But I couldn't recall one who had looked very happy about the business.
"Don't look so worried, Stinky. It's going to work out fine. You do want to marry me, we settled that, right?"
I opened my mouth�realized I was harpooned, and closed it again. I had stated that only money prevented me from proposing; I didn't have a leg to stand on.
Nevertheless I found myself on my feet and being embraced. I had to admit it was a very nice embrace, warm and close and fragrant. "Then it's all really very simple. All you need is a nice long chat with Gran'ther Richard. You'll love him, really. And I know he'll love you."
I stiffened in her arms, and fought with the impulse to faint. Good old Grandpa Richard. Known to the rest of the Solar System as Conrad of Conrad. The patriarch. The Chairman. I'd heard he had broken premiers. But perhaps the most awesome thing about his wealth was that, when I thought about it, I didn't actually know a single fact about him, save his name and exalted position. I'd never read an article about him, or viewed a bio, or even seen a picture of his face. For all I knew he had taken my cloak when I arrived. Harun el-Hatchek.
She released me and stepped back. "You'll see him first thing tomorrow. He'll explain things. And then afterward you and I will have breakfast together and start to make some plans. Good night, Stinky."
We parted without a kiss. She didn't offer, and I didn't try. I was starting to feel resentment at having been played for so long�and also I flatly did not believe there were no cameras on us.
After she was gone, I thought about firing up that Universal Access Rennick/Smithers had mentioned, and researching the size and scope of the Conrad empire. But I knew if I did so here, now, on this computer system, Gran'ther Richard would know about it. It just smelled ripe to me. Milady brings home a handsome hick, and the first thing he does is start pricing the furniture. The thought made my cheeks burn.
Instead I used that UA to google around until I had figured out the "Smithers" gag. It turned out to be just as well Rennick didn't know the reference�if in fact he really didn't. Jinny was comparing him to an ancient cartoon character who was a cringing bootlicker, a toady, a completely repressed monosexual, and an unrequited lover. I wondered how much of that was accurate and how much libel. And just how far the analogy was meant to go: Smithers's employer in the cartoon, a Mr. Burns, was vastly rich, impossibly old, and in every imaginable way a monster. Did he represent Jinny's grandfather? Or father?
Well, I would find out in the morning. Or maybe I would get lucky and be struck by a meteorite first.
The bed turned out to be just like mine back at the dorm, except the mattress was better, the sheets were infinitely softer and lighter, and the pillow was gooshier. Was I hallucinating, or did the pillowcase really smell faintly of Jinny's shampoo? It certainly did put a different perspective on things. It might be nice to smell that on my pillow every night from now on. And every morning. If in fact I was really smelling it now. While I was wondering, I fell asleep.
Three
"Joel. It's time to wake up, dear."
Yes, that was definitely her hair I smelled.
I had heard Jinny say just those words, in much that low throaty tone of voice, at the start of more than one pleasant dream. It was a novel experience to hear them at the end of one. Now if only everything else would continue to unfold as it usually did in the dream. . . .
I opened my eyes and she was not there. The scent was either vestigial or imagined. Drat.
"You really need to wake up now, Joel," she murmured insistently from somewhere nearby
"Okay," I said.
"Wake up, Joel. It's time t�"
I sat up, and she chopped off in midword. She wasn't there. Anywhere.
I wake up hard. I had to sit there, lot a few seconds before I had it worked out. The speaker was not Jinny but Leo the AI server, perfectly imitating her voice while acting as an alarm clock. Doing the job well, too: I could fool my own alarm at the dorm by simply telling it I was getting up. Leo was programmed to accept nothing less than verticality as proof of compliance.
Why did I need to get up now? I could tell I had not had eight hours' sleep. I had graduated, for Pete's sake�what was so urgent?
It all came back to me at once. Oh, yes. That's right. Today I was going to have a personal interview with one of the most powerful men in the Solar System. Had I supposed it would be scheduled for my convenience? A man like Conrad of Conrad would doubtless want to dispose of matters as trivial as meeting his grandchild's fiance as early as possible in the business day
"How soon am I expected?" I asked.
"In half an hour, Mr. Joel," Leo said in his own voice.
"How do I get breakfast?"
"I can take your order, sir."
I started to say scrambled on toast, bucket of black coffee, liter of 0J. Then I thought to myself, this morning you are going to have a personal interview with one of the most powerful men in the Solar System. "Eggs Benedict, home fries, Tanzanian coffee�French Press, please, two sugars and eighteen percent cream, keep it coming�and squeeze a dozen oranges."
Leo returned the serve. "Very good, Mr. Joel. Do you prefer peaberry or the normal bean?"
"The peaberry, I think," I managed.
There was a scratching sound at the door. It opened, and a servant entered, pushing a tray ahead of him at shoulder height with two fingers. He was easily as old and as ugly as the servants I'd seen the night before, but nowhere near as surly. Maybe day shift was better.
"What's that?" I asked.
He steered the tray to a table near the bed, and somehow persuaded it to sit down. "Eggs Benedict, potatoes, coffee, fresh orange juice, and this morning's news, sir," he said, pointing to each item as he named it. Nothing in his manner suggested that only an idiot would need these things named.
I promised myself that just as soon as I had the time, I would wonder, very hard, about how any of those items could have been produced instantly, much less all of them at once. But meanwhile, there was no sense pretending they had not caught me by surprise. "If I'd known how fast the service is here, I'd have asked them to wait ten minutes, while I used the 'fresher," I said with a rueful grin.
He turned to the tray, made some sort of mystic gesture. The food became obscured by a hemisphere of . . . well, it looked like shimmery air. "Take as long as you like, sir. Everything will be the same temperature and consistency when you get back out."
Oh. Of course. I wondered how the hell I would get the air to stop shimmering, but I was determined not to ask. I'd figure it out somehow
"Just reach right through it, whenever you're ready, sir," he volunteered. "That collapses the field."
I opened my mouth to ask what kind of field, how was it generated, what were its properties�and stifled myself. There would be time for that later. "What is your name?"
"Nakamura, sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Nakamura. You're very kind."
"You're welcome, sir. And thank you." Somehow he was gone instantly, without hurrying.
I started to get out of bed . . . and the damned thing helped me. The part right under my knees dropped away, and the part under my butt rose, and I was on my feet. I reacted pretty much as if I'd been goosed�the physical sensations were not dissimilar. I said the word "Whoa!" louder and an octave higher than I might have wished, leaped forward a meter or so, and spun around to glare accusingly at the bed.
"Is something wrong, Mr. Joel?" Leo asked.
I took a deep breath. And then another. "Not yet," I stated cautiously.
On the way to the 'fresher, I passed close to the tray of food. I could see a cup of coffee in there, and wanted it so badly it brought tears to my eyes. But I knew if I "collapsed the field" now, I probably wouldn't be able to re-create it again. And besides, there was the question of making room for the coffee.
So okay, I would hurry and be out of the 'fresher in five minutes instead of ten. I stepped in. . . .
On Ganymede we're
more reticent about such matters than Terrans�for complex sociocultural reasons I'd be perfectly happy to explain any time you have an hour to kill listening to a guy who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. So I'll just say that this 'fresher was about ten times better equipped and programmed than I had ever imagined possible, and let it go at that. It was more like fifteen minutes before I was able to make myself end the sybaritic cycle.
When I came out, my clothes were gone.
I remarked on this, as casually as I could manage. Leo explained that they had been taken away for laundering. He invited me to wear any of the fakes in the closet that pleased me, and assured me, unnecessarily, that they would all fit me perfectly.
I was not at all happy about this, but I could see my wallet, phone, and keys on the bedside table, so I postponed the matter until after coffee.
By the end of the first cup, I had no strong objection to anything short of disembowelment or denial of a second cup. If you are ever given the choice, insist on the peaberry. Trust me.
When I was ready to dress, I automatically reached for the copy of my best suit, comforting myself as best I could with the guess that this version of it, at least, would be freshly cleaned, and would not be worn nearly through in spots. But as I took it from the closet, I noticed an item hanging just behind it that certainly was not a copy of any garment I owned. It was a J. L. Fong suit. Top of the line, of the latest cut and style. In a color, I noticed, that would complement Jinny's hair. It was worth more than my entire wardrobe�more than my passage to Earth had cost. The tights were just a bit daring, but I decided I had the calves to carry them off. I was unsurprised to find suitable underwear and other necessary accessories in drawers, tucked in among my own trash.
The moment I put it on, that suit became an old, familiar, and valued friend�and I became taller and wider across the shoulders. It could not have fit better if it had been made on my body. It knew things about me I wouldn't learn for years yet, and approved of them all. Wearing a suit like that, you could break up a knife fight with an admonishment, secure a million-dollar loan without being troubled for a signature, walk away from a crime scene, or obtain illicit drugs on credit. I examined the effect in the 'fresher room mirror, and decided that on me, it looked good. Perhaps, I felt, I could even survive an interview with Conrad of Conrad without soiling it. If it was a brief interview.
"Will Jinny be present at this meeting, do you know?" I asked Leo.
"No, Mr. Joel. Only Mr. Conrad, Mr. Albert, and yourself."
I blinked. "Wait a second. Which Mr. Conrad? Jinny's father, or her grandfather? And who's this Albert bloke?"
"Ah. Pardon me, Mr. Joel. There are over a dozen adult males in the immediate family whose last name is or incorporates Conrad�but by long-standing family and corporate tradition, there is only one 'Mr. Conrad' at any one time. At present that is Jenny's grandfather, Mr. Richard Conrad�Conrad of Conrad. The others are Mr. Joseph, Mr. Chang, Mr. Akwai-N'boko, and so on. Mr. Albert is Jinny's father."
"I see," I said. "Thank you." I began to understand Leo's insistence on putting Mr. before my name. I started to ask where Jinny was now, and realized the answer would probably mean nothing to me.
I paid attention to my breathing, trying to make it slower and deeper, for another twenty seconds. Then I said, "Okay, I'm ready"
"Very good, Mr. Joel."
I left the faux farmhouse, and walked through faux fields. It smelled convincingly like morning on Ganymede, and don't ask me to explain that. It felt inexpressibly weird to be walking through a colonial homestead, in the wrong gravity, dressed like an aristocrat, heading for a doorway of pink smoke. It was a bit of a relief to walk through the smoke and find myself in an ordinary corridor that smelled like Terra instead of Wonderland.
"I'll guide you from here, sir," Leo said. "Do you see the light at your feet?"
I glanced down, and there was a soft green light at the baseboard of the left-hand wall, pulsing on and off. It was about the size and intensity of a firefly: discreet, but impossible to miss. "Lead on," I said. It moved away.
"If you'll forgive a personal observation, sir," Leo said as I followed his blinking firefly down the corridor, "you have an excellent time sense for a human."
"Excuse me?' "
"You said, 'Okay I'm ready' twenty-nine minutes and forty-one seconds after I advised you that you had thirty minutes to prepare."
"Ah." I nodded. "A couple of people have told me I have a pretty accurate internal clock."
"Extremely so, sir, if this example is representative."
I shrugged. "I never burn the toast. Look, I have some thinking to do, all right?"
"Yes, sir. I'd just like to�"
"Later, Leo."
"But, sir�"
I was raised to be polite to gadgets�Dad always said it was good practice�but I was trying to get some fretting done and Leo was distracting me. "Quiet!"
He shut up, and I put my full attention on the predicament I was in. First I scanned my memory for everything I had ever heard or read about high-level etiquette, manners, or protocol. Unfortunately that only took me about two steps. Then I examined my own autobiography, looking first for things that might impress a multi-octillionaire�and when that failed, making a short list of spots that might alienate one, and going over my excuses. A step and a half, tops. As I followed the blinking green firefly around a corner, I was trying to decide whether the next priority was to imagine all the possible ways this upcoming meeting could go wrong, or to try and work out exactly how I had gotten myself into this, where I had taken my first misstep�
--when I rounded the corner, and encountered eighteen kilograms of mass coming in the other direction.
I weighed four times that much. But it caught me well above my center of gravity�square in the face�and was moving much faster, packing more kinetic energy. I believe the Terran expression is, who knows why, "ass over teakettle."
I've taken self-defense courses. I know how to fall properly, and do so as a matter of reflex in normal conditions. But not in a one-gee field. I went down hard on my back, and all my air left me in a single explosive syllable, and only the extreme thickness of the carpet kept me from cracking my skull. I remember feeling quite unhappy for a moment, there. Then the eighteen-kilo mass landed on my groin, and I felt much worse.
Sometime later I forced my eyes open. Closed them quickly. Reopened them cautiously. Half a meter from my nose, a little girl�"Why don't you look where you're going?" she asked.
Make a mental note, Joel: next time you tell an AI you want quiet and it keeps talking�listen. "Because I'm a dolt."
"Oh." She thought about that. "I'm a Conrad."
I looked her over. She appeared to be somewhere around seven Terran years old. And adorable. "Are you all right?"
She frowned, and stuck her chin out slightly. "Yes, I am. Daddy says I don't have bones." She moved her gaze away. "But I think my sky-board's broke."
The object named lay beside us. It looked like a conventional skateboard�minus the usual wheels, motor housing, onboard computer, and data port. Like a miniature surfboard, in other words. I had no doubt that it could fly�when it wasn't broken�because it had been at head height when I'd first encountered it. But I could not guess how.
"I'm sorry." I'd have to replace it. There went my scholarship, probably. "Uh, what's your name?"
"I'm Evelyn."
"Hello, Evelyn. That was my mother's name, too. I'm�"
"You're Joel, of course. I'm not a baby."
"Certainly not! Not by a good ten kilos."
She giggled�then frowned. "Am I hurting you?"
"Only when I breathe."
She was off me and up on her feet at once. "Jinny is my favorite cousin. I think she's rickety all through. Don't you?"
"Yes. I think I do, anyway." I sat up. When that didn't kill me, I got to my feet and examined my costume for damage.
"Are you going to marry her?"<
br />
I opened my mouth and closed it again, twice. "We're still discussing that," I managed finally.
"Do you love her?"
"Evelyn, I'm afraid we'll have to finish this conversation another time. I'm late for an appointment with your�" What would the relationship be? "For a very important appointment. Please excuse me."
She grinned. "Never mind. I saw you blush."
I did it some more. This was Jinny's cousin, all right. "I really mustn't be late."
She waved a hand majestically. "Don't matter about it. Just tell Grandfather Rich I made you late."
I realized my flashing-firefly guide was beginning to move off down the corridor: hinting. "It was wonderful to meet you," I said hastily "Sorry I broke your board. I'll get a new one to you as soon as I can."
She giggled. "You're silly."
I followed her pointing finger. A new skyboard was just arriving, gliding along the corridor at knee height. It was as featureless as the other, not so much as an antenna showing. Suddenly I saw that the firefly had nearly reached a corner. In another few seconds it would be around the bend. "Great. I'll see you around."
"It's okay, Joel. Gran'ther Rich will think you're rickety-tickety. You'll see."
I know a compliment when I hear one. I bowed�and did not quite sprint away. I found the firefly around the corner, waiting for me, but pulsing faster to indicate impatience. I breezed right past it at double time, made it scramble to catch up and pass me again, and felt the tiny satisfaction that comes to an idiot who has successfully insulted a piece of software. I slowed to walking pace�and it kept on going at double time. I ended up reaching my destination slightly out of breath, and not quite dripping sweat.
I planned to pause outside the door for at least two or three deep breaths. But the infernal thing opened as soon as I reached it. I allowed myself one breath, mostly because I had to, and entered.
But it was only Rennick's office.
He did not say, "You're late," even by facial expression. But in the time it took me to walk three steps into the room. he had risen from his workstation, come all the way round it, and reached my side, without seeming to hurry "Good morning, Joel," he said pleasantly. He took my elbow, turned me, and we were back out in the corridor and walking again�not as fast as I had arrived, but not slowly either. "I trust you slept well."
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