Slant

by Eikeltje

  talking in low tones about investments; Calhoun appears to be taking a nap.

  Ten minutes after landing, the swanjet is cleared to approach the terminal.

  Typical of the republic, Jonathan thinks; some flight controller and some of

  ficial have probably delayed them just to show them who's in charge in this

  part of the world.

  "Finally," Marcus says, rising from his lethargy. Calhoun opens her eyes

  /

  SLANT 237

  woman carries some aspect of Chloe. This will have to stop; I have to become an

  independent man again.

  After the final rehearsal, they eat a small lunch. Giffey chews on his sandwich,

  keeping his thoughts to himself.

  Hale is poring over the whiteboard diagrams, somewhat obsessively, Giffey

  thinks. Pickwenn and Pent play a game of cards with a worn paper deck Pent

  has found in a cabinet in the back of the warehouse. Pickwenn, pale and ascetic-looking,

  and the large, bull-necked Pent, do not resemble high comb managers,

  in Giffey's opinion.

  Jenner sits on the worn couch in the middle of the piles of airplane parts,

  studying a programming manual on Giffey's pad.

  Preston sits in the limo, staring at her own pad, absorbed in some recorded

  vid. In her longsuit, she presents some semblance of class. Giffey finds her

  intelligence and coolness attractive. He hopes she doesn't get hurt and have to

  be fed to the nano.

  Hale gives a deep, perhaps reluctant sigh. "All right," he says, pulling

  himself away from the board. "Let's do it."

  They climb into the limo. Jenner slips into the driver's seat, smiling broadly,

  and his scalp wrinkles. He runs his hand over his yellow hair. He seems to

  think everything is just a hoot.

  The limo pulls out of the warehouse. The door swings shut behind them,

  and they head north on Guaranteed Rights Road, past the county sheriff's

  blocky cement headquarters. Giffey makes out a few shell-holes in one side of

  the headquarters, left unrepaired. Pride in local history.

  Hale is self-absorbed. Pent and Pickwenn continue to play cards. Preston

  holds her pad but looks out the window at the scruffy, ill-kept buildings.

  Everybody does it differently. Giffey is neither calm nor nervous; he's in an

  in-between state, what he calls his snooze-or-snuff-it frame of mind. He'll take

  whatever he gets.

  There it is, white and gold, like a giant wedge of lemon meringue pie.

  Preston says, "It's like a big Claes Oldenburg sculpture. You know, like a

  big slice of pie."

  Giffey smiles. He doesn't know who Claes Oldenburg is but clearly he's

  found the one on the team he always hopes for, looks for, the partner with

  whom he can be in sync. A sign has been given and he feels good about the

  whole thing.

  He just hopes he can keep up strong relationship with Jenner and Hale

  as well. He still has his doubts about Hale, and something nags him about

  Jenner.

  The limo takes a new white concrete private road to the east of Omphalos.

  Jenner opens the chauffeur's partition window.

  238

  GREG BEAR

  "That I did," Giffey says, eyes peering up from under the window frame at

  the massive white and gold structure. The area around Omphalos has been

  cleared for a hundred yards; there's nothing but patches of snow on gently

  rolling, beautifully landscaped, evergreen lawn.

  "My father opposed him in Hispaniola. U.S. Army advisors. I wanted to be

  like my father."

  Giffey raises his eyebrows and looks forward to the driver's compartment.

  Colonel Sir. When did I stop working for Colonel Sir? Family man all the way--

  Jenner swings the wheel on a gentle turn in the road and grins back at him.

  "And?" Giffey prompts.

  "Got trained, got out," Jenner says. "I am not like my father. I was smart,

  I learned fast, but I could not suffer fools. They gave me an honorable and

  made me promise not to ever use anything I know."

  Hale chuckles. "That's Army."

  "You were never in the Army, were you, Mr. Hale?" Giffey asks.

  "No, I wasn't," Hale admits.

  Army. Family man. Back in the USA after all these years.

  The voice fades slowly but it scares Giffey. Someone or something is missing a

  jw links in all these preparations, and it might be me.

  The old slate-gray limo does not meet Marcus's expectations. A young man in

  black livery stands expectantly beside the open door, but he's disappointed.

  Marcus has brought his own driving processor.

  Jonathan enters the limo door behind Calhoun; Burdick and Cadey follow,

  4tting facing them. Marcus takes a middle seat, blocking Jonathan's view of

  adey. Marcus removes a processor from his briefcase and slides it into the

  limo's space. "We were supposed to have our own vehicles by now," he complains.

  The processor takes command and the limo slides away from the small

  parking space. Jonathan catches a glimpse of the disappointed chauffeur; apparently

  he'll have to hoof it home.

  The countryside around the airport is bland enough, prairie grass and low

  mounds of earth excavated for no obvious reason; then there are clusters of

  rusty logging and farm machinery, arranged as if by giant children on overgrown

  playgrounds.

  Moscow itself is a dreary, depleted-looking city. Marcus says little as they

  drive through the gray streets. Even spots of cold sunshine do little to enliven

  the unkempt buildings. This kind of freedom comes at a price, apparently:

  urban malaise pointing to listless, discouraged boredom.

  "It's a pity," Cadey says. Calhoun nods. Jonathan senses no real sympathy.

  Omphalos is armored, separate; responsibility toward the citizens is simply

  not an issue. They have chosen their own fate, after all.

  Marcus and Cadey point to Omphalos, their faces brightening. "There it

  / SLANT 239

  painted houses and apartments lining Constitution. The wedge of white and

  gold rises like a Wagnerian fortress. The limo turns left and they slide down

  a wide, long boulevard which Jonathan does not catch the name o, but whose

  small retail strip malls frame Omphalos with stunning contrast.

  Jonathan looks away. He's feeling more electric and fragile than enthused;

  the tide is turning again, and he does not like this ebb and flow. The strip

  malls consist of second-hand stores, small groceries, a brothel ("NOT A PROS-THETUTE

  IN THIS REPUBLIC--REAL REAL REAL," a sign announces) and several

  small casinos. The older-model automobiles and trucks passing by--some

  twenty years old and clearly powered by methane or alcohol engines--often

  have panels of clear fiexfuller mounted on the side windows.

  "A real Western town," Calhoun remarks for Jonathan's benefit.

  "Rough-and-tumble," he responds.

  "Howdy, partner," Burdick says, smiling at Calhoun.

  "There is a fine resort ranch not far from here," Cadey says. "My family

  spent a week there three years ago. Not very dangerous at all; but we had our

  own guards."

  Hiram once expressed an interest in biking through Green Idaho once he

  graduated from university. Green Idaho has the mixed distinction of being a

  rite of passage. It's taken the pl
ace of the Third World as a destination of

  challenge and adventure for wealthy young Americans.

  Jenner stops the limo at a thick green translucent barricade, ten or twelve yards

  from the east side of Omphalos. The building towers over them; they lie in

  its afternoon shadow.

  "The building's talking to us. I've given it our appointment sig."

  "Do what it says," Hale suggests dryly.

  Giffey feels as if they're already in, already swallowed. Jenner looks through

  the window to him for some suggestion of mood. He gives the boy a small

  grin and a thumbs-up. Jenner returns the gesture and seems a lot happier.

  They're all equal in this now. Preston reaches forward and clasps Hale's hand.

  The barricade, green and deep as the sea, drops into the ground and a door

  to the garage opens in the wall. The door is about twenty feet wide and

  smoothly ascends to a height of ten feet. The limo moves forward under Jenner's

  guidance.

  It takes just fifteen seconds. /

  Jonathan taps his fingers against the window glass as their limo stops at a dark

  green translucent barricade. After a brief pause, the barricade slowly sinks into

  the concrete and a door opens in the white wall beyond. The limo rolls through

  the door and joins a second, identical limo in a small holding area.

  240 GREG BEAR

  through the windows at each other across the two meters separating them.

  Someone waves from the other car, a woman Jonathan thinks, though it's hard

  to be sure through the semi-silvered windows.

  "Who are they?" Burdick asks with social curiosity. He's the kind of man

  eager to establish contacts; meeting other rich folks could be very useful.

  "I don't know," Marcus says. "I assume they made arrangements through

  LA or Tokyo."

  Cadey seems concerned. "Investors for freezing down, right?"

  "I presume that's all they know," Marcus says. "We'll separate in the briefing

  area. They'll get their tour, and we'll get ours." Marcus glances at Jonathan.

  "Not my decision," he says.

  Jonathan's feeling of separation grows more intense. The sight of Omphalos

  does not affect him the way it does the others. It looks graceless and overblown,

  like an Albert Speer monument.

  He struggles to keep himself on an even course. Marcus is very sensitive to

  what others are thinking. Jonathan does not want to appear out of sync.

  "Our colleagues," Hale says in the passenger compartment, his voice slick with

  contempt. Giffey doesn't feel one way or the other about the folks in the other

  limo everybody has to make their way in the world. Greedy rich folks have a

  right to their little conceits; after all, without them, there wouldn't be Omphalos.

  He just hopes they're flexible in their expectations.

  "Let's not act like a bunch of thugs," Preston warns. "Try to be a little

  classy. Upper classy."

  "Right," Pent says, and his face goes unconcerned, formally flat, like an all-

  ontrolling

  in vid. His voice little and his shifts.

  manager

  deepens a

  a accent

  "How am I doing?"

  Preston smirks and turns away.

  Pickwenn sobers also. Jenner should just continue playing the driver, Giffey

  thinks. Hale appears pale and out of sorts.

  Ahead, a green panel light comes on and a second door opens in the wall.

  "They're letting both of us through," Jenner says, a little surprised.

  "Beyond here, the armor's very light," Giffey says.

  "Shit, as if three feet of fiexfuller isn't enough," Pent says.

  "Language, gentlemen," Preston warns.

  The doors on the limousines open and ten people step out in two groups of

  five into the garage reception area. Jenner remains seated in the driver's compartment.

  The lighting is clear and white, with a slight snowy tint; the air is

  warm, as if the room has been exposed to afternoon sunshine, and very clean,

  odorless, flavorless.

  /

  SLANT 241

  Jonathan stares at the prospects, a varied lot to say the least, and wonders how

  wealthy they can really be; Boise is after all part of the United States still,

  albeit known for a little more rough and tumble market and business style,

  and the fortunes made there are sometimes less than spectacular. Connection

  is everything on the dataflow river.

  Hale and Marcus chat idly, waiting for the building sentinels to finish doing

  whatever they need to do.

  Giffey examines the four men and one woman. Five of them, six on his team.

  Almost a one-to-one match in a rough. He's feeling smooth, a little bored, and

  there's a buzz in the back of his mind. Some urge to urinate right out in the

  open. That's what he should do to show his contempt.

  He pushes that back with hardly any effort. It's a strange impulse, but he's

  used to the buildup of tension. Tension, all it is. Family tension,

  Marcus and Hale are discussing the cost of separate freezing or warm sleep

  facilities in the general market, compared to the package deals being offered

  in Omphalos. Marcus sounds a bit like a salesman.

  Jonathan worries about Chloe. Perhaps she has come out of her misery now

  and can talk straight.

  This is taking a long time. He had expected that anything Marcus would

  be involved in would run smoothly--

  A large hatch opens in the wall, six feet above the floor of the waiting area,

  and steps emerge from below the door with an oily, metallic sliding sound.

  A tall, slender arbeiter appears in the door and moves out onto the broad

  first step. The design confuses Jonathan's eye for a moment; it is smoothly

  insectoid, like a half-developed larva carved out of dark steel, its upper limbs

  folded into long groov, es in its thorax. Its four lower limbs push from a bulbous

  base, thick and flaring distally, each terminated by flexible feet. The feet carry

  it smoothly down the first three steps. At the bottom of the steps, a human

  figure appears out of thin air, middle-aged and female, with gray-blond hair

  and a stocky, strong body. Her arms show bare and strong in a sleeveless blouse,

  and she is wearing Gosse pants, like jodhpurs though more flattering.

  Jonathan does not see her appear; he has been looking at/xhccupants of

  the second limo, taking his eyes away from the arbeiter for just a second. His

  startled look amuses Calhoun and she leans to whisper in his ear, "Projection."

  "Welcome to Omphalos," the projected woman says, in a voice thick and

  motherly, like a creamy soup. She smiles and beckons up the steps. "My name

  is Lacey Ray. I'm sorry I can't be with you in the flesh, but I'm with you live,

  at least, and I can see everything you see. The arbeiter is my surrogate. I believe

  your groups will be going on two different tours--"

  Giffey eyes the door and glances at Hale. Preston steps forward to stand by

  the right front wheel. They do not want to be separated from the limo, not

  yet, and that door must be kept open. Giffey recognizes the arbeiter--it is a

  modified Ferret, supplied with a new shell but essentially the same in anatomy.

  242

  GREG BEAR

  observer, it is doing double duty; perhaps it is a remotely directed unit, cheaper

&nbs
p; and less flexible than an autonomous model. A happy thought strikes him:

  maybe Omphalos does not have its full complement of defenses in place. Too

  much to hope for.

  The other visitors have fixed their attention on the projected woman.

  Jenner, inside the driver's compartment, pops the trunk. "Handbags and

  pads," Pent says smoothly to Hale as he and Pickwenn walk casually to the

  back of the limo. "Right," Giffey says.

  Pickwenn passes by the woman named Calhoun and smiles at her. She gives

  a little shudder; Pickwenn and Pent do seem exotic for this crowd, Giffey

  observes.

  "We'll be checking all bags and other handhelds before we take our tour,"

  the ghost of Lacey Ray says, warm and friendly. "Then we'll--"

  Jonathan diverts his attention back to the limo, as does Cadey. The dark-haired

  woman in the other group, with a tight-lipped smile, nods to them.

  The gesture seems nervous and false, certainly unnecessary. Jonathan frowns;

  Cadey's face is blandly observant. Calhoun turns away from the image's introduction.

  Marcus is still fixed on it.

  "--be giving our first group, Mr. Hale's group, an introductory tour beginning