Joan took another toke, nervously, and shook her head.
"Well, I do."
He remained silent for so long that Joan was not certain that he hadn't fallen asleep with his eyes open.
"Aren't you going to tell me why?" Joan asked.
"I've been waiting for you to ask me that for two years," Jaeger said. "But now that I think about it, I realize that it's something in which I have no right to supersede your own introspection with my speculations. But however long it takes to figure out, I assure you that your natural gifts will enable you to deal with it."
Jaeger stood up, signaling an end to the conversation.
Joan stood also.
"I know that this is not the form of your beliefs about the way this universe works," Jaeger said, "but may God always be with you in your trials."
They hugged and kissed each other. Jaeger kissed Joan on both cheeks.
Joan snuffed out her joynette, then paused in the entranceway before the sculpture of Iris, and had the awful feeling that she might never see her teacher again. She tried to cover up her sudden emotion. "I didn't know that you believed in God," she said.
Jaeger smiled understandingly. "I didn't want you to know."
The weeks before a move are always hectic, as the following two were for Joan. She had to sublet her apartment through August, when her lease expired; this she accomplished with the help of a trimester student at the Business annex of UAANP. then almost all her clothing was inappropriate back on Earth, so the more expensive items were divided up among Astrid, Debbie and another girl from Dryer, while the more ephemeral items were just thrown out. The task of replacing the lightweight and comfortable habitat styles with the more rigidly stylish, but far less comfortable, apparel now being worn in Newer York was a task Joan did not really enjoy.
Finally, there was the night before her departure, which she spent over at the Rubinsteins', avoiding saying goodbye to a family toward which she felt far more warmth than toward her own.
When Joan Darris, wearing a tightly cut grey business suit with matching beret, handbag, and high-heeled pumps, arrived back at Soleri Skyport on May Eve, the night before Beltane, she had two desires. The first was, so far as she knew, unquenchable: she wished Ad Astra had diplomats so she might have known one who could have given her The Diplomat's Guide to Earth--a work that so far as she knew didn't exist, and a glaring omission in the accumulated knowledge of humankind, so far as she was concerned. Her second desire was more practical and immediate: she wanted to get off her feet and into a hot bath. After five years in Valle de Sol's two-thirds-gee spin, her tolerance of Earth's unrelenting, now half-again-as-heavy gravity had worn off, though she felt that Newer York's thicker air seemed to help a little.
So when the Federation customs inspector asked her "Do you have anything to declare?" Joan was too tired to say anything more devious than "Everything I've got with me, I suppose."
Naturally, she ended up in the Customs Supervisor's office for the next hour. She phoned Helix Vista, found everyone out but the domestic computer, and was told that the family's new pink Artemis limousine was on the way to the skyport to meet her. She spent the rest of the hour sitting on a bench and massaging her calves.
By the time it was straightened out, an additional half-hour after she finally got to speak to the supervisor, that except for new clothing everything she had with her--including her LCAA instrument--had been purchased more than a year before and was therefore exempt from airport duties, Joan had already been holographed, brainprinted, inspected for three viral infections more common in the habitats than on Earth, and inoculated against two diseases she'd had immunity against since birth.
As she rode the slidewalk to the skymobile loading zone, a robot baggage cart rolling along on the ramp beside her, Joan was worn out, sore and contemplating how many asteroid mines the Earth could provide if blown up properly.
When Joan reached the loading zone, she received a shock. It was only a Touchable woman, selling flowers to arriving passengers. At first Joan wondered how a Touchable could be out after dark, until it came to her that it was May Eve and Touchables were granted temporary immunity. Then Joan realized how quickly her mind had asked the appropriate question, and it brought home more profoundly than clothing, gravity, or red tape what returning to the planet meant.
Joan bought a box of mixed flowers from the Touchable, paying her an auragram and receiving a blessing for telling her to keep the change; then Joan's wristphone homed her in on the limousine, where she received a second shock. An athletic-looking blond boy was sitting in the bubble top, waiting for her. "My God," Joan said when she saw her oldest brother. "Mark, how long have you been waiting out here?"
Mark laughed. "My Goddess," he said. "You really have been in the colonies a long time!"
Joan got in, they kissed, and after the robot had loaded Joan's belongings, the Artemis departed on automatic for Helix Vista.
"I spoke to the domestic computer," Joan said. "Where is everyone?"
"They're all at the Astoria School tonight, Joanie," Mark said. "The second grade is putting on a production of The Boys in the Band, and our littlest brother is playing Emory. You should see Delaney camp it up. He's hilarious. I left after the first act so I could pick you up."
"That was sweet," Joan said.
"The rest of the family circle is coming back home afterward to celebrate Beltane. I'll give you three guesses what 'maiden from the stars' is guest of honor."
"Lovely," Joan said. "But I hope my feet hold up. This gravity is killing me."
"In a week, it'll be as if you've never left."
Joan tended to doubt it, but held back her reservations. "So," she said. "How do you like Yale?"
"I'll survive," said Mark. "Another year, then law school. Vera says that if I keep up my grades, then right after I pass the bar I can go to work as her law clerk."
"Isn't she worried about being accused of nepotism?"
"Accusations from whom? She's Chief Justice now."
"I know, but doesn't that just make it worse?"
"Why should it? How else does anyone get anywhere?"
"I see your point," Joan said. "You wouldn't happen to have a joynette, would you? I ran out on the trip."
Mark gave her one, took one himself, and lit both.
"You know the twins just went andro," he said.
Joan toked and nodded. "Daddy told me in his last phone call."
Mark grinned. "They're calling themselves 'Nicque' and 'Vicque' now." He spelled out the names for her.
"Charming," Joan said dryly. "What about you? Still in blue, I see."
Mark nodded. "I tried going andro a few times in Sex Ed, but it didn't take. I just don't like it enough to give up women for good." He took a toke. "I wish to Goddess I did. It'll take forever to get a bench of my own as a comman."
Joan nodded. "Any interesting women friends?"
He shook his head. "Just at the dicteriat, along with everybody and his brother. Hey, you'll be going in around a year from now, won't you?"
"Well, I'll be eighteen next year," Joan said carefully.
"That's what I meant," said Mark. "You've really grown up since the last time I saw you, Joanie. You know, you've really filled out in all the right places."
"Thanks," Joan said. "You look like you've grown a head taller and have been lifting weights."
"A little," Mark said. "But it's mostly from playing squatball. I think I'll make first string next year."
Joan took another toke and nodded.
"It would be really funny if you and I ended up in the same dicteriat sometime, wouldn't it?"
Joan spent the next few seconds trying not to choke.
"What made you think of that?" she said sharply.
"Well, there's a guy on the first string who told me in the locker room that the computers made a mistake, one time, and he ended up getting assigned to his own sister."
Joan looked at Mark carefully. "What did he do?
"
"What do you think?" Mark said. "He wasn't going to risk getting sent to the end of the line for another month. So he fucked her."
"Oh," Joan said. She looked at her brother more closely, pitying him for the kind of pressure he must be under, then added quietly but firmly. "I wouldn't believe everything you hear in the locker room. Your friend was probably just telling a story to keep up his reputation."
"I suppose," Mark said quietly.
They didn't talk much for the rest of the flight.
As it happened, the delay at customs had wasted so much time that the rest of the family circle had made it back to Helix Vista before the Artemis arrived with Joan and Mark. The next forty-five minutes were spent kissing; being kissed; assuring her younger brothers that no, you really couldn't fall from one edge of the cylinder to the opposite edge; and observing that her father and her brothers treated Vera exactly as they had once treated Eleanor--as if Eleanor Darris had never left Helix Vista at all.
Joan found it spooky watching Vera act as guest host for their mother, and worse, she had the eerie feeling that living in Eleanor Darris's house, with Eleanor Darris's husband, raising Eleanor Darris's other children, Vera Delaney had in some sense become Eleanor Darris, and as long as she was, she was no longer susceptible to the insecurity and lack of identity that had driven her to near-suicide.
Joan wondered if perhaps Vera's suicide attempt had been more successful than she had realized; whether in the lawn dome that night it was not Vera who had died, while the spirit of Eleanor Darris lived on in a body emptied of its soul.
Worst of all, Vera reacted toward Joan exactly as Eleanor once had--greeted her just as Eleanor would have, questioned her about her studies with Jaeger just as Eleanor would have, told her how good it was to have her back home just as Eleanor would have. The only indication that this was Vera Delaney and not Eleanor Darris were the occasional references to her work at Legos, Ltd., and the lack of references to work in a laserium. Joan was grateful for these indications; it prevented her from drifting into the comfortable delusion that had captured the rest of her family that Eleanor Darris was still with them, and relieved them of any need to rescue her from her icy sleep.
The only person Joan was certain would not have been taken in could not be there tonight: His Gaylordship Wendell Darris was in the home stretch of the most difficult electoral race he had ever run, and was too busy campaigning for a sixth term in the House of Gentry to be with his family for the holidays.
Just before midnight, Vera donned her green High Priestess robes and brought the family circle together for the Beltane Sabbat, a celebration of the Maiden Goddess' coming of age. Aside from Wendell, and in addition to her own father, seven brothers, and Gramps, the rest of the Darris clan was here: Joan's Grandmother Kate, Aunt Melentha and Uncle Rudy, their daughter Elizabeth--two years younger than Joan--and Joan's male cousins, of whom the only one she found at all personable was twelve-year-old Jeremy. At the appropriate time, Joan was called to deliver the "I who am the beauty of the Green Earth," and she had the odd feeling while reciting the words of the Wiccen ritual that the meaning was exactly the same as the bat mitzvah she had seen Debbie Rubinstein recite back in Nova Paulus. She wondered why there were always religious wars. Retiring at last to her old bedroom, she found it seemingly unchanged since she'd left it, five years before.
Beltane was on a Friday this year, so the three-day weekend began earlier rather than ended later. The family ran around their Maypole, and watched the ceremonies on the holy around the much-larger Maypole in Moscow. After the feasting, Joan stayed on the sidelines--still tired from fighting the gravity--while her family spent the evening playing touch squatball. Eventually Joan became bored with this and retired into the house to watch I Love Lucifer on the holy.
Saturday, May 2, Joan borrowed her father's company limousine and spent the day with Jack Malcolm in Rainborough. She demonstrated to him what she had learned, told him anecdotes about her studies at Dryer and with Jaeger in particular, and brought him up to date on her recent meeting with Roland Church.
Sunday, May 3, Joan decided it was time to start getting some exercise to speed up her acclimation; she took out a black stallion named Hierophant from the family stables and spent several hours on the Darrises' bridle paths alone. When she returned, a bit sore in her thigh muscles but definitely invigorated, she took a little time to visit with Lazy Gopher, who was on his last legs, as ponies go.
The rest of Sunday Joan spent in the lawn dome, practicing.
On Monday, May 4, Joan flew to Manhattan in the morning with her father, telling him she wanted to shop, and as soon as she left him at the Darris Tower, she grabbed a skycab to Forest Hills. She spent several hours at the vivarium filling out legal forms, and another hour undergoing medical examinations before the staff physician and insurance underwriters would assent to the procedure. Then, while she was waiting until she was needed, Joan visited her mother's capsule in the Hall of Preservation.
The attendant told her that it was exactly like being asleep, except there weren't any dreams. All these horror stories on the holy about the soul endlessly trying to escape its frozen body were just nonsense. When the sleeper waked, it would be as if no time had passed at all.
When Joan left the Forest Hills Vivarium that afternoon, after a necessary hour in Manhattan making unnecessary purchases, she was just on time to meet her father at the Darris Tower to return home with him. But what Stanton did not know was that since that morning Joan had become most assuredly pregnant with an ovum that, properly handled, would someday be her mother.
Chapter 18
JOAN HAD TAKEN very thorough precautions to make certain that no one from her family would discover either the fact of her pregnancy or the specific nature of it before she wanted them to know.
To begin with, Joan had invoked a little-used clause in the Federation Copyright Law--which she'd discovered while still in Ad Astra in discussions with a lawyer from Earth--that forbade the Forest Hills Vivarium from disclosing to anyone, under threat of losing its operating license, that a surrogate was being grown. The clause had been added to the law some years before during a period when murder prosecutions were relying on gangsters not discovering that witnesses whom they thought dead were being brought back from the grave to testify against them.
Secondly, Joan had shown the vivarium's assistant director-- as proof of kinship to its charge--a birth-record printout that was authentically her own in all respects but one: it showed her birth date as one year earlier, to bypass the need for parental consent. Joan had also "casually let it slip" that she was looking forward to entering the service in two years, when her student deferment was up.
Third of all, to make certain that no one from the vivarium would try to reach her at Helix Vista, Joan had listed her permanent address as 14010 Captain's Row, Valle de Sol, Ad Astra -- the Rubinstein's house--and she had previously instructed Astrid to call her person-to-person collect if anything important-sounding was sent to her there.
Finally, Joan intended staying at Helix Vista only for the first seven or so weeks of her pregnancy, before she would show, and had already sent a deposit for a five-month retreat at the LASER Institute's Hermitage on Mt. Shasta beginning at Midsummer solstice.
What Joan had failed to take into account, nor could the lawyers advising her--of necessity unfamiliar with her family-- have forseen, was that the Chief Justice of Legos, Ltd, was not bound by the same legal restrictions as an ordinary citizen--or even Federation Monitors. Within seventy-two hours of Joan's impregnation at the Forest Hills Vivarium, its insurance underwriters--as required by law--had registered the operation in Federation computers. Once it was there, a standing request for any listings under the surnames "Collier," "Darris," "Delaney," "Duroux," "Seymour," and several others forwarded the registration to Her Honor Vera Collier Delaney at her courthouse office in Newer York.
She found a listing for the registration report among her mail o
n Friday morning. She punched it onto her terminal.
Vera looked at the report and turned ashen. "So that's why she came back," she said softly to herself.
"I'm sorry, Your Honor?" Vera's clerk said.
"Hmmm? Oh, nothing, Ted. Why don't you take a mocha break? I need some time alone."
"You're due in conference with Justice Duroux at ten."
"Call me at a quarter to."
The boy left and Vera sat reading the report carefully, growing angrier by the second. Rape it, it wasn't fair! Joan had everything she wanted in life: her career on the laser. Now this half-sister of her--a half truth, since Joan was Vera's half-sister while Vera was Joan's full sister--was going to bring their mother back and take away the only happiness Vera had ever known. Just when she'd finally got her life in some semblance of order, the whole cloneraping battle would begin all over again. Joan hadn't even the decency to discuss the issue with her.
Oh, she'd loved her mother as much as Joan, Vera told herself; but let the dead past bury its dead! Who knew what her mother might do, even sixteen years hence, when she found out that she and Stanton had decided against reviving her?
But this thought came perilously close to causing Vera more guilt than she allowed herself these days, and she shut it off quickly.
Her sister had played it very shrewdly, Vera thought, trying to finesse her into a situation where she couldn't object in front of the family. But Joan would soon find out she was a poor amateur at this sort of game--no, strike that: she wouldn't even know what hit her.
Vera studied the registration carefully. She looked at the date of birth listed for Joan--was that right? No, it couldn't be; she had to have made herself a year older to bypass her father's consent. Was this sufficient? But Vera soon realized that it would be far too easy for Joan to provide proof of her legal age and put off her fate another year--far longer than was needed. She would have to find another way.
Vera found it two lines farther down.
The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form Page 18