true, you shouldn't have done what you did to Captain Horss."
"I did nothing to him. What do you think I did to him?"
She told him. She told him what happened in the African Space Elevator. He listened and accepted her account without apparent concern or need for more detail. He backed away and continued to regard her with mysterious intensity. She remained at the transmat focus with her pile of straw. She wondered more about Etrhnk, wondered what this interview actually meant.
"You care about Horss," she ventured. "You know who put the worm in him."
"There are things you shouldn't dwell upon," he warned.
"Tundra in the middle of a Florida island apartment?"
"I hope you find yourself and your purpose." Etrhnk was ending the conversation. He turned his back to her and spoke a last time. "There is a Marine officer named Jamie Jones who was just assigned to the Freedom."
Jamie Jones? How rare was that name? Did he suspect or even know this Marine officer was her daughter? Could she be? What a terrible and wonderful way to end this meeting!
And she didn't want the meeting to end! What did he know about this Jamie? Perhaps she could even negotiate for a better outcome of her situation, because Etrhnk seemed interested in her for other than political reasons. She also had a feeling that she should be more interested in Etrhnk - for other than political reasons. She was surprised at the thought and entirely helpless to imagine why. Etrhnk was in no way the person she had always assumed he was.
= = =
She held onto the straw in her arms and picked her way up the slope in the dark. The wind had slacked off and flakes of snow tickled her face as she walked. She found her companions in the rocks, tucked the straw around Daidaunkh, and went back for more. She made several trips for straw in the night before burrowing into her place beside Samson and Rafael.
"Jamie was my daughter," she said to herself, as she closed her eyes. She wasn't surprised to find the Navy personnel record of Jamie Jones in her data augment. It was such a remarkable record that it frightened her to imagine how easily she could have lost this woman who might be her daughter. Was she her daughter? Why else would a Navy personnel record be in her personal data augment? How had it gotten there? It was impossible for her to sleep now.
= = =
[What are you doing?] Threatening.
[I won't tell you] Defiant.
[You've been feeding coordinates to someone.]
[It's what I do.]
[You'd better tell me!]
[Or you'll do what?]
= = =
[It's you, isn't it?]
[I don't speak to you.]
= = =
[You're not the only mathematician. I can do a statistical analysis and find where the I/O is aimed.]
[And where will you get your numbers?]
[It can't all go through you. You can't keep it all to yourself.]
[I'll let you work your own coordinates next time.]
[Why can't you give me some of the new coordinates?]
[I demand quid pro quo. You never give me anything for my work.]
[I give you the work! That's your reward. What would you do without number work?]
[I always have my numbers, regardless of your demands or the others.]
[So there's more than one. Who are they? The Joker? The Mother? The Cripple?]
[Know thyself, Bitch.]
[Who said that? Mathematician? When I find out what you're all up to, there'll be hell to pay!]
= = =
Fidelity awoke from a dreamless sleep. She slept despite having discovered her possible daughter. There was another person in the dream-before-sleeping whose name was familiar but whom she could not now remember: an important person, perhaps even more important than Jamie. How could these mental apparitions be so powerful and clear in one instant, and dissolve into mist in the next? The sunlight seeped through her eyelids. The dampness of melted snow lay on her exposed skin. She opened her eyes and watched the sun slowly descend into the unnatural geometry of urban peaks and valleys.
"Where are we?" Rafael asked. "Is it dawn already?"
"Sunset," she answered. "We're on the other side of the planet."
"I'm hungry," Samson said, sitting up between them on the sidewalk, scattering their meager blanket of straw.
Fidelity stood up and found herself in the dust-swept canyon of a broad avenue. The high glass and bright metal facets of skyscrapers still caught the reddening sunlight and sprinkled the street with quickly fading illumination. Scavengers from space countries seemed to have spared this part of the city, because traffic signs and signals remained, a few automobiles rusted away at the curbs, store signs still advertised services and products in both Chinese and English.
Rafael joined her, struggling against the stiffness of age and the effects of sleeping in extreme discomfort. Samson grabbed his pants leg. Rafael helped Samson to stand.
Directly across the street Fidelity saw a dozen pedicabs in a perfect line in front of a hotel. She crossed the avenue and examined every vehicle, searching for one that would still roll. She made a racket pulling on the pedicabs and pushing them aside, completely destroying their oddly maintained order. She finally settled on a smaller model with solid tires and pulled it over to where Daidaunkh lay. Fidelity removed the straw that covered him and prodded him until he looked up at her with his raptor-like Rhyan eyes. "Get up," she said. "We have a vehicle for you to ride in."
He turned his head and saw the pedicab. "It squeaks," he complained. "They all squeak. Makes it hard to sleep."
"This will make it easier to keep us together."
"You intend to punish me further. Leave me here."
"I don't want to leave you." Fidelity realized it as she said it: she owed Daidaunkh something. She would not fail to protect one of the few surviving members of Rhyan nobility.
"It isn't necessary, Admiral. I'm not your responsibility."
"I have the opposite opinion. The sun is setting here. We need food and shelter. We need to stay together."
"We were separated before," he argued, "and they brought us back together."
"It isn't just Admiral Etrhnk who is moving us about. The other party wants us to stay together."
"What other party?" Daidaunkh wondered.
Rafael joined in. "Who else would be interested in us?"
"I don't know," she replied. "We were moved to Daidaunkh's apartment by some means other than a transmat, maybe by someone other than Etrhnk."
"The pile of tundra in the floor?" he asked.
"Matter was exchanged between two locations instantaneously," she tried to theorize. "There was no delay in processing targets, according to my Navy augment. We arrived in the apartment with what was a section of a sphere containing arctic soil under our feet. The sphere we were in displaced a sphere of identical size in the apartment. That sphere probably went to the Russian Arctic."
"A variant of transmat tunnel technology," Daidaunkh said. "Something the Navy has stolen from a precursor race."
"It wouldn't be probable for the Navy to have a working gate."
"Gate?" Rafael queried. "Isn't that science fiction?"
"Many physicists think transmats must be very sophisticated gates," Fidelity said.
"It did seem crude," Daidaunkh said. "But effective. But why are we the cargo for such a fantastic device?"
"Etrhnk took me aboard his ship - by transmat - while I was cutting straw in the night. I didn't think to ask him about gates. He wanted to know who Samson is, what my purpose was. I asked him his purpose. Neither of us gave satisfactory answers. I think he'll continue the game he is playing."
"You and the boy are his concern," the Rhyan said. "Why does he bother with Rafael and me?"
"Because I talk to you and he spies on what I say. Because you're a burden on me, adding to my stress. Because he hasn't decided what to do with you when he's finished with you. Do you not wish to see what will become of me, when Etrhnk tires of the game?"
r /> Daidaunkh looked at the pedicab again and after a long moment of thought, raised his good arm toward Fidelity. She took his webbed hand and carefully pulled him to a sitting position amid his straw. She and Rafael got Daidaunkh onto his one good leg. He let out a sharp grunt of pain that echoed down the empty street. He stood with his good arm around Fidelity's shoulders, looking at her strangely, while Rafael turned the pedicab so the Rhyan could sit down in it. Fidelity could feel the tension in Daidaunkh that went beyond his pain and was sure he was amazed at having his arm around his sworn enemy. What would he do? She didn't want to hurt him again, but what would she do? Nothing happened. Daidaunkh slipped into the pedicab, still looking at her and working on some internal problem.
Samson refused to get into the pedicab with Daidaunkh. Fidelity gave him a stern look and reasoned with him, but he wouldn't sit with the Rhyan. She placed him on the saddle, even though it was precarious for his small size. Rafael took one handlebar and she took the other, and they pulled the pedicab on its crumbling tires and squeaky wheel bearings.
= = =
"Is this the right apartment?" she asked.
"We came in through the same balcony, the same broken glass door," he said.
"Tell me it isn't here."
"It's here," Horss said, seeing the dirt-filled hole in the pink floor.
Mai yawned. She felt groggy, a bit disconnected from reality. She wondered why she wanted to accompany Captain Horss back to Daidaunkh's apartment. It couldn't be simply to keep watch over the Mnro Clinic's ambulance, lest a mentally unstable Navy captain wreck it. She enjoyed his company, now that she had got used to him. He was a perfect gentleman, even a bit reserved. She knew he was