by John Barnes
It was bad enough to deal with that sitting at a desk and arguing on the com; I could hardly imagine what it must have been like for Bieris, who wasn't physically large and not at all suited to standing out in three hours of freezing rain, having to keep her facemask open much of the time because the peeps deliberately turned their loudspeakers down. Tough as she was, and even used to working outside, when we finally got Bruce back she was blue and shaking with the cold. She had told me that her portable corn's visual channel wasn't working, because she had been afraid I'd send one of the Center students to replace her.
It was certainly a legitimate fear, but I knew as well as she did that outside the Center all of them were at risk of arrest that day. Indeed, as the rules eventually became clear in the next few standays, the Center was actually no protection, but apparently Saltini was sufficiently shocked by Shan's firm response that he wasn't sure whether the Center was under the same protection as the Embassy or not. Probably he was made more nervous because within an hour of Shan's return to the Embassy, four companies of Council Special Police— the euphemism for "marines"—came through the springer, and Caledon Embassy employees, some of whom were Saltini's spies, reported that the CSP's said that they had been standing by for hours in case Council personnel had needed rescuing.
I only learned of that later, of course, which was unfortunate because I was frightened myself and if I'd known that there was that much help around I might have felt better.
Thorwald really proved himself invaluable. He informally deputized Margaret and Paul, and they saw about setting up some kind of system for sleeping spaces, and for notifying families, and for getting everyone fed something. We had almost two hundred people in the building, well over half the enrolled students for the Center, all afraid to return to their homes while the city continued under curfew and the PPP cats continued to roll through the city picking up dissenting ministers, people who had been members of the Liberal Association twenty years before, elders of Clarity Peterborough's congregation, and seemingly anyone who had ever mumbled anything unpleasant about Saltini into a beer.
Every so often there'd be a sharp wail from downstairs, or a little outburst, that would mean someone had just learned of a brother, a lover, or a parent arrested. It played hell with my concentration as I went through my latest argument with the aintellects ... Bieris was critical personnel for the Center and she wouldn't be functional until Bruce was released—"Objection: Excessive regard for subjective feelings of employees is..." Bruce was a major contractor to the Center and it was in my interest to see the work not interrupted—"Objection: Substitution can be made at lower cost..." Bieris would sign a contract giving me extra hours at a substantial profit in exchange for my going bail on Bruce—"Objection: Bieris Real's connection with the arrested is not such that it is rational for her to expend this effort..."
They let Bruce go late in Second Light, along with hundreds of other people that they apparently had just wanted to scare, and that was when we found out where Aimeric was. As a naturalized Occitan, and Council personnel as well, he was as safe from them as Bieris or I, so he had been down at the Council of Rationalizers' main administrative office, trying to get his father and Clarity Peterborough released. He didn't succeed, but at least he was able to learn that the plan called for them to be released under house arrest within a day or two.
It was less than an hour till Dark when Aimeric, Bruce, and Bieris could finally catch a trakcar for the Center. Once I knew they were on the way, I went downstairs to see what was going on, and shortly I was looking over what Thorwald had set up and approving of everything, with Margaret guiding me through it—Thorwald was upstairs trying to get five last people settled into the solar.
"If we're lucky," Margaret said quietly, "Paul will manage to do the first illegal data penetration in Caledon history—I should say the first one we know of—and maybe we can find out who's liable to be arrested and who's not."
"Aren't you afraid of—" I gestured around at the corners.
"At least not of these," she said, grinning, and dumped a fistful of shattered electronics on the desk. "And they know what we're trying to do. The thing is, they've never been able to reconcile having to spy on people with the idea that this is what people rationally want. We're betting that for the first few weeks after taking over they'll be even more doctrinaire ... and we hope that means that they won't be able to admit that these were PPP property, and so won't be able to bring themselves to charge us."
"That's quite a bet," I said. It came out much more harshly than I wanted it to.
She didn't answer at first. Maybe it was a trick of the soaking-wet cold yellow sunlight bouncing around the room, but the highlights on Margaret's face shone like mirrors, giving her skin an amazingly clammy, greasy look; her close-cropped pale hair looked like fungus growing on her skull. I realized I was almost staring at her, and not in a flattering way, and glanced off to the side; when I looked back, I saw that she had noticed, and wasn't going to talk about it either.
I have never felt so ashamed, before or since.
After a moment she smiled at me, tentatively, as if afraid I would shout at her, and said, "Well, if they charge us, we'll go to jail. Historically we're in good company; Jesus, Peter, Paul ... Adam Smith was burned at the stake on Thread-needle Street, and Milton Friedman was eaten by cannibals in Zurich."
"Let's hope it won't come to that," I said hastily. I knew who the first three were, of course, and later on I was glad I had no idea and so said nothing about the other two, because they turned out to be part of the Culture Variant History—the mythic story that founders of cultures were allowed to load in as real history. Of all the silly things that happened during the Diaspora, that was one of the silliest, for it resulted in permanent deep cleavages among the Thousand Cultures; the first time that I heard an Interstellar making a speech on a street-corner proclaiming that Edgar Allan Poe did not die in the Paris uprising of 1848, that Rimbaud had never been King of France, and that Mozart was not killed by Beethoven in a duel, I challenged him and cut him down like a mad dog. Deu sait how Margaret, emotionally and physically exhausted as she was, would have reacted if I'd contradicted her.
What she, Thorwald, and Paul had done was simply amazing;- I'd never have imagined we had that many places for people not only to sleep, but to wash up and to sit down and eat. While I had been on the com, they had virtually converted the place to a well-ran dormitory or hotel.
"Uh, delicate question coming up," Margaret said. "Thorwald and you have the last single rooms—"
"You can put a couple of cots in mine without cramping anything," I said. "Is there anyone left to accommodate?"
"Well, I've got one other room, but it's the guest room where Bieris or Aimeric usually sleep, and some of their stuff—"
I thought of the obvious affection developing between Bruce and Bieris, and the equally obvious difficulty Aimeric was having in considering it, and was about to say something when all three of them came in the door. They were dripping wet and cold, especially Bruce because he had been held in a courtyard and not given adequate clothing, and it was obvious that the first thing was to get them fed, warm, and into dry clothing. It's amazing how little personal things matter in some circumstances.
Margaret's efficiency was almost frightening; in two minutes they were all headed off to hot showers with changes of clothing in hand, and the kitchen had been notified of the need for a large pot of hot soup and some fresh rolls. "I'm afraid we'll have to charge them for it," she said. "It's the only way we've been able to get enough supplies to keep everyone eating."
"Not a problem," I said. "Who's in the kitchen?"
"Prescott. He seems to handle pressing buttons and ordering supplies pretty well; I might decide to think of him as a human being if he keeps it up. I asked Val to do it but she was busy being hysterical and having three men, none of whom is Paul, comfort her."
I'd never heard Margaret sound so snippy, but she was
tired, and probably out of sorts.
Come to think of it, at home I'd never heard anyone criticize an attractive donzelha. On the other hand, nobody expected them to do anything, so it's hard to say what they could have failed at.
Margaret showed me the accounts. Probably thanks to her, the Center was going to make more as a hostel and restaurant than it ever had as an educational institution. Further, she had set things up so that we could keep operating, even teaching the classes, indefinitely. "By the way, you're hired," I said.
"Hired?"
"All these extra bodies and so much extra work—I need another assistant," I explained. "Thorwald's a terrific assistant for many things, but I want you to do the business side from now on."
She started to protest, but I cut her off. "How else are you going to prove it was rational for you to do all the work you've already done today?"
She had no answer to that, but there was a deep red blush spreading up her throat to her face, and I realized this might encourage something I had promised myself I would discourage. Well, all the same, I needed her, and I surely would not hurt her any more than I could help, and maybe she'd get over it anyway. Perhaps with Thorwald—though he was young for it; Margaret was much closer to my age ... time enough for that later, and I mustn't sit here and brood about her; that could be interpreted too many different ways.
The com beeped; Bieris had called us from the women's locker room. "Giraut, would you like me to be in your debt and your slave forever?"
"Superficially a generous offer. What appalling thing do I have to do to claim it?"
"Move Bruce into my room and let Aimeric know I asked you to do it. Take Aimeric in yours."
"I'd rather feed my genitalia to rats a piece at a time." I heard Margaret gasp and make a strangling noise behind me; I don't think she was quite used to the earthier side of Occitan humor yet.
"But will you do it?"
"Forever, you said, companhona?" I said. '"Backrubs. Cake on my birthday. Listening to me when I'm being an idiot."
"That last part is the hard one, but sure."
"Then I'll do it." We clicked off. That had been a very strange conversation; in tone, it was much like the way we had talked till we were fourteen or so. And how had she known I would respond that way?
Margaret sighed beside me. There was something disturbingly romantic in the sound. "That won't be easy, will it?"
"It would be harder in Noupeitau. Aimeric would have to challenge, even if he didn't care, and there'd have to be a duel about it."
"But wouldn't it be all over once the duel was fought?" She seemed baffled. "I mean, the other day, when you and Thorwald—"
"Oh, deu, that was an accident. He was more upset than I was. Nothing to take personally." I shrugged and balanced the issues on my palms. "Aimeric and Bieris go back perhaps six stanmonths. That's a very long time to keep an entendedora. Perhaps, qui sait, they were even serious enough to think of marrying once she turned twenty-five. So he may be involved enough to take it with very ill grace. But the average Occitan..." it caused me pain to admit this, but I saw no way around it in all honesty, and couldn't imagine lying to Margaret. "Well, the average jovent pays no attention to his entendedora, really doesn't even know what she's like. The point is to worship and to serve, not to establish some permanent relationship ... that's usually done later, after you move out of the Quartier. Of course it's not unknown to marry your entendedora—my father did—or for a couple to be friends as well as lovers. But none of that is expected, and it's more typical to be sort of ... er, each other's hobby. Finamor is sort of like dueling—something to do while you wait to be a grown-up."
Margaret swallowed hard. "Um—is it too personal to ask—"
I laughed, and felt embarrassed about something that not long before I had thought as natural as breathing. It was an odd sensation, but I was still feeling very much as if I had been born that morning, when I had agreed to stay on Nansen and stand by my Caledon friends. One more novelty would not kill me.
She looked embarrassed too. Maybe the question was too near her own thoughts? Or perhaps the laughter had made her think it was a foolish question. "It's not too personal," I hastened to say, "and I'm only laughing because I just realized I wouldn't have understood the question before coming here. The answer is, I don't have any notion at all what was going through those donzelhas' heads; I can tell you a great deal about Garsenda Mont-Verai's body, and her exact eye color and what she liked to do ... er, for fun"—Margaret was now blushing furiously and it had just occurred to me that I might be talking to the oldest virgin I had ever met—"but nothing really about how she felt or thought."
Margaret made a little face and shook her head, but said nothing.
"You were going to say something," I said, "and whatever it is, it won't offend me."
"Oh ... just that it seems like there's always a catch. We could all use a lot of pampering and attention, but getting it from someone who doesn't even know who you are..." she shrugged and spread her hands. Her smile looked as washed out as the rest of her. "... well, I hate to sound like a preacher, but it sounds like there's always a trade-off."
"Probably. Some people are better suited to some cultures than others are, I suspect. There are people here who'd have been made miserable on Nou Occitan, and, well, there are Occitans who would take to this culture easily."
"I suppose." I almost liked her peculiar smile. "I suppose when springer prices come down—they say they will in ten or twenty stanyears—we can all go find the place that suits us. Always assuming it hasn't been destroyed by everyone else finding it."
We sat there quietly, together, for a long minute, and my eye kept trying to decompose her and find some way to rearrange her so that I could appreciate her, but with the best will in the world it could not be done. As definitely and finally as Valerie's appearance always led your eye to beauty and symmetry, Margaret's seemed to force your eye right to some flaw and make it overwhelm everything else.
As we were sitting there in the gathering awkwardness, Bruce came upstairs from the men's locker room, and I told him what the arrangements would be. He nodded, and did not look entirely happy, but took his bag upstairs without comment.
I wasn't sure what I would say to Aimeric, but before I could give it much thought he was coming down the stairs. I had just an instant to wish that I would not have to handle it in front of Margaret before I realized that she had somehow vanished into thin air—which gave me the fleeting thought that she might have been some help in the situation. As she had been saying, there are always trade-offs.
Aimeric gave me a wry half-grin. "So, has Bieris been down yet?"
"Not yet," I temporized.
"Listen, can I bunk with you? That leaves her the choice of either inviting Bruce to the guest room or turning it into a girls' dorm, whichever way she wants. I don't want her to feel like she has to tell me her choice directly."
In Noupeitau, I'd have said this man had no pride and was groveling to a donzelha. Here, I said, before I could think what I meant, "Que merce!"
He gaped at me. "You've really changed."
"Not that much." A thought left over from last night suddenly hit me. "Uh, when we get back—would you like to be my Secundo against Marcabru? He wrote me an incredibly insulting letter about my preoccupation with Caledon things, and it was just occurring to me that if we should happen to get home on schedule by some miracle, I can have the pleasure of assassinating the Prince Consort."
"It's a deal. His last few letters to me have been pretty insufferable too. But I don't think I ever had to fall out of friendship with him really; we weren't close. To tell you the truth I never knew what you saw in him."
I shrugged. "He was a companhon for a long time, and we had a long history. But I never really knew him. I've seen enough in his letters since I came here—which is why I'd like to take him on."
"Then I'm your Secundo. Challenge that dickless little poseur, and cut him down." He slun
g up his bag and we headed up the stairs together, his hand resting lightly on my shoulder.
The feeling I had, as I was climbing the stairs, I later turned into a song, one that many people say is my best, but at that moment it simply overwhelmed me, and I fought down a hard, chest-stabbing sob, and did not manage to suppress the rush of tears from my eyes.
Aimeric's hand tightened onto my shoulder like a claw. "Giraut, what is it?"
I sniffed a little, and had myself in hand again. Deu, I had cried in front of people twice in one day; what sort of jovent was I anymore? "Oh, just a thought that crossed my mind. We four—you and I, Marcabru and Raimbaut ... I never really knew Raimbaut, either, until I wore his psypyx, and it was only then that I found what a delight he used to take in things, or found out what a dark sense of humor he had. I felt more loss when he began to turn inside and fade than I had when he died; there was more to lose, if you see what I mean. And just now I suddenly wished I had known him, really known him, as a friend and not as another jovent companhon, while he was alive."
Aimeric nodded. He looked a little silly—his bald spot was bigger than ever, and his Occitan clothes had gotten hopelessly disheveled—after all, except for outdoor gear, we normally change clothes three times in our twenty-hour day, and our clothes are just not made to be worn hour after hour the way Caledon clothing is. He looked like the old drunks who hang around their Quarter, trying to get attention with the stories of the jovent days, because they have failed as adults ... but now as I stood here on that long gray staircase, the last buttery sunlight splashing off a column above us, and really looked at him, I saw that he knew perfectly well what he looked like, and refused to care about it because he knew he had come by the appearance honestly. It was more than most people were capable of, and at that moment I loved and honored him for it, and for a lot of other things, some many years back. "From now on, when people cross my path, I'm going to know them," I said.