“And one with yours, too.”
“Congratulations, Prime Minister. You just told me why I need you.”
“Huh.” Sunlight catches in her hair as she plays with the curtain, highlighting strands suddenly more chestnut than dark. I squint into the glare until she steps away from the wall and paces the floor the way I ache to. I have always sucked at sitting still. “So the starflight program will continue if the Americans take down Holmes.”
“And Valens. And me. And the whole fucking Unitek power system, as in the dark heart of my heart I hope to God they will. Except for maybe the factory that makes prosthetics for gunshot eagles, but even Hitler made the trains run on time.”
“That's actually a fairy tale.” Riel drops the white muslin curtain that she had drawn aside and turns to face me. “Although he did have only one testicle.”
“Explains a lot.”
“Doesn't it just?” She grins, reminding me of Elspeth Dunsany for a second, and shrugs. “So convince me getting to the stars is more important than feeding my people and getting ready to meet the barbarian hordes with something more effective in the long term than Nero's fiddle.”
“The AI's senses are focused through the nanotech — the little robots in me and the other pilots, woven through the ships, and left over on the ships on Mars. You know the provenance of those ships, right?”
“Abandoned by person or persons unknown.”
“Dr. Forster, the project's chief xenobiologist, thinks they were a gift from some alien intelligence. My suspicious nature tells me that intelligence wants something. And Richard — the AI — can do something else. He can sense the ships of the aliens who left us that technology.”
“And?”
“And they're coming here. More than one kind of them.”
“And you believe it? Him? How do we know he's not behind the sabotage he supposedly prevented?” She's looking at me, though — good eye contact, and these are challenging questions, not aggressive ones.
“I don't think he could have managed to get a knife into my copilot. And I know who he's modeled on. A scientist. A decent guy with a taste for practical jokes and the kind of mind that never lets go if there's a possibility the truth is out there somewhere. The highest price you could offer him, frankly, is what you've already given him: a chance at a trip to the stars.”
“Jen, that's sweet.”
Shut up shutting up, Dick. I miss the first words of Riel's answer. “… still sounds like a fairy tale.”
“If this were a fairy tale, you'd grant me a boon.”
“Funny, I thought that's what you were asking for.”
“Ma'am—”
She shakes her head, long and slow, and pulls her hands out of her pockets while she studies me. “You want a big gamble for a pot we can't count beforehand.”
“I've always said you've got a better shot with the devil you don't know. Not that I'm always right—” I say in haste, because I see her mouth begin to open. “I'm just saying.”
“Huh.” She nods again, hair brushing her forehead, dark again now that she's crossed out of the sun. She starts to open the door, pauses with the edge still resting on the jamb. “Hungry people, Jen. Famine, war. Disease.”
I tip my head and can't quite believe what I'm saying. “Try to think two hundred years ahead.”
She opens the door the rest of the way. “I'd love to,” she says. “But I find it's hard to think of tomorrow when the rats are gnawing your ankles now.”
4:15 PM
Friday 15 December, 2062
Allen-Shipman Research Facility
Toronto, Ontario
Genie squirmed in the carpeted corner of the study room and kicked the leg of Leah's chair again, drawing an exasperated look. Patty kept her head down, eyes closed as she concentrated on the data feed through her contact, and so did one of the two boys in the room. The other one grinned at Leah, and looked quickly away again. Genie sighed and keyed into her HCD, slipping her ear cuff on with her other hand so she could amuse herself with a game while she waited. Her homework was done, and what she really wanted was to go home. Or maybe get something to eat and then go home.
The heads-up in the corner of her contact said 4:15 p.m., and she knew her father wouldn't be ready to leave until at least five-thirty. She could go distract Elspeth…
She snuck a glance at her sister. Leah's fingers moved nimbly through her holographic interface, but Genie saw her stealing sidelong looks at the dark-haired boy across the table and suspected she wasn't working on precalc. She also suspected that, even though Papa had asked Leah to keep an eye on Genie, Leah was probably distracted enough not to notice if she slipped out…
Leah looked down at her interface again and closed her eyes, imaging something on her contact. Genie stood up silently and sidled to the door.
Five minutes later, she leaned around the doorframe into Elspeth's office and peeked into the room. “Ellie?”
Ellie wasn't there.
But her workstation was on. Which was probably a breach of security, because Papa usually locked his even when he got up to go to the bathroom, but he tended to be more fussy about things like that than Ellie. Genie walked into the office and sat down in Ellie's chair, stretching her fingers to reach holoplates on the interface panel that were set up for larger hands. Not that much larger, though. Genie grinned, squirming down into a soft dark green chair that reminded her of a car's bucket seat, and began to poke things at random.
Leah wasn't going to let Bryan know she thought he was cute. Even if he did keep sending her instant messages and peeking out from behind his dark bangs at her with eyes the color of chocolate cake. Instead, she ducked her head and tapped out another message on her interface—I have to study! — before calling up one more page of equations.
She stole a glance at Patty's screen. The dark-haired girl was almost at the end of the page, wincing as she absently bit her cuticle. Leah rolled her head back and stared at the ceiling as she thought. Numbers and symbols swam in front of her eyes, a slow trickle of information scrolling across her contact. Richard, why can't you just do the math for me?
“The math isn't important,” he answered absently. “What's important is training the critical skills into your brain. So if you were about to ask me to help you cheat on the test on Wednesday—”
I would never cheat! And then she looked down at the desk. Okay, once or twice.
“Here's a bit of advice.” He pictured himself for her, leaning back in his chair with his expressive hands laced behind his head, imagined sunlight a halo in his hair. “Cheat all you want to when it comes to games and social issues and politics. All that stuff is just rankings and scoring points. When it comes to things that you need to know to do your job, though — those, you need to have cold.”
Whatever. She deleted an IM from Bryan without answering it. Worry resurfaced, as it did whenever distractions failed. Richard, is Aunt Jenny really going to be okay?
“She'll be fine,” Richard answered. “She'll be just fine. Homework now.”
Leah didn't think Richard would ever lie to her. But she worried he might talk around the truth. She pursed her lips and leaned over to Patty, putting her hand on the older girl's arm incautiously.
Patty jerked back so hard she knocked her interface into her lap. “Leah!” Voice startlingly loud in the quiet room.
“I was—” just going to ask for help on number fourteen. “Where's Genie gone?”