IT HAD RAINED STEADILY OVERNIGHT, LEAVING MEMU BAY’S STONE-BLOCK streets slippery with water early in the morning when everyone was trying to get to work. Soon after, when the tropical sun rose above the ocean, the pale stone began to steam, boosting the humidity to an intolerable height. But by the afternoon everything had cleared, leaving a sweet cleanliness in the air.
Denise Ebourn took the children outside to enjoy what remained of the day. The playschool building was mostly open to the air, with a red clay tile roof standing on long brick pillars. Vigorous creepers swarmed up the pillars, crawling along the roof and clogging the gutters with diamond cascades of purple and scarlet flowers. Staying underneath the eaves wasn’t exactly arduous, but like her little charges Denise wanted to be outside with the freedom it represented.
They raced out across the walled garden, cheering and skipping about, amazingly full of energy. Denise walked between the swings and slides, checking that they weren’t overexerting themselves, or daring each other into anything dangerous. When she was happy they were behaving themselves as well as any five-year-olds could, she put both hands on top of the chest-high wall and took in a deep breath, gazing out across the little city.
The bulk of Memu Bay occupied a crescent of alluvial land at the end of a mountain range, a perfect natural sheltered harbor. Its more expensive homes clung to the lower slopes of the grassy hills: Roman villas and Californian-Spanish haciendas with the long steps of terraced gardens spilling down the slope in front of them. Sometimes a glimpse of shimmering turquoise betrayed a swimming pool lost amid palisades of tall poplars and elaborate rose-twined columns that surrounded broad sun-decks. However, the majority of the urban zone sprawled out around the base of the mountains. As with all new human cities, it had broad tree-lined boulevards slicing clean through the center, fanning out into a network of smaller roads that made up the suburbs. Apartment blocks and commercial buildings alike were all painted plain white, dazzling in the bright afternoon sun, their smoked-glass windows inset like black spatial rifts. Balconies foamed over with trailing plants. Flat roofs sprouted sail-like solar panels that turned lazily to bake themselves in the intense light: they cast long shadows over the silver-rib heat dissipater fins of air conditioners that sprawled horizontally below them. Several parks broke up the city’s aching glare, verdant green oases amid the whiteness; their lakes and fountains sparkled in the sun.
Denise always found the terrestrial vegetation a peculiar color, paradoxically unnatural. If she squinted inland, she could see the boundary just visible against the large mountains in the far distance. Terrestrial grass had pushed right up to the edge of the area sterilized by the gamma soak. Beyond that, Thallspring’s indigenous vegetation swept away into the haze horizon. A more resolute color, reassuringly blue green; plants out there had bulbous, heavier leaves and glossy stems.
She’d grown up in the hinterlands—Arnoon Province, where human colonization had little impact on native life. Valleys of settlers escaping the restrictions of the majority civilization, as can be found on any human frontier. They lived amid alien beauty, where the vegetation could prove harmful to the unwary. Thallspring’s botanical chemistry didn’t produce the kind of proteins people or animals from Earth could digest. However, Arnoon’s highland forests did cultivate the willow web, which the settlers harvested. When woven correctly it formed a silky waterproof wool that the city dwellers valued. It wasn’t a fabulously profitable activity, but it allowed them to sustain their loose community. They were a quiet folk whose chosen life had given Denise a happy childhood, benefiting from the kind of rich education that only a starfaring species could provide while remaining firmly rooted in the nature of her adopted world. A life that was more secure than she ever realized because of their private cache of knowledge, subtly enforcing every core value of their lifestyle.
Her good fortune had lasted right up until the day the invaders arrived.
A burst of giggling broke her reverie. Several of the children were clustering behind her, urging Melanie forward. It was always Melanie: the boldest of them all, she didn’t need any encouragement. A natural leader, not quite like her father the mayor, Denise thought. The little girl tugged at Denise’s skirt, laughing wildly. “Please, miss,” she implored. “A story. Tell us a story.”
Denise put her hand to her throat, feigning surprise. “A story?”
“Yes, yes,” the others chorused.
“Please,” Melanie whined, her expression trembling into unbearable disappointment and the threat of tears.
“All right then.” She patted Melanie’s head as the others cheered. It was moments like this, when their smiles and adulation fell on her, that Denise knew everything was worthwhile.
At first, Mrs. Potchansky had been dubious about taking her on at the school. So young, barely in her twenties, and brought up in the hinterlands as well. Her youthcare certificates were all in order, but … Mrs. Potchansky had some very quaint old notions about propriety and the right way of doing things, ways probably unheard of in Arnoon Province. With a show of cool reluctance she’d agreed to Denise having a trial period; after all, a lot of very important people sent their children to the playschool.
That was a year ago now. And Denise had even been invited to Mrs. Potchansky’s house for Sunday lunch with her own family. Social acceptance didn’t come much higher in Memu Bay.
Denise sat herself down on one of the wooden swings, arms wrapping round the chains as she slipped her sandals off. The children settled on the grass in front of her, fidgety and expectant.
“I’m going to tell you the story of Mozark and Endoliyn, who lived a long time ago in the early days of the galaxy.”
“Before the black heart started beating?” one of the boys shouted.
“Around the time it began to beat,” she said. Many times she’d told the children of the galaxy’s black heart, and how it ate up stars no matter what the Ring Empire did to try and stop it, which made them all squeal and gasp in fright. “This was when the Ring Empire was at the height of its power. It was made up from thousands of separate kingdoms, all of them united in peace and harmony. Its people lived on the stars that circled the core of the galaxy, trillions and trillions of them, happy and contented. They had machines that provided them with whatever they wanted, and most of them lived for thousands of years. It was a wonderful time to be alive, and Mozark was especially lucky because he was born a prince of one of the greatest kingdoms.”
Jedzella stuck her hand up, fingers wriggling frantically. “Were they people just like us?”
“Their bodies were different,” Denise said. “Some of the races who were members of the Empire had arms and legs similar to ours, some had wings, some had four legs, or six, or ten, some had tentacles, some were fish, and some were so big and scary that if you and I saw them we’d run away. But how do we judge people?”
“What they say and do,” the children yelled happily, “never how they look.”
“That’s right. But Mozark did come from a race that looked a little like us. He had four arms, and eyes all the way round his head so he could see in every direction at once. His skin was bright green, and harder than ours, like leather. And he was smaller. Apart from that, he thought like we do, and went to school when he was growing up, and played games. He was nice, with all the qualities a prince should have, like kindness and wisdom and consideration. And all the people in the kingdom thought they were lucky to have a prince who was so obviously going to be a good ruler. When he was older he met Endoliyn, who was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. He fell in love with her the moment he saw her.”
The children sighed and smiled.
“Was she a princess?”
“Was she poor?”
“Did they get married?”
“No,” Denise said. “She wasn’t a princess, but she was a member of what we’d call the nobility. And he did ask her to marry him. That’s where this story starts. Because when he asked her, she didn’t say yes or no; instead she asked him a question right back. She wanted to know what he was going to do with the kingdom when he became king. You see, although she was very comfortable and had great wealth and friends, she worried about what would fill her life and how she would spend it. So Mozark answered that he would rule as best he could, and be just and listen to what his subjects wanted and endeavor not to let them down. Which is a very reasonable answer. But it wasn’t enough for Endoliyn: she’d looked round at everything the kingdom had, all its fabulous treasures and knowledge, and it made her sad.”
“Why?” they all gasped in surprise.
“Because everybody in the kingdom saw the same things, and did the same things, and was happy with the same things. There was never anything different in the kingdom. When you know everything and have everything, then nothing can be new. And that’s what made her sad. She told Mozark she wanted a king who would be strong and bold, and lead his people. Not follow along and try to please everybody every time, because no person can really do that, you just wind up pleasing nobody. So she would only ever love and marry someone who inspired her.”
“That’s rude,” Melanie declared. “If a prince asked me to marry him, I would.”
“What prince?” Edmund sneered.
“Any prince. And that means when I’m a real princess you’ll have to bow when I walk past.”
“I won’t!”
Denise clapped her hands, stopping them. “That’s not what being a prince and princess in this kingdom was like. It wasn’t a medieval kingdom on Earth, with barons and serfs. The Ring Empire nobility earned the respect they were given.”
Edmund wound himself up. “But—”
“What about Mozark?” Jedzella asked plaintively. “Did he get to marry Endoliyn?”
“Well, he was terribly disappointed that she didn’t say yes straightaway. But because he was wise and strong he resolved to meet her challenge. He would find something to inspire her, something he could dedicate his life to that would benefit everyone in the kingdom. He ordered a great starship to be built so that he might travel right around the Ring Empire and search out all of its wonders, in the hope that one of them might be different enough to make people change their lives. All of the kingdom marveled at his ship and his quest, for even in those days few people undertook such a journey. So he gathered his crew, the boldest and bravest of the kingdom’s nobility, and said farewell to Endoliyn. They launched the amazing ship into a sky the like of which we’ll never know. It was a sky to which night never truly came, for on one side was the core with a million giant stars shining bright, and on the other was the ring itself, a narrow band of golden light looping from horizon to horizon. Through all these stars they flew for hundreds of light-years, onward and onward until they were in a part of the Ring Empire where their own kingdom was nothing more than a fabled name. That’s where they found the first wonder.”
“What?” one of the boys squealed. He was quickly shushed by all his friends.
“The planet’s true name had been forgotten centuries ago. It was just called The City now. A place as mythical to Mozark as his kingdom was to its inhabitants. The people who lived there had devoted themselves to creating the most beautiful buildings it was possible to make. All of them lived in a palace with its own parkland and lake and river, and their public buildings were as majestic as mountains. That’s why their world was called The City, because every building was so big and grand and had acres and acres of its own grounds that they’d spread right over the entire surface, from the deserts to the polar caps. There was nowhere without a building. Now you might say this would be easy, given that the Ring Empire had machines that could build anything. But The City dwellers didn’t want machines building their homes; they thought every person should build his own home; they believed that only if you build it yourself can you appreciate its true grandeur.
“Now, Mozark and his crew landed there and walked amid all these fantastic buildings. Even though they weren’t the same species as The City’s inhabitants, they could appreciate the splendor of what they were seeing. There were cathedral-like towers slicing kilometers into the sky. Crystal tubes that spiraled up entire mountains, which housed every kind of plant to be found on the planet in every environment. Starkly simple buildings, exquisitely ornate buildings, buildings that flowed into the landscape, they were so naturalistic. The City had them all, visual marvels everywhere you looked. Mozark spent many weeks there, he was so staggered by everything he saw. He thought it was the most superb accomplishment any race could make, for every citizen to live in luxury surrounded by beauty. But eventually he called his crew back to his ship and told them that for all its magnificence The City was not for the kingdom. They left, and continued their flight around the core.”
“Why?” the children asked.
“Firstly, because The City had already been done,” Denise said. “And secondly, because after a time Mozark began to see what a folly it was. All the inhabitants of The City did was maintain their buildings. Some families had lived in the same palace for twenty or thirty generations. They added to it, but never changed the nucleus, the essence that made them what they were. The only real interest in The City was shown by outsiders, different species from across the Ring Empire who flocked to marvel at its intricacy and debate its significance. Mozark knew that people could be inspired to build beautiful or gigantic structures, but after that it is always time to move on. The City was magnificent, but decadent. It celebrated the past, not the future. It was everything Endoliyn so dearly wished to escape from. He had no choice but to continue.”
“Where did he go?”
“What happened next?”
Denise glanced at her antique watch. A man’s watch, bulky for her slim wrist; her grandfather had carefully adjusted its quartz innards to synchronize with Thallspring’s twenty-five-and-a-half-hour day. “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the next part,” she said.
A huge barrage of groans and boos greeted the announcement.
“You knew that,” she protested, acting astonished. “The Ring Empire is vast. Mozark had lots and lots of adventures on his voyage round it. It’ll take me weeks to tell them all. Now make sure you put the games and toys back in the bins before you go. The right bins!”
Slightly mollified with the promise of more tales of the Ring Empire to come, they wandered back across the grass to pick up the discarded toys.
“You have such an imagination, my dear.”
Denise turned to find Mrs. Potchansky standing a couple of meters away, giving her a slightly concerned look.
“Ring Empires and little green princes on a quest, indeed. Why not just give them the classics like Pratchett and Tolkien?”
“I don’t think they’re very relevant to today.”
“That’s such a shame. They might be archaic, but they’re lovely stories. I really liked dear old Bilbo Baggins. I even have a hard copy book of The Hobbit, printed on Earth for Tolkien’s bicentennial.”
Denise hesitated. “The stories I make up do have a moral center.”
“I noticed. Although I think I’m the only one who did. You are very subtle, my dear.”
Denise grinned. “Was that a compliment?”
“More an observation, I feel.”
“Do you want me to stop telling them about the Ring Empire?”
“Heavens no.” Mrs. Potchansky was genuinely surprised. “Come along, Denise, you know how good you are with the children. You don’t have to fish for compliments from me. I’m just worried you’ll turn professional and put all these colorful thoughts of yours straight down into i-media. Who would I get to replace you?”
Denise touched the old lady on her arm. “I’m not going to leave you. I love it here. What could ever change in Memu Bay?” It came out before she could stop it.
Mrs. Potchansky glanced up at the clear turquoise sky, wrinkles around her eyes creasing into a burst of bitter resentment totally at odds with her air of gentility.
“Sorry,” Denise said immediately. Mrs. Potchansky had lost her son during the last invasion. Denise knew few details other than the date of his death.
“That’s all right, dear. I always look at how we live now. This is a good life we have here, the best of all the settled worlds. That’s our revenge against them. They can’t destroy our nature. They need us just as we are. I enjoy that irony, I think.”
At moments like this, Denise just wanted to blurt out everything to the sweet old lady, all the anger and plans she and the others had brought with them to Memu Bay. Instead she gave Mrs. Potchansky a tight hug. “They won’t beat us, not ever. I promise.”
Mrs. Potchansky patted Denise’s back. “Thank you, dear. I’m so glad you found this school.”
As usual, some of the children were collected late. Old Mr. Anders, picking up his grandson. Francine Hazeldine, the mayor’s fifteen-year-old daughter, scooping up her little sister, the pair of them laughing happily at the reunion. Peter Crowther eagerly beckoning his quiet son into a huge limousine. Denise gave them big media pads to finger sketch on while they waited in the classroom.
It took her nearly a quarter of an hour after the last one had left to get everything ready for tomorrow. She wiped the psychedelic patterns from the media pads, sorted the games and toys into the right bins, put the chairs back into line and reflated their one leaky jelfoam mattress. Mrs. Potchansky came in before she’d loaded the dishwasher with all the mugs and cutlery and told her to get off into town. It was a lovely day and she should enjoy herself. The old woman didn’t quite ask if Denise had a boyfriend yet, but it wouldn’t be long. The query came every three weeks or so, along with associated helpful observations on where nice boys were to be found. Denise always hated the embarrassment of having to deflect her from the topic. There were times when it was like spending the day with her mother.
The school was a couple of kilometers inland, so it was an easy downhill walk to the marina for her. On rainy days she would take the trams that ran through the major boulevards, but today the afternoon sun continued to shine through a clear sky. She strode easily along the sidewalk, making sure she kept under the broad shop awnings: she was wearing a light dress, and at half past four in the afternoon the sun was still strong enough to be avoided. The route was familiar enough, and she was on nodding terms with several people on the way. So very different to her first days in the city, when she jumped every time a car’s brakes squealed, and more than five people gathered together made her claustrophobic. It had taken over a fortnight before she was comfortable just going into one of Memu Bay’s plentiful cafés and sitting there with friends.
Even now she wasn’t quite used to the triads she saw together out on the street, though she made a point of not staring. Memu Bay was proud of its liberalist tradition, dating right back to the founding in 2160. The city fathers, having left an Earth that they considered to have encroached upon personal freedoms, were determined to encourage a more relaxed and enlightened atmosphere on their new world. Communes were prevalent during the early days, along with cooperative industrial enterprises. Reality had gradually eroded this gentle radicalism; collective dormitory halls were slowly refurbished into smarter individual apartments and shares were floated and traded to raise capital for factories to expand. The most prominent leftover from all this early social experimentation was the tri-marriages, whose popularity continued long after other hippie chic traditions lost their bloom. Though even that wasn’t as popular as it used to be. Trendy liberalism and those first youthful hot randy nights of threesomes tended to deteriorate and sour when middle age approached, inevitably accompanied by mortgage payments and domestic demands with their three-way arguments. And trimarriage divorces were notoriously bitter, scarring a lot of children who swore blind they wouldn’t repeat the mistake. Certainly less than a quarter of registrations at City Hall were now trimarriages, and most of those were of the one-male, two-female variety. Gay and lesbian trimarriages were an even smaller percentage.
Car traffic eased off as Denise entered the Livingstone District behind the waterfront; the streets here were narrower and clogged with bicycles and scooters. This was the city’s primary retail zone, where quirky little shops alternated with clubs, bars and hotels. As this was where the tourists flocked, the city planners had re-created the look of an old-style Mediterranean town. Small windows and slim balconies overlooked squares full of café tables that were shaded by citrus trees. At first the streets had confounded her, as if they were deliberately laid out in the most confusing maze possible. Now, she slipped through like a native. The marina itself was packed with sailing yachts and pleasure craft. Farther along the shore, jetskis and windsurfers curved through the water, weaving round each other with curses and elaborately obscene fist gestures. Passenger boats were bringing divers and snorkelers home after a day exploring the reefs. Several of the archipelago islands were visible out toward the horizon, tiny cones of native coral clotted with a tangle of vivid terrestrial vegetation. They looked superb, motes of paradise scattered on an alien ocean. In fact, the gamma soak had killed the coral down to three meters below the surface. Civil engineering teams had gone out and capped the islands with concrete to stop them from breaking up. Sand was laboriously dredged up from their surrounding lagoons to form the exquisite white beaches, and desalination plants watered the vegetation through a buried irrigation network. It was all done for the benefit of the tourists. The living coral in deeper waters was spectacular enough to attract thousands of visitors each year, while the marina catered to watersports enthusiasts. Those physical activities combined with Memu Bay’s reputation for an easygoing lifestyle made the city a premier lure for Thallspring’s younger element, intent on having a fun time away from the capital and other sober cities.
The Junk Buoy was right on the waterfront, a popular tavern for tourists on the way back to their hotels and chalets. Not particularly smart, nor expensive, but it was the place where boat and dive instructors hung out as the day wound down, which gave it a big boost of kudos. Tourists could sit out under thatched awnings, watching the sun set behind Vanga peak as they drank cocktails with saucy names served up in long iced glasses.
Denise pushed her sunglasses up on her forehead as she walked in. Several young men watched her move across the room, smiling hopefully for her to join them. Denise ignored the come-ons as she made her way over to the far corner of the tavern, where she knew her colleagues would be. The nightly meat market had begun. The tourists were all in swimware or small tight T-shirts, casting eager curious glances at each other. Over half were wearing Preferred Sexual Acts bracelets. Some of the devices were flashy gold Aztec charms or mock–high-tech strips encrusted with blinking LEDs, while others preferred to use discreet black bands, or simple readouts incorporated into their watches. They would tickle the wrist unobtrusively when someone else with the same PSA loaded in their bracelet was within ten meters, and conversation would dip as directional displays were suddenly checked with avid enthusiasm.
She was aware of some bracelet wearers checking their directional graphics anyway, seeing if they matched her position. The anything-goes set, not unsurprisingly those with the most flamboyant bracelets.
One-night stands Denise could live with, not that she ever would for herself. But it was the coldness of the PSA system that she resented. It took everything that was human away from what should be the most enjoyable part of a relationship, the discovery of someone else.
Raymond Jang and Josep Raichura were sitting on their usual stools. Also as usual, they had a pair of girls with them, young and impressionable, wearing swimsuits and sarongs. Ray and Josep didn’t need PSA bracelets. For them, this part of the mission was heaven-sent. When they arrived in Memu Bay, they immediately signed up as diving gill instructors with one of the big leisure companies, which brought them into daily contact with a parade of girls in their teens and early twenties. Diving instructors were universally slim and fit, but Ray and Josep now had perfect mesomorph physiques, tanned to a golden sheen. These days Denise had to think hard to remember the two awkward little boys she’d grown up with in Arnoon, one all gangly, the other who hardly ventured out of doors. Now the dweebs were babe magnets, and relishing every second of it. Even better for them—and worse for Denise—they were supposed to develop casual relationships. It would be essential for the next stage of the plan.
The four of them were having such a good time together that Denise almost felt guilty for butting in. She cleared her throat to attract their attention. The two girls instantly looked her up and down with hostile eyes, working out if she was competition or not. They decided not. Denise was the same age group as their catches, with the kind of slim healthy build that could mean she was a fellow gill instructor, and her impatient expression clearly marked her down as a no-fun person.
“Hello?” one of the girls said, her voice rising an octave with mild derision. “Were we friends in a former life?”
Any decent comeback escaped Denise. The girl’s breasts were so large that for the first time Denise got an inkling of that most infuriating male reflex; she just couldn’t help glancing at her cleavage. Surely she was too young to have undergone v-writing enlargement?
“Hi, Denise.” Ray got up and gave her a demure peck on the cheek. “Girls, this is our housemate, Denise.”
They consulted each other silently, and said a resentful, “Oh hi,” to Denise.
“We just need a quick chat with Denise,” Josep said. He gave his girl a quick pat on her bum. “Won’t be a minute, and then we’ll see where we can go to eat out tonight.”
The girl licked some salt off the rim of her margarita glass. “I’d like that.” She walked off with her friend, the pair of them whispering in sultry amusement. There were several coy glances thrown back at the boys.
“Working hard, I see,” Denise said. Every time she found them with new girls she told herself it didn’t bother her. Every time, her disapproval just spilled out.
Ray grinned. “Just following orders.”
Denise steeled herself and sat on one of the vacated stools. There was nobody near them, and a melodic guitar tune was playing through the tavern’s sound system. Not that Memu Bay’s police were surveilling them— or even knew about them, but basic precautions now would save a lot of trouble later on. “We’re clear today,” she said quietly. “Prime didn’t pick up any encrypted signals on the spacecom network.”
“They’ll come,” Josep said.
His tone was understanding, more like the old Josep. He must have picked up on her frustration—he’d always been the more emotionally sensitive one. She flicked a modest grin of thanks at him. His face was broad, with high cheekbones and lovely wide brown eyes. A thick mop of floppy blond hair was held back from his forehead by a thin leather band—a gift from some girl ages ago. Raymond, by contrast, had round features and a narrow nose, his brown hair cut short. Other than that … She looked from one to the other. The only garment Raymond had on was a pair of old green shorts, while Josep’s denim shirt was open down the front. Twin bodies. Did the girls they shared in bed ever comment on that? she wondered.
“I know.” She got a grip on her free-flying thoughts. “Anything new from your side?”
“Actually yes,” Ray said. He indicated the girls. “Sally lives in Durrell. She’s at college there, a geology student.”
“Okay, that’s promising.”
“And there’s a possible contact we think should be checked out,” Josep said. “His name’s Gerard Parry. He started on my six-day diving proficiency course today. We got chatting. Turns out he’s local. Works up at Teterton Synthetics, a distribution manager.”
A cluster of neural cells in Denise’s brain had undergone a d-written modification for direct communication with the local datasphere, an enhancement that human v-writing couldn’t yet match. The cluster linked her directly to the pearl ring on her index finger. Her Prime program produced a brief summary of Teterton, scrolling an indigo script across her vision that detailed a small chemical processing company that supplied local food producers with specialist vitamin and protein concoctions. “Did he sound sympathetic?”
“That’s for you to find out. But a contact there could be very useful. There’s some compounds we still haven’t acquired.”
“Okay, sounds good. How do I meet him?”
“We promised him a blind date. Tonight.”
“Oh God,” she groaned. There would barely be time to go home and change.
“He’s a nice bloke,” Josep protested. “I like him. Sensitive, caring, all that bull chicks go for.”
“Just as long as he’s not like you,” Denise snapped back.
“Ouch.” He smiled. “Well, here’s your chance to find out. Here he comes.”
“What!”
Ray stood up and waved happily. Denise turned to see the man approaching. In his thirties, overweight, with thinning hair. The restrained smile of a professional bachelor, desperate to hide how desperate he was. A broad black-glass PSA bracelet was worn on his right wrist. Several girls around the tavern checked their directional displays, and hurriedly looked away.
Denise stood up to greet him, the heel of her right foot making solid contact on Josep’s toes.
She didn’t get home until well after eleven o’clock that night. By that time the weary anger had become a kind of numb indifference to life. All she wanted to do was go to bed and forget the entire evening.
Despite his appearance, Gerard Parry wasn’t a bad man. He could hold a conversation, on local issues at least, and was willing to listen up to a point. He even had a few jokes, though he lacked the nonchalance to tell them properly. She could imagine him working hard to memorize them when he heard them around the office.
They had started off having a couple of drinks with Ray and Josep, much to the obvious disgust of the girls. Then dinner was mentioned, and Josep managed to split them up. Gerard took her to a fairly decent restaurant, which left her free to establish his political sympathies. That was when it all fell apart.
Denise never knew how much blame she should take for personal catastrophes like this. It was strange, considering how she almost unfailingly managed to befriend potential recruits who weren’t single and male. She asked Gerard the questions she needed to, and tried to ask others, to show an interest in his personal life. But he figured out pretty early on that she wasn’t interested in any kind of long-term relationship, or even a brief passionate affair. Men invariably figured that out about her at some time. Always, at the end of such evenings, it finished with her being told she was too intense, or cool, or aloof. Twice she’d been sneeringly accused of being a lesbian.
She didn’t even mind the fact that she never made the connection. What she hated was that she could never tell them why. The fact that she’d committed herself to something more important than them, or her. It justified the way she was. But they’d never know. To all of them, she was just another wasted evening.
Gerard Parry got drunk very quickly, especially for a man of his bulk. His conversation turned into a bitter monologue; there were morbid complaints about how he missed out because girls never looked behind his size for the real him, and rhetorical questions about what did she and the rest of the female universe want from a bloke anyway. During his ramblings, he managed to spill half a glass of red wine over the table, which splashed across her skirt. She got up and didn’t look back. The headwaiter called a cab for her.
She sat in the back of the AS-driven vehicle, refusing to cry as the lively town slid by beyond the windows. Inner strength was something that could never be installed, unlike her physical ability. That, she had to supply by herself.
The Prime program in her pearl had recorded the encrypted emissions from Gerard’s PSA bracelet. A gross breech of etiquette; PSAs were supposed to be exchanged. As she reviewed the data she gained a degree of satisfaction knowing what a pig he was. It made her feel a hell of a lot more justified leaving him weeping into his wine.
The bungalow she shared with Ray and Josep was in a small, prim housing estate spread along the Nium River estuary, outside the center of town. It meant a twenty-minute commute to work in the morning on the tram, but the rent was relatively cheap. At night there was just enough of a breeze coming up the estuary to keep it cool once the big archway windows were folded back. Jasmine grew up the external walls, a mass of scarlet flowers giving off a sweet scent.
Denise came through the front door and dropped her little shoulder bag on the hall table. She pressed her back to the cool plaster, arching her spine and inhaling deeply. All in all, a really shitty day.
The lights were on in the lounge, turned down low. When she peered in, one of the girls from the Junk Buoy was lying facedown on the sofa, snoring with the erratic snorts of the comatose drunk. There were muffled voices and giggles coming from Josep’s bedroom, along with familiar rhythmic sounds. Josep, Ray and the huge-breasted girl energetically straining seams on the jelfoam mattress together.
It would be all right, Denise thought, once she was in her own room with the door shut. From past experience she knew the soundproofing was good enough to give her complete silence to sleep in. When she looked down at her skirt, she could see it needed spraying right away to get the wine stain out. Once she’d put it in the washing cabinet and programmed the cycle, she remembered the pile of clean laundry hurriedly dumped in the linen basket this morning, including all her other work clothes. She’d intended to do them when she got back from playschool in the afternoon. So there she was at quarter past midnight, tired and utterly miserable, standing in the kitchen in her robe, ironing her blouse for tomorrow while the shrill whoops of other people’s orgasms echoed along the hall.
If there was such a thing as karma, somebody somewhere in this universe was going to get hurt bad to level this out.