He nodded, understanding both her acknowledgment of his particular expertise, and her need to grant her missing husband the dignity of not having his personal possessions picked through by the rival who had replaced him.
He sat down at the terminal, calling it on, requesting a review of its contents, file by file. Occasionally he ordered it to transfer something to his own private files, for more detailed study, but there was nothing he saw that surprised him. Moon moved around and past him quietly, searching through heaps of printouts with scribbled notations, glancing through books and recordings and tapes, separating them into coherent piles of her own making. A part of his mind followed her as she moved, always aware of her, even as another part of him scanned the flow of data passing in front of his eyes. She moved with obsessive single-mindedness through her search, holding her emotions at bay. But every now and then he registered her hesitation, as she came upon something that caught her painfully. He tried at those moments especially not to look at her.
The last of the summary overflies slid into view before him, finally. He sat up straighter in his seat as the port’s synthetic voice informed him, emotionlessly, that the file was code-sealed. “Damn,” he murmured.
“What is it?” Moon looked up, across the room.
“There’s a file here that’s locked.”
“And there’s a drawer here that’s locked—” she said. He watched her pry at it with the curved blade of a scaling knife she found on the desktop. She gave a sudden exclamation as the drawer jumped out at her. Sitting down at the desk, she picked through its contents, which were not visible to him. She held something up; a small handmade pouch, beaded and embroidered, some sort of native crasftsmanship. She laid it on the table; not looking at him, seeming even to have forgotten his presence.
She lifted something else out—a pendant of silver metal on a chain, the perfect match to the one that Reede had worn. This time she looked over her shoulder, holding up the sign of the Brotherhood.
He watched all the kinds of darkness that moved through her eyes as she saw u spinning in the air, knowing now what it symbolized. She let it go; the clatter as it hit the floor was loud in the quiet room. She turned back again, away from his eyes, picking other objects out of the drawer: an offworlder medal, a string of bright glass beads, an ancient calibrator, a child’s wooden top. She held the last object a little longer than the rest, before she put it down.
She reached into the drawer again, and removed something hesitantly, as if it were fragile. He saw a lock of pale hair, like the foam on the crest of a wave, sealed in a blown-glass vial. She stared at it, holding it cupped in her hands.
“Yours?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Arienrhod?” he said gently.
She placed the glass bottle on the desk with exaggerated care. “It could be. It could be Ariele’s.…” Suddenly the tears that she had refused to let fall were overflowing. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs as she turned away, leaning on the desktop, burying her face in her hands. “I didn’t even know she was seeing him.” Reede. “I could have stopped it! I never really knew her, she was my own child. …”
BZ rose from his seat and crossed the room, kneeling down beside her where she sat weeping. “I never knew her at all….” His own sudden grief left him speechless, and he only held her, his head bowed against her shoulder. Her arms moved spasmodically, to tighten around him, and he felt her tears soak his uniform jacket. “I should have stopped him. I had him in my hands!”
“It’s not your fault—” “It’s not yours.” He lifted his head, forcing her to look at him. “It isn’t over yet,” he said, somehow keeping his voice steady. “We can’t let this paralyze us, we need every minute. …”
She nodded, wiping her face on her sleeve, taking a long, tremulous breath. “I know,” she murmured. She moved away, out of his arms, straightening her shoulders. She took one more item out of the drawer and laid it on the desk—a book, its cover so worn with use and time that he could not read its title.
Surprised, he picked it up, unable to resist such a curiosity, as he always was. In his youth he had loved books, fascinated by the primitive but profound nature of their information storage, by their ability to cross all technological barriers, by their portability, by their feel and smell. He had read endless Old Empire romances, addicted to the flow of words—the way they let his imagination create its own fantasies of that lost time, instead of forcefeeding him a prepackaged reality created by someone else.
But then he had come to Tiamat, to ancient, mysterious Carbuncle, trying to make his fantasies come true; and for a long time after that, he had had no stomach for reading. And then he had had no time…. He flipped the book open, glancing at the title page. It was in Tiamatan, laid out in the universal phonetic alphabet: a book about fugue theory. He thumbed through the soft-edged pages, seeing notes scrawled along the margins in an unfamiliar, unembellished hand. There were mathematical formulas and musical notations side by side, with arrows and question marks and scribbled abbreviations he could not decode. But holding the book, he felt something resonate in the hidden levels of his brain where pure reason met pure inspiration. He closed the book again, looking at Moon. “May I take this?”
“Do you think it’s what we’ve been looking for?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But it’s worth more study.” He glanced away at the terminal’s unblinking eye. “Do you know the key codes Sparks used to lock his personal files?”
“I didn’t even know he had any files that weren’t freely accessible—” She broke off. “I knew so little about them all.” She rubbed her eyes distractedly. “He turned his back on all of us, not just me, when he learned … It hurt him so much, it took everything away from him. He always loved her more than anyone, I think.” Ariele. “But he wouldn’t even speak to her, anymore.” She shook her head. “And now he’s gone after her.…”
BZ was silent, looking down. He laid his hand gently on her shoulder; she pressed her face against it, closing her eyes.
Someone entered the room, and stopped in surprise. They looked up together, startled, to find Tammis in the doorway staring back at him. BZ withdrew his hand hastily, selfconsciously; stood not touching Moon, as their son came into the room.
Tammis stopped again, looking at BZ and back at his mother in unspoken empathy. “They told me you were here,” he said. “I have some news—” Moon stiffened. But then his somber expression broke into smiles. The pride and pleasure that filled his face touched them both. “Merovy and I are going to have a baby.”
A small sound of disbelief escaped BZ’s throat, as Moon’s face emptied of all expression.
Tammis took in his mother’s stunned expression uncertainly, before he turned to BZ. “We’re back together,” he said. “We’re working it out. And I owe it to you—” He broke off, not saying “Justice,” not saying “father.” He held out his hand.
“Congratulations.” BZ shook his hand; wanting to reach out and embrace him, but not able to … suddenly feeling as much of a stranger to his son as his own father had always seemed to him. “I’m honored to hear it,” he said.
Tammis smiled, with a fleeting regret that matched his own, before he turned back to his mother. His face fell. “What’s wrong—?”
She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, shaking her head in mute apology; her eyes filled again, suddenly, with tears.
“Sit down, Tammis,” BZ said quietly. He explained, keeping his eyes averted, unable to watch either one of them react to the words.