Joan laughed, and they found the energy to make love for the fifth time that day.
They shared a simple happiness, that week, that neither of them had ever known before.
But the parting came sooner than either of them had thought. On Monday, January 11, early in the morning while they were asleep, naked in each other's arms, the Federation Monitors surrounded the cabin, broke in, and arrested both of them.
Since Joan was not yet a Touchable, they allowed her to get dressed. But Hill they dragged out into the cold air naked.
As the Monitors dragged the naked man out the cabin door, Joan shouted to him, "Hill, I'm sorry!"
Hill Bromley smiled and shouted back, "I'm not!"
Chapter 32
JOAN WAS TAKEN back to Charlotte Amalie, where she was placed under house arrest at Villa Olga. She was kept there for three days, with no visitors permitted nor any outside communication-- not even with her lawyer. She had time to play over and over again every shaky decision she'd ever made in her life, and didn't even have her lasegraphic instruments to keep her company -- they'd been left back at The Teapot Dome. She had no idea what had happened to Hill, or how the Monitors had found them. She even had time to worry about the Invisible Man.
Finally, on Thursday, January 14, Burke Filcher paid her a visit. He seemed extraordinarily cheerful. "Good Goddess," he said when he saw her. "You really did do a job on your hair, didn't you?"
"Did you come here to talk about my hair, Burke?" Joan said.
Burke told a robot to fetch him a cup of mocha. "Oh, I expect we have many things to talk about, Joan."
"Well, you're running this squatball game. Go ahead."
"That's what I like about you, Joan. I've beaten you-- absolutely and positively demonstrated my power over you--and you still have the wherewithal to be sarcastic to me. You're quite a woman."
"Are you trying to butter me up? I can't see why you'd bother."
Filcher laughed, and accepted the mocha from the robot. "Come on and sit down," he said. "I have a proposition for you."
They took two chairs in the living room.
"First," Filcher said, "I want you to understand exactly what your status is at the moment. When you disappeared from here, you were listed with the Corps as A.W.O.L. That was all I needed to get the search I wanted. And all it will take is a word from me to Matriarch Graves to have the charge at your court-veneral be desertion. You've seen what it means to be a Touchable. I don't think you'd like it. Are you with me so far?"
"Yes."
"All right. Now that you've seen the stick, I'll bring out the carrots. I will have you honorably discharged if you'll marry me, Joan."
Joan's mouth opened, shocked.
Filcher smiled at the impact of his words on her. "It's about time I settled down and had some children. I can't think of anyone who'd give them a better genetic start--and if they take after you at all, they'll probably turn out to be little devils. Second carrot. I've looked into your background, a little bit, and discovered why you came back to Earth in the first place. I was curious as to what could bring you back when you obviously disapproved of the way of life here so strongly. And I wasn't wrong about you: coming back to have your mother reanimated is just the sort of melodrama I should have expected from you, and it was stupid of me not to have realized that once you lost your custody suit against your father you would have no further reason to subject yourself to our laws. So I spent the last day and a half negotiating with your father and Vera, and have struck a deal. They are willing to turn over custody of your mother's body to me, awaiting a surrogate body which can be your first pregnancy when we're married. In exchange, I have arranged to introduce legislation that will ease trade restrictions that have been limiting your father's business interests, and I have promised Vera that I will support her nomination for the Ladyship from the Concord in the next election. So not only do you get a husband, but you also get your mother back. But if you ever leave me, not only will your release from the service be cancelled, and the desertion charges reactivated, but I will put an end to your mother's reanimation. That's just to keep you cooperative, in case you have any more silly objections to living out my sexual fantasies. So there's my offer. What do you have to say?"
Joan chose her next words carefully. "I don't suppose you could work in a few extra items?"
"It depends. Try me."
"The man I was arrested with, Hill Bromley. What is his status?"
"You should address that question to Vera, not me. It turns out this Bromley is a Touchable--did you know that?--and as such, he'll be tried by Legos, Ltd. I believe the charge will be statutory rape."
"What?"
"What else could it be? He had unauthorized intercourse with a member of the Peace Corps. A second offense of rape--it will mean the ovens for him, I think. But the jurisdiction falls on the Upper Manor, and if you have any special pleading to do on that one, talk to your sister, not me. Anything else?"
"Would you consider St. Clive for a honeymoon--say, next spring?"
"What's so special about St. Clive in the spring?"
"That's when the St. Clive Competition is held. I'd like to enter."
Filcher shook his head. "You can put that idea out of your head right now. I'm not about to have my wife running around the system as an entertainer. You can play the laser for me, and perhaps to amuse our guests when we give a reception, but that's it. Now I want your answer, Joan. You've tried my patience as much as I'm going to let you. What do you say?"
"You've left me no choice, Burke. I accept."
"Marvelous!"
He got up and kissed her on the lips. "You won't regret this, Joan. You and I are going to have lots of fun together."
"Shall we settle the wedding details now?" Joan asked.
"Such enthusiasm! By all means."
"My custody suit against my father and Vera has really strained our relations," Joan said. "I'd like to go back and live with them at Helix Vista until the wedding to patch things up. It will be the best place to hold the wedding, anyway. Since you're probably eager, I suggest we make it only a few weeks from now. How does January twenty-seventh--a Wednesday-- sound to you?"
"Why a weekday, Joan?"
"I don't want a large, formal wedding, Burke, and that will cut down on the attendance to a certain extent."
Filcher nodded. "It all sounds reasonable. I suppose you'll want to be traditional about this, and not sleep with me again until our wedding night?"
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Burke."
"All right, you've sold me the entire bill of goods. You may leave for Helix Vista this afternoon."
"Will you be coming with me?"
"Why should I?"
"Aren't you afraid of my running off again?" Joan asked.
"Not in the least. With your mother as hostage, I'm not worried at all about losing you. Aside from that, you're really not all that good at escaping. Did you really think the Monitors wouldn't find the false transponders you shipped back here--what was it?--one to this address, one to C.P.O., and one to your lawyers? I must admit, they were packaged cleverly, but you're an amateur at that sort of thing, Joan. Stick to the laser, where at least you have some talent."
"May I ask how I was tracked down?"
"The--shall we say--'countereconomist' whose cabin you were using wasn't all that hard to persuade into giving us your whereabouts--once it was made clear to him that not doing so would cost him his life. We traded the information for a guarantee of immunity. Oh, one more thing," Filcher said. "Your luggage, laser equipment, and a box of your hair were recovered by the Monitors. Now that things are all settled, you may have them back."
"I was planning to have my hair made into a wig," Joan said.
"Wonderful! Can it be ready by our wedding?"
"I'll see that it is, Burke."
"Fine." Filcher got up. "You're going to make a beautiful bride, Joan."
Joan stood up and smiled. "I plan to wear
white."
Joan was greeted, upon her return to Helix Vista, by her father, brothers, and Vera, with the welcome given to the Prodigal Son. It was like her return nine months earlier from Ad Astra, only even warmer. No mention was even made of their custody battle.
Dinner that night featured an appetizer of quiche Lorraine.
After dinner, Joan asked Vera if they could speak alone in her study. Vera said, "Of course," and they took their mocha in there with them.
"Vera," Joan said, "you and I have had a lot of trouble with each other, and I think you know the reason as well as I. I must have been a constant reproach to you, because of my continuation of the laser. I think you know, now, that that part of my life is all over."
Vera nodded and sipped her mocha.
"We know each other pretty well, and because we do, we've always know just what needs to be done to hurt the other one. We've both done a lot of that to each other. If you feel you have any complaint against me, I apologize for it now, and will try to make up for it. But I'm going to ask you for a favor, now, and if you grant it, it will wipe the screen clean between us. You asked me once if I could forgive you. If you do this for me, I can and will."
"What is it, Joan, that you want me to do?"
"I want you to drop the statutory-rape charge against Hill Bromley."
"You care about a Touchable--and a Christian priest, I'm told -- so much?" Vera asked.
"He's a friend who helped me when I needed it, Vera. And you and I both know that the statutory-rape charge is a technical offense. If you simply list my release from the service--which Burke is arranging--from the date I went A.W.O.L., then he won't have slept with a member of the Peace Corps and there will have been no statutory rape committed."
Vera took another sip of her mocha. "All right, Joan. If this means so much to you, I'll do it. I have no desire to see you live with this man's life on your conscience."
Joan found tears squirting down her cheeks. "Lady bless you," she said. "Consider the screen wiped clean between us, Vera."
"Thank you, Joan," Vera sipped again. "It won't be difficult to make arrangements with the Federation prosecutrix. There's no necessity for a statutory-rape charge to send this man to the ovens. Why, possession of a grafted penis is quite enough to do it; statutory rape was merely a charge of convenience, so that our relations with St. Clive wouldn't be affected. Grafted penis, false transponder, appearing uncloaked in public--yes, it won't be any problem at all. We can deal with him quite nicely without putting your conscience on the line."
Joan stared at Vera as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Do you think that it was my feelings, I was thinking about when I asked you to drop the charges?"
Vera looked genuinely surprised. "What else?"
"Vera, I'm talking about saving a man's life, not my sensibilities."
"You were trying to get a full pardon?"
"Yes, of course."
"But Joan, that's quite impossible. I assumed you knew that when you brought it up. How could you expect me to let a known criminal off free? Simply for your convenience?"
"Have you no compassion?" Joan said.
"Joan, I don't understand this. I thought that was what I was showing to you when I agreed to drop the statutory-rape charge. But nothing I do is ever enough for you, is it? It wasn't enough that I saved you from the Touchable when you were five--I was supposed to have saved the other Touchable also. It wasn't enough that I consoled your father when our mother was deanimated--I was supposed to cut out a baby's brain to bring her back. And it's not enough for you that I'm bending a lifelong moral principle to allow you to have just that repugnant medical procedure done, to please you--I'm supposed to violate my oath of office to uphold the Law of the Land just so a felonious friend of yours can be let free to run wild again. What do you want from me?"
Joan looked at Vera, speechless, for what seemed an endless minute. She carefully examined her older sister's face. "You really mean everything you just said, don't you?"
"Of course I mean it!"
Joan inclined her head. Then she looked up at Vera and said, "I'm sorry I bothered you with this, Vera. I'll try not to misunderstand you again."
Joan got up to leave.
"About that statutory-rape charge--"
Joan thought for a moment. "Best to leave things the way they are," she said. "If Hill is to die, I think he'd want it to be for this."
"All right," Vera said.
Joan left Vera in the study and walked outside to the lawn, which was covered by a thick blanket of snow. Helix Vista's radiant units were off, allowing the snow to remain. Joan stood in the snow looking up to the star-broken sky, and shivered. She wasn't shivering only from the cold.
Chapter 33
GIFTS FOR THE COUPLE began arriving at Helix Vista immediately, as news of the wedding got out. Society reporters on the holy networks were calling it the political wedding of the decade-- one of the most interesting alliances in the Federation's history, linking Wendell's influence and the family wealth with Burke Filcher's extraterrestrial friendships and political shrewdness. There was talk of the beginning of a new dynasty, with Filcher parlaying his marriage into the Prime Minister's Mansion, with Wendell Darris returned to the House of Gentry in the next election--possibly as the next President--and with either Vera Delaney or Joan herself making a run for the Upper Manor and ending up as First Lady.
Teny Reich, a gossip reporter from the Paraversal Network, came by Helix Vista to interview Joan, and asked her what her feelings were about marrying "the World's Most Eligible Bachelor."
"It's the most exciting thing that I've ever chosen to do," Joan said, gushing and bubbling for the camera. "Burke has promised me lots of fun, and I'm sure he's right."
"What about your future in politics?" she asked.
"Well, Teny," Joan said, "my family background is firmly Libertarian, and I think you'll find me proving myself no different."
"Then you don't discount the possibility of running yourself?"
"The first rule of politics, Teny, is never to pin yourself down before you have to. So I'll just say that everyone will know what I've decided very soon now."
Regardless of the wedding date's being a weekday, the guest list began growing dramatically. Soon it was so large that the terrace on the roof of Helix Vista, where the wedding was to take place, was booked about 10 percent past the number of people the design limits of the house called for, and plans were made to seat the overflow in front of a giant holoscreen on the lawn, where the reception was going to be. To make way for the reception, the lawn dome was dismantled.
Wendell Darris sent a picturegram from St. Clive with his best wishes for the bride and groom. But he also apologized that he would not be able to return to Earth in time for the wedding-- and Joan wondered whether Wendell's excuse about the ship schedules was true or whether he might be jealous of her. Wendell did, however, arrange for Joan to have a pair of brooches made up at his expense from fire gems mined by his father, by the most expensive jeweler in Newer York, one for her and one for her Maid of Honor, Vera. In Vera's place, Kate Seymour was to perform the wedding.
The arrival of wedding gifts overloaded the ablility of the estate's robots to find storage space, and one afternoon, Joan accompanied two of the robots into Helix Vista's basement to see if she could lend a human touch to the problem. The place was crowded to the maximum with every sort of thing she could imagine, and Joan wondered--from her experiences with Jews' and Christians' damning every hammer that hit a thumb and every skymobile that was slow starting--whether there was a basement like this in Hell, where such uncooperative items ended up when their lives were over.
But while she was rummaging around looking for a clear space, she found something that startled her so much that for a few seconds, she froze. At first she saw only a patch of red, then at closer look red fabric; then--when she finally got close enough--she saw that it was a Touchable's cloak. She didn't need to be told that
it was the same cloak that had been ripped off the Touchable woman who had been icked on the landing strip, and the same cloak that Vera had wrapped her in when she carred her home.
Joan looked at the cloak carefully and almost felt the ghostly vibrations calling out from it. When she left the basement, she put it in a box and hid the cloak in her bedroom.
The next day was a busy one for Joan. She started by going to downtown Newer York to be fitted for the wedding gown she would be wearing--the same gown Kate Seymour had worn when she married Zachary Darris. Then Joan stopped by the downtown Newer York post office, where she picked up another package. She went immediately from the post office to the jeweler, where she made her selection of the brooch she wanted for herself and for Vera. The jeweler was a little chagrinned by her choice. "Ms. Darris," Mr. Rabinowitz said, "that brooch is absolutely huge."
"If you don't like it, why do you sell it?"
"It's for--well--some of our clientele with less-refined habits."
"I like it," Joan said. "That's the size and style brooch I want."
"You're the customer," the jeweler said, "and the customer is always right."
"I like that," Joan said. "Is it original?"
Joan smiled, on her way out, as the jeweler turned to another comman and spoke to him in Yiddish. She didn't catch all of it, but she had spent enough time with the Rubinsteins to understand "goyisher taste."
After her visit to the jeweler, Joan had lunch, then flew the family limousine into Forest Hills. She spent an hour in the vivarium, visiting her mother's cryonic capsule in the Hall of Preservation. She told the capsule everything that had happened to her, and tried to explain why she was marrying Filcher. Then she pressed her lips against the capsule and cried. "I wish you could be here to see this, Mom," she said. "It's going to be quite a show."
The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form Page 32