Chindi Page 6

  “So you are going to do it.”

  “Yes. I think so. The money’ll be decent.”

  A robot appeared, lit the candles, and took their orders, cheese and bacon for Hutch, beef stew for Preach. And two cold beers. “You have any experience with these people? The Whatzis Society?”

  “Contact. I’ve met a couple of them. They’re okay. As long as you don’t get them started on aliens.”

  The beers came. They touched glasses. “To the loveliest woman in the room,” he said, affecting to gaze about and confirm his judgment. “Yes,” he said, “no question about it.”

  “You’re a sweetheart, Preach.” She put some brandy into her voice. And then: “Who knows? Maybe you’ll strike gold out there.”

  He looked at her over the rim of his glass. “And what would the gold be?”

  “The neighbors. At last. After all these years, and all the ruins, and the hints, we actually find them. Preach Brawley finds them. And suddenly we have somebody to talk to.”

  “Here’s to the neighbors,” he said.

  Their meals came. While the robot set them down, Hutch glanced about her, scanned the several dozen couples in the room, and decided Preach was right: She was the most attractive woman in the place.

  He tried his stew, gave it his approval, and inquired about her sandwich.

  “It is,” she said, “delicious.” Not unlike the company.

  The whispery music faded and virtual entertainers appeared. They were dressed in flowing caftans and armed with a variety of stringed instruments and horns. Their leader, lanky, seductive, dark of eye and mien, signaled, and they rolled into their first number:

  O my baby has a ticket

  On the Babylon Express.

  She’ll be riding through the Chaldees,

  She’ll be gliding past the sphinx,

  ’Cause she loves me, loves me truly,

  On the Babylon Express.

  “Another express,” said Hutch.

  Preach frowned. “Who are these guys?”

  She shouldn’t have been surprised. Even if he knew who they were, she suspected he’d have pleaded ignorance. Preach didn’t strike her as someone who’d admit to a taste for pop culture. So she put on a tolerant face. “That’s Hammurabi Smith and his Hanging Gardeners,” she said. “‘The Babylon Express’ is their signature number.”

  “I can see why it would be.”

  She reduced the volume, and they made small talk for a few minutes, whether it might rain all night, where she was from, how Preach had gotten started as a superluminal contractor. Midway through the meal, he laid his fork down, leaned forward, and lowered his voice. “Do you think there might really be something out there?”

  “Somewhere,” she said. “Sure. But hanging around a neutron star? I don’t think so.”

  They finished up and strolled onto the Overlook. More coffee was available, and the music from Maxie’s was piped in. But they’d been there only a few minutes when someone shut it off, and a commotion developed in a far corner.

  “Not now, David,” said a woman, in tones that suggested now would be a very good moment. Her eyes glittered, her lush black hair fell to her waist, and she appeared to have had a little too much to drink. She wore red and black and was exposed to the navel. She and David were standing on a small stage. Professionals, she realized.

  David was an immense young male, probably a head taller than the Preacher. His hair was gold, and it fell into his eyes. “Beth,” he said, “I’m sure the folks would enjoy it.” Several people applauded.

  She gave up, and David opened a cabinet, pulled out a tocket, and turned it on. Its strings hummed with energy.

  Beth looked resigned, said okay if you must, and moved to the edge of the stage. David rippled lightly through a few chords. The crowd expanded. “What would you folks like to hear?” Beth asked.

  “How about ‘Randy Andy’?” said a female voice.

  David tried a few chords, producing a burst of light and sound, and then he cut it off. “Too loud. I feel moody tonight.”

  “‘The Macon City Bar,’” suggested a baritone.

  Beth laughed. “This is a desperate bunch, David,” she said. They cheered.

  …She stood her ground at the Macon City Bar,

  Took my heart, and I never been the same,

  Never been the same,

  Since she stood her ground at the Macon City Bar…

  Pretty soon everybody was singing and dancing. Hutch and Preach joined in. He sang off-key a lot, but he knew it, may have exaggerated it for effect, and grinned when she laughed. “I get better after I’ve had a few,” he said. She luxuriated in his presence and in his embrace. It had been a long time since she’d been close to somebody who could generate this kind of electricity.

  Beth played and the crowd roared. They sang “Rocky Mountain Lollipop” and “Highballer,” a rousing number about the glide trains. And “Deep Down in the Culver City Mine” and “Last Man Out” and “Climbing on the Ark.”

  Beth was sitting atop a dais by then, doing requests, sometimes performing one of her own choices. In the middle of the “Peacemaker Hymn” she spotted Preach and signaled him to join her. He glanced down at Hutch, looking for her reaction. “Go,” she said, faking nonchalance. Maybe Hutch wasn’t the loveliest woman in the room.

  They performed “Providence Jack,” who was “faithful as long as I could see him.” When they finished she’d let him go. But she ended the evening with “Azteca,” looking at him the whole time and leaving no doubt about her inclinations.

  During an intermission they broke away. He escorted Hutch back out to the taxi pad, and looked innocent when she suggested he’d made a conquest.

  It was raining heavily. They rose through the storm, and he seemed pensive. “Hutch,” he said finally, “are you by any chance free tomorrow?”

  “I’m headed for Princeton, Preach,” she said, “to see my mom.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why did you ask?”

  “I was going to suggest dinner.” He shrugged the whole thing off. Bad idea. Should have known you’d be busy.

  “She’s expecting me, Preach. Hasn’t seen me in a year. I can’t really beg off.” Her instincts were telling her just as well. Don’t rush things. Not if she was seriously interested in him. “Tell you what, though. I’ll be back Friday. How about we get together then?”

  “Okay,” he said. “Call me when you get in.”

  The taxi landed on the rooftop of her hotel. He told it to wait, got out, and went with her to her apartment door. She opened up and turned back toward him, debating whether to invite him inside. She’d been drinking a bit too much, as had he. “Thanks, Preach,” she said. “It was a lovely evening.”

  “Me too.” He leaned toward her, planted a chaste kiss on her forehead, opening his lips and letting them linger just long enough to stoke her fire a bit. Knows what he’s doing, this lad. Then he took all decisions out of her hands by backing away. “You’re one of a kind, Hutch,” he said. And he wheeled and strode off.

  She watched him disappear into the lift and had to fight off the sense that she was being an idiot. She closed the door softly and went to the window. Moments later she saw a taxi rise into the night and arc off in the general direction of the Crystal Tower.

  chapter 3

  Decadence has been given a bad name throughout history. The truth is, there is never a better era in which to be alive than a decadent one. The food is good, the liquor flows, women are usually willing, and somebody else is fighting the wars. It’s invariably the next generation that has to pick up the bill.

  —GREGORY MACALLISTER,

  STROLLING THROUGH GOMORRAH, 2214

  HUTCH CHECKED IN at the operations desk at midmorning and got her instructions. She was told to expect between six and eight passengers. Details weren’t finalized. There’d be a briefing at the Academy conference room on the Wheel on the sixth, and departure would be October 7.

  She was
also given a virtual tour of the City of Memphis. It was smaller by half than most of the Academy carriers. But her size was largely a function of reductions in space given over to propulsion systems, made possible by technological advances in both the Hazeltines and the fusion engines, whose specs indicated a level of efficiency beyond anything she’d seen before. Sensor arrays and communications systems were state-of-the-art, as were command and control functions.

  The interior was reasonably spacious and eminently luxurious. The metal and plastic to which she was accustomed had been replaced with soft pseudo-leather, stained paneling, and lushly carpeted decks. Curtains and wainscoting were everywhere. The common room was attractively fitted out with the kind of furniture one might (almost) find at an expensive club. It also possessed an operations center with all the push buttons and displays one might wish to survey a new world. It would be rather like living in one of those grand twenty-first-century homes at the tip of Provincetown. The bridge had soft lighting and a series of scents that could be piped in, lemon and cedar and a dozen other fragrances. Give me a little time and I believe I can get used to this.

  What about Bill?

  The operations officer said that an AI package was available with the ship. Since Memphis was not an Academy vessel, the house intelligence had not been installed. What was her preference?

  She opted for Bill.

  She’d hoped Preach might turn up, but a discreet inquiry produced the information that he’d come in at nine, right after they’d opened, got his information, and left.

  She felt deflated and thought about rescheduling her flight home into the late afternoon. That would allow her to call him and suggest they meet for lunch. Should have arranged that last night when the opportunity had been there. But she shrugged the idea away as ill-advised. Let’s not look anxious.

  She treated herself to some new clothes, went back to her apartment, packed, and took a taxi out to National.

  She was at her mother’s by seven.

  HUTCH’S MOTHER, TERESA Margaret Hutchins, lived in Farleyville, a northern suburb of Princeton. She was waiting outside the house at the foot of the pad with a half dozen friends when the taxi descended. There were some ribbons in the trees, and a few of the neighborhood children had shown up to see what the fuss was about. The occasion lacked only the high school band.

  Everyone was anxious to meet Teresa’s celebrated daughter. It was a ritual she went through every time she came back. My daughter the star-pilot.

  Hutch’s taxi descended onto the landing pad. She paid up, climbed out, hugged her mother, hugged and shook hands with everybody else. And Mom started. “Priscilla was with the people who discovered the omega clouds,” she told a middle-aged woman whose name seemed to be Weepy.

  And they responded as people always did at these homecomings:

  “You must tell us how it was on Deepsix last year, dear.”

  “Do you know my cousin Jamie? He works on the space station out at Quraqua.”

  “It must be beautiful out there, traveling among the stars.”

  In fact, it was impossibly dull. Now that she’d faced the reality, she was willing to admit to herself that she’d been living a kind of virtual life. Most of the beaches she’d visited in her lifetime had been electronic, as had the majority of her evenings looking out from mountaintops, strolling through idyllic forests, or wandering along the walkways of the world’s great cities. It occurred to her that the same was true of almost everyone’s life, but she dismissed the notion.

  Hutch understood her mother’s pride in her daughter, but it made her uncomfortable. Hutch herself wasn’t good at pretending humility when she knew damned well she’d racked up some major accomplishments.

  Still, there it was, so she bowed her head and tried to come up with the correct reactions as they trooped back to the house. She allowed as how it wasn’t very much, she’d been fortunate and had a lot of help. Certainly that was so.

  Teresa broke out an assortment of goodies and soft drinks, and Hutch answered, as best she could, questions about why she had pursued so unusual a career, and did she plan to settle down anytime soon (she didn’t mention her retirement plans), and was it true that people usually got sick when the ships made that transition into the other kind of space, what did you call it? Jump-space?

  “Hyperspace,” she said.

  One of the visitors was a teacher, and he asked whether Hutch could come by the school while she was home and talk to an assembly. “We have a lot of students,” he said, “who would love to hear some of your experiences.”

  She agreed, and a date and time were set.

  Two single males, a history professor from Princeton, and a freelance financial advisor, made efforts to get close to her. Both were handsome, in a superficial, ground-based sort of way. Clean-cut features, clear skin, hair brushed back, good teeth. Stand back, she told herself. This is Mom at work.

  The professor seemed overwhelmed by her celebrity, and compensated by smiling too much. He was at a loss to manage his end of the conversation. He’d like very much to get to know her better. Was lunch a possibility? He was so nervous she felt sorry for him.

  “Love to, Harry,” she said, “but I’m only here for a few days.”

  The financial advisor’s name was Rick or Mick. She never did get it quite straight. He was an impossible straight arrow, given to the notion that the North American Union was nearing moral collapse, apparently signified by the increasing number of people opting out of marriages at their first opportunity. He was fond of reminding everyone of Rome during her final days, and he implied that he himself would be a durable and highly rewarding partner.

  He invited her to supply her number, but again she found she would be off-world quite extensively. Would that it were otherwise. Perhaps another time would work better.

  Hutch wondered what Preach was doing, and the evening dragged on. When it finally ended, and she discovered it was barely nine o’clock, her mother asked hopefully how it had gone, whether she’d enjoyed herself, what did she think of the two males.

  Hutch was an only child, and her mother’s sole chance for grandchildren. It all laid a dark sense of guilt on her shoulders. But what was she supposed to do? “Yes, Mom,” she said, “they were nice guys. Both of them.”

  Teresa caught the tone and the past tense and sighed. “I guess I should just leave it alone,” she said.

  Hutch had intended to tell her mother that this would be the last flight. But something held her back. Instead, she said only that she didn’t plan to go on piloting indefinitely. “Hang in there, Mom,” she added.

  THERE WERE OBLIGATORY appearances by relatives over the next few days. Between visits, Hutch and Teresa toured the area, ate in restaurants that Hutch hadn’t been into in years, stopped by the Hudson Church Repertory Theater for a performance of Downhill All the Way, did plenty of shopping, and attended a sunrise concert. As was her custom, Hutch didn’t wear a link when she was attending purely social events.

  On her last full day she went to the Margaret Ingersoll School, named for the first president of the North American Union, and talked to an auditorium full of teenagers about star flight. They were an enthusiastic audience. Hutch described how it felt to go into close orbit around a gas giant, or to step onto a world, an entire world, bigger than the Earth, on which nothing had ever lived. She flashed images of rings and moons and nebulas and listened delightedly to their reactions. And she saved the black hole for last.

  “The long string of lights,” she explained, “the diamond necklace effect, is a star that’s been torn up and is going down the gullet.”

  They looked at the luminous halo that surrounded the hole, at the black center, at the star-fragments. “Where does it go?” asked a girl in the rear of the auditorium.

  “We don’t know whether it goes anywhere,” she said. “But some people think it’s a doorway to another universe.”

  “What do you think?” asked a boy.

  “D
on’t know,” she said. “Maybe it lets out somewhere,” and she lowered her voice, “into a world where teens spend their spare time doing geometry.”

  Afterward, on her way out, an eighteen-year-old boy asked whether she might be free that evening.

  As it happened, she had planned a double date with her mother.

  TERESA’S ESCORT WAS one of the actors from the show, polished and good-looking and charming. He’d played the role of Maritain, the bumbling political fanatic.

  Her own date was a close friend, the celebrated Gregory MacAllister, with whom she’d shared the traumatic experience on Deepsix. MacAllister had been guest-lecturing at Princeton when she contacted him to say hello. One thing had led to another, and he’d come up for the evening.

  They got back after midnight. Teresa was delighted with Mac, and seemed to think Hutch had been hiding something from her. “Believe me, Mom,” Hutch said, “he’s an interesting guy, but you wouldn’t want him underfoot. He was on his best behavior tonight.”

  The remark left her puzzled but did not dash her hopes.

  While they hung up their jackets, Hutch noticed that the commlink was blinking. “What have you got, Janet?” she asked the system.

  “Matthew Brawley called, Priscilla. Twice.”

  She caught her breath. And when Teresa asked whimsically who Matthew Brawley was, she knew that her mother had seen the reaction.

  “Just a friend,” she said.

  Teresa nodded and almost restrained a smile. “I’ll make coffee,” she said, and left.

  Hutch wondered whether she wanted to take the message in her bedroom, but decided against an action that would only rouse her mother’s curiosity and invite further inquiry. “What have you got, Janet?” she asked.

  “The first call was at 7:15. He left a number and asked that you call back.”

  “And the second?”

  “I’ll put it on-screen.”

  The opposite wall faded to black, and Preach materialized. He wore floppy black gym pants and a bilious green pullover shirt open at the neck. He was leaning against something, a tabletop maybe, but the object hadn’t been scanned, and so he stood in front of her at an impossible angle, defying gravity. “Hi, Hutch,” he said. “I was looking forward to our night out, but Virgil’s anxious to get the program up and running. I’m headed to Atlanta tonight, and up to the Wheel tomorrow. By Friday we’ll be on our way.