Part 26 (2/2)

”A long and boring one.”

He did not ask. ”Those need to be taken with food,” he said. ”I'll get you a gla.s.s of water and some crackers.”

She eyed them. ”No need to put yourself out. I'm headed to a lunch meeting. I'll take my first dose then.”

He peered at her. ”Don't delay getting this checked out, Jane.”

She had this maudlin impulse to hug him, to offer to take him out for a beer and reminisce about the days when she and Xuan had emigrated here. Zekeston had still been a double barbell, and Pete had been the only doctor within many million kilometers. Instead she wordlessly brushed his palm.

”Good luck,” he said. ”Be sure to take your meds.”

She eyed the medication dubiously. He knew her too well.

”'Bye, Pete. Thanks.”

She wondered if she would ever see him again.

Sarah's office was at the boundary of Heavitown-a quasi-bohemian district that had never been able to make up its mind whether it was seedy or trendy-and the upscale Path of Seven Stones district. Both were located in the northeast sector, near the Promenade: a meandering thread-mesh of shops, parks, homes, and businesses that girded the city's outermost level.

The Promenade was packed. All the treeway refugees seemed to be here. People were straightening and putting things away, now that the spin generators had restored Zekeston's acceleration. She spotted a couple on a bench. One of the men was perhaps eight months pregnant. He pulled his partner's hand onto his belly and said, ”Feel that?” The two shared a private smile.

Jane moved on through the crowd. Seeing everyone working so cheerfully on recovery and repairs lifted her spirits an angstrom or two. For all the three-quarters gee, she loved Heavitown. If she were ever to give up No-Moss, she would want to move here.

Among the flow of people emerging from a nearby spokeway lift, Jane moved onto the main thoroughfare and entered Heavitown's noisy maze of shops and kiosks and plaza markets. Like most low-gee-adapted folk, she had a slow, swaying gait in this three-quarters-gee area. She moved to the right with the other adapted pedestrians, and the nonadapted foot traffic streamed past.

Her improved mood didn't last long. People were staring at her, and her bad-sammy cache was filling up. With a spike of irritation, she turned off her waveware-it wouldn't stop the bad-sammies, but at least she wouldn't have to see them-and paid attention to her physical surroundings instead.

Everyone was warmly dressed. Along with the usual parkas and sweaters, Jane spotted plenty of people wearing makes.h.i.+ft cloaks made of blankets, or wearing double or triple layers of clothing. The younger children waddling after their parents or older siblings were bundled so thoroughly they looked like stuffed sausages; people huddled on benches and blew into cupped hands. Jane was once more thankful for the thalite undergarment she wore.

Thinking of the undergarment made her think of Tania. And Funaki. There were others who would be worrying about her, smatterings of concern amid the outrage. She should answer them.

Later, though. Later.

Buildings and stairways bordered the wide avenue, which swarmed with foot traffic, trolleys, robotics, and vendors' stands. Here, looking along the length of the Promenade, you could see the station's curvature: the shops and apartments and the avenue with its embedded rails curved upward out of sight. In the distance, pedestrians and vehicles climbed up gentle slopes to disappear above.

On a typical day she could navigate through Heavitown's markets by smell alone, and today her nose revealed more to her about the city's troubles than her resource reports had. Most of the scents were the usual ones. It wasn't so much that. Multiethnic food aromas emanated from vendors' kiosks and open-front cafes on the cool eddies. Ordinarily they would make Jane's mouth water. Tortoise Palace, the discount housing wares shop; the tobacconist, Pipe Dreams, from which issued the smell of fresh pipe tobacco and cannabis, both still legal out here on the frontier.

She spotted Tarts, the coffee shop, with its irresistible mingling of aromas: fresh bread, cookies and pastries, and coffee. Some of its patrons carried their purchases next door to Tarts, Too, the virtual bordello, which had patio seating in front of its plate-gla.s.s windows. In the gla.s.s-front walkways there paraded an a.s.sortment of escort sapients, of both s.e.xes (and some made-up genders), as well as anthropomorphized beasts, fantasy creatures, and monsters; all naked or semi-naked; provocative, aggressive, or coy. The place was packed. Bizfolk and miners crowded around the entrance. A knot of protestors waved flags and signs around the fringes, mocking the customers; denouncing Tarts, Too's use of sapients as s.e.x toys. Next up was the flea market, with people's life histories up for sale, and then came the fruit stalls, holding rows of crisp, succulent produce straight from the city's Mrs. Veggie tanks. Selection was spa.r.s.e today. The range of choices was going to get spa.r.s.er before this crisis ended.

Threading through all the usual market smells was the usual people-smell, only today it was stronger than usual.

Treeway and faraway folk did not bathe nearly as often as city folk did. Water, like everything else but vacuum, was scarce in s.p.a.ce. And when you spent a lot of time encased in body armor, wrangling rocks and big machines and jetting around out in the Big Empty, thousands or even millions of kilometers from the nearest shower stall, body odor and oily hair were, well, inescapable. During her rock-hopping days, Jane had been no different. You got used to it, and stopped noticing the stink. In fact, she recalled how Phocaean city-dwellers had stunk, to her nose, back when she had returned from the Circuit, with their natural scents masked by soaps, perfumes, shampoos, and spritzes.

Here, today, the stink of humanity surrounded Jane again. But the store and people smells were underlain with a staleness, a hint of human excrescence, rotting food, machine oils, and mold. The humidity was higher than normal, too. She could tell by the damp feel of the air on her face and in her lungs, by the way the wisps of her hair, which ordinarily hung straight and heavy in this high-gee place, coiled stubbornly across her cheeks and forehead.

The smell was death, hanging patiently around. Waiting for just one more thing to go wrong, that could not be fixed in time.

In truth, she should be grateful to Benavidez. The last twelve years that she had run Phocaea's systems, and in particular the last four days, they had lurched and dodged from one near-catastrophe to another. However gleeful her fellow citizens were, however certain they were that their problem was solved-and they were all around her now, celebrating at the news that the ice would soon be delivered-she knew better. She knew how easily things might have gone horribly wrong many times in the past, if the stars had been aligned and one single thing had changed. And she remembered Vesta. The next crisis might well be the last. She was relieved, when it came down to it, that she would not be the one making the decisions this time.

After a while the stares got to be too much. After a third pa.s.serby in a block slammed into her, nearly knocking her over, Jane ducked down a narrow walkway, through a semi-private atrium into a narrow alley. Several bug-sized news-mites flanked her along the carefully flawed brick walls of this less inhabited alleyway. A mote cloud thickened as it drifted toward her. She had almost certainly been breathing some in-swallowed them, even. Maybe Downside viewers would get a good look at her lungs, her bloodstream, her stomach lining.

She knew she was being irrational; they transmitted their signals by settling onto receptors set into the intake ducts. Anything she inhaled would simply be broken down by her normal body defenses just as dust, molds, and pollens were. It was silly to get bent about one product of bug-tech, and not everything. a.s.sembler traces were everywhere: in their food, in their water, on every surface. If she had not experienced an allergic reaction by now, she probably never would. She leaned against the wall, breathing deeply, collecting her calm.

Only two more days of this torment and then she would be free, relatively anonymous-she hoped-aboard the Martian cruiser Sisyphus Sisyphus. Nevertheless, she felt a powerful need to fumigate.

She turned the corner, and emerged onto a less populated avenue. By law, the reporters' mites couldn't follow her into the law office, though they cl.u.s.tered in the entryway and would no doubt be there when she emerged. The ”Stroider”-motes on the other hand could enter at least the lobby with her, and did.

Sarah was ready to see her as soon as she arrived but Jane deferred, and waited in the lobby until the offline window. At precisely eleven, the motes began to dissipate. She gave it about sixty seconds, and then ran a signal tracer to verify that mote density had dropped to a sufficiently low level to a.s.sure privacy. The area was clean.

Sarah stood as Jane entered. She was tall and lanky, nearly four decimeters taller than Jane, also in her middle years. Her hair was auburn streaked with white, and her cheeks were as ruddy with cold as the day they two had first met. Her face creased into a smile, and she came to take Jane's hand. Old, dear friend.

”It's nice to have a little privacy.” Jane sank gratefully onto her couch. She felt safe for the first time in days.

Sarah offered her sandwiches. Jane put her hand in her pocket, remembering the pills, but she couldn't bear to put anything in her stomach just now. Later. She pushed the sandwiches aside.

”Those G.o.dd.a.m.n motes. I thought I was going to choke on them. Can anything be done?”

Sarah settled back in her chair. ”Doubtful. You signed the contract just like everybody else, and you've benefited from the stipend. Free-speech protection laws tend to be weaker than contract law here. On Earth or the moon, most places, you'd be in better shape.”

”Power makes the rules, in other words, and the weak go wanting.”

Sarah chuckled. ”You're hardly powerless, my dear.”

”I feel powerless enough.”

Sarah gazed steadily at her, and she shrugged a grudging acquiescence.

”Anyway,” Sarah said, ”I don't find your point valid on principle. All societies must find a way to deal with competing interests. There may well be times when you'll be grateful for contract law provisions that-”

”G.o.ddammit, this is no time for philosophy. I have no privacy! I can't be myself; I'm always 'on.' I'm an automaton for the cameras! It was bad enough before 'Stroiders,' but now, and with this disaster...” She slumped. ”I'm so unspeakably sick of it.” this is no time for philosophy. I have no privacy! I can't be myself; I'm always 'on.' I'm an automaton for the cameras! It was bad enough before 'Stroiders,' but now, and with this disaster...” She slumped. ”I'm so unspeakably sick of it.”

Sarah's expression softened. ”Of course. I'll put some interns to work and see what we can do.”

”Actually, there's not much point. I don't plan to hang around.” Jane told her about Benavidez's offer. Sarah's eyes went wide and her lips thinned.

”You accepted it? Without talking to me first?”

Jane nodded. ”It was take-it-or-leave-it. And I'm so sick of fighting.” She hunched over, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. ”It's been over forty years of this business. I'm exhausted. So tired of the maneuverings and the spinning. The backstabbing.”

”You've always been able to handle the pressure before.”

”People haven't died before. Not like this.” She paused. ”And there are aspects that haven't come out in the news.”

Sarah c.o.c.ked her head. ”Ah?”

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