Friday (31 page)

I then tackled the one I had hoped to be able to skip: Christchurch. There was a probability that Boss’s HQ had sent word to me care of my former family when the move was made—if it was a move and not a total disaster. There was a very remote possibility that Ian, unable to send a message to me in the Imperium, would send one to my former home in hopes that it would be forwarded. I recalled that I had given him my Christchurch call code when he gave me the code for his Auckland flat. So I called my erstwhile home—

—and got the shock that one gets in stepping on a step that isn’t there. “Service is discontinued at the terminal you have signaled. Calls are not being relayed. In emergency please signal Christchurch—” A code followed that I recognized as Brian’s office.

I found myself doing the time-zone correction backward to get a wrong answer that would let me put off calling—then I snapped out of it. It was afternoon here, just past fifteen, so it was tomorrow morning in New Zealand, just past ten, a most likely time of day for Brian to be in. I punched his call, got a satellite hold of only a few seconds, then found myself staring into his astonished face. “Marjorie!”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Marjorie. How are you?”

“Why are you calling me?”

I said, “Brian, please! We were married seven years; can’t we at least speak politely with each other?”

“Sorry. What can I do for you?”

“I am sorry to disturb you at work but I called the house and found the terminal out of service. Brian, as you no doubt know from the news, communications with the Chicago Imperium have been interrupted by the Emergency. The assassinations. What the newscasters have been calling Red Thursday. As a result of this I am in California; I never did reach my Imperium address. Can you tell me anything about mail or messages that may have come for me? You see, nothing has reached me.”

“I really could not say. Sorry.”

“Can’t you even tell me whether anything had to be forwarded? Just to know that a message had been forwarded would help me in tracing it.”

“Let me think. There would have been all that money you drew out—no, you took the draft for that with you.”

“What money?”

“The money you demanded we return to you—or be faced with an open scandal. A bit more than seventy thousand dollars. Marjorie, I am surprised that you have the gall to show your face…when your misbehavior, your lies, and your cold cupidity destroyed our family.”

“Brian, what in the world are you talking about? I have not lied to anyone, I don’t think I have misbehaved, and I have not taken one penny out of the family. ‘Destroyed the family’
how?
I was kicked out of the family, out of a clear blue sky—kicked out and sent packing, all in a matter of minutes. I certainly did not ‘destroy the family.’ Explain yourself.”

Brian did, in cold and dreary detail. My misbehavior was all of a piece with my lies, of course, that ridiculous allegation that I was a living artifact, not human, and thereby I had forced the family to ask for an annulment. I tried to remind him that I had proved to him that I was enhanced; he brushed it aside. What I recalled, what he recalled, did not match. As for the money, I was lying again; he had seen the receipt with my signature.

I interrupted to tell him that any signature that appeared to be mine on any such receipt had to be a forgery as I had not received a single dollar.

“You are accusing Anita of forgery. Your boldest lie yet.”

“I’m not accusing Anita of anything. But I received no money from the family.”

I
was
accusing Anita and we both knew it. And possibly accusing Brian as well. I recalled once that Vickie had said that Anita’s nipples erected only over fat credit balances…and I had shushed her and told her not to be catty. But there were hints from others that Anita was frigid in bed—a condition that an AP can’t understand. In retrospect it did seem possible that her total passion was for the family, its financial success, its public prestige, its power in the community.

If so, she must hate me. I did not destroy the family, but kicking me out appeared to be the first domino in its collapse. Almost immediately after I left, Vickie went to Nuku’alofa…and instructed a solicitor to sue for divorce and financial settlement. Then Douglas and Lispeth left Christchurch, married each other separately, then entered the same sort of suit.

One tiny crumb of comfort. I learned from Brian that the vote against me had not been six to nothing but seven to nothing. An improvement? Yes. Anita had ruled that voting must be by shares; the major stockholders, Brian, Bertie, and Anita, had voted first, casting seven votes against me, a clear majority to expel me—whereupon Doug, Vickie, and Lispeth had abstained from voting.

A very small crumb of comfort, however. They had not bucked Anita, not tried to stop her, they had not even warned me of what was afoot. They abstained…then stood aside and let the sentence be executed.

I asked Brian about the children—and was told bluntly that they were none of my business. He then said that he was quite busy and must switch off, but I held him for one more question: What was done with the cats?

He looked about to explode. “Marjorie, are you utterly heartless? When your acts have caused so much pain, so much real tragedy, you want to know about something as trivial as cats?”

I restrained my anger. “I do want to know, Brian.”

“I think they were sent to the SPCA. Or it might have been to the medical school. Good-bye! Please do not call me again.”

“The medical school—” Mister Underfoot tied to a surgical table while a medical student took him apart with a knife? I am not a vegetarian and I am not going to argue against the use of animals in science and in teaching. But if it must be done, dear God if there is one anywhere, don’t let it be done to animals who have been brought up to think they are people!

SPCA or medical school, Mister Underfoot and the younger cats were almost certainly dead. Nevertheless, if SBs had been running, I would have risked going back to British Canada to catch the next trajectory for New Zealand in the forlorn hope of saving my old friend. But without modern transportation Auckland was farther away than Luna City. Not even a forlorn hope—

I dug deep into mind-control training and put matters I could not help out of my mind—

—and found that Mister Underfoot was still brushing against my leg.

On the terminal a red light was blinking. I glanced at the time, noted that it had been just about the two hours I had estimated; that light was almost certainly Trevor.

So make up your mind, Friday. Put cold water on your eyes and go down and let him try to persuade you? Or tell him to come on up, take him straight to bed, and cry on him? At first, that is. You certainly don’t feel lecherous this minute…but tuck your face into a nice, warm male shoulder and let your feelings sag and pretty soon you will feel eager. You know that. Female tears are reputed to be a powerful aphrodisiac to most men and your own experience bears that out. (Crypto-sadism? Machismo? Who cares? It works.)

Invite him up. Have some liquor sent up. Maybe even put on some lip paint, try to look sexy. No, the hell with lip paint; it would not last long anyway. Invite him up; take him to bed. Cheer yourself up by doing your damnedest to cheer him up. Give it everything you’ve got!

I fitted a smile onto my face and answered the terminal.

And found myself speaking to the hotel’s robot voice: “We are holding a box of flowers for you. May we send them up?”

“Certainly.” (No matter who or what, a box of flowers is better than a slap in the belly with a wet fish.)

Shortly the dumbwaiter buzzed; I went to it and took out a floral package as big as a baby’s coffin, put it on the floor to open it.

Long-stemmed, dusky red roses! I decided to give Trevor a better time than Cleopatra ever managed on her best days.

After admiring them I opened the envelope that came with them, expecting just a card with perhaps a line asking me to call the lounge, or such.

No, a note, almost a letter:

Dear Marjorie,

I hope that these roses will be at least as welcome as I would have been.

[“—would have been”? What the devil?]

I must confess that I have run away. Something came up that made me realize that I must desist from my attempts to force my company on you.

I am not married. I don’t know who that pretty lady is; the picture is just a prop. As you pointed out, my sort is not considered suitable for marriage. I’m an artificial person, dear lady. “My mother was a test tube; my father was a knife.” So I should not be making passes at human women. I pass for human, yes, but I would rather tell you the truth than to continue to try to pass with you—then have you learn the truth later. As you would, eventually, as I am the dirt-proud sort who would sooner or later tell you.

So I would rather tell you now than hurt you later.

My family name is not Andrews, of course, as my sort do not have families.

But I can’t help wishing that you were an AP yourself. You really are sweet (as well as extremely sexy) and your tendency to babble about matters, such as APs, that you don’t understand, is probably not your fault. You remind me of a little fox terrier bitch I once had. She was cute and very affectionate, but quite willing to fight the whole world by herself if that was the program for the day. I confess to liking dogs and cats better than most people; they never hold it against me that I’m not human.

Do enjoy the roses, Trevor

I wiped my eyes and blew my nose and went down fast and rushed through the lounge and then through the bar and then down one floor to the shuttle terminal and stood by the turnstiles leading to the departing shuttles…and stood there, and waited, and waited, and waited some more, and a policeman began eyeing me and finally he came over and asked me what I wanted and did I need help?

I told him the truth, or some of it, and he let me be. I waited and waited and he watched me the whole time. Finally he came over again and said, “Look here, if you insist on treating this as your beat, I’m going to have to ask to see your license and your medical certificate, and take you in if either one is not in order. I don’t want to do that; I’ve got a daughter at home about your age and I’d like to think that a cop would give her a break. Anyhow you ought not to be in the business; anybody can see from your face that you’re not tough enough for it.”

I thought of showing him that gold credit card—I doubt that there is a streetwalker anywhere who carries a gold credit card. But the old dear really did think that he was taking care of me and I had humiliated enough people for one day. I thanked him and went up to my room.

Human people are so cocksure that they can always spot an AP—
blah!
We can’t even spot each other. Trevor was the only man I had ever met whom I could have married with an utterly clear conscience—and I had chased him away.

But he was too sensitive!

Who
is too sensitive?
You
are, Friday.

But, damn it, most humans do discriminate against our sort. Kick a dog often enough and he becomes awfully jumpy. Look at my sweet Ennzedd family, the finks. Anita probably felt self-righteous about cheating me—I’m not human.

Score for the day: Humans 9—Friday 0.

Where is Janet?

After a short nap that I spent standing on an auction block, waiting to be sold, I woke up—woke up because prospective buyers were insisting on inspecting my teeth and I finally bit one and the auctioneer started giving me a taste of the whip and woke me. The Bellingham Hilton looked awfully good.

Then I made the call I should have made first. But the other calls had to be made anyhow and this call cost too much and would have been unnecessary if my last call had paid off. Besides, I don’t like to phone the Moon; the time lag upsets me.

So I called Ceres and South Africa Acceptances, Boss’s banker—or one of them. The one who took care of my credit and paid my bills.

After the usual hassle with synthetic voices that seemed more deliberately frustrating than ever through the speed-of-light lag, I finally reached a human being, a beautiful female creature who clearly (it seemed to me) had been hired to be a decorative receptionist—one-sixth gee is far more effective than a bra. I asked her to let me speak to one of the bank’s officers.

“You are speaking to one of the vice-presidents,” she answered. “You managed to convince our computer that you needed help from a responsible officer. That’s quite a trick; that computer is stubborn. How may I help you?”

I told a portion of my unlikely story. “So it took a couple of weeks to get inside the Imperium and when I did, all my contact codes were sour. Does the bank have another call code or address for me?”

“We’ll see. What is the name of the company for which you work?”

“It has several names. One is System Enterprises.”

“What is your employer’s name?”

“He doesn’t have a name. He is elderly, heavyset, one-eyed, rather crippled, and walks slowly with two canes. Does that win a prize?”