“I can never sleep when you're in space.” A stocky man, bald as an egg now but with a twinkle in pale eyes that lay deepset behind spectacles he refused to give up for surgical vision correction.
“The whole time I was on Mars. You didn't sleep then either?” Valens bent down and kissed Georges on the mouth.
“Not a wink. Seven years. I wasn't bald when you left, remember?” He gave Frederick a squeeze and stepped away. “You look exhausted. Tea's hot. We've got stuff for sandwiches.”
“Thank God.”
“Thank Georges.”
Valens followed his husband into the kitchen, unbuttoning his uniform jacket as he moved. He paused in the hall to hang it and step out of his high-gloss shoes. Georges's voice floated back to him. “Your son is pussy-whipped, Fred.”
Valens snorted laughter as he padded onto the kitchen tile in sock-feet. “It's no wonder. You should have met his mother—”
“I'm rather glad I didn't.” Georges filled two heavy self-warming mugs with spicy crimson tea, heavy sugar in the one he gave to Valens. “Our daughter-in-law is trying to move Patty to a gifted school in California—”
“Our daughter-in-law will find herself up against the Military Powers Act if she tries it,” Valens said with a shrug. He blew steam across his mug, holding it to his lips to feel the warmth, and closed his eyes. “I had an interesting conversation with Alberta today—”
“The vulture in the power suit?” Georges didn't look up. “Mayonnaise?”
“A succinct assessment. And on what?”
“We have three different sandwich fillings—”
“Each one healthier than the last, no doubt? You know, if you're going to eat that stuff, putting mayonnaise on it defeats the purpose.”
“It's a matter of aesthetics.”
“In that case, give me the extra-lean, low-salt roast beef, please.” Valens grinned when Georges turned back to the refrigerator and produced a package of roast beef and a
“you-can't-blame-a-man-for-trying” shrug. “They fed us well on the Montreal. Not a powdered egg in sight. Patty's going to do fine, Georges—”
He stopped talking as Georges slid a plate down the counter to him, frowning hard.
“Are you sure you're doing right by her, Fred?” A blunt question, with enough of an edge on it that Valens knew Georges had been biting it back for a long time. And not the question Valens had been expecting.
Valens paused with his hand on the sandwich. “Can I trade this tea in for a beer?”
“After you eat,” Georges allowed, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed.
Valens, knowing the look, drank his tea and ate, standing bent over the counter, sprouts crunching between his teeth. “That wasn't a rhetorical question, was it?”
Georges looked up from putting the mayonnaise back into the refrigerator. “I'm concerned that Holmes is rubbing off on you a bit. This isn't what I'd call ethical, what you're doing—”
“Unethical was telling you anything about it,” Valens replied, rinsing crumbs from his plate. “But that's beside the point,” he continued, when Georges raised a hand as if to interject. “It's irresponsible, certainly. Reckless. Which is how great progress gets made—”
“You can't make an omelet without smashing a few atoms?” Georges didn't sound convinced. Valens tugged a breakfast stool away from the counter and hoisted himself onto it, hooking his toes around the lowest rung. Georges returned with two beers and gave him one.
They leaned on their elbows over the counter, shoulder to shoulder, until Valens edged sideways and bumped Georges lightly. “Desperate times,” he said. “And it wouldn't be any less ethical to let Alberta go unsupervised. She's not so much a corporate raider as Attila the Hun—”
“All too true. But it's Patty, Fred.”
The heart of it, Valens thought, and glanced over his shoulder at Georges. “Love,” he said. “Do you think I would ever take chances that I didn't share?”
Georges took a long swallow of his drink and set it down on the counter, where he stared at it for a moment before he answered. “No,” he said. “Come on. Let's go to bed.”
6:30 AM
Thursday 9 November, 2062
Bloor Street
Toronto, Ontario
Elspeth's skin was soft as brushed cotton, the curve of her hip fitting the palm of his hand as if made to go there. She leaned forward, stretched as luxuriantly as a cat, and spread her weight across his chest. “Ow,” she said, as he reached to pull the covers over her shoulders.
“Ow?”
“Bit my lip.”
It was still barely dawn outside the window, but he heard the smile in her voice. “I could kiss it better.”
She laughed like a much younger woman. “You're welcome to. How's Jenny doing?”
He let that hand slide up her waist, across her back. Considered the complexity of emotions that touch raised in him, the softness of her flesh, the cleverness in her hips and wit and fingers. I could find myself in an awful lot of trouble if I'm not careful here. “Better than I expected. If you're asking—”
She shivered at the touch, pressing her body against his. “Gabe, you couldn't hide that if you wanted to. Trust me, everybody east of Lake Superior has it figured out: you touch her and she just about glows.”
“I don't want to hurt you, Ellie.”
A deeper shiver. “Would it help if I told you I wouldn't let you?”
“Would you be lying?” Water ran in the bathroom, Genie's door banging open to the accompaniment of Leah's sleepy complaints. He would have thought the girls would be begging to stay home from school. I wonder if it's a plot. Then he chuckled softly. They're becoming teenagers. Everything is a plot.
“Gabe.” Her small hand on his face. Toes curling beside his thighs, she lifted herself and shifted her weight, slid to the side to lie curled in the crook of his arm. Her hair was wiry, dark as a black sheep's wool — and falling straight tonight. It had been like rivers of black water in his hands. She must have ironed it before he and Jenny got home. “I don't know. I was never good at commitments. Or risks. And this is complicated, and — I figured I was going to spend the rest of my life in a box. You decide to let go of things.”
What would you do if you had to choose? He wasn't ready to answer that, but it led him to an easier question. “Ellie. Do you think this can work?”
She chuckled and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “My official medical opinion?”
“Yeah.”
“You never know until you try.” The shower cut off. A door opened. Water started running again. “You should have gotten a two-bath apartment. Have you thought about what you're going to tell the girls?”
He groaned. “The doctor believes it would be nonconstructive to just pretend there's nothing going on.”
She bit. “She seemed unhappy when she left.”
“Leah?”
“Jenny.”
“No, she didn't seem happy.” And that was half the tightness in his chest right there. “She seemed scared.”
“Call her.”
“What if she wants to be left alone?”
Elspeth raised her head from his shoulder, rising light catching in the gold-green bands of her irises. “Then she won't answer the phone.”
0700 Hours