“I am,” Candel replied. “Take my word for it, Myr Kodiak. You changed my life. Anyway, I saw your sky show the other night, and when I heard you were attending, I wanted to come by and say hello.”
By the time the Candel departed, two more chartists had stopped to speak to Samson. Soon many more well-wishers arrived and formed a line. “Belt Hubert,” Bogdan said, “tell April what’s happening and that I have to go off on my own.”
“She says she’s sending someone.”
When Kitty arrived, the queue of visitors completely encircled the lifechair and was still growing. “What’s this?” she asked, but Bogdan didn’t stick around to answer.
He went back to the Rondy site map and said, “Where’s Troy Tobbler?” A moving dot appeared on the map, and Bogdan took off after him.
UNDER THE LIFECHAIR blanket, Blue Team Bee crawled from the hankie’s pocket to the underside of his jumpsuit lapel. There it wove hairlike cams through the fabric in order to get a visual of the vicinity and put faces to the voices it was recording for LOG2.
EVERYTHING WAS HUMMING along, and Fred thought he might have an evening without a disaster. The head count had reached 47,600 and change. Twelve hundred lethal weapons, mostly laser sabers and pocket billies, had been confiscated at the scanways. Three felons with arrest warrants were detained for the police. (What were they thinking coming through an arena-class scanway?) Five hundred thirty-six persons with false or suspended charter memberships were turned away.
Seven deaths had occurred so far, all apparently by natural causes: three coronaries, one stroke, one asphyxiation (hot dog lodged in throat), and two undetermined. The dead and dying had been hustled off the floor with minimal fuss and quickly put into biostasis.
Through all of this, the impromptu TUG security force had performed beside his Applied People force without incident. Fred was reluctantly impressed by their professionalism. He decided it was probably a good time to visit the troops. With five hundred TUGs on floor duty, he had kept many of his own people in reserve in the labyrinthine system of service corridors that interlinked the halls and ballrooms. Fred threaded his way through these corridors and chatted with his jerrys, belindas, and russes. They were mostly sitting around, snoozing or gossiping or playing casino games, as caterbeitors scooted around them. No one seemed happy, especially the russes. In fact, his brothers seemed to be avoiding him. Fred’s other twenty pikes were also held in reserve here and every one Fred saw was engaged in that klick-eating back and forth pacing of theirs. It took no special insight to read the body language. Pikes were cultivated to leap into street battles with clubs aswinging, not to stroll peacefully through retail emporia, and certainly not to sit idly in service corridors.
“Gilles,” Fred said when he left the corridors, “send pizza and soda around to the reserve and then start rotating them to the floor. And rotate the pikes down here with the ones in the shack.”
Roger that.
Fred continued his tour out on the convention floor. He passed through logjams of happy free-range chartists. It felt odd to be among them. Though there were so many of them, each and every one had their own unique face, and they came in a dizzying variety of sizes and shapes. And unlike the affs, who technically were also free-range, many of the chartists were plain-looking, if not outright ugly.
The Rondy-goers mostly ignored Fred, and those who greeted him were friendly enough. Everyone loved russes.
The TUGs on patrol that he encountered were a different matter. Though clearly free-range, their size and shape were uniformly large, and Fred found this strangely comforting. They looked good too. Tonight they wore their dress uniform: a crisp, olive-green jumpsuit with a sharp V-shaped bodice. The bodice came in olive-green or mustard, depending upon the tugger’s moiety. A patch over the chest displayed the tugger’s name under the Circle T logo. Floating over the left shoulder was an olive-green marble imprinted with a mustard T.
Their attitudes could stand an adjustment, though. They scowled at Fred, at least until they noted his rank.
Fred looked into the ballrooms and conference rooms he passed. In one he found an Olympic-sized boxing ring with qualifying rounds under way for the 2134 World Chartist Golden Gloves.
Down the hall, a cavernous banquet hall had been set up as the Rondy nursery and child care station, and it seemed to be one of the most popular stops for Rondygoers. A giant swan floated in a shaded pool where babies slept on lily pads. Toddlers frolicked in a gummy pen, while older children played games organized by adults. Fred estimated about four hundred youngsters here, and two thousand adults.
In a conference room, Fred came across the quarterly business meeting of the World Charter Union Congress. It was the only room that security was prohibited from monitoring with cams or bees. Assembled were the leading lights of charterdom, its thinkers and activists and delegates from all parts of the UD. The delegates sat at chintz-skirted tables that lined three walls of the room. In the center of the room were arranged two hundred seats for spectators. Real people sat in some of them, but most were occupied by proxy.
One of the few realbody attendees was a TUG woman who Fred immediately recognized—Veronica Tug. She was delivering a presentation to the Congress. She stood between Earth and Mars in a simplified solar system and was pointing at an overscaled Oship. She was making an argument or rebutting one. Passion simmered beneath her veneer of self-control.
As Fred stood at the rear of the ballroom, a proxy appeared before him, the head and shoulders of Myr Pacfin, the insufferable Rendezvous chairperson. “I’m sorry, Myr Russ,” it said to Fred, “but this is a closed meeting, for chartists only.”
“I’ll take my leave then,” Fred said. “I was just making my rounds.”
The Pacfin proxy looked at Fred’s name badge and said, “Ah, Myr Londenstane. Everything seems to be running smoothly, wouldn’t you agree? Rondy nearly runs itself, and security here is pretty much a waste of effort.”
Fred tried to hide his annoyance, and before he managed to leave, they were joined by a second proxy. This one was an imposing bust of Veronica Tug. The real woman was still in the middle of the room delivering her address. “Excuse me, Myr Pacfin,” it said to Pacfin’s proxy, “but I would like to invite Myr Londenstane to stay for my presentation.”
“I wish we could,” said the Pacfin proxy, “but rules is rules, and it would take a vote by the delegates to waive them.”
“In that case,” the Veronica proxy said, “let’s put it to a vote.”
Fred told her not to bother, that he was just leaving, but Veronica Tug’s proxy said the results were already returning. A moment later, the Pacfin proxy added, “The delegates welcome you, Myr Londenstane. Please find yourself a seat.” It vanished before Fred had a chance to reply.
“Don’t take it personally,” said the TUG proxy. “My fellow chartists harbor an irrational hostility toward iterants, as I’m sure you know. They feel that your people have replaced ours in the economy and are the biggest cause of our decline. They are blind to the march of history.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Fred said. “We don’t take such things personal.”
The proxy said, “Perhaps you should take them personal. Maybe we all should. The affs have made separate races out of us and taught us racial hatreds and lies. That’s pretty personal, wouldn’t you say? It’s how they control us.” As the proxy spoke, its hands wove and thumped and slashed the air.
The proxy paused and said, “I’m sorry. I’m monopolizing your time, and you’re missing my presentation. Please find a seat, Commander; the best part is coming up. I’ll leave you alone now.”
“Wait,” Fred said before it could vanish. “I agree with much of what you said about the friction between our groups, but as to the ‘march of history,’ well, only time will tell.”
The proxy’s bulbous face smiled, and it said, “I’ll be sure to pass that along to my original.”
“And pass along my appreciation for the assi
st the other night. Like I said, I owe you big time.”
The proxy’s expression hardened a little. “Don’t worry about that, Commander. I’m sure we’ll find a way for you to repay your debt.”
When the proxy disappeared, Fred did not find a seat but continued to stand at the back of the room where he listened to the real Veronica’s presentation. She was discussing Oship #164, arguing the case against it. Apparently, the World Charter Union had proposed buying up an entire Oship for chartists to use to colonize a new world. It had chosen a production number that would be completed in about twenty years, giving them time to enlist passengers and accumulate the quarter-million-acre price tag. Veronica seemed opposed not to the acquisition of an Oship, but to its destination.
“Why embark on a dubious voyage to another solar system,” she was saying, “when we have a perfectly good one here? One which the powers-that-be seem determined to keep us from exploiting. Why are there no space charters among us? Who gave the corporations an exclusive right to the resources of our solar system? Furthermore, if we do decide to colonize a new world, must we renounce our rights to this one? This ‘one for a thousand’ offer by the Garden Earth Project is a cunning fraud—”
Fred? Gilles said.
Go ahead.
You might want to check out something in the Hall of Nations.
What is it?
A stinker there is holding court in a traffic lane.
A stinker?
A seared individual.
I know what a stinker is, Gilles, Fred said. What is this stinker’s name?
Kodiak.
That was a relief of sorts—not the stinker he thought it would be. On my way.
BOGDAN GOT DETOURED by a concession wall. He had missed dinner, and the concession walls at Rondy were free of charge. All the burgers, fry, cinnaballs, and pizza tubes you can eat. Pot stickers, noodles, rice curry, whatever you like. Give me a triple mondo choco-fudgy with extra nuts and whipped cream.
Bogdan spotted an unoccupied quiet nook across the busy corridor and carried his towering frozen concoction over to it. Once he passed through the pressure curtain, the din of the hall fell to a murmur, and he dropped into an armchair. For long moments he spooned up sweet bliss and watched as silent crowds went by. Then he noticed a Doorprizer frame next to the pressure curtain that was displaying the ongoing drawings. Every three minutes another prize was given away. An aff’s ransom in household necessities. A garbage digester appeared in the frame, and three minutes later the name of the winning charter—not Kodiak.
That’s all right—we have the one in the NanoJiffy. We don’t need another. One thousand square meters of indoor lawn—where would we put it? A thousand liters of Sara Lee Gourmet Ugoo—well, yes, let’s win that one. It’ll feed us for six months. Let’s—that’s all right.
A slew of lesser prizes followed, and then one of the hourly premium prizes—a brand-new 2.5 index General Genius houseputer, including installation. Here was a prize worth winning. Here was a prize the Kodiaks deserved to win, must win. It would go a long way in reversing their lousy streak of misfortune.
Bogdan set his empty dish on the floor and closed his eyes and prayed. Please, oh please, oh please.
Installers arrive at the door and say, Where do you want it? In here, in here. Tear this old one out. Put cam/emitters in every room, including the stairwells, including Sam’s shed. Hello, I am your new GG Expressions. Please assign me a name.
A name, a name. Lisa is already taken. There’s a whole planet named for her, don’t you know. How about—
Bogdan opened an eye and peeked at the frame. The winning charter was flashing, but it was not Kodiak. Bogdan slumped in his chair.
Just then, Troy Tobbler walked by the quiet nook. “Hey you!” Bogdan yelled and pushed himself to his feet. “Stop!” But by the time Bogdan exited the nook, Troy had melted into the crowd. Bogdan dashed after him, dodging pokey people. At the end of a corridor, he peered left and right. No Tobb in sight. He doubled back and checked the ballrooms along the way. They were holding some kind of meeting in one, boxing in another. In a third they were waltzing, trancedancing in a fourth. In a fifth he spied April standing alone against a wall. She was swaying in time to the music and clapping her hands to the beat, as though she were a temporarily sidelined dancer.
When she saw him, she got a guilty look. Stubbornly, she continued to clap to the music and said to him, “It’s amazing how many hundreds of men can go by without noticing me.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Bogdan said. “Everyone notices you. You’re beautiful!” And she was, warm and alive with love. The house would collapse without her. She is our heart. But suddenly the picture drops away like a cardboard cutout, and we see April as any guy might. We see her with the same eyes we use to see Annette Beijing, and the comparison is not kind. April has a long, horsey face, as though it got stretched while it was still soft, and her eyes are too small and set too far apart. Her torso, by contrast, is too compact. Her chin rests on her hips with not much in between. Her legs are long, but bandy, and her toes point in opposite directions. We shudder from the sight of her, but only for a moment before her warm, loving picture snaps back into place.
“You’re wrong, April,” Bogdan said. “You are freakin’ gorgeous.”
“Oh, Boggy.”
Just then a woman in a brick-black-apricot pantsuit, Charter Saurus, approached them. “Happy Rondy, April Kodiak,” she said and offered her hand.
“Do I know you?”
“Sally Saurus,” the woman said. She glanced at Bogdan and added, “I wonder if I could have a moment alone with your housemeet, young man. I have something of a personal nature to discuss with her.”
“Sure thing,” Bogdan said. “I was looking for someone anyway.”
A JERRY AND belinda team had thrown a holo cordon around the lifechair and the queue of well-wishers surrounding it. They rerouted foot traffic around them. The jerry said to Fred, “We wanted to clear him out of here, but this guy is covered by so many conflicting laws and treaties there’s no clear protocol. Gilles told us to leave ’im be till you got here.”
“That’s good,” Fred said. “MC, can you create a spot filter of negative pressure around the stinker with about a twenty-meter radius?”
I’ll do my best, the mentar replied.
“And get this,” the jerry went on. “He’s under modified house arrest. He’s got his own monitor bee.”
“He’s a criminal?”
He’s Samson Kodiak, Gilles said in his ear, the joker in the Skytel the other night.
Fred had missed the hack but had heard about it. “Say the name again.”
Samson Kodiak.
It was too much of a coincidence for there to be two stinkers still alive, both named Samson. Fred consulted his visor to view the man’s doss. Samson P. Harger Kodiak. How the mighty had fallen. Fred couldn’t imagine what would cause an aff, even a seared one, to join a charter. The lifechair was too distant for him to see its occupant clearly, but his odor alone was enough to bring back a flood of memories.
“Gilles, register Myr Kodiak for VIP status.”
Sir?
“You heard me.”
VIP he is.
With the situation well in hand, Fred lingered outside the cordon. He, too, wanted to greet Samson—for old times’ sake—but there were too many people ahead of him, and the line advanced too slowly. A chartist at the tail of the line said, “Good evening, Myr Russ. There’s no need for you to stand in line. Go to the head. People, let the good russ through.”
Fred demurred, but the chartists insisted, and he advanced to the front of the queue. Here, Samson’s odor assaulted him. After all these years, Fred had not forgotten the tang of Samson’s vile fragrance, only its potency. He had nose filters in a utility pocket but felt it would be discourteous to use them. Especially since none of the chartists did.
Soon it was Fred’s turn to greet Samson, but the chair said, “Myr Kodiak has f
allen asleep. He’s bound to reawaken at any moment. You’re welcome to stay and wait, or if you must go, I would be glad to convey any message you wish to leave him.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Belt Hubert, a pithy remnant of Sam’s mentar, Hubert.”
Fred said, “Well, Belt Hubert, Myr Kodiak probably won’t remember me, but please tell him I dropped by to say my regards. My name is Fred Londenstane. I worked for him once long ago.”
As Fred spoke, he noticed a pretty little girl scrutinizing him from the other side of the lifechair. She wore a flower print jumpsuit with brown-yellow-white trim, the same colors as Samson’s clothes. She had long, lustrous mahogany hair that was worked into an intricate braid. When he returned her look, her hazel eyes did not flinch but continued to stare at him with the unnerving directness of a child.
Samson stirred in his chair. “Yes, officer?” he said. Samson had awakened, though his eyelids drooped. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, Myr Kodiak,” Fred said, “there’s nothing wrong. I stopped by to say hello. You may not remember me, but I once worked for you. It was many years ago.” Samson’s eyes grew heavier and heavier until they were shut again.
Fred continued. “It was in the Starke household when she was a governor. Right after you were seared.”
Samson’s sleepy eyes opened a slit, and he said, “You’re the russ who used to visit me in the basement. You brought me mouth mints and deodorant.”
“Yes, that was me.”
Samson struggled with the chair, trying to free a hand. “Let go of me!” he complained, and the blanket rolled back a little. He raised a skeletal arm and reached out to shake Fred’s hand. Renewed stench rippled in the air (and the hidden blue bee made a special note of this apparent iterant ally).
“You haven’t changed a bit, Fred. How was Mars?”
Mars? Fred had left the Harger household to do a five-year stint at Mars Station.
“And your wife, Corrine?” Samson said. “How is she?”
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