When she and Siarnaq finally tired of the stories of others, they curled together for all the closeness they could achieve. It was gentle and friendly, not a burst of passion but rather a final embrace of understanding as two souls shared every bit of a gift without holding back.
He had tears in his eyes afterwards, and Ariel decided that the encounter must have meant at least as much to him as it had to her. “I’m glad we found each other,” she said pulling her clothes back on. He surprised her when he answered.
“I am glad that I found you. You are more than you realize. Thank you for letting me see that.”
She didn’t know how to reply. “Do you think we will see each other again?” She reached for his hand as she asked the question, and was puzzled by the lack of input. Were her senses worn out? Maybe this ability could become exhausted.
He nodded his head. “There are few nice outcomes where that occurs. You didn’t see them?”
“No, I mostly saw your people, living and thriving. Everything I saw came from their future.”
“Not me. For once, I didn’t see past my lifetime at all. What I saw was my own tomorrows, and many of them will be good.” He reached out and touched her hair gently. “Thank you, lady with the sunset hair. You have cheered me more than you know, and odds are high that this will happen for us at least one more time, and I will look forward to it.”
He hugged her long and hard before he left.
8. Winter Ends
Ariel finished the two days of touring feeling like she was only partly there. Some of her continued to live with the Inuit people of the future, sharing their joys and sorrows as she inwardly begged them to find ways to thrive. And a bit of her remained under the blankets in a cold, small hotel room, reliving the memory of her skin rubbing against that of another with an eagerness that she had experienced for the first time in her life.
Sunday night the rest of her tour group bade her farewell as they left for the airport to return home. She guessed from their smiles that they had heard of her dalliance with a local man earlier in the trip, and they were assuming that she was staying on in Nuuk to continue the romance. There are no secrets in small towns, she thought.
Luckily in this part of the world no one felt obliged to stone her death for her behavior. Rather, they actually seemed to find the sexual activity of a healthy young woman to be normal and even a little bit charming. As to small towns and secrets, she would be counting on that very phenomenon tomorrow as she sought out information on Mikkel.
The answering service was open early the next day, and the owner waived at her as she spoke into her headphones. It was a busy Monday morning in Nuuk, as call after call interrupted Ariel’s attempt to make introductions. Finally the woman got tired of it as well, and plopped a child that couldn’t have been more than six into her chair, sticking headphones onto the little girl with instructions in Danish that Ariel couldn’t understand.
“English?” Ariel asked hopefully.
“Some.” The woman looked at her child. “She tells them to call back. It’s okay.”
Ariel discovered that the woman had gone out of her way to talk because she assumed that Ariel wanted to set up some sort of paid phone service in Nuuk. Once it became clear that wasn’t the case, the woman lost interest in the conversation. This wasn’t working out very well.
“Please. I was hoping you could tell me more about your customer Mikkel Nygaard. I’m trying to find some additional contact information for him.”
“He pays his bills, that’s all I know. You have his phone number? You want his email address?” She was pausing to be polite, but nothing could have been further from a cozy chat.
“I have his email and phone number already.”
“Then what do you need? He answers emails.” The woman was dismissing her, and the little girl started to cry in frustration as two phones rang as once. As the woman pulled the head phones off of the crying child, Ariel had an idea.
“Let me take her across the street and buy her a soda. It’s my thank you, for bothering you like this.”
The woman nodded, and gestured for them to go while she put one phone line on hold. Ariel took the child’s hand, offering her a treat, and couldn’t help thinking of all the child molesters promising candy that she had been taught to fear since birth. Different dynamics in a world in which there were few strangers, and not a single road leading out of town.
When she brought the child back, the woman was a little friendlier and phone lines were quieter.
“I’m looking for Mikkel’s employees. I’m in sales and he’s a customer of ours and I want to do something nice for his office. He seems like the kind of man who would say ‘don’t bother’ so I thought, well, I’d just go by and say hi. Only I can’t find any office in town with his company’s name. I thought maybe you could help.”
The woman running the answering service shook her head in amusement. “You sales people. Too bad there isn’t a staff and you could buy them all sodas, right?”
Ariel wasn’t sure if the woman was making fun of her or serious, so she waited.
“He has no staff. Mikkel works from his home. He’s a quiet one. He travels a lot, all over Greenland and Iceland, Denmark, Norway, even Canada and the U.S. He’s got all those fancy college degrees and he works with some kind of manufacturing. Maybe parts for airplanes? He handles money too and he talks a lot with scientists.”
She looked at Ariel hopefully. At first Ariel was confused, but it came to her. “Would you like me to go get you a soda as well? I mean, that’s what I came here to do, and it looks to me like you pretty much are this guy’s staff.”
“The hotel down the street has coffee and makes good cakes,” the woman offered.
“What’s their best?”
“I like the coconut.”
Ariel smiled. “I’ll be back with two pieces.”
Ah, Chateauneuf-du-Pape for lunch and now coconut cake for breakfast. Treats keep the world running, Ariel thought.
Ariel’s flight was delayed into Reykjavik, and she got to her hotel too late to do anything but order room service. Bored, she decided to try some online research on Mikkel and his business. Ariel considered why she hadn’t done this earlier and she realized that this kind of internet snooping, so common for some, had always felt invasive to her. She’d never looked into the personal lives of her clients over in London. Why bother? And it was none of her business.
Now, however, she had mysteries to solve, some with potentially serious consequences. She started to type. I didn’t surprise her that the man had a very small internet footprint, but Ariel was determined and could be very detail-oriented and slowly the information came.
Nygaard was a surprisingly popular name, but Mikkel Nygaard barely existed. The offhand comment about fancy degrees took her down another path, which led her to Dr. Carl M. Nygaard of Greenland who had an educational background in aeronautical engineering ready to be discovered by anyone. It sure sounded like the “fancy degree in airplanes” that she had heard about.
Dr. Carl M. Nygaard had finished a Ph.D. program with impressive speed, and had moved on to become an associate professor for a few years, at a small university in Copenhagen. He taught introductory engineering classes, and had been much liked by his students, according to the school’s online rating system which still carried information that was years out of date.
Why would a particularly smart and well-liked young professor with an engineering background suddenly become so obsessed with making money? And start to use his middle name?
Ariel’s eyes were tired. She rubbed them, pulling the hotel bathrobe more tightly around her and wishing she had her own thermostat controls in the hotel room. It was time to get under the covers and get some sleep. She would pick up her research on Mikkel once she got home. Tomorrow, she had a big day ahead of her as she visited with Baldur’s staff.
Hulda had taken the day off, but she had set up Ariel’s appointment with Ulfur in Baldur’s o
ffices as promised. Ariel arrived full of anticipation that this unmet chief counsel could be enticed into conversation over coffee or beer and would be able to provide some insight into Baldur and his secretive company. That is probably why it took Ariel several minutes before she understood exactly what Ulfur’s true job description was.
He introduced himself as Baldur’s attorney, but after several adept deflections of her questions she realized that this man’s main job was to deflect questions. If someone wanted to know something about d4, they were sent to Ulfur because not providing information was Ulfur’s job. It looked like the man was worth every penny that they paid him.
He was a small, pudgy man in his late fifties at least, and he spoke perfect English as he sat on the other side of a wide three-foot desk. He had a polished smile and a carefully cultivated friendliness that his board of directors lacked.
“I know that to Americans the Scandinavians can sometimes appear reserved or even unfriendly. I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “We are the nicest of people, but we do have a different cultural style than yours.” He said it like he had explained it a hundred times before, and Ariel guessed that he had.
“Oh, no, everyone was perfectly nice to me,” she interjected. “I’m certainly not here to complain. I just felt like I didn’t get much of an impression of what d4 is like behind the brochure. I mean, it is rather unusual for a private financial institution to have an international board of directors, a receptionist and a chief counsel, and no one else who really works for the company. I thought I might be a more effective liaison for you if I dropped by and learned a little more. That’s all. What a shame that Hulda is off today.”
“Yes, she hated to miss you. A visit was a good idea,” Ulfur said, in the most agreeable fashion. “I’m happy to help instead, of course. Ask me anything.”
To Ariel’s frustration, Ulfur kept himself firmly on the other side of his desk, ruling out any sort of casual touch. Ariel placed both hands on the wood, but picked up nothing except the impressions that Ulfur didn’t spend much time here in this room at all.
Very well, she’d concentrate on talk instead. Fifteen minutes later, Ariel had tried every reasonable question she could think of, and Ulfur had answered every one of them cordially, yet Ariel didn’t know any more than when she walked in the door.
Ulfur was in the process of showing her out, and offering her a brochure to look at in case she had any more questions, when Baldur arrived. Ulfur raised an eyebrow when he saw his boss dressed in designer jeans and a fashionable but casual top.
“I heard that our new Ullow rep might drop by today,” Baldur said in a much friendlier tone than Ariel had heard him use during her last visit. “I was going to take the day off, but I had to come by and get something anyway, so thought I’d say hello.” Then in response to Ulfur’s questioning look he added, “Run along to your meeting, Ulfur. I’ll see Ariel out.”
Once Ulfur took his leave, Baldur gave Ariel a long appraising gaze. It took in every square inch of her body and might have been classed as harassment in many circles. She stood her ground and stared at him while he looked.
Of course she wondered if physical contact with him would allow her to see the short-term future the way that closeness with Siarnaq had opened up distant tomorrows. If so, she could confirm right now what Jake suspected about Baldur, and maybe learn even more of use. How much physical contact with this man was she willing to make?
Baldur seemed to have made a decision of his own, and there was an eagerness in his eyes as he took a step toward her. She could have sworn that she saw an actual visible electric spark jump between them as he reached out for her hand.
It’s stronger here, too, she thought. Not quite as much as in Greenland, but stronger than what I’m used to.
She reached for Baldur as well. As they held each other’s hands without speaking, the close-up images like those she had seen during their previous brief touch began to focus in her head and they became increasingly clearer as he circled her body with both of his arms and held her tight. As he leaned down for a kiss she saw images of his removing her clothes, and she knew that it was the most likely near future. Was she really going to do this?
It wasn’t the only possibility. He paused, stepping back and loosening their embrace.
“I had no idea that someone like you existed.” He seemed so happy at the discovery. “You’re my greatest wish come true.” He touched her hair softly like he couldn’t believe his good fortune. “And you’re even pretty. Not that it would be necessary, but it is nice.”
“This is all so amazing,” Ariel agreed, trying to find her way in an awkward and puzzling conversation. “The way the touch works. We need to learn more about it.” She reached out the bare inside of her arm in invitation. “Do you want to know more?”
He laughed, and for the second time Ariel got the feeling that there was a joke that she didn’t quite understand. “Much more, my little flame-haired oracle. I will want to know everything.”
Okay, Ariel thought. She supposed that she wanted to know everything too. As he placed the skin inside of his lower arm tight against hers in an almost asexual response, she saw another near future, one where she backed off from him and ran from his office. What the hell?
“With what I am going to learn from you, elskan, I will own the world.” He murmured it like it was a sensual remark. Maybe it was to him? “Every man, woman and child on this planet will be working for me, one way or another.” His eyes narrowed in a sort of pleasure at the thought, and every bit of passion went out of the moment for Ariel.
“Why would you want that?” It was the first thing that popped out. “I mean, owning the world is crazy. What would you do with it? I thought that we could learn something here. Help each other. Exchange information.”
He looked at her in pity. “Humans don’t help each other,” he said like she was a silly child. “We just pretend to, so that we can get what we want.” He took a step towards her again, and as his fingers first grazed her wrist, she had a flash of him beginning to force himself on her seconds from now. She turned and sprinted for the door, exactly like she had in the premory that had flashed in her mind only seconds earlier.
Only as it happened for real, he yelled after her. “Go. I see ahead too, you know. Next time you won’t run off so quickly.” His laugh echoed in her mind for hours afterward, as she replayed the scene over and over all the way back to Dublin.
Ariel anticipated a call of some type from Mikkel after her thinly disguised snooping expedition, but she was surprised at how quickly it came and how pissed he was.
“I just wanted to do something nice for your staff,” she stammered, a bit taken aback. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was a large part of it, and it should have mitigated this unwarranted hostility.
“Doing something nice for my staff is not in our agreement. Eoin understands that, or at least I thought he did. You are not to come to Nuuk. You are not to ask questions about me. You are only to provide me with tools to make money as per our arrangement and I require absolutely nothing else from you. Do you understand that?”
“I do, although I think that it’s time that somebody told you that you don’t own Greenland, and if I feel like it I can and will visit for personal reasons that have nothing to do with you.”
Mikkel’s voice softened just a bit. “Of course you can do that. Look, you appear to be an intelligent woman. It seems to me that holding three clients by the hand is not keeping you busy enough. I suggest that you ask Eoin for more responsibilities or transfer back to London where your talents can be better used.”
The man had a point about her workload.
“I will pass along your input about my responsibilities,” she said, allowing just a bit of snippiness to creep into her voice as well. “Because it seems to be a sore point with you, you ought to know that I’ve done some other research on my own.” Ariel was just annoyed enough to charge ahead. �
��Although you don’t have much of an electronic footprint as an investor, Dr. Carl M. Nygaard has an impressive educational background out there to be discovered by anyone who looks for it. It is hard for me not to wonder how and why someone who managed to get a Ph.D. in engineering at such a young age became so obsessed with making money all of the sudden. Not that I’m not happy to help you do it.”
“I see. So my requests for privacy have gone unheeded in more than one arena.” His voice became cold again.
“Why would a man of science expect those around him to be less curious than himself?” she countered. “And why would a reasonable man be so angry when my motivation clearly includes being of assistance to you?”
“It is complicated,” he said simply. “You have no idea what I’m up against, and I’d like to keep it that way. My arrangement with Ullow, on the other hand, is supposed to be simple. I’ll contact you or Eoin if I need anything from you and otherwise I do not expect to hear from either of you.” She could tell that he tried to say it in as reasonable a tone as he could manage.
“Works fine for me,” she said as she hit the end call button.
Ariel considered her response to being told to stay out of Greenland, and had to smile. The giant frozen island had offered far more fun that she had expected, and maybe a second visit in a month or two would be just what she needed. She thought of Siarnaq next to her, stretched out skin-to-skin along the full length of her body as they kept each other warm under the many blankets, and she pulled up a calendar to consider her options.
******
Eoin liked his new employee, even if he wasn’t used to women like her. She was hardworking, like he was, and even something of a perfectionist herself. His own wife was a sweet woman with little education and no interest in the outside world. Her growing children were everything to her. Eoin would be the first to admit that he didn’t quite understand women like Ariel, driven to work outside the home, getting by well into their twenties without a bloke to care for them. But he was happy enough to have one of them working for him, which made this whole incident with Mikkel so unfortunate.
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