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'' "Merry did. Maybe you do. But dammit, Victoria, some-
times I wonder !" Stephen Thomas rose and started away.
"Stephen Thomas " Satoshi called after him.
Stephen Thomas flung his hand to the side, a gesture of anger and denial,
warning Satoshi off.
Stephen Thomas crossed the park. He Jammed his hands into his pockets and
hunched his shoulders. He felt hurt and
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s.txt confused by Victoria's reaction. He could not think of a way
/- to explain the sudden change to his father.
Back at the park table, Victoria opened her bento box and stared at her lunch.
She no longer felt like eating, either.
"How could he say that to me?" she cried.
"AH he wanted was a little reassurance," Satoshi said.
"He can't face this alone, Victoria,"
"His father isn't our only responsibility."
"But his father is one of our responsibilities. Stephen
Thomas was open with us about it."
"He was. You're right. He's right." She sighed. "It's just that I get so tired
of Stephen Thomas and Greg playing out
176 vonda N. Mdntyre the archetypal American father-son relationship. And I
still don't see how we're going to be able to juggle fast enough to keep
everything in the air on one salary.''
"They can't impound the money for long I'm sure Ste-
phen Thomas is right about that."
"Saloshi, love, you and our partner are brilliant scientists.
You arc ethical people. Stephen Thomas is charmingly neu-
rotic and too spiritual for his own good "
"Be fair."
" and you are both great in bed. But between you, you have the political sense
of the average nudibranch. This could take months to get resolved, and it will
drain the expedition's energy the whole time. Don't hold your breath waiting
for your next pay deposit."
Satoshi had not even opened his lunch. He looked down at his hands, flexed and
spread his fingers, turned them over, and stared at his palms.
"I won't," he said. "And I don't see how we're going to keep everything in the
air on one salary, either. If we help
Greg out " He hesitated, but Victoria knew as well as he did that they had a
responsibility to the elder Gregory. Ste-
phen Thomas had already made the commitment when they invited him into the
partnership. "If we help Greg out, the house ..."
Victoria, scowling, rested her chin on her fists. "Let's not talk about losing
the house until we have to."
"Maybe it was a dream all along."
"It was but it was working, dammit!"
Under ordinary circumstances, they would never have had a hope of buying their
house. Nobody living on ordinary incomes even three ordinary incomes could
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atford to buy property. But several years on the expedition, with no living
expenses, gave them the chance to put most of their income
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s.txt against the price while they were gone. It was Merit's idea and Merit's
plan. Merit even, somehow, found a decent house that a real estate corporation
was willing to sell.
"If one of us went back to earth for a few days ..."
"They will have to send wild horses up here on a transport to get me otf
Starfarer\" Victoria said. "This is exactly what they're hoping will happen,
and it's only taken us three hours to start thinking about leaving. If they
shoot down our mo-
STARFARERS 177
rale, we'll argue, we'll abandon the expedition, we'll go groundside and get
new jobs. I wouldn't go back even to lobby for us they want us out of the sky,
no matter what.
They're collecting excuses. They have the associates' with-
drawal to hold against us already. If the rest of us leave, they'll just come
in and claim salvage "
"I wasn't talking about leaving permanently."
"Let's not talk about leaving at all. If we lose our house, we lose our house.
If we lose the expedition . . ."
"You're right," he said. "Of course you're right."
"Besides," Victoria said, trying to smile, "if we lose the expedition we can't
afford a house anyway."
They hugged each other, then packed the bento boxes into the AS and sent it
home to put the food away for dinner.
Victoria wondered if anyone would be hungry then, either.
"The meeting tonight is going to be something," she said.
His graduate students had reappeared by the time Stephen
Thomas got back to the lab. He wanted to talk to them, but the tension of
having to explain things to his father would emotionally distort everything he
said to them. He reached his office. When he touched the door, it crashed open
without his meaning to slam it. He hesitated, then turned. All three students
stared at him, startled.
"Don't anybody go anywhere," he muttered. "I'll be back in a couple of
minutes."
In his office, Stephen Thomas asked Arachne to connect him to earth, and his
father. The conversation would be awk-
ward, because of the distance of Starfarer from earth and the resulting time
delay. His father was no more proficient at holding two simultaneous
conversations than was Stephen
Thomas.
"Steve? I didn't expect to hear from you."
"How are you, Greg?" Stephen Thomas said. "My part-
ners send their regards."
"Oh- Well. You say hi to Vicky and Satoshi for me."
Stephen Thomas could not help but smile. His father was the only person in the
world who called him "Steve"; his father was probably the only person in the
world dense enough to keep calling Victoria by a diminutive. He was sure Greg
178 vonda N. Mcintyre
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do it.
"Long time," Greg said. "What's the occasion? Have you settled the plans for
your visit?"
"That's pan of why I called," Stephen Thomas said. "1
don't think I'm going to be able to get back to earth again."
"What? Why not? You didn't make it over here the last time you were on earth.
You said "
"I thought you understood about the conference. And how hard it is to
reschedule transport trips "
"What's the problem now? Have you "
"Greg, have you heard any news today?" Stephen Thomas spoke before his father
finished his question.
After the two-second delay, his father replied. "I never pay any attention to
the news."
"There's a problem with the starship's operating funds,"
Stephen Thomas said. "Will you be all right if the next de-
posit is late?"
This time the delay was more than the two-second light-
speed lag.
"What's happened? You're overextended?"
"I'm not! It hasn't anything to do with me directly, but it makes a personal
trip out of the question. The money's held up in Washington. I don't know when
I'll get paid next."
Again he waited, hoping for nonchalance, reassurance.
"This is cutting pretty close to the bone, Steve," Greg said.
"I'm sorry. I don't have any control ... I can't . . ."
While he was still trying to think of how to explain, the lag began and ended.
"Is it all up to you? In my day, when you got married, you didn't just marry
your wife, you married her whole family, too."
"We're members of each other's families, Greg," Stephen
Thomas said. "And Satoshi's got the same problem. Every-
body up here who's from the U.S. has had their funding im-
pounded."
Greg had taken a while to accept Victoria and Satoshi as individuals; [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]