Part 33 (1/2)
”You've got to let off steam somehow,” Edith said. ”If you don't you'll bust.”
”I still shouldn't have done it to them.”
Edith was silent for several heartbeats. Then she whispered, ”If you want to curse, go right ahead.”
”What?”
”Don't hold it in. Sometimes a good string of cussing can be real satisfying. Go ahead, turn the air blue. I won't mind.”
For long moments he didn't know what to reply. Then he confessed. ”I don't know any.”
”Any what?”
”Any curses. I never learned to swear. My mother didn't like it and I never heard it when I was a kid.”
”Nothing at all?” Edith was incredulous.
”h.e.l.l and d.a.m.n. Sonofab.i.t.c.h b.a.s.t.a.r.d. f.u.c.k, s.h.i.+t, a.s.shole.”
”Lord, you make it sound like you're reciting a list.”
He shrugged. ”They don't mean much to me. Not emotionally.”
Edith turned to face him. In the darkness she could barely make out the outline of his head against the pillow.
”What do you do when you get real mad? When you want to spit and kick your faithful ol' hound dog?”
He knew she was trying to cheer him, trying to lighten his foul mood. ”I never had a dog.”
”Didn't you ever want to kick anybody?”
”I go outside,” he said.
”Huh?”
”When I'm really ticked off, when it gets too heavy, I suit up and go outside. That usually makes me feel better.”
”Then let's go outside,” Edith said, propping herself up on one elbow.
”Not now,” Doug said. ”It won't help.”
”But you said-”
”Get some sleep, Edith. The problems I'm facing aren't going to be solved by a walk outside.”
”Come on,” she urged. ”You've never taken me outside. We could-”
”Not now,” he repeated. ”Go to sleep.”
She gave up with a reluctant sigh and curled next to him. Neither of them closed their eyes.
When he tried to reach Tamara Bonai in the morning, her phone relayed a message that she had gone to her private island and was waiting for him to make VR contact with her.
Tiredly, Doug trudged down to the virtual reality studio, pulled on a full-body sensor suit and let a technician help him insert the contact TV lenses. Within minutes he was standing on the sandy beach, surprised that it was night on Tarawa atoll.
”I'm a working woman,” Bonai told him, smiling brightly in the starlit night. ”I have responsibilities that keep me at my desk most of the day.”
Doug forced a grin. ”Here I thought you had nothing to do but swim in the lagoon and go fis.h.i.+ng.”
Bonai was wearing a wraparound pareo, pareo, Doug was in his usual sky-blue coveralls. The night was magnificent: a warm salt breeze blew across the beach and thousands of stars sparkled in the great dome of the heavens. Doug searched the sky for the Moon but could not find it. Of course, he realized. We're in the nighttime part of our cycle; from Earth it's a new moon, invisible. Doug was in his usual sky-blue coveralls. The night was magnificent: a warm salt breeze blew across the beach and thousands of stars sparkled in the great dome of the heavens. Doug searched the sky for the Moon but could not find it. Of course, he realized. We're in the nighttime part of our cycle; from Earth it's a new moon, invisible.
”Have you thought about my offer?” Bonai asked, almost shyly.
For a moment Doug felt puzzled. ”Offer?”
”Asylum here in Kiribati,” she said. ”For you and as many of your people as you want to bring with you.”
Doug took a deep breath. It was one place where the VR simulation failed. Instead of soft tropical sea air he tasted the flat, canned, slightly metallic mixture of Moonbase.
”I need to know more about what the Peacekeepers are planning,” he said.
”I've told you as much as Ras.h.i.+d told me,” Bonai said. ”Several hundred troops, equipped with missiles, are being a.s.sembled at the Yamagata base in Copernicus. They plan to attack Moonbase within a month.”
”Do you know anything about how how they plan to attack?” they plan to attack?”
She shook her head.
Doug hesitated, then asked, ”Tamara, can you find out anything more?”
In the starlit shadows he could not make out the expression on her face. But her voice sounded strained as she replied, ”Doug, I don't want to see Ras.h.i.+d again. Once is a fling; twice... he'll either get suspicious or begin to think he owns me.”
”Oh,” he said, suddenly embarra.s.sed. ”I see. I understand.”
”Do you?”
”I tried to talk with the director of Nippon One,” he said, almost mumbling the words. ”He won't take my calls.”
Tamara touched his sleeve with her virtual hand. ”Doug, I know it's terribly difficult for you, but you've got to face the fact that Moonbase is lost. You've got to start thinking about your own safety.”
He nodded, feeling miserable. ”I know you're right. And yet-”
He stopped. Out in the shadows beneath the palm trees that fringed the beach he saw something move.
Killifer was delighted. About time I caught a break, he said to himself.
He had bought an inflatable boat, barely big enough for himself and the box of food and drink he had brought with him, and chugged out into the lagoon at sunset. The beach boys who watched the hotel's rental outriggers paid him scant attention: a tourist going out for a little night fis.h.i.+ng. .
As soon as it got fully dark Killifer set out for the private little islet on the far end of the atoll where Tamara Bonai sometimes went. Alone.
It wasn't easy, out on the lagoon all by himself in the dark. The lights from the hotel and casino soon sank below the watery horizon. His eyes grew accustomed to the starlight, but each of the flat, palm-fringed islets looked pretty much alike to him. Bonai's private little isle was the last one in the chain, he knew. Still, he almost missed the islet and drifted out to the reef in a sudden swirl of current between islands.