CHAPTER 3
Half an hour later, we’re sitting
in a café near what used to be Farwan headquarters, though
it’s now the Conglomerate Command Center on New Terra. Few patrons
are sitting in the restaurant this time of day, too late for
breakfast and too early for lunch. The place is done in tones of
amber and gold, heavy, fringed shades giving the room a diffuse,
smoky glow, frosted by the ice on the outside of the
windows.
It’s eerie. My mother
doesn’t look a day older than when I left. Either she didn’t worry
about me, or she spent my father’s money on antiaging treatments.
My credits, assuming I still have some, are on both.
“The shock killed
him,” she’s saying. “Everywhere he went, someone asked, ‘Isn’t that
your daughter?’ when they flashed that horrid picture of you. He
just couldn’t take it anymore. I always knew there was something
wrong with it, though.”
“You did?” I’ve
barely recovered from her first tactless announcement, and a
stabbing pain between my shoulder blades prompts March to regard me
with concern.
Can’t believe nobody told me.
“You loved working
for the Corp. Mary knows you defied everything we wanted for you to
do it, so I knew you wouldn’t have run off without a good
reason.”
Heh. She calls
everything I went through after the Sargasso “running off.” This fundamental disconnect
would be why I left New Terra in the first place. I can’t believe
my dad is gone, though it explains her glamorous interpretation of
widow’s weeds.
“No, she wouldn’t,”
March puts in.
I can see Ramona
assessing him, trying to figure us out. With a faint half smile, he
makes it easy for her by curling his arm around me. I lean in,
watching her warily. She wants something, or she wouldn’t be here.
But what does she think I can do for her? That’s the
question.
The small talk
continues, and she sidles around the subject of the crash and my
dead lover, unpleasantness we shouldn’t dwell on, according to her.
Ramona does mention that she knows a lovely cosmetic surgeon who
could help me with those “unsightly marks” via laser therapy. I set
my jaw.
“No thanks,” I say
quietly. “I want to keep them.”
We’ve been together
less than an hour, and already exasperation shows in her tone.
“Well, for Mary’s sake, why, Sirantha?”
“You like to pretend
bad things never happen. I prefer to remember, so I won’t make the
same mistakes again.” I flick a glance at March. “Besides, guys dig
them.”
He grins. “I do. They
make you look dangerous.”
This place is
automated. Most places have a human programmer who supervises the
equipment, but otherwise, the café is nearly empty, just us and a
couple of others across the room. I shift long enough to tap out an
order for hot choclaste on the wall panel. The kitchen-mate at our
table handles basic requests. Anything complex or exotic would be
forwarded to the gourmet unit in the kitchen, and an autoserver
would bring it to us. March doesn’t like them, but I think they’re
cute, little beverage carts on wheels, equipped with a primitive AI
chip.
My mother pauses to
regroup, studying March with what would be a narrow-eyed stare,
except that might cause wrinkles. Still, the impression remains via
the intensity of her regard. He doesn’t flinch. At last she looks
away, and I have the sense he’s won something without knowing what
it is.
“I understand they
plan to appoint you as ambassador for New Terra,” Ramona
begins.
Talk about a subject
change. We’re finally getting down to the meat of why she came
looking for me, though. It wasn’t to hug
me and bask in her gratitude that I’m all right. My mother doesn’t
possess a scintilla of pure maternal sentiment.
I raise a brow. “How
could you possibly know that?”
“Oh, I hear things.”
She waves a hand in an airy, elegant gesture that would look
ridiculous from anyone else.
“Do you?” My dry tone
is lost on her.
“Indeed. Do you plan
to accept the appointment?” She seems nervous, almost frightened,
in fact. Her red-lacquered nails tap out a subliminal statement on
the glastique table.
“I thought I’d become
a junk dealer.” Yes, I’m baiting her deliberately. “Maybe do
salvage runs, or possibly just settle down on New Terra and go to
work in recycling. Have some brats. Would you like that?” I ask
March.
You’re so evil, he tells me silently.
Then he chokes out,
eyes watering, “Whatever you want.”
Shit, I wish I’d
recorded that. I can think of any number of situations where
playback would come in handy.
“No! Oh, Sirantha,
you mustn’t even joke.” She reaches for my hand, where it’s curled
around my cup. “You simply must take the post.”
Here we go.
My choclaste has
cooled enough to drink, so I take a sip to cover my annoyance. This
means pulling away from her, of course, which was the whole point.
I intend to accept Tarn’s offer, but my inclination toward a course
of action always plummets in direct correlation to someone’s
demand. Call me contrary.
“Must I?
Why?”
“We need someone like
you on Ithiss-Tor,” she replies. “Just go and be yourself, and
everything will be fine.” Her posture reflects anxiety and
duress.
Since Ramona has been
trying to annihilate my personality since I was eight years old, I
tense. Something really isn’t right. March confirms my impression
with a nod. Now he’s frowning as well.
“Who’s ‘we’?”
Her eyes dart around
the nearly deserted coffeehouse, as if she suspects an
eavesdropper. This isn’t like her, at least, not the woman I
remember. She’s a society darling, a flighty little butterfly, and
I was supposed to be one, too.
“People I owe money,”
she whispers, and her dark eyes well up with tears.
I’m staggered by
that. “What? Who? What happened?”
It takes her a moment
to collect herself. “We owned stock in Farwan. When . . .
everything happened, we were ruined. I didn’t know; your father
didn’t tell me. I went on, as I always had, spending . . . it
wasn’t until your father . . . died that . . .”
I can piece together
the rest. My father killed himself over their reversal in fortune.
Who could possibly expect him to get a
job? People came to his gallery because he had money, not because
he had impeccable taste. Once the cache was gone, the gallery
would’ve gone straight down, too.
And my mother kept
spending money she didn’t have. What I don’t understand is why her
creditors want me on Ithiss-Tor.
“What does this have
to do with me?” Maybe that sounds cruel.
Perhaps some women
would be overcome by sentiment and obligation, despite the long
estrangement, but they didn’t lift a finger to help me when I was
in trouble. I can count on one hand the people who did, and Ramona
doesn’t make the A-list.
“We cannot allow a
successful diplomatic mission to Ithiss-Tor.”
I start at the deep,
mechanical voice emitting from a jeweled brooch on my mother’s
jacket. No wonder she’s been watching her words. They’re monitoring
us.
Do I answer it? My
mother’s face pales until her skin looks like clotted milk. Her
hands tremble, so she squeezes them into fists and rubs them
against her thighs.
March makes the
decision for me. “Why not?”
There’s a hint of
feedback as the pin replies, “Sliders, Bugs, whatever you choose to
call them, represent a threat to our way of life. We cannot take
the risk that they will respond favorably to Conglomerate overtures
and make plans to infiltrate our society on a widespread
basis.”
I really don’t get
it. If that’s their stance, however xenophobic, doesn’t it make
more sense to ask me not to go? Ramona
says nothing, seeming paralyzed with fear. Oh, the irony—she
probably spent money they didn’t have on that piece of jewelry,
which her new masters then turned into an electronic leash.
“How does Jax play
into that?” I’m content to let March ask the questions. He’ll cover
anything I want to know; there’s a real benefit to this whole
symbiotic bond, apart from mind-blowing sex.
Absently, he strokes
my upper arm. It’s strange to be having a conversation with someone
I can neither see nor picture in my mind’s eye. The voice coming
from my mother’s left bosom sounds distorted and altogether lacks
any human quality. Who could have bought up her marks?
“Ms. Jax has a
history of strewing destruction and disorder wherever she goes. We
are content that if she goes to Ithiss-Tor, the natives will want
nothing more to do with the Conglomerate. We cannot take the risk
that Chancellor Tarn will select a candidate greater skilled in
oration, tact, and diplomacy.”
“If you don’t go,” my
mother whispers, “they’ll kill me.”
