A young woman with no gloves on pushed open the door and headed for one of the two elevators, punched some numbers, and disappeared into the nearer elevator.
The doors shut. She should have gone up with her. Jill fished some more and came up with several folded scraps of paper. She tried to unfold the first one, gave up, and balanced them all on one hand while she tried to pull her other glove off with her teeth.
The outside door opened, and a gust of snowy air blew the papers out of her hand and out the door. She dived for them, but they whirled away in the snow. The man who had opened the door was already in the other elevator. The doors slid shut. Oh, for heaven’s sake.
She looked around for a phone so she could call Brad and tell him she was stranded down here. There was one on the far wall. The first elevator was on its way down, between four and three. The second one was on six. She walked over to the phone, took both her gloves off and jammed them in her coat pocket, and picked up the phone.
A young woman in a parka and red mittens came in the front door, but she didn’t go over to the elevators. She stood in the middle of the lobby brushing snow off her coat. Jill rummaged through her purse for a quarter. There was no change in her wallet, but she thought there might be a couple of dimes in the bottom of her purse. The second elevators doors slid open, and the mittened woman hurried in.
She found a quarter in the bottom of her purse and dialed Brad. The line was busy. The first elevator was on six now. The second one was down in the parking garage. She dialed Brad’s number again.
The second elevators doors slid open. “Wait!” she said, and dropped the phone. The receiver hit her purse and knocked its contents all over the floor. The outside door opened again, and snow whirled in. “Push the hold button,” the middle-aged woman who had just come in from outside. She had a red, “NOW … or else!” button pinned to her coat, and she was clutching a folder to her chest. She knelt down and picked up a comb, two pencils, and Jill’s checkbook.
“Thank you,” Jill said gratefully
“We sisters have to stick together,” the woman said grimly She stood up and handed the things to Jill. They got into the elevator. The woman with the mittens was holding the door. There was another young woman inside, wearing a sweater and blue moon boots.
“Six, please,” Jill said breathlessly trying to jam everything back into her purse. “Thanks for waiting. I’m just not all together today.” The doors started to close.
“Wait!” a voice said, and a young woman in a suit and high heels, with a large manila envelope under her arm, squeezed in just as the door shut. “Six, please,” she said. “The wind chill factor out there has to be twenty below. I don’t know where my head was to try to come over and see Brad in weather like this.”
“Brad?” the young woman in the red mittens said.
“Brad?” Jill said.
“Brad?” the young woman in the blue moon boots said.
“Brad McAfee,” the woman with the “NOW … or else!” button said grimly.
“Yes,” the young woman in high heels said, surprised. “Do you all know him? He’s my fiancé.”
Sally punched in her security code, stepped in the elevator, and pushed the button for the sixth floor. “Ulric, I want to explain what happened this morning,” she said as soon as the door closed. She had practiced her speech all the way over to Ulric’s housing unit. It had taken her forever to get here. The windshield wipers were frozen and two cars had slid sideways in the snow and created a traffic jam. She had had to park the car and trudge through the snow across the oriental gardens, but she still hadn’t thought of what to say.
“My name is Sally Mowen, and I don’t generate language.” That was out of the question. She couldn’t tell him who she was. The minute he heard she was the boss’s daughter, he would stop listening.
“I speak English, but I read your note, and it said you wanted someone who could generate language.” No good. He would ask, “What note?” and she would haul it out of her pocket, and he would say, “Where did you find this?” and she would have to explain what she was doing up in the tree. She might also have to explain how she knew he was Ulric Henry and what she was doing with his file and his picture, and he would never believe it was all a coincidence.
Number six blinked on, and the door of the elevator opened. “I can’t,” Sally thought, and pushed the lobby button. Halfway down she decided to say what she should have said in the first place. She pushed six again.
“Ulric, I love you,” she recited. “Ulric, I love you.” Six blinked. The door opened. “Ulric,” she said. He was standing in front of the elevator, glaring at her.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” he said. “Like ‘I withspeak myself?’ That’s a nice example of Germanic compounding. But of course you know that. Language generation is your area of special study isn’t that right, Sally?”
“Ulric,” Sally said. She took a step forward and put her hand on the elevator door so it wouldn’t close.
“You were home for Thanksgiving vacation and you were afraid you’d get out of practice, is that it? So you thought you’d jump out of a tree on the company linguist just to keep your hand in.”
“If you’d shut up a minute, I’d explain,” Sally said.
“No, that’s not right,” Ulric said. “It should be ‘quiet up’ or maybe ‘mouth-close you.’ More compounding.”
“Why did I ever think I could talk to you?” Sally said. “Why did I ever waste my time trying to generate language for you?”
“For me?” Ulric said. “Why in the hell did you think I wanted you to generate language?”
“Because … oh, forget it,” Sally said. She punched the lobby button. The door started to shut. Ulric stuck his hand in the closing doors and then snatched them free and pressed the hold button. Nothing happened. He jammed in four numbers and pressed the hold button again. It gave an odd click and began beeping, but the doors opened again.
“Damn it,” Ulric said. “Now you’ve made me punch in Brad’s security code, and I’ve set off his stupid override.”
“That’s right,” Sally said, jamming her hands in her pockets. “Blame everything on me. I suppose I’m the one who left that note in the tree saying you wanted somebody who could generate language?”
The beeping stopped. “What note?” Ulric said, and let go of the hold button.
Sally pulled her hand out of her pocket to press the lobby button again. A piece of paper fell out of her pocket. Ulric stepped inside as the doors started to close and picked up the piece of paper. After a minute, he said, “Look, I think I can explain how all this happened.”
“You’d better make it snappy,” Sally said. “I’m getting out when we get to the lobby.”
* * *
As soon as Janice hung up the phone Brad grabbed his coat. He had a good idea of what Old Man Mowen wanted him for. After Ulric had left, Brad had gotten a call from Time. They’d talkified for over half an hour about a photographer and a four-page layout on the waste emissions project. He figured they’d call Old Man Mowen and tell him about the article, too, and sure enough, his terminal had started beeping an override before he even hung up. it stopped as he turned toward the terminal, and the screen went blank, and then it started beeping again, double-quick, and sure enough, it was his pappy-in-law to be. Before he could even begin reading the message, Janice called. He told her he’d be there faster than blue blazes, grabbed his coat, and started out the door.
One of the elevators was on six and just starting down. The other one was on five and coming up. He punched his security code in and put his arm in the sleeve of his overcoat. The lining tore, and his arm went down inside it. He wrestled it free and tried to pull the lining back up to where it belonged. It tore some more.
“Well, dad fetch it!” he said loudly The elevator door opened. Brad got in, still trying to get his arm in the sleeve. The door closed behind him.
The panel in the door started beeping. That m
eant an override. Maybe Mowen was trying to call him back. He pushed the DOOR OPEN button, but nothing happened. The elevator started down. “Dagnab it all,” he said.
“Hi, Brad,” Lynn said. He turned around.
“You look a mite wadgetty,” Sue said. “Doesn’t he, Jill?”
“Right peaked,” Jill said.
“Maybe he’s got the flit-flats,” Gail said.
Charlotte didn’t say anything. She clutched the file folder to her chest and growled. Overhead, the lights flickered, and the elevator ground to a halt.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Mowen Chemical today announced temporary nnalization of its pyrolitic stratospheric waste emissions program pending implementation of an environmental impact verification process. Lynn Saunders, director of the project, indicated that facilities will be temporarily deactivized during reorientation of predictive assessment criteria. In an unrelated communication, P. B. Mowen, president of Mowen Chemical, announced the upcoming nuptials of his daughter Sally Mowen and Ulric Henry; vice-president in charge of language effectiveness documentation.
CONNIE WILLIS has won six Nebula Awards (more than any other science fiction writer), five Hugo Awards, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for her first novel, Lincoln’s Dreams. Her novel Doomsday Book won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards, and her first short-story collection, Fire Watch, was a New York Times Notable Book. Her other works include Bellwether; Impossible Things, Remake, Uncharted Territory, and To Say Nothing of the Dog, and Miracle and Other Christmas Stories. Ms. Willis lives in Greelley, Colorado, with her family.
Come explore the worlds of
Connie Willis
Your perspective will never be quite the same again.
DOOMSDAY BOOK
—56273-8 $6.50/$8.99 in Canada
WINNER OF THE HUGO AND NEBULA AWARDS FOR BEST NOVEL
A twenty-first-century historian uses a newly developed technology to travel back to the fourteenth century-only to find she has become an unlikdy angd of hope during one of history’s darkest hours.
LINCOLN’S DREAMS
—27025-7 $5.99/$7.99
WINNER OF THE JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
A young historical researcher for a Civil War novelist finds his life forever changed when he meets a woman haunted by Lincoln’s dreams and the strange resonance this war still has in all our lives.
IMPOSSIBLE THINGS
—56436-6 $6.50/$8.99
Winner of six Nebulas and four Hugos for her short fiction, Ms. Willis brings us a collection of some of her most immortal stories. Humorous, wry, and poignant, these are tales you won’t soon forget.
UNCHARTED TERRITORIES
—56294-0 $3.99/$4.99
Two explorers are sent to an alien world to survey the terrain, but as they are soon to learn, there are more uncharted territories than just the physical—and one of the most complex is the human heart.
REMAKE
—57441-8 $5.99/$7.99
Computers have altered the face of movie making, as live-action Elms have been rendered obsolete. The need for actors has vanished, but a young woman still chases her dream of dancing in the movies.
BELLWETHER
—56296-7 $6.50/$8.99
Two researchers, one who studies fads, the other chaos theory, work together in a bizarre joint project observing sheep.
ALSO FROM BANTAM SPECIRA
A MIND’S-EYE VIEW INTO THE FAST AND HARD-EDGED WORLD OF FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
WYRM MARK FABI
—37871-6 $13.95/$19.95 in canada
The millennium is fast approaching and computer-virus hunter Michael Arcangelo races to debug a seemingly self-aware virus that is sweeping through the internet
HOLY FIRE BRUCE STERLING
—57549-x $6.50/$8.99
Achilling look at a future in which 94 year-old Mia Ziemann realizes she has led a life without adventure and pleasure. An experimental procedure restores heryouth, butthere are those who wish to erase hersecond life.
CONTRABAND GEORGE FOY
—37545-8 $12.95/$17.95
Joe “Skid” Marak, aka the Pilot, is a smuggler in an age of borders. Amysterious force called Bokon Taylay is taking the lives of the world’s free traders and it is up to the Pilot to find the man who can break Taylay’s code.
THE SEEDS OF TIME KAY KENYON
—57681-x $5.99/$7.99
Clio Finn is a bumed-out Dive pilot, one offew who can guide a ship into the past in search of plant species to save adying Earth. But a forbidden dive to the future reveals a species of seed that could save, or possibly destroy, the planet
SOMEONE TO WATCH OYER ME TRICIA SULLIVAN
—57702-6 $5.99/7.99
In an age where one caninhabit bodies via satellite link, adying Watcher known only asC, plans to use an experimental brain link that could threaten the very notion of identity.
This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
FIRE WATCH
A Bantam Spectra Book/published by arrangement with Bluejay Books, Inc.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bluejay edition published February 1985
Bantam paperback edition originally published July 1986
Bantam Spectra reissue/April 1998
SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
“Fire Watch” first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Feb. 15, 1982.
“Service for the Burial of the Dead” first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Nov. 1982.
“Lost and Found” first appeared in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, Jan. 1982.
“The Father of the Bride” first appeared in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, May 1982.
“A Letter from the Clearys” first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, July 1982.
“And Come from Miles Around” first appeared in Galileo magazine, Sept. 1979.
“The Sidon in the Mirror” first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April 1983.
“Daisy, in the Sun” first appeared in Galileo magazine, Nov. 1979.
“Mail-Order Clone” first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Aug. 1982.
“Samaritan” first appeared in Galileo magazine, May 1979.
“Blued Moon” first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Jan. 1984.
All stories are reprinted with the permission of the author.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1979, 1982, 1983, 1984 by Connie Willis.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bluejay Books, Inc.,
130 West 42nd Street, New York, New York 10036.
eISBN: 978-0-307-57342-1
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Random House, Inc., New York, New York.
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Connie Willis, Fire Watch
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