“Give me a few minutes,” he said. He went into his office and shut the door.
o0o
Stephen Thomas came out of his office and into the deserted lab. He wondered where everyone had got to. He wanted to talk to them; he had spent the whole morning with Arachne, and he thought he had figured out a way to keep the lab going. At least for a while.
The president’s announcement had completely disrupted everything he had planned for today. In addition, the staff and faculty had put in enough recommendations to schedule a general meeting. Even Stephen Thomas had joined in that proposal, though he hated meetings. It would eat up the evening.
Stephen Thomas left the genetics building and headed for the park. As he walked, he set up another problem for Arachne to work on. Every twenty paces or so, his stride faltered as he rejected the results, changed a variable, and started another report cycle.
He barely noticed the blossoms that had opened since his last visit to the park. A kitchen AS stood next to a round table, waiting patiently with lunch. Otherwise, the meadow was deserted. In normal times every picnic table by the stream would be in use.
Stephen Thomas waited for Victoria and Satoshi. He pillowed his head on his arms. The bento boxes breathed a warm smell, but Stephen Thomas had no appetite. He was still linked up with Arachne, juggling numbers and trying not to see the pattern they insisted on producing.
“Stephen Thomas.”
Stephen Thomas started when Satoshi touched his shoulder.
“Sorry.”
“I was thinking.”
“Yeah.”
Victoria joined them. They embraced. Victoria and Satoshi looked as somber as Stephen Thomas felt. They had probably been doing the same calculations as he had.
Satoshi set the bento boxes out on the stone table, then sat on the rock foam bench beside his partners.
“So,” Victoria said.
“They’ve really done it this time,” Stephen Thomas said.
“How many graduate students are you losing?” Satoshi said.
“No one has bailed out yet,” Stephen Thomas said, adding, to himself, As far as I know.
“All mine are Canadian,” Victoria said. “The temps plan to stay as long as they can be sure of a transport home. But with the supply runs curtailed, my kids are scared.”
Most of the researchers on board had several graduate students and post-doctoral students: till now, at least, it was considered quite a coup to win a position helping prepare the expedition. Most of the students were temps, permitted to stay only while the starship remained in range of the transports. Some had applied for positions on the expedition itself: the ultimate make-or-break dissertation project.
“Leaving now sounds kind of short-sighted to me,” Stephen Thomas said. “They wouldn’t lose that much — unless somebody raised grad salaries when I wasn’t looking.” He tried to grin.
“What have you been doing all morning?” Victoria snapped.
“What? What are you mad about?”
“Didn’t you even read the new rules?”
“I got as far as ‘Salaries and grants are suspended until further notice,’ and I spent the rest of the morning figuring out how to keep the lab together.”
“The new rules are that American grad students who quit now and go home still get their trips free. If they stay and change their minds later they have to pay for it themselves.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” Victoria said.
“Come on, Victoria, this wasn’t my idea, don’t take it out on me. And the money’s only been impounded for a couple of hours. Distler will get overruled, or whatever they do. Won’t he?”
“I hope so, for you guys’ sakes.” Victoria turned to Satoshi. “What about your students?”
“Fox volunteered to stay on,” he said drily.
Victoria laughed despite herself.
“I’m glad to hear somebody’s expecting to come out ahead in this,” Stephen Thomas said sourly. He opened his lunch, closed it again, and stared at the variations in the table’s surface.
Satoshi rubbed his shoulder gently. Stephen Thomas looked at his partners and took Satoshi’s hand. Victoria reached across the table to him, her irritation dissolving into sympathy.
“Have you talked to your father yet?”
Stephen Thomas shook his head — and immediately regretted it. The interaction of the cylinder’s rotation with his inner ear made his field of vision twist and tilt. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the weird sensation to stop.
“Oh, shit!” By now, he should have got over the habit of shaking his head or nodding, or adapted to the weirdness.
He opened his eyes hesitantly. The world steadied. Satoshi put a cold glass in his hand. Stephen Thomas rubbed the side of the glass against one temple, then sipped the iced tea.
“Thanks.”
“You okay?” Satoshi said.
“Yeah,” Stephen Thomas replied, without nodding. “No, I haven’t talked to my father. Yeah, I’m going to have to. And I don’t think I can get away with text only.”
“No, of course not,” Victoria said. “It’s all right, don’t worry. Go ahead and call him direct. We’ll manage.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“It beats the hell out of me,” Stephen Thomas said. He felt not only embarrassed but humiliated. The feeling would only get worse when he called his father.
“Stephen Thomas — ” Satoshi said, speaking tentatively.
“Satoshi — ” Victoria said.
“We’ve got to work out something fair.”
“I know it! But with only my salary, we’re going to be lucky if we can keep the house. If we lose it, that’s five years of work and all Merit’s planning down the drain. Grangrana will have to move back to the city...”
“I’ll work something out with Greg myself!” Stephen Thomas surprised himself with his own vehemence. “And it won’t be at the expense of Grangrana or the house. Dammit, I’ve never pulled my financial weight in the partnership, I’m not going to start being a drain on it, too!”
“Maybe Greg will reconsider moving to Canada,” Victoria said.
Stephen Thomas flinched. “I don’t think that’s within the range of possible solutions.” He tried not to sound defensive, but failed. That made him feel guilty and angry, for he knew Victoria was not leading up to a lecture on the best ways to save money. Her family had worked hard and long to pull itself into the middle class, but she seldom talked about their history. What few details Stephen Thomas knew, he knew from Satoshi. Stephen Thomas came from a family that had been middle or upper middle class since before Victoria’s ancestors escaped to Canada. It was his father’s own fault — perhaps not so much fault as bad luck — that had pushed him down to an income that did not meet subsistence without his son’s help.
Victoria, reacting to his defensive tone, withdrew from the conversation, turning aside and gazing across the park.
“If you thought my financial responsibilities were such a drawback, why did you invite me into this partnership in the first place?”
Victoria’s shoulders stiffened, but she neither spoke nor turned toward him.
Stephen Thomas stared at her, stunned.
“We invited you because we love you,” Satoshi said.
“Merry did. Maybe you do. But dammit, Victoria, sometimes I wonder — !” Stephen Thomas rose and started away.
“Stephen Thomas — ” Satoshi called after him.
Stephen Thomas flung his hand to the side, a gesture of anger and denial, warning Satoshi off.
Stephen Thomas crossed the park. He jammed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. He felt hurt and confused by Victoria’s reaction. He could not think of a way to explain the sudden change to his father.
Back at the park table, Victoria opened her bento box and stared at her lunch. She no longer felt like eating, either.
“How could he say that to me?” she cried.
&nbs
p; “All he wanted was a little reassurance,” Satoshi said. “He can’t face this alone, Victoria,”
“His father isn’t our only responsibility.”
“But his father is one of our responsibilities. Stephen Thomas was open with us about it.”
“He was. You’re right. He’s right.” She sighed. “It’s just that I get so tired of Stephen Thomas and Greg playing out the archetypal American father-son relationship. And I still don’t see how we’re going to be able to juggle fast enough to keep everything in the air on one salary.”
“They can’t impound the money for long — I’m sure Stephen Thomas is right about that.”
“Satoshi, love, you and our partner are brilliant scientists. You are ethical people. Stephen Thomas is charmingly neurotic and too spiritual for his own good — ”
“Be fair.”
“ — and you are both great in bed. But between you, you have the political sense of the average nudibranch. This could take months to get resolved, and it will drain the expedition’s energy the whole time. Don’t hold your breath waiting for your next pay deposit.”
Satoshi had not even opened his lunch. He looked down at his hands, flexed and spread his fingers, turned them over, and stared at his palms.
“I won’t,” he said. “And I don’t see how we’re going to keep everything in the air on one salary, either. If we help Greg out — ” He hesitated, but Victoria knew as well as he did that they had a responsibility to the elder Gregory. Stephen Thomas had already made the commitment when they invited him into the partnership. “If we help Greg out, the house...”
Victoria, scowling, rested her chin on her fists. “Let’s not talk about losing the house until we have to.”
“Maybe it was a dream all along.”
“It was — but it was working, dammit!”
Under ordinary circumstances, they would never have had a hope of buying their house. Nobody living on ordinary incomes — even three ordinary incomes — could afford to buy property. But several years on the expedition, with no living expenses, gave them the chance to put most of their income against the price while they were gone. It was Merit’s idea and Merit’s plan. Merit even, somehow, found a decent house that a real estate corporation was willing to sell.
“If one of us went back to Earth for a few days...”
“They will have to send wild horses up here on a transport to get me off Starfarer!” Victoria said. “This is exactly what they’re hoping will happen, and it’s only taken us three hours to start thinking about leaving. If they shoot down our morale, we’ll argue, we’ll abandon the expedition, we’ll go groundside and get new jobs. I wouldn’t go back even to lobby for us — they want us out of the sky, no matter what. They’re collecting excuses. They have the associates’ withdrawal to hold against us already. If the rest of us leave, they’ll just come in and claim salvage — ”
“I wasn’t talking about leaving permanently.”
“Let’s not talk about leaving at all. If we lose our house, we lose our house. If we lose the expedition...”
“You’re right,” he said. “Of course you’re right.”
“Besides,” Victoria said, trying to smile, “if we lose the expedition we can’t afford a house anyway.”
They hugged each other, then packed the bento boxes into the AS and sent it home to put the food away for dinner. Victoria wondered if anyone would be hungry then, either.
“The meeting tonight is going to be something,” she said.
o0o
His graduate students had reappeared by the time Stephen Thomas got back to the lab. He wanted to talk to them, but the tension of having to explain things to his father would emotionally distort everything he said to them. He reached his office. When he touched the door, it crashed open without his meaning to slam it. He hesitated, then turned. All three students stared at him, startled.
“Don’t anybody go anywhere,” he muttered. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
In his office, Stephen Thomas asked Arachne to connect him to Earth, and his father. The conversation would be awkward, because of the distance of Starfarer from Earth and the resulting time delay. His father was no more proficient at holding two simultaneous conversations than was Stephen Thomas.
“Steve? I didn’t expect to hear from you.”
“How are you, Greg?” Stephen Thomas said. “My partners send their regards.”
“Oh. Well. You say hi to Vicky and Satoshi for me.”
Stephen Thomas could not help but smile. His father was the only person in the world who called him Steve; his father was probably the only person in the world dense enough to keep calling Victoria by a diminutive. He was sure Greg would have shortened Satoshi’s name if he could have figured out how to do it.
“Long time,” Greg said. “What’s the occasion? Have you settled the plans for your visit?”
“That’s part of why I called,” Stephen Thomas said. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to get back to Earth again.”
“What? Why not? You didn’t make it over here the last time you were on Earth. You said — ”
“I thought you understood about the conference. And how hard it is to reschedule transport trips — ”
“What’s the problem now? Have you — ”
“Greg, have you heard any news today?” Stephen Thomas spoke before his father finished his question.
After the two-second delay, his father replied. “I never pay any attention to the news.”
“There’s a problem with the starship’s operating funds,” Stephen Thomas said. “Will you be all right if the next deposit is late?”
This time the delay was more than the two-second light-speed lag.
“What’s happened? You’re overextended?”
“I’m not! It hasn’t anything to do with me directly, but it makes a personal trip out of the question. The money’s held up in Washington. I don’t know when I’ll get paid next.”
Again he waited, hoping for nonchalance, reassurance.
“This is cutting pretty close to the bone, Steve,” Greg said.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any control... I can’t...” While he was still trying to think of how to explain, the lag began and ended.
“Is it all up to you? In my day, when you got married, you didn’t just marry your wife, you married her whole family, too.”
“We’re members of each other’s families, Greg,” Stephen Thomas said. “And Satoshi’s got the same problem. Everybody up here who’s from the U.S. has had their funding impounded.”
Greg had taken a while to accept Victoria and Satoshi as individuals; accepting them as partners, and lovers, of his son was taking a good bit longer. Stephen Thomas wondered how Satoshi would react to being referred to as a wife, not to mention how Victoria would react.
“If you’d given me a little notice that you intended to cut me off — ”
“Greg, that isn’t fair!”
“ — I’d’ve tried to make some other plans.”
“That isn’t fair,” Stephen Thomas said again. Something else Stephen Thomas disliked about voice communication over this distance was that it was impossible to interrupt anyone, impossible to head them off from saying something they might regret, impossible to keep from hearing something he would regret. Stephen Thomas could not even react with anger, because he understood Greg’s fear. He had hoped for some understanding, some encouragement, even just a little slack; and he knew he should have known better. All he could do was pretend not to be hurt.
“You don’t even have any expenses up there,” Greg said. “At least that’s what you told me. Haven’t you put anything away in all the time since you got out of school?”
“The family’s finances are too complicated to explain on long-distance transmission,” Stephen Thomas said. “With the impoundment, we aren’t going to have much extra.”
“It’s none of my business, you mean,” Greg said.
“That isn
’t what I said. That isn’t even close.”
“I’ll have to move,” Greg said. “It will take me a while to find a cheaper place.”
“Don’t do that!” Stephen Thomas said. “It will cost you more short-term than you can possibly save, and with any luck this will just be a short-term problem. I wouldn’t even have bothered you with it except I thought you should hear about the problem from me. I thought you’d be worried.”
“I am worried. There’s no way I can keep up the rent on this place. I never should have taken it to begin with. I wouldn’t have, if you — ”
“If you’re set on moving, move to Canada!”
Stephen Thomas stopped. He could not even afford an argument right now. Though his hands were steady, he felt as if he were trembling. The trembling began in his center and spread outward, a reaction not of anger or fear but of disappointment and hurt, guilt that he felt though he did not believe he deserved it, and a wish to make everything all right.
“Canada? Forget it. I’m not moving to the ass-end of nowhere just to make things easier on you. If that means — ”
“Greg, I’ll do what I can, but I just can’t manage as much as before. For a while. That’s the best I can do.”
“And I don’t have any choice, do I?”
The web signaled that the communications link had been broken from the other end.
Stephen Thomas hunched down in his chair. When he started getting an ulcer in grad school, he had studied a number of relaxation techniques, ways to control stress, methods of releasing anger and pain. Today none of them worked. The shaking had reached his hands. His chin quivered as he clenched his teeth and tightened his throat and squeezed his eyes shut. He felt like a forlorn child. He despised himself for his reaction. He clenched his fists and jammed them between his knees. Soundlessly he began to cry. Hot fat tears forced themselves out from beneath his eyelids. His nose began to run.
Stephen Thomas thought of himself as an emotional person, a person with open feelings. But he did not often cry. He knew it was supposed to make him feel better, to release endorphins or hormones or enzymes or some damned thing — he knew what he could make all those biochemicals do in his experiments; he did not need to know what they did inside him. But crying never did make him feel better. It made him feel sick and slack and stupid, and he hated it. Other people’s crying made him neither uncomfortable nor impatient. The partnership had seen a lot of crying over the past year. Stephen Thomas thought it was probably a good thing that after the accident, one member of the partnership grieved inwardly and alone. Victoria and Satoshi had both needed someone they did not have to comfort.
The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus Page 20