred stayed in the kitchen nook and tossed breakfast scraps into the open mouth of the kitchen scupper and eavesdropped.
“You again,” she said.
“Good morning, Myr Skarland,” said a voice Fred did not recognize, not Cabinet’s. “Please check your DCO board.”
A moment later Mary said, “Why fire me just to rehire me?”
“An unfortunate mistake was made. Please note the bonus offered to smooth over the inconvenience. Your shift has already started, and if you accept our offer, you must leave for the clinic immediately. Will you come?”
Mary hesitated. “Is Myr Starke still alive?”
“She needs you now more than ever.”
Fred didn’t hear a reply from Mary, but the call ended, and she returned to the bedroom. He followed and stood in the doorway. She was dumping the beach blanket from her tote and repacking her work things, including the weird hat and the odor sample.
“I don’t appreciate you spying on my DCO business,” she said without looking at him, “and I’d bet that Nicholas wouldn’t like it either.” She quickly changed into a work ensemble.
“Your client,” Fred said, “is the eye of the storm. When you are with this client you are surrounded by danger. Danger you are not trained for. We have lost 10 of my brothers, 13 jerrys, 26 belindas, and 780 pikes—irretrievably—since this aff Market Correction started. And you want to add evangelines to the list? You had a good idea. Let’s call Nicholas. We’ll get its opinion on the whole thing. What do you say?”