Penumbra (8 page)

‘What crap!’

‘No? Look at the girlfriends you’ve had over the years - not many, I must say, but a reasonable enough sample to trace a definite trend. What did all those women have in common, Josh?’

She waited, watching him.

‘I’ll tell you. They were all tall, dark, dominant, pretty, younger than you. They were all grown-up versions of Ella, Josh. Ella as she might have been had she lived. You’re trying to find in us something of Ella, and when you fail to do so you close up. No wonder we can’t relate.’

He finished his beer and gestured to the waiter for another.

Surprising himself, he leaned across the table and said, ‘You’re so full of shit! If you spent half your time applying your half-baked psychology to yourself, you might learn something.’

He was aware of the other diners, watching him.

Julia was half-smiling at him. ‘Such as?’

He leaned back, suddenly weary and ashamed. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Forget it.’

He fell silent. He stared around the outside tables, suddenly aware of the other diners. They shied away from his regard and spoke in lowered tones, embarrassed.

After a while, he said, ‘Why did you want to see me? Is there someone else?’

She sighed. ‘I don’t know. There might be. I just had to tell you that it isn’t working. I owed you that, at least.’

He nodded, kept on nodding at the inevitability of what she had said. Julia finished her salad, slowly picking through the debris of endive and watercress.

Bennett drank his beer. When she looked up, he said, ‘You might think I’m a cold bastard, Julia, but we’ve had some good times.’

She was good enough not to contradict him. ‘I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for, Josh. I really do.’

‘Julia,’ he began. He almost reached across the table to take her hand, but stopped himself in time.

She stood and strode from the table, paid her bill at the bar and hurried away through the trees. Bennett watched her go, filled with that strange mixture of regret and relief he knew so well from all the other partings in the past.

He drank steadily during the afternoon, feeling the unaccustomed effect of the beer dull his senses. On Redwood Station he hardly socialised, and drank only occasionally. He pushed the thought of the station from his mind. He sat and watched the swans, their antics at once comic and undignified: they tipped themselves upside down, rubber-looking orange feet flapping, soiled scuts waggling.

He considered what Julia had said. He wondered if he was really looking for some mature version of Ella, the only person he had ever really loved. He found that the hardest thing in the world was to look into himself and attempt to determine the truth, so wrapped up as it was with the deception of self-interest and vanity. The thought that his actions as an adult might have been conditioned by events in his childhood filled him with fear, a terrible sense of not being in control of his motivation, and therefore his destiny.

He finished his beer and walked back through Mojave to his car. He drove slowly through the shimmering heat of late afternoon, aware of the effects of the alcohol. He arrived at his dome with the grateful sense of having gained refuge.

Mood-jazz began a gentle syncopation as he entered the lounge. He turned it off. The com-screen came on and the picture divided into small squares, each bearing a frozen face. He wondered why he should have been bombarded by so many calls. As he sat down in his swivel chair, he understood: these people were all friends or business associates of his father. He cycled through the messages of condolence, the dispiriting repetition of inadequate sentiments: ‘Your father was a fine, God-fearing gentleman, Joshua. He’ll be missed by everyone at the Church’; ‘I’m calling to offer my condolences, Mr Bennett . . .’ Others were evidence of a side of his father’s character that he had managed to keep hidden from Bennett: ‘I was saddened to hear of your father’s passing. I worked with him back in ninety-five and I never met a more caring and compassionate man’; ‘Your father helped me out in a time of need back in the fifties, Mr Bennett. I’ve never forgotten him for his kindness.’

Rather than sit through them all and then reply individually, he set his screen to record, and said: ‘Joshua Bennett . . . Thanks for calling. Sorry I was unable to speak to you personally. You’re welcome to attend my father’s funeral, on the twenty-sixth at three p.m. at the Mojave Grave Gardens. Thank you again.’ He sent the recording as a one-off shot to all the callers, then sat back.

He hadn’t eaten since early that morning, but he didn’t feel all that hungry. He was about to take a cold beer out on to the veranda when the screen chimed with an incoming call.

Another of his father’s acquaintances? Or perhaps Julia, calling to initiate a second round of abuse? He pressed the
secrecy
decal on the touch-pad and the image of a uniformed man in his forties flooded the screen. Belatedly, Bennett recognised Matheson, the flight manager up at Redwood. Only then did he remember his promise to get a report on the accident to Control.

He accepted the call and sat up.

‘Bennett?’ Matheson stared out at him, his expression uncompromising.

‘Bennett here. About the report - I know, but I’ve had a few personal matters to sort out down here.’

‘Forget the report, Bennett. As of now you’re on indefinite suspension. I want you up here in four days, noon western seaboard time, to face disciplinary charges.’

The effects of the beer slowed his response. ‘Disciplinary charges? What the hell . . . ?’

‘Don’t look so goddamned surprised, Bennett.’ Matheson leaned forward, staring at him. ‘The Viper debacle, remember? The accident? The starship you nearly decommissioned?’

Bennett shook his head. ‘Hey, hold on there. We weren’t at fault. It was a glitch in the Viper’s sub-routine. The ship rejected Ten Lee’s rewrite and—’

‘Listen up, Bennett. Your reaction time was sloppy, no matter what your excuses. Have you any idea how much your incompetence cost Redwood? The bill for the repair of the Viper and the starship? You’re lucky we can’t sue you for it. You’ve no damned excuses.’

‘But—’

‘I’ll see you at noon on the twenty-sixth, Bennett. Out.’

The screen died. The twenty-sixth was the day of his father’s funeral.

He sat back, angry at the injustice. Suspension without pay, a fine or demotion at best. He wondered if Redwood had enough evidence of incompetence to fire him. But Ten Lee had been running systems checks constantly that flight, and the rejection of her rewrite should not have happened.

The screen chimed again, this time with an incoming pre-recorded message.

Bennett pressed
accept.

A chunky, belligerent-faced man with grey curling hair began a fast, rapid-fire delivery. Bennett watched in a daze, catching none of it. The man was sitting behind a desk, a logo on the wall to his right: a stylised letter M shot through with an arrow. Encircling the logo was the legend
mackendrick foundation.

He played the message again from the beginning.

‘Mackendrick here, Bennett. I’m a busy man and I can’t waste time chatting one to one, hence this shot. Heard about your little bust up with Redwood - don’t worry about it, pal. You know what those Vipers are - pieces of shit. It was a systems error the Viper should’ve picked up, and we all know that. Look, I won’t waste your time or mine: I’m in LA tomorrow and recruiting. I need good pilots for an upcoming project. Don’t worry about the bastards at Redwood - I’ll sort them out. I’ll be in my offices at the shipyards from noon. See you then, pal.’

The screen went blank.

Bennett replayed the message, doing his best to assimilate what Mackendrick was telling him.

He was being exonerated from blame by a stranger - Mackendrick of the Mackendrick Foundation - told to forget Redwood, and offered a possible job on some ‘future project’.

He wondered if this was someone’s idea of a joke.

He reached for the touch-pad and accessed GlobaLink. He typed in ‘Mackendrick Foundation’, and two seconds later the message flashed up on the screen: ‘Three thousand articles re. Mackendrick Foundation. State specific area of interest.’

He typed ‘Mackendrick Foundation: summary’.

Seconds later text filled the screen: ‘Mackendrick Foundation, formed 2102. Extra-Expansion exploration company. Primarily concerned with discovery and exploration of new worlds beyond already charted space. [See: worlds discovered.] Fourth largest such company in Expansion. [See: business prospects.] Director: Charles Mackendrick. [See: Mackendrick: biography.]’

There was more, but Bennett had seen enough for the moment.

He fetched a beer from the cooler, stepped out on to the veranda, and watched the sun going down over the desert.

* * * *