by Sam Smith
“Time I’d worked out the connection,” Tulla said, “I wouldn’t have got back in time to stop Munred going. And the Inspector’s already re-routed all ships bound for Happiness. For the moment there’s nothing else to do. And,” she said kindly as to a child, “at the moment I doubt that anyone would believe me.”
“I believe you,” Petre reached over and took Tulla’s thick-knuckled red hand.
“You know me. You know that Munred’s gone,” Tulla smiled on her. “I’m afraid others would just laugh at the notion. Or it would start a panic. I have to be sure.”
Tulla stroked Petre’s hand. Petre withdrew her hand to worry at a braid,
“They should be told.”
“Can you imagine Nero Porsnin listening to me? You know what they’re like. I’ll have to have hard and fast evidence. And that’s why,” she reached for her bag and case, “I’m sorry Petre, but I’ve got to go now.”
“Go? “ Petre looked at her with frightened eyes, all other considerations cast aside, “Now? Where? Back to Ben?”
“No, I’m going out to one of the platforms near Happiness. If I can’t prove what’s happened to the moon, which professionally is what interests me most; if I can’t satisfactorily explain what’s happened to that, no-one will believe anything else I have to say.”
“Be careful Tulla.”
“The platforms are plenty far enough away to be safe. Don’t worry about me. Now,” she opened her bag, “here’s the spare key to my apartment. You can stay there as long as needs must. They can’t force you to move off this station Petre.”
Petre took the key and, for that kindness, again wept. With more hugs they parted at the door.
Chapter Fourteen
No sooner had Tulla left than a motor reaction set Petre wandering from room to room throughout the apartment. She came to finally in the bedroom.
Dazedly wondering what had brought her into the bedroom, realising that there was no specific reason for her being there, she lowered herself wearily onto the edge of the bed. Thus, recovering from her shock, her mind took the first rational steps along the tortured path of the bereaved.
“No more Munred,” she told herself, turned it about, “Munred’s no more.”
That reality though, despite the Inspector, despite Tulla, was difficult to accept. She had only their word for it, had seen nothing herself. Nothing, except for Munred’s continuing and otherwise inexplicable absence, had physically happened to her to make her able to accept it.
“He is dead,” she told herself. “Nautili killed him.”
She tried to imagine Munred in his dying moment. All that came to her mind, though, were old film images, men clutching their chests and keeling over. She could not conceive of her suave Munred dying like that. Munred was too substantial.
“If I knew how I could I accept it,” she complained to the ceiling. But that was not true: she did accept his death.
Yesterday, before Tulla’s visit, when she had suspected that Munred may have deserted her, she had known the anger of the betrayed. That anger was missing today. Yesterday she had dreamt alternately of revenge or reconciliation. Neither this day figured in her thoughts. Because, in her acceptance of his death, Munred had removed himself from the possibilities of her future. And it is that death of a future, of a thousand possible futures, that we grieve for. All those maybe plans we make with and for someone; their death deprives us of every single one.
Dreams of the future had shaped Petre’s whole life. Those dreams for the last nine years had been embodied in Munred Damporr. With Munred gone the purposelessness, the hopelessness of her life was brought home to her. For the second time in her life, as when she had been an unsuccessful adolescent gymnast, she had no foreseeable future. As before, her present was suddenly shapeless, a void wherein she floated without substance, without reason. To regain an idea of herself she tried to think instead of the past; but she was unable even to recall her last words to Munred, his to her. Hopeless.
All grief is self-pity. Pity for us left here alive. And when two lives were as joined, were as interdependent as Munred and Petre’s, the loss truly is as of a limb. And no-one feels sorry for the arm or the leg that is missing, but for the living flesh that remains. Petre remained, feeling sorry for herself.
That is not to say that she did not also feel sorry for Munred. She had been genuinely fond of him. Friendship often overtakes the original cynical motives for beginning a liaison; and Petre had lost a friend and ally. Self-pity again.
She now had no foreseeable future save an anonymous station somewhere. That day, lying on the bed, she could conceive of no stratagem whereby she might now reach the city. Or even if she now wanted to go there. Yet she had had that dream for so long.... Though, even with Munred alive, the closer she had come to the city the more improbable her arriving there had seemed. Indeed the imminent fulfilment of that dream had actually frightened her: what would she do without her dream, without that to aim for? In achieving her dream she would have lost it.
For the last nine years every dream she’d had of the city had seen her there with Munred. Now she could not have the baby she had promised herself. In her dream that baby had been Munred’s and Munred’s alone. So for the loss of Munred, for the loss of her unborn and unconceived baby, she grieved dry-eyed the day long.
Unaware that she did so Petre moved from the bedroom to the kitchen. There, answering her body’s needs, she made herself a cup of coffee. She couldn’t bring herself to eat. Come that evening she was sitting at the living room table, empty coffee cup before her, when the doorbell rang, jangling her out of her stupor.
Petre rushed to the apartment door hoping to find Tulla there, that something unexpected had brought her back to XE2. In the eager hope also that it might be Munred, that it had all been a mistake, a misunderstanding, that he had been delayed. While telling herself at the same time that Munred wouldn’t have rung the bell, that he would have used his key.
Nevertheless she didn’t pause to switch on the viewscreen, but immediately flung open the door. To find standing there a small neat man with black shining hair and thin black eyebrows. He was vaguely familiar. Petre had seen him on other stations besides XE2. A trader, she thought.
* * * * *
At exactly the same time that Petre stood, doubly disappointed, staring at this small neat man Sergeant Alger Deaver and Constable Drin Ligure, having tested the various flight paths from Happiness, were preparing to leave Happiness for XE2.
Chapter Fifteen
Unlike this free-for-all cosmopolitan city, on the stations people tend to keep to their own; Service personnel and the business community rarely mix. One could go even further and say that station Service personnel and the local business community hold a mutual disregard verging on open antipathy for one another. Traders see the Service as nothing more than an unsophisticated and unnecessary hindrance to their legitimate transactions; while Service personnel regard all traders as being, if not downright dishonest, then as slick operators of very questionable practises.
“Yes?” Petre said to the stranger at her door.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” the man gave a slight bow, “But I wanted to reach you before you were banished to obscurity.”
Over the years Petre had come to hold Service views, had by reflex come to look to Munred for approval. By the subtlest of expressions she knew of what Munred disapproved, by the tone of his greeting whom to befriend and whom to keep at a distance. So long had she known Munred, so long had her opinions been shaped by his, that even in his absence all she had to do was to imagine him at her side to know how to comport herself. A dead Munred, however, could not be so easily conjured to her side; and this small compact man was so beyond her own experience that she was at a loss now how to react.
Seeing the case in his hand Petre suspected that he might be trying to sell her something.
“Why would you want to reach me?” she asked him.
“I was hoping that
we might be able to help one another.” He looked up and down the corridor, “May I come in?”
Petre’s first impulse was to refuse. When Munred was away she didn’t allow any man into her apartment, no matter how seemingly innocuous the man. Station gossip would make too much of it; and trust between couples is based on appearances of, not avowals of, innocence.
But Munred was no more; and, without the barrier of the viewscreen between them, she could not so easily dismiss this stranger. Standing irresolute before him she could neither claim to be undressed, nor unprepared, nor busy. And he did not look the boorish type to come and try to collect on vaguely implicit invitations.
“Please do,” Petre stepped aside.
With another slight bow the man walked past her into the living room. Closing the door Petre followed him, indicated the chair where Munred had sat reading the newspaper. Today’s newspaper awaited Munred on the lobby table.
The man had been watching Petre move with a small confident smile. Petre began to be afraid. However the man obediently set his case on the floor and sat, his feet and knees precisely together, hands on his knees.
Petre lowered herself onto the edge of the chair opposite him.
“We were formally introduced about three years ago,” he smiled at her, at the memory. “Though I doubt that you remember me. My name is Anton Singh.”
“I am once again pleased to meet you.”
Her response seemed to please him. His quiet smile was now one of admiration and, Petre thought with the beginnings of panic, of possession.
“Why did you,” she recalled what he had said at the door, “want to reach me?”
“As I said,” his was the reaction of someone who realises that they have some careful explaining to do, “I believe that we can be of help to one another. First let me say how sorry I was to learn of your loss.” The news that the Director had gone off-station and had failed to return had spread rapidly through XE2.
“Thank you,” with a nod Petre acknowledged the polite condolence with the politeness it merited.
Again the small dapper man seemed pleased by her response, as if Petre was a favourite pupil doing all that her teacher had told her. Petre’s gym coach had worn the same expression when she had won a local championship. She had seen a similar expression on the faces of some parents. It worried her.
“Exactly how can I be of help to you?” she asked him.
“I am a businessman,” he said. “I buy and sell. I believe that you could greatly assist me in my business.”
“I know nothing of commerce,” Petre said; and, believing the conversation to be at an end, she allowed the lassitude of her grief to re-envelope her.
Anton Singh, however, made no move to leave.
“I fear that many who aren’t traders do not understand quite how we conduct our transactions. Buying and selling is not simply a matter of attending auctions. One has to know what to buy and to whom to sell it. For that one has to know people.”
“I fail to see, now, how I can be of help to you.”
“Oh but you can,” he beamed at her. “I’ve watched you over the years. I’ve seen your merits. The Director may have been a very capable man; but I, for one, am positive that his rise through Service ranks would not have been nearly as swift had it not been for you. And I have often thought it a complete waste of your talents.”
Knowing that she had been, without her having been aware of it, so calculatingly appraised now added to Petre’s discomfiture; while his implicit slighting of Munred stirred her loyalty.
“I’m sorry Mr Singh, I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about.”
“Miss Fanne,” he edged forward on his chair, “I am not versed in the social arts. Most of my deals are done behind the scenes. So too, I hasten to add, are everyone else’s. However I have lost out on deals simply because I haven’t known the right people. Had I known them, or had they known me, had I been more approachable, then I could have secured that deal.”
“I still don’t see how...”
“I am not explaining myself well,” Anton Singh interrupted her. “As I said, I have watched you. You have the knack of making people feel important. They treasure your friendship because you have made them believe that you treasure theirs. Miss Fanne I want you to be my hostess. To give parties in my apartment. To create a social circle for me. To invite, occasionally, people I want to get to know.”
“I’m sorry Mr Singh,” Petre resolutely stood. “I was only told this morning...”
“No,” he raised both his hands from his knees. “No. You misunderstand me. I am not propositioning you. Not in that sense. Nor am I suggesting that you should form liaisons on my behalf. No no, that’s not at all what I want of you. I’ve watched you operate. You have shown me that sexual promise and not fulfilment is what is most effective. But few, like you, seem to have mastered its craft. I’ve watched you lead men by the subtlest of innuendoes; and for me a man distracted is a man made easier to manipulate.”
Anton Singh faltered in his praise of her. Petre, though, saw it not as praise, instead she found such a frank analysis of her past shaming. She ponderously resumed her seat.
“And I’m sorry to seem pushy at a time like this,” Anton Singh continued. “I don’t wish to seem forward or unfeeling. But I do know how the Service operates. Here you are now a pariah. Within days you will simply disappear into Space. For years, since you first gave me the idea, I have been looking for someone of your calibre. Now you yourself are suddenly free. If I had waited I may never have had another opportunity. All that I am proposing to you is that you should live in my city apartment and give parties. Nothing more. I am very rarely there. You will have your own rooms. You may have liaisons with whomsoever you wish. My only requirement is that you regularly entertain on my behalf. Even in my absence.”
“In the city?” Petre said.
“It’s a large apartment. You can easily have your own bedroom, living room, bathroom.”
“But how would I get to the city?”
“No trouble,” he smiled. “You will be my employee.”
“I see,” Petre said, and tried to ingest this new future laid so unexpectedly before her.
Her thoughts were many and almost simultaneous. For a moment she suspected Anton Singh, so eager did he appear, of having engineered Munred’s disappearance in order that he could proposition her. However, recalling Tulla’s earnest words, she quickly dismissed that paranoid notion. Following rapidly on the heels of that suspicion came doubt — was she capable of becoming such a coldblooded hostess, such a premeditated entertainer? She had almost unconsciously cultivated those talents: would she now be too self-conscious? And she wondered a moment, with a sharp sense of shame, what those on XE2 would make of her leaving for the city with this strange man — no sooner than Munred had died?
What, though, did she owe them? They would have watched her be shunted off to nowhere without, except for Tulla, raising one voice in protest. She was an embarrassment to them; why should she be embarrassed by them?
Watching her Anton Singh knew that he had her: mention of the city had been enough. No need now to further entice her with the salary he’d had in mind to pay her. In fact, aware of the rapt consideration she was giving his offer, he cut the proposed salary by half, and smiled to himself. He had bested a deal again.
The motives that drove Anton Singh were not those of simple ambition. His was not solely greed for ever more money: the intrigue, the machinations of trade were what he enjoyed. Of course, like most traders, he dreamt of acquiring a universal monopoly in one commodity or another, of becoming the absolute ruler of an empire within an empire. But the ownership of that commodity was not what he desired so much as the getting of it, the creating of the empire rather than the ruling of it.
And now Anton Singh was getting Petre Fanne for far less than he had expected to pay. His whim, his gamble, his ploy had paid off.
“I’m not asking you to decide at t
his very moment,” he broke into her thoughts, “but I am leaving for the city any day now and I was hoping that you would come with me. Then I could see you settled into the apartment, before I again have to leave. When do you have to leave here?”
“Inspector Boone said that the new Director would probably be here within five days. That was two days ago.”
“I see. In the meantime I can fix you up with a temporary apartment here. Or a hotel if you wish.”
“Thank you, but Tulla said that I could share her apartment until I decide what to do.”
Petre did not want to be beholden to him yet; and the prospect of the city coming so soon after she had given up all hope of it made it seem unreal to her. After waiting for so long, to be there so easily, so quickly... Even with Munred it would have been another eighteen months. And did she, now that Munred was dead, did she still want to go to the city?
One of Petre’s dreams of the city had been to see herself shopping — all that choice... Though lately she had come to question that dream’s, worth. Because she and Munred, she had seen, had spent their life together winning the respect of people on one station by being promoted to another. Here on XE2 she had made some witty and intelligent friends. They too would have been impressed by Munred’s promotion, and never seen again.
Her thoughts were confused: events had overtaken them. She had to remind herself that she could not anyway stay here without Munred. Even if she were allowed to stay those friendships would not now be on the same footing. At least in the city, she told herself, she would have the shops.
“Tulla?” Anton Singh asked her, frowning.
He did not want Petre to now slip out of his control, have time elsewhere to reconsider his offer, be subject to the influence of someone possibly unsympathetic to him. And he had no doubt that Petre would seek her friend’s advice.
“Tulla Yorke,” Petre said. “She’s my friend here. Tall girl, yellow hair.”