There’s going to be more trouble. I can feel it, but I can’t feel what direction it will come from. With Althea back in space, I’m bereft of my foremost asset for deterring another assault. It doesn’t matter that she aborted the last one from the Relic. When she’s not in plain sight, standing before them and staring them down like the wrath of God, it’s just too easy for them to wish her away like a bad dream.
As he’d expected, he found his father and Patrice laboring over yet another unidentifiable concoction, murmuring to one another as if they feared that their secrets might be stolen. He cleared his throat, and they swiveled at once to face him.
“Emma and I have just suffered through a disappointing meeting,” he said. “Is there anything sweet lying around that we could use to take the edge off it?”
Patrice giggled. Douglas smiled broadly, went straight to the main refrigerator, and withdrew two small cups, each filled with a pale yellow custard that had a spoon sticking upright in it. He handed one to Bart and one to Emma, and said “Enjoy!”
“I’m, uh, sure we will, Dad,” Barton said, “but...what is it?”
Douglas Kramnik shook his head. “No clues, Bart. You have to try it first. Come on, don’t be shy.”
Barton looked at Emma. They shrugged in unison and dug into the unidentified sweet.
“Whoa,” Barton said.
“Outrageous!” Emma added. “Mega-applause!”
“But what is it?” Barton said.
Douglas looked indecently pleased. He beckoned Patrice to his side, slipped an arm around her waist, and said a single word.
“Corn.”
Barton stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
Patrice giggled. “Not in the slightest. It’s almost pure corn. It’s been ground, pureed, gently heated to bring the sugars forward, then allowed to stand for a little while, then heated again, very briefly, then the excess fluid is drained off, and a touch of honey added. Creamy and sweet, isn’t it?”
“Uh, yeah! It’s...it’s...” A wide smile bloomed on Barton’s face as he surrendered to giggles.
“A product in embryo,” Douglas said. “If we can get a deal on small sealable containers and find someone who’ll do refrigerated shipping. It’s actually easier to make in large batches, and it’s not like there’s any shortage of corn.” He scowled. “Especially lately.”
It took all of Barton’s self-control not to empty the little cup directly down his gullet. Beside him, Emma was doing exactly that, looking as if she’d just learned the true meaning of bliss. He spooned up another mouthful and savored it. “Where did you get the idea for this?”
Douglas opened his mouth to reply, closed it without speaking, and looked away as if embarrassed. Patrice’s face fell into lines of sorrowful remembrance.
“It was an idea of Alvah’s,” she said at last.
Emma’s expression of pleasure vanished at once. Barton nodded without speaking.
“Anyway,” Doug said, “we’re glad you like it.”
Patrice nodded. Her hand slipped over Douglas’s forearm and remained there. He pulled her infinitesimally closer to him.
Some wounds resist any sort of therapy. No matter how much time is allowed to pass.
“We never did hold a proper farewell for Alvah and Elyse,” Barton said at last. “Maybe tonight at worship?”
Patrice sobbed softly and buried her face in Douglas’s chest. Barton’s father pulled her into a swaddling embrace.
“Would you be willing to officiate, son?”
Barton blinked back his own tears. He nodded.
* * *
“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Dunbarton said.
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Wolzman said. He pulled open the door of his hovercoupe and gestured to Dunbarton to embark. “He and his clan have a lot to lose from lying.”
“More than we do?” Dunbarton muttered. He seated himself in the vehicle and waited as Wolzman got in on the driver’s side.
“Probably,” Wolzman said. “His export radius is much greater than ours. Besides, his wares are consumption goods. We don’t have that problem.”
Wolzman activated the ground-effect fans, waited for the car to rise onto its skirt, and kicked in the thrust fan. He guided the coupe into the channel through the trees and sped off to the west.
“So what now?” Dunbarton said.
“Do you really expect me to know?” Wolzman shook his head. “He holds all the trumps. He and his damned genius kinswoman have made Clan Morelon impregnable. I suppose we could try to excite the region into boycotting them, but to what end? We’d be old and feeble before they even began to feel the sting.”
“We’ll never be feeble, Patrick.”
“Figure of speech.”
Wolzman guided the coupe carefully through the forest channel, past the commercial strip and train station, through the clearing around the Spacehawk battery, and banked north toward Dunbarton House. Though still more than two miles away, the mansion’s unusual height and roofline made it unmistakable even at that distance.
“Why them?” Dunbarton muttered.
Wolzman snorted. “Sweat.”
“Hm?”
“They’re workers, Alex. Every last one of them. They rush their children into the fields as soon as they can hold a spade or carry a bag of seed. Work for them is the fulfillment of human existence. And every last one of them is completely sincere about all of it.” Wolzman chuckled. “You can get a lot done with an attitude like that. I’d like to see a little more of it in my kinsmen.”
“Helps that they keep sprouting geniuses,” Dunbarton muttered.
“No argument. But remember Edison’s Law: that’s no more than two percent of the puzzle. A genius surrounded by layabouts has to do all the grimy parts himself. Most of them eventually give up.”
Wolzman cruised over the thick, deep green lawn before the Dunbarton mansion, pulled up sideways before the main doors, and killed the fans. The coupe settled gently onto the lawn as he turned to Dunbarton, expecting him to debark at once. His passenger remained seated. He stared straight ahead.
“So where do we go from here?” Dunbarton muttered.
“Alex,” Wolzman said, “I’ve never been sure where we were going in the first place.”
That brought Dunbarton’s head around. His eyes glittered with frustration and barely leashed intent.
“Power, Patrick. Power, prestige, and personal stature. The ability to sway things to our liking. The ability to prevent developments that would impact us unpleasantly. And more respect from our fellows than the Morelons’ hegemony will let us enjoy, until the day it finally ends.”
Wolzman snorted. “If it ever ends.”
“Do you doubt that it will?”
“Sometimes.”
“I don’t.” Dunbarton opened the door, stepped out of the vehicle, and turned to peer at Wolzman. “Everything has a beginning and an end, Patrick. With some things, the end has to be brought about by others. There are still cards we haven’t played. Don’t give up yet.” He grinned nastily. “I haven’t.”
Wolzman nodded and raised a hand in farewell. When the doors of Dunbarton House had closed behind his friend, he re-energized the coupe’s fans, wheeled it sharply about, and sped away toward Wolzman House, straining not to think.
==
Octember 13 , 1326 A.H.
The Searching Eye
It is now beyond dispute that the aggressive export of ultra-low-price food and energy technology by Clan Morelon is displacing local produce and depressing native Centralian enterprise. The danger to Centralian families is of two kinds.
First, the reduction in local economic activity is making our position fragile. Imports are consumption items, however desirable they might be. Should local enterprise fall below the level required to pay for our imports, we will be unlikely to receive the torrent of goods currently filling our larders as acts of charity.
Second, of course, the displacement o
f local products by low-cost imports creates an opportunity for him who would willingly create mass deprivation and suffering for profit. Without locally produced alternatives, we are defenseless against the sudden unavailability of those imports, or the rapid escalation of their prices.
Your commentator does not mean to suggest that either of those nightmare scenarios is about to fall upon us. Yet the possibilities remain. So does human nature: self-interested, ethically unsteady, and forever susceptible to the lure of both wishful thinking and the sophistical rationalization of the unjustifiable.
Economic forces are above anyone’s ability to thwart, except by the use of those forces themselves. When the incentives are as they currently are, the vector of the near future is easy to foresee and impossible to forestall.
Given that all of Centralia together cannot match the economic power wielded by Clan Morelon alone, we appear fated to live under a blade suspended from the thread of Morelon ethical soundness and appreciation of the law of unintended consequences. Let us all hope that some countervailing power will rise to balance the hegemonists of the East before chance or intent should cause that thread to fray.
Cherie Dunwoodie, previously called Charisse Dunbarton and for more than a century before that Charisse Morelon, reviewed her work with a weary eye. The Searching Eye had become one of the most popular commentary sites on the Hub. It was cited and praised by Altans from coast to coast. “The Demosthenes of Hope” received a barrage of supportive fan mail that averaged thousands of pieces per week and seemed never to slacken. Only at the results counter were her efforts weighed and found wanting.
She’d gone as far in fomenting a reaction against Clan Morelon as she could without openly calling for a boycott of their wares. Yet no reaction had arisen; at least, none perceptible to her from her vantage point in Sun Tzu.
If the masses are waiting for me to gallop into the town square on a white horse waving a flaming sword, they’ll have quite a while longer to wait.
She sat back from her Hub terminal and contemplated her alternatives.
It’s nearly a year since the siege. Attitudes toward the alliance have probably cooled considerably. At least, only Clan Luchin has suffered measurably, as far as I know. Well, their sole product is an easily foresworn luxury. It’s a lot easier to go without fancy pastries than most other goods. Besides, if Clan Morelon seems not to bear a grudge against them, why should anyone else in the region?
Going back would be pointless. I’ve lost what power base I had. The alliance clans would never treat with me again. Trying to marshal a similar force from other sources would be futile, to say nothing of Clan Morelon’s new defenses. If I can’t rally resistance against them with words, I can’t bend them at all.
So why am I doing this?
It was a question she was not prepared to answer. Her motives had not changed. The prize she sought was what it had always been. It was the utility of her efforts that was dubious. She couldn’t see a path forward that would be any more effective.
Clan Morelon continued to swell in size and economic scope. The reduction in its corn revenues was more than offset by the accelerating stream from its power stations, which were penetrating ever further to the west. Though in any busy public place one could find passers-by grumbling about “economic imperialists” and “the royalists to the east,” the unease she’d managed to evoke appeared unable to check the general approbation of the clan’s enterprises and the agreeable terms on which it provided its wares. Demand had risen so high that the clan had begun hiring non-relatives to help with fabrication and deliveries.
Not one non-relative was employed at Morelon House for as long as I lived there. Now they have a barracks for the non-Morelon employees.
Should I give up? Stop trying to rouse the rabble and find some wholesome work to occupy me?
She pushed her Hub terminal away, rose from her desk, and surveyed the little apartment that had become her home.
It was a stark, even sterile place. Its comforts were few and meager: a convertible couch, a modest dresser, a tiny kitchenette, a desk and a swivel chair. The flat-white walls were undecorated. The suitcases in which she’d toted her possessions from Jacksonville lay conspicuously against the wall next to the door.
This isn’t a home. It’s a way station. A place for a traveler to sleep between journeys. But a journey should have a destination. What’s mine?
I know this feeling. This is weariness born of frustration. If I could just get somewhere...
If. Hah. The most important word in any sentence it appears in.
She went to her radio, dialed it to Darren Berglund’s frequency, and keyed the mike.
“Darren? Are you busy, sweetie? It’s Cherie. I’ve just conceived a hankering for a helping of your fine cuisine.” A naughty grin spread over her features. “The horizontal kind.”
* * *
The sex that evening did little for her. Darren was as attentive and worshipfully tender as always. Nor had her body’s response to his ministrations changed at all. Yet neither his homage nor the pleasure she took from it could enliven her. Her frustration and her swelling ennui remained untouched.
They lay together unspeaking for a space, his arms around her and her head against his chest.
“Is something wrong, sweetie?”
His voice pulled her out of herself. She canted her head to face him. “Hm? Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that you seem really far away,” he said. “Thinking about something big and important.” He stroked her arm. “I’d rather you were here beside me, at least for now.”
She nodded and looked away.
“You’re not pregnant, are you?”
The idea pricked a laugh out of her. “No, dear.” Nothing quite as manageable as that. “I’m just...well, you know how women can be.”
“Actually, I don’t, not really.” He clambered into a sitting position, and she followed suit. “You’re my first serious girlfriend. If I know anything about women, it’s what I know about you. Nothing beyond that, really.”
I can’t let myself forget how young he is. And without a clan around him, at that.
His efficiency apartment was a close match to hers. He had a few more personal belongings than she did: two photos of his parents, a handful of books on technical subjects, a koto he was learning to play. Assorted prints adorned the walls, half nature scenes and half technicata. They were enough to mark it as Darren’s place in a way that her apartment was not and probably could not be.
This is his home. It has his imprint. In some indefinable way it expresses his playfulness, his innocence, and his affectionate nature. Is that why I prefer that we make love here, and not in my cell of little ease?
Do we make love? Am I just masturbating myself on him, or do I feel something for him near to what he obviously feels for me?
She looked inside herself, straining to see into her own emotions for the second time that day.
I do, but it’s not what he would want from a long-term lover.
“Darren...could we go out for a while? Be around other people? Get some dinner at the lodge, maybe?
His brow furrowed. “I thought you wanted me to cook for us.”
She smiled. “You already have, sweetie. I just want us to be around other people for a while. Be a couple around other couples. I can’t explain it any better than that.”
He looked at her for a long time in silence. Presently he nodded.
“Okay.”
They rose and dressed.
* * *
The restaurant at the transients’ lodge was fairly busy for a Randsday. Couples and larger groups were scattered uniformly over the large dining room. Conversation abounded. There was an air of conviviality about the place that more than compensated for the blandness of the pork stew Charisse was served. Darren’s attention and his cheerful efforts to entertain her were a grace note atop the room’s comforting reminder of the larger human world.
“They’r
e not all passing through, are they?” she said during a break in Darren’s badinage.
“All who?” He forked up a bite of roast chicken.
She waved inclusively about the dining room.
“Oh! No, certainly not.” He grinned. “I forget sometimes how new you are here. Sun Tzu’s got a pretty substantial population of singles. A lot of them...us come here just to be with other people for a while, chat about something or anything, maybe meet someone to...socialize with in other places.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Or perhaps to take home to bed?”
He grinned sheepishly and nodded.
“Did you ever do that?”
“No.” He looked away bashfully. “I know it sounds corny, but I’m really not that kind of guy.”
“Oh? Then where did you learn to make love so sweetly?”
His eyes compressed with confusion. “From you, of course. Didn’t you believe me?”
“Hm? About what?”
“That you’re my first love.” He smiled. “Hopefully my last.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again without speaking. He reached across the little table and took her hand. She clutched at him, tossed by a storm of emotions that had surged up from nowhere.
“Cherie?”
“I’ve done a bad thing,” she whispered.
“Hm? What is it, sweetie?”
“Darren,” she forced out, “I’m...not what you think I am.”
He waited and watched her through eyes filled with worry.
“I’m older than you are.” She drew a long, shaky breath. “A lot older.”
He shrugged. “I got that impression the day we met. It never bothered me. I’m just delighted to have your company and your affection.”
“Darren...I’m nearly a hundred and thirty years old.”
His eyebrows went up, but he did not release her hand. “So?”
She stared at him in confusion. “You don’t feel I’ve abused your trust?”
“Why should I?” He shrugged again. “If anything, I’m even more flattered than I was when you first took up with me. You must know so much more than I do...must have seen and done so much more than I have. I can’t imagine what I have to offer you that compares with that.”
Freedom's Fury (Spooner Federation Saga Book 3) Page 22