It was the way she imagined her father would listen to her if he weren’t her father.
She wandered from topic to topic, telling Timothy about Connor and Muriel, the briefings and meetings her father was adding to her schedule, and all the day-to-day worries and thoughts that had built up without her even knowing, and ending with the unnerving conversation with Holden the dancing bear and the weird way he’d said You should keep an eye on me like it meant something more than it seemed …
When she ran out of words, Timothy leaned back and scratched his beard. Muskrat had curled up on the floor between the two of them. The dog snored softly, and one leg twitched as she dreamed. Two repair drones queried each other, their voices clicking in descending musical tones. Just telling the story left her feeling better.
“Yeah,” he said after a while, “well, for what it’s worth, you’re not the first person that felt like the captain was a splinter they couldn’t dig out. He has that effect on people. But if he says you ought to keep an eye on him, maybe you ought to keep an eye on him.”
Teresa leaned back against the wall and pulled her knees up. “I just wish I knew why he bothers me so much.”
“He don’t treat you like you’re special.”
“You don’t treat me like I’m special. We’re friends.”
He considered that. “Maybe it’s because he thinks your dad’s an asshole.”
“My dad’s not an asshole. And Holden’s a killer. He doesn’t get to judge other people.”
“Your dad’s kind of an asshole,” Timothy said, his expression philosophical, his voice matter-of-fact. “And he’s killed a lot more people than Holden ever did.”
“That’s different. That’s war. He had to do it or else no one would have been able to organize everyone. We’d just have stumbled into the next conflict unprepared. My dad’s trying to save us.”
Timothy held up a finger like she’d made his point for him. “Now you’re telling me why it’s okay he’s an asshole.”
“I don’t—” Teresa started, then stopped. Timothy’s comment made her think of a philosophy lesson, and Ilich talking about consequentialism. Intention is irrelevant. Only outcomes matter.
“I don’t tell anyone how to live,” Timothy was saying. “But if you’re looking for moral perfection in your family? Prepare for disappointment.”
Teresa chuckled. If anyone else had said the same thing to her, she would have bristled, but it was Timothy. That made it okay. She was glad she’d made the time to come out to see him.
“Why did you call him captain?”
“That’s who he is. Captain Holden.”
“He’s not your captain.”
A flash of surprise passed over Timothy, like it was a thought he’d never had. “I guess he ain’t,” Timothy said, and then a moment later, and more slowly, “I guess he ain’t.”
“Dad says he’s afraid,” Teresa said. “Holden is, I mean. Not Dad.”
“They both are,” Timothy said, picking his knife back up. “Guys like them always are. It’s people like you and me that aren’t scared.”
“You’re never scared?”
“I haven’t been scared since I was younger than you, Tiny. I had a rough start.”
“Me too. My mom died when I was a baby. I think my father doesn’t like having women around me because it feels like replacing her. All my teachers have been men.”
“I never knew mine either,” Timothy said. “But I put something together later that I could sort of pretend was family. It wasn’t bad for someone that grew up on my street. While it lasted. I’ll tell you what, though, as fucked up as my childhood was? It’s got nothing on yours.”
“My life’s perfect,” Teresa said. “I can have anything I want. Anytime I want it. Everyone treats me well. My father’s making sure I have the training and education to govern billions of people on thousands of planets. No one has ever had the advantages and opportunities I have.” She paused, surprised by the hint of bitterness that had crept into her voice.
“Uh-huh,” Timothy said. “That’s why you’re always looking over your shoulder when you sneak out to see me, I guess.”
That night, back in her room, she couldn’t sleep. The small nighttime noises of the State Building took on a weird power to distract and startle her. Even the gentle ticking of the walls as they radiated away the day’s heat felt like someone knocking for her attention. She tried turning her pillow to press her cheek against the cool side and playing gentle, soothing music. It didn’t help. Every time she closed her eyes and willed herself down toward dream, she found herself five minutes later with her eyes open, halfway through an imaginary debate with Timothy or Holden or Ilich or Connor. It was past midnight when she gave up.
Muskrat rose with her, following her from bedroom to office, and then, when Teresa sat on one of her workbench stools, curled up at her feet and fell immediately to snoring. Nothing bothered her dog, or at least not for long. Teresa pulled up an old movie about a family living in a haunted apartment on Luna, but her mind slid off the entertainment as quickly as it had off the pillow. She thought about going out and walking around the gardens, but that annoyed her too. When she realized what she actually wanted to do, she’d already known it for a while. Admitting it to herself felt like a surrender.
“Security log access,” she said, and her room’s system shifted from the haunted corridors of Luna to a businesslike user interface. Even as honored and important as she was, there were logs that she didn’t have access to. No one except maybe her father and Dr. Cortázar could have access to the recordings from the pens, for instance. That was normal. And it didn’t matter for what she needed. No one was worried about preserving Holden’s privacy. She could have watched him sleep if she’d wanted to.
She set the system to generate a full track for Holden over the past week, then scrubbed through it. She knew that the State Building had ubiquitous surveillance built into it, but it was interesting to see where exactly the microlenses were and how much they could capture while staying invisible themselves. As she scrubbed through Holden’s passage in the buildings and the gardens, she thought about all the other things she could watch on the feeds. Connor and Muriel, for instance.
On one of her screens, Holden sat on the grass, looking out at the same mountain where Timothy lived. The accelerated scrubbing made his casual gestures and adjustments seem spasmodic. Like he was vibrating. Then Muskrat was there with him. Then she was. She didn’t like looking at herself on camera. She didn’t look the way she felt like she did. In her mind, her hair was smoother and her posture was better. Without meaning to, she shifted on her stool to sit up straighter. Holden flopped to the grass and sat up with his back wet, and then she and Muskrat zipped out of the frame. She forgot her posture again and leaned forward.
Holden fidgeted on the screen, then rose and sped off. Her scrub was at twenty times faster than base. In under an hour, she could take in the shape of his whole day. Holden at his dinner reading something on a handheld. Holden walking through the same common area her class had been in, pausing to talk to a guard. Holden in the gymnasium, exercising on the old-style machines that they used to use on ships. Holden sitting at a table on a veranda overlooking the city with Dr. Cortázar and a bottle of wine—
She tapped the feed, dropping back to normal speed, and found an audio track.
“—also jellyfish,” Cortázar said. “Turritopsis dohrnii is the classic example, but there are half a dozen more. An adult reverts to a polyp colony form under stress. Like an elderly man turning into a fetus. That’s not the model we’re using, but it means the organism has no set maximum life span.” He took a long sip from his wineglass.