*
He wasn’t going to be able to just waltz around the base pretending nothing had happened, he soon realized. He went to the cafeteria for an early supper, and by the time he’d finished eating, three different people had stopped to ask him what had happened out on the plain—the unspoken gist being, are you still employed here, and are you planning to do anything else that will screw up the works for the rest of us? He answered the questions casually but tersely, and by the third time, he was starting to feel pretty peeved.
/// You aren’t going to tell anyone else
that you met an alien,
are you? ///
Charlie asked worriedly.
“You haven’t heard me tell anyone, have you?” he snapped. Realizing that he had just spoken aloud, he glanced around self-consciously, grateful that the room was mostly empty. Careful! he thought. It was easy enough to direct his thoughts inward, while maintaining outward silence, as long as he thought of it in terms of neuro-connect. The trouble was that that state of mind tended to leave him with a blank and rather stupid expression on his face, and that didn’t seem like a very helpful camouflage.
The quarx persisted.
/// When you told Krackey before . . . about me.
Was that a joke? ///
He shrugged. /Ha ha./
/// I’m serious! ///
/Yeah, okay. Yes, it was a joke./ He finished his tempeh-and-tomato sandwich and began picking at the custard dessert.
/// Well . . . was it a joke on me,
or on Krackey? ///
Bandicut stared at the wall, knowing he had a dumb expression on his face, but unable to help it. /I’ll leave that for you to figure out,/ he said. /Jeez, Charlie, I thought you said you’d learned all about us by watching TV. You sound like a raw recruit! What kind of an invader are you?/
/// I’m not any kind of an invader! ///
/Hah! Gotcha./
/// Oh.
That was another joke.
Like on TV.
Right? ///
Before he could think of a response, Bandicut heard a sudden rush of laughter in his mind, like a gust of wind blowing open a door. He almost choked on his custard. /What was that for?/ he grunted in bewilderment.
/// Laughtrack.
Isn’t that how jokes are answered,
on TV? ///
Bandicut shook his head in bewilderment. /What are you talking about? I’ve never even heard of such a thing./
/// No? Really? ///
/I think you’re operating with some rather quaint and outmoded ideas, Charlie. Maybe we should sit and watch the holo for a few days, and just let you catch up./ Bandicut rose from the table and hooked a thumb at the busrobot, pointing to his dirty dishes on the table. The robot twitched slightly; he could have sworn that it shrugged and looked away from him. Shaking his head, he loped out of the cafeteria, moving along an empty third-level corridor.
/// Were you serious about watching TV?
I don’t think we can afford the time— ///
/I was most certainly not serious. Look Charlie—if you don’t mind, I’d like to cut the crap here and start understanding what’s happening to my life./
/// I think that’s wise. ///
Bandicut nodded and stopped to peer out one of the corridor windows, with a view toward the main surface mining area. A cloud of vapor was rising from beyond the intervening building structures; the lasers were back in operation, burning away ices and rock in search of embedded metals. The metals of a civilization from another star system, another eon . . . a civilization destroyed by war. The images that the quarx had shared with him rose again in his mind. It occurred to him that he was the only human being alive who knew the actual source and history of those metals.
He felt a sudden, deep sadness in his heart, and realized that Charlie was also seeing those images again, and grieving for what had been. /I’m sorry, Charlie./
The quarx stirred uneasily, and changed the subject.
/// I guess I still have some things
to explain to you. ///
/I haven’t forgotten. But your “mission” isn’t the only thing I have to think about. I need to go check the system boards and see what sort of reassignment they’ve given me. Just because I’ve been given a mission to save the Earth doesn’t mean I don’t still have a job to do here. Unless you decide our mission is urgent enough to let me talk . . ./
The quarx spoke up hastily.
/// No.
We can always go public, if the situation warrants.
But we can’t then go unpublic,
if you follow. ///
/Yes, well . . ./ Bandicut turned to continue down the corridor.
“John!” he heard, from behind him. It was a woman’s voice. He turned and saw Georgia Patwell from ops coming his way with a relaxed, loping, long-legged stride that seemed to fit perfectly with the low gravity. She was accompanied by another woman, about six inches shorter, who was moving with a more energetic gait. Bandicut recognized the other woman from the exoarchaeology group down in the basement.
“Hi,” he said, hoping he wouldn’t be asked one more time what he’d done wrong.
“Bandie, I thought you were going to give Stelnik hives today, when you dropped out of contact,” Georgia said, gliding to a stop with a grin. “I know I shouldn’t, but I have to give you credit. That was great.”
“Uh—thanks.”
“You’re all right, though, aren’t you?” She suddenly looked concerned. “I read your report. I don’t know where everyone else is getting their ideas, but it sounds as if they’re trying to elect you sacrificial lamb of the week.”
“I, uh—”
“You know my friend, don’t you?” Georgia turned slightly to include the other woman in the conversation. “Julie Stone, from exoarch? John Bandicut, survey ops?”
Bandicut gulped and nodded, trying to smile. “I, uh—yes, I think we’ve met—”
Julie offered a hand to shake. “In the rec area. I’ve seen you playing EineySteiney, but I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” Her face flashed with a quick smile, then became inscrutable. She was pretty, Bandicut thought, with short brown hair and blue eyes; and she was probably thinking to herself, so this is the goak who fried his neuros, and then fried a rover for good measure and held up half the station’s operations for a couple of hours. Good one to stay away from, she was probably thinking.
He felt a sudden temptation to introduce Charlie to the two women, then felt his face flush as he realized he was still shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you,” he croaked, letting go.
“I guess you had kind of a tough day,” Julie offered. “Georgia was just telling me about it.”
Great, Bandicut groaned inwardly. He took a breath and nodded. “It wasn’t . . . one of my better days. I was just on my way to . . . see where I’ve been reassigned.”
“Well, good luck,” said Julie.
“Hang in there, Bandie,” Georgia said, patting him on the arm as she continued on her way with Julie.
Thanks, Bandicut whispered silently. He sighed and followed the women, but slowly, allowing them to disappear through the bulkhead doors ahead of him.
/// You seemed rather
ill at ease with those women, ///
the quarx noted.
Bandicut shrugged. /Not with Georgia. She’s easy to be friends with. She’s married, of course, which is probably why. No threat, you know. But the other one—/ He hesitated.
/// Julie?
Didn’t she fit your idea of . . .
friendliness? ///
/Uh-huh. That’s why I was . . . well. I always expect the worst, somehow, when I meet a woman I like. I always figure something will go wrong, that they’ll wind up . . . not . . . I don’t know why./
/// Hm. ///
/What do you mean, “Hm”? You aren’t going to start psychoanalyzing me, are you?/
/// W
ell, no, but . . . I just wondered . . .
is this the way you always relate
to women? ///
Bandicut stopped at another window and pressed his fingers to the supertherm glass. Just on the other side of that pane was a rarefied atmosphere at a temperature much closer to absolute zero than to the temperature inside which was keeping him alive. Sometimes it was a distraction to think about things like that, but right now he found that it focused his thoughts remarkably. /I don’t really have many relationships with women, Charlie, except for a few . . . friends . . . like Georgia./
The quarx was silent for a moment.
/// Didn’t I glimpse
something about a . . . niece? ///
/Dakota? Well, yes—she was orphaned when the rest of my family was killed in the Chunnel. But Charlie, she’s just a girl, plus she’s related. That’s hardly the same thing./
/// But you’re
sending her some of your earnings? ///
Bandicut shrugged. /Big deal. I couldn’t let her depend on my sister-in-law’s family, could I?/
/// Um . . . ///
/She’s a nice kid, Dakota. I want her to have a chance when she gets older./ Bandicut turned away from the window with a sigh. /I gotta go see where I’m posted for work tomorrow. Want to come?/ He started back down the corridor, passing several people and not meeting their eyes.
/// Ho ho.
John, I have an idea.
Is there anything you have to be doing
right now? ///
/Besides checking the postings? I guess not./ He thought of the sleep he was going to need if he was posted to mining work tomorrow. /Except—/
/// You can sleep later.
I think you’ll like this idea. ///
/I’m listening./
/// Good.
Is there someplace we can go,
where if you still had your neuro,
you’d be able to connect to the datanet? ///
Bandicut walked a little more briskly. /I guess so. Why?/
/// There’s something I’d like to try.
I might be able to improve
on what we did a while ago. ///
/You’re going to try to plug me in?/ Bandicut felt his pulse rate increase. /Well—there are the operations centers, but we couldn’t just walk in and use them. Anyway, I can’t just plug in—or even pretend to—without people noticing. Charlie, everyone knows I lost my neuro!/
/// Isn’t there someplace private? ///
/I suppose we could use the rec center. That wouldn’t give us full datanet access, but we could reach some of the public info services. We could use a booth, and nobody would know if we were connecting direct, or by screen./
/// Sounds perfect.
Let’s go. ///