The Judas Rose
Page 28
Can you really do that? her eyes were asking him. Can you really get into the computer databanks of the Lines?
Even from this woman, whose soul he had guided since her fourteenth year, and for whom he felt a respect he accorded few men, he would not tolerate impudence. An impudent woman, especially with this woman’s gifts, was the first day of a plague. Encouraged, she would be the second and the third and the fourth. That had happened on this Earth before—it was not going to happen again. He locked glances with her, and felt something he could not have named, a kind of giving way, a joint snapping somewhere, as she looked down. He would show her who needed curbing!
“The material will be in your hands within forty-eight hours, Sister.” He kept his voice as impersonal as any robot’s. “I will then expect you to move quickly, and to keep me informed at every step. Do not take it upon yourself to decide that this is too trivial to tell me and that is too obvious to tell me, and so on—do not presume. You will report every detail to me, and I will decide what is to be ignored. You will remember your station, or you will be removed from this task and replaced by someone more suitable.”
“Yes, Father,” said the nun softly. “It is my privilege to obey.”
“You will keep your absurd opinions to yourself,” he continued, angry now, and not sure why. “You will not express them in front of the impressionable sisters participating in this project with you, nor will you express them anywhere else. I am disappointed in you, Sister Miriam Rose. Deeply disappointed!”
He could feel the eyes of the other two priests upon him; as they had thought him too indulgent when he ordered Miriam to sit in their presence, they now thought him far too rough, he knew that. And what they knew about controlling women would not have constrained a girl of three; he only hoped they would have sense enough to keep their unsolicited opinions to themselves, because he was in no mood to be gentle with them, either.
“This meeting is adjourned,” he announced brusquely, jabbing the stud for the comscreen to banish the offensive text. He stood up swiftly, gathering his belongings as he did so, forcing the other men to follow his example or join the standing-versus-seated split in the rank of Sister Miriam. This brought them to their feet with astonishing speed, as he had intended that it should, and he led them out of the room as rapidly as was consistent with any semblance of propriety.
Sister Miriam brought up the rear, well behind the men, too far back to hear Agar’s sputtering or Claude’s complaining or Dorien’s fierce order to them both to shut up for the sake of Christ, which he meant literally.
CHAPTER 17
“Dearest Allegra Anne,
“My poor little girl! you were absolutely right to contact me at once when you found those disgusting holograms hidden in Beverly’s study-chaise! Of course you should have written! Of course you did the right thing! And of course—of course, Allegra Anne—you can trust me not to say one single word about this to anybody else! Haven’t I always told you that you could come to me with anything, no matter how dreadful? Heavens, what an awful experience for you! You are Mother’s brave good girl. (And no, I certainly will not say anything to your father!)
“I know, darling, that I can rely on you to spend as little time as possible with that awful Beverly until I can arrange to have you moved to another room. And you do remember, don’t you, sweetheart, that Mother always told you it would be best for you to have a private room instead of sharing one? And Mother was right, wasn’t she?
“Now, you must just put this whole nasty episode right out of your mind, darling, and concentrate on learning to be the very best wife any man could possibly want. We will never mention this again, and you are not to think of it ever again. Mother will take care of the whole thing, don’t you worry!
“Many, many tender kisses, from . . .
Your proud and loving Mother”
“Dear Mrs. Qwydda:
“I regret to inform you that my daughter Allegra Anne—who has the misfortune to share a room at Briary Marital Academy with your daughter Beverly—has written to me in great distress to tell me that your child has a sizable collection of pornographic holograms hidden in their rooms. Including, my dear Mrs. Qwydda, sets of holos depicting Terran males engaged in sexual acts with both humanoid and nonhumanoid alien females!
“You will of course understand the nausea I feel, as well as my concern for my daughter’s welfare. I have taken immediate steps to move my daughter to a private room, and have notified the Dean of Students at Briary of the reason for that action. I have also notified the Membership Boards of the major national women’s clubs and their junior auxiliaries to be alert for any membership application from your daughter. I think I can safely say that my influence is sufficient to guarantee that Beverly will have no opportunity to become a member of any club worth joining.
“I respectfully suggest, my dear Mrs. Qwydda, that you seek immediate psychiatric treatment for your unfortunate child; you have my profound sympathy.
“Very truly yours,
Evvalinda Eustace (Mrs. B. B. Eustace)”
When Jo-Bethany was paged and told that she had a visitor, she was surprised, because she had been nearly three years at Chornyak Household and had never had a visitor before, nor had she ever expected to have one. When the visitor turned out to be Ham Klander, the surprise became astonishment—and cold suspicion. If Ham had wanted to see her, he would have sent a message summoning her to appear; he would never have made the effort of traveling to Chornyak Household for that purpose. And the idea that he would do so on one of the three days of the weekend, when he was ordinarily free from the brain-curdling tedium of his job, was too implausible even to consider. That he was here, nevertheless, meant that he wanted something from her; that he wanted something from her meant trouble.
She faced him, her hands clasped behind her back, and waited. In this place, in her uniform, he did not outrank her in quite the same way that he did in his own home, where he was undisputed potentate. She saw puzzlement on his face, while his mind—slow, but full always of an animal cunning—gradually sensed that there was a difference, and then even more gradually figured out what the difference was. That face of his had always been her most dependable source of information about him; it was as easy to read as foot-high block letters in black ink. She watched the realization of his disadvantage appear on it, and the petulant displeasure, and she braced for the inevitable bluster.
He didn’t let her down. “Think you’re smart, don’t you?” was his opening remark, with a matching sneer. “Think you’re really somebody, don’t you, Jo-baby?”
“Good morning, Ham,” said Jo, ignoring it. “What can I do for you?”
“Maybe I’m here to take you home for good, Scrawny . . . looks to me like you could do with a little reminding of your proper place!” He had his thumbs in his belt loops, and he was rocking on the balls of his feet; no doubt he was thinking of himself as the Big Bull of the Pampas. According to Melissa, that was what he fancied himself in bed; he would, she had told Jo-Bethany, stand in the doorway of their room naked, waggling his bulky erection at her, and shout, “Get ready, you lucky little bitch, here comes the Big Bull of the Pampas!” What happened after that, Jo-Bethany had carefully managed never to find out; what a pampas was she did not know, and she was very much doubted that Ham did.
“Ham,” she said calmly, “that’s just fine with me. Shall I go pack, while you tell Jonathan Asher Chornyak we’re leaving?”
“God damn you to hell,” said Ham, his speech slurred by the whiskey he’d obviously added to the strange brew that served him for consciousness before he arrived here.
“Thank you, Ham,” Jo replied. “I’m sure I’m very fond of you, too.”
He wanted very much to hit her; she could see the lust for it in his eyes. But he was not on his home turf, and he couldn’t be sure what would happen if he tried that here; it was against the law in the United States to hit a woman. He was afraid he would hit her, as he was afrai
d of so many things, and she too felt a kind of lust—to step closer and provoke him further, here where he would not dare even the kind of clumsy shoves that he’d had to make do with when she was under his roof. Her hatred for him was at the root of that lust, and she was ashamed of it; she put it under firm control, and reminded herself that tonight she must pray she would not feel it again.
She stepped back from him, then, and kept her face blank; if she annoyed him further he would take out his frustrations on Melissa, and Jo hated the idea of that. Damage done to a woman in the marriage bed, unless it was very unusual and extensive damage, was acceptable, since it was only “normal male passion” and an expected part of married life for any woman paired with a sufficiently lusty husband. Any old bull. Like this one, or any of his brothers. How did women bear it, she wondered?
For Melissa’s sake, and mindful of the gratitude she should be feeling because she was not Melissa or any of those other women, she made an effort to be polite to him. She asked him into the atrium around the Interface, where there were comfortable chairs and benches to sit on, and—for a linguist dwelling—reasonable privacy. He followed her sullenly, but without protest, and the way he stared at what was going on in the Interface convinced her that she had made a wise choice. It was possible that the exotic atmosphere there would make him forget his foul humor. It was one thing to watch the brief docuclips of Interfacing that the linguists now and then allowed on the newspapers; it was quite another to be there in person and see it happening right before your eyes. She was sure that the two Aliens-in-Residence now at Chornyak Household were humanoid, because the Lines accepted no AIRY who wasn’t; but they were sufficiently bizarre in appearance, especially with the tufted tails whipping along in synchrony with their speech, and the four separate triple-jointed arms, to distract Ham Klander.
He stumbled over the edge of a bench, because he was looking at the Interface instead of watching where he was going, and he muttered at her. “They can’t get out, can they, Sis?”
“Get out? Sit down, Ham, won’t you, and make yourself comfortable. . . . Can what get out?”
Klander made a large vague gesture toward the Interface. “The whatsit—the AIRYs. What’s it . . . I mean, what are they doing?”
Jo-Bethany turned her head to look. The AIRYs were sitting in what appeared to be some extraterrestrial variant of a lotus position, side by side on the floor in their half of the Interface; on the human side beyond the transparent barrier there was a row of four solemn infants. One was still fastened into a babypod; the others, old enough not to need such trappings, lay stretched out on their stomachs facing the AIRYs.
“I don’t know exactly, Ham,” she said. “Maybe the AIRYs are telling the kids a story; maybe they’re just talking to each other or to the kids. Whatever it is, they all seem happy enough. And no, Ham—the AIRYs can’t get out. Not without special equipment being brought in. They’d die in Earth’s atmosphere.”
Klander looked relieved, and turned unsteadily sideways so that he could stretch out his legs and put his feet up on the bench.
“Well, I wasn’t worried about it,” he said.
“I’m sure you weren’t, Ham,” said Jo-Bethany. He had been, of course, and he still was. In spite of the fact that every single day there were humanoid Aliens from all over known space carrying on business in the government buildings, with nothing more unusual about the situation than the necessity for special environments and interpreters, and he knew that. Still, he was alarmed by the AIRYs. As much time as the Aliens spent on Earth, they were familiar to Terrans only as threedys or holos, because with few exceptions their problems with Earth’s atmosphere restricted them to specially-equipped buildings and vehicles. You didn’t run into them at your friendly neighborhood bar, or strolling down the city streets. And although the holos were faithful in every detail—you could look at a hologram of an Alien and be able to see it, hear it, and smell it—there was still a vast amount of information missing. Not only the entire sensory system of touch, but also the information from the less elementary senses; no amount of technological skill had been able to endow a hologram with “presence,” for example. So that even if you had money enough to buy the fanciest projectors and were looking at lifesize holo Aliens, there was no possibility that you could ever fail to distinguish them from the genuine article. Ham was looking at the genuine article—two of the genuine articles—and it was different. He didn’t like it. An Alien in a holo was exotic; an Alien in the flesh was alien. Jo hoped he would have nightmares; she knew he would not only make up a story about his total indifference to the AIRYs, and about their horrid appearance that would have struck terror into the heart of an ordinary man but caused him not so much as a quiver, he would also manage to believe the tale he concocted. It was an astonishing skill.
Because AIRYs ordinarily stayed for a period of four to five years, the present pair were the only ones Jo-Bethany had seen, and she had gotten used to them. They were not that horrible.
“Ham?” she hazarded; perhaps he’d watched the Interfacing long enough for the novelty to wear off. “Do you want to tell me why you’re here?”
He looked at her as if he didn’t know who she was, and then his face cleared and he rewarded her with a lopsided bleary grin. Looking at him, she was surprised he’d been allowed in; he must have put on a pretty good performance for whoever was on the door this week.
“My mind,” he said. “It was wandering. You know. They’re ugly.” He waved at the Interface again, and Jo-Bethany wondered how he would have reacted if he’d been with her the night she had accepted the family’s invitation and gone down to the computer room to watch the display of what they called “the Album”—a series of holos of each and every AIRY that had occupied the Interfaces of the Lines since the beginning of the process. Including the two nonhumanoid pairs that they’d accepted before they understood how dangerous that was for human infants. It had made her a little sick, and their Alienness didn’t seem to get any less striking no matter how many you looked at or how often.
She tried again. “Ham, is everything all right at home? With Melissa and the children?”
“Oh, yeah. Melissa’s fine, and the kids are okay. You oughta come home some Sunday and get to know your new nephew, Jo-baby. He’s quite a boy.”
I’ll bet he is, she thought, and said, “Thank you, Ham, I’d like that. They keep me awfully busy here, but I’ll certainly come home one of these days when I get a chance. Now maybe you’d like to tell me why you came to see me?”
He leaned forward a little, and studied her closely, as if he’d finally realized who she was, and she went on waiting, trying to avoid his breath. Finally he spoke to her, but without the usual bull-bluster; he was almost whispering.
“You’re really in tight here, Jo-Bethany, aren’t you?”
“I’m very satisfied, Ham, thank you.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean you’re in tight. You’re like part of the family. You’ve got some clout here, right?”
She looked at him, uneasy, and he grinned again and jabbed at her knee with the toe of one shoe.
“Come on!” he said. “Never mind the innocent act, Sis. You’re not like Lissy, I know you. You’ll have the effing Lingoes eating out of your hand by this time. Don’t try fooling me, Jo; it won’t work.”
“Ham—what do you want?”
He chuckled, and stretched his powerful arms, and folded his hands behind his head to lean on.
“I’ve got a plan,” he told her. “And I’m here to explain to you what you’re going to do to help.”
“I see.”
“And I don’t want a lot of shit out of you, Jo, you got that? You give me a hard time, I’ll give you a hard time. And your precious baby sister.” He snickered. “It’s just that simple. One, two, three, baby, down the track. Even you can follow my dust.”
“Ham, you haven’t told me what I’m supposed to do. How do you know I won’t be glad to cooperate?”
“Ham—”
“I’m talking to you! You’d never cooperate with me if you could get out of it, and it’s just too effing bad for you that you’re such a pussy where your baby sister is concerned. That gives me lots of leverage with Miss High-and-Mighty-Hard-Ass-Uppity Jo-Bethany Schrafft!” He slapped his thigh, delighted with himself and his wit. “You don’t like hearing that, do you, Sis? No, you don’t like hearing that one bit. Well, that’s tough, Jo! My heart aches for you.”
Jo-Bethany knew what he was after right now. She’d seen him do this with Melissa so many hundreds of times—she knew what he wanted from her. He wanted her to do what Melissa would have done. She was supposed to plead with him, beg him to tell her what he’d come here for, while he teased, and pretended he wouldn’t tell, and started to tell and then said, “Oh, never mind,” and so on, for however long it took until he got bored with it. She wasn’t going to play that game with him unless he began to seem angry enough again to be a danger to Melissa. She sat quietly and smiled at him, fully attentive, waiting, but she said nothing at all.
“You’re no fun, Jo-Bethany, you know that?” he said after a little while, his lower lip jutting in a sloppy pout.
“I do know that, Ham. I’m sorry.” It must be awkward, wanting to order a woman to do something that your manly image wouldn’t allow you to admit you wanted.
“Well, I don’t have all day. So I’m just going to tell you.”
“Good enough,” she said. “What is it?”
“You know this new deal they’ve got set up, Jo, where they put just ordinary babies from anyplace, just plain ordinary ones, into the Interfaces? Just like they do the Lingoe pups? The new government program?”