The man gave Lan a puzzled look, and Parke's laughter grew even noisier.
"Stop." Tears glistened at the corners of Parke's eyes and his cheeks bulged. He always had been an easy victim for this kind of torture.
Lan waited a second until he caught Parke's eye again and smiled at him. "You know, I remember the time you tried to convince Shirl that the earlier you try sex, the more you'll enjoy it when you're older. And then she asked her mother if that was true. And then her mother had a talk with your mother."
"Please—stop." Parke's face was turning red.
Lan waited a few seconds until Parke had to drag in a deep breath. In the relative quiet, Lan said, "Mr. Tendals. You remember how you altered the picture database for the annual—"
Parke started laughing again, gesturing for Lan to stop. Parke's eyes squinted shut.
"—and inserted eye–stalks coming out of his forehead? Is nothing sacred to you?"
Parke managed to put his hands over his ears, but he was shaking so hard that his hands didn't stay in place, so Lan was sure Parke could still hear.
"And that time he was answering questions after a session. He said something like 100,000 of our brain cells die every day, and wouldn't that be a problem if they weren't being replenished?"
Parke shook his head, as if denying the memory would stop Lan, and started shaking harder as Lan continued. "And you said it sure would be a problem unless you wanted a teaching job."
By now, almost everyone around the two men was staring at Parke, several of them grinning at Parke's discomfort. Parke's face had turned a painful shade of red, and he began to cough.
Lan let his friend calm down until he stopped laughing. Parke hesitantly looked in Lan's direction.
Lan simply gave him a sudden broad grin, and Parke was laughing again.
When Parke's laughter subsided, he looked back at Lan.
Lan put on a serious expression for a second or two as Parke took some deep relaxing breaths. Abruptly, Lan said, "You remember the time—" and Parke was once again out of control, quaking for a time before he finally regained control.
"You're going to kill me someday," Parke wheezed at last. "I wish you wouldn't do that."
"One does whatever one does best. I'm glad to see you haven't changed, either."
Parke finally began to breathe more normally. "What do you do, anyway? Besides tormenting people. We never got to that."
Lan carefully squeezed his drink bulb and took a sip. "Nothing special. I work for an import–export consortium. My job is to help balance the two wherever they send me. If I'm on a world that imports more than it exports, I help them find markets for more of their materials or products. Or help them match something they could be providing to a market need somewhere else. Dull work, but the travel makes up for it." Lan's story was a complete fabrication, but Parke seemed to accept it.
"So, have you been back to Neverend since we graduated?"
"No. If they've had any need for the kind of work I do, someone else must have handled it. And my parents migrated to Merohive not long after that. It will be fun to see the old place. See people I haven't seen for a long time."
"I warned you she might not be there."
"Right, you did. There are other people I want to see. The Newtons—they lived near us—Carrie, Eddar, several others." "And Tessa," Parke added.
"And Tessa. If she's there. And her father."
"Somehow I—I thought you might have known." Parke was suddenly sober.
"Known what?"
"He's dead. He was murdered in the museum. A few months ago. Toko told me about it."
Lan was silent for a long moment, staring at the mottled sun. Tessa's father had been one of the kindest men Lan knew. Harsh words from him were rarer than pearls in the desert. He was a master of self–deprecating humor that could defuse almost any situation, and he was someone who avoided confrontation to begin with. What a blow to Tessa.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. "She was really close to him. And I liked him quite a lot. What happened?"
"I don't know."
"You mean Toko never said?"
"I don't think anyone knows. Except maybe the killer. Tessa's father didn't have any enemies. They found him in the museum, but there wasn't any indication of theft." Parke's eyes widened. "You were always interested in mysteries. Maybe we could find out what happened."
"I think you landed on your head too many times falling out of bed."
"No really. We could make a great team. You're intelligent and I'm strong."
Lan nodded. "Right. I can see it now. I figure out which questions to ask, and you punch whoever we're questioning until we hear an answer we like. We could call ourselves the brains and brawn brothers."
"Bad idea, huh?"
"Let's put it this way. I think you had a better idea when you organized the scavenger hunt that almost got us kicked out of school."
"We had fun, didn't we?"
"Yeah, but it was just asking for trouble to have an escalator tread on the list."
"Lan," Parke said, suddenly serious. "For your sake, I hope Tessa is going to be there."
"Thanks. But even if she is, she's almost certain to be married to somebody. It's stupid, but I don't know if I'll want to stay around if I find that out."
End of Excerpt from REUNION ON NEVEREND by JOHN E. STITH
Manhattan Transfer Page 43