Security recognised me from that morning and let me up with only a token argument. He didn’t call ahead. But then I didn’t give him much time, walking past him with only a minimal pause at the scanner and heading for the elevator.
I pressed the button beside the grey door. The one which would call Daisy, would show her who was waiting outside to remind her of a world which went on without Sheba in it. I expected her to ignore its summons but discovered I wasn’t surprised when I heard the locks begin their sequence. No one invited me, she’d used her remote, but I pushed the door and walked in.
A thin film seemed to have settled on the rooms. Not dust. Not yet. It was too soon for neglect to show. It was more that something had dulled, as though the colours had begun to fade. I didn’t see Daisy.
She came out of the bedroom behind me. I turned.
“Daisy.”
“Humility.”
Her voice sounded the same as it always had. She didn’t look different. But there was something missing, an indefinable absence. I thought that whatever had held her together from the inside had gone and only a deliberate care kept her intact. She was wearing Company greys as though she had dressed for work and then not known what to do. No earring.
“Sit down. I’ll get you caf.”
I sat down. “No. Nothing to drink thanks. How are you doing?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I feel…
Numb. Nothing. Afraid of the time when feeling would come back and she would know the pain of the amputation. She sat in the chair Sheba had always used.
“Have the peeps been in touch? Told you what they’re doing?”
A glint of the familiar Daisy showed. “What do you think?”
“Sorry. Stupid question. Is there anything I can do for you? Contact anyone? Make arrangements?”
I knew less than she did about what had to be done. Could only guess they would not let her bury Sheba until the file was closed. It was just the usual reaction of wanting something concrete to do, of hating to feel helpless. Daisy’s half-smile made me feel worse. It was too understanding.
“No. There’s nothing anyone can do. But I’m glad you came.” Meaningless politeness was unlike her. It left me unsure if I was talking to Daisy or Sheba. I was glad when the front cracked for a second. “I just wish it was over!”
“It is.”
She stared. “What are you talking about? It’s not over. It’ll never be over.”
The last words were spoken to herself. I went to her, knelt by her chair. Put a hand on hers. She stiffened. Didn’t want to be touched. Withdrew her hand from mine. I stayed where I was if only because there I didn’t have to look into her face.
“The killer’s found. Jon’s killer.”
A flicker of interest. “I thought it wasn’t him? Isn’t he still alive?”
I began to explain the ID copying. At first she was barely interested but by the time I reached the point where Milo had invited me back to his room she was really listening.
“You and Milo? Just what have you got yourself into, Humility?”
“A mess. But it’s sorted now. Even your sabotage.”
“That was Milo? Why would he want to do that?”
“He didn’t. The last thing he wanted was Family attention on the Port. He’d been using Midway as a source of supply just because it was such a minor holding. He was relying on no one in the Family giving the place any thought. When it started losing money, looking as though the development might fold and Morgan was taking a personal interest, he had to come down with him to see how far his own pet project was at risk. He didn’t know Morgan had already sent Byron in.”
“So there was no sabotage?”
“Not exactly. I said I wouldn’t tell you but I can’t see what harm it will do now. Em and Clim and the others were your problem.”
As I explained, the ghost of old laughter touched her face and she leaned back in the chair, letting a few of the muscles she had held so rigid begin to relax.
“So it’s all over now? Finished?”
She looked sleepy. I wanted to say yes. Leave it there.
“Not quite. There’s still Sheba.”
Her reaction was just a fraction slow. “Sheba? But surely, Milo…”
I shook my head. “It’s what the peeps will put in their files. It’ll go down as the official story. But it’s not true, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
It was as though we had to go through the ritual denial before she could let the truth be told. I didn’t mind. I still wanted to be wrong. I may even have wanted to go through it again for myself. Find the flaw in my own reasoning. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.
“At first I assumed the tekkie had killed her, like he had killed the others, and that something had stopped him before he could take the ID.”
“And then?”
“And then I remembered talking to him that afternoon. About the time she must have died. He told me you weren’t in the office.”
She ignored that. “What about Milo himself? Couldn’t he have done it?”
“When did you ever know a Family member go off on his own with no one even noticing his absence? Besides, Milo isn’t that sort of killer.”
He thought of his victims as donors whose chips were more alive than they were. When he’d seen the reality of my near-death in the river, he’d been horrified as well as excited. And he couldn’t take the sight of blood.
Daisy didn’t argue. Didn’t try to convince me my reasoning was wrong. I hadn’t expected her to but that hadn’t stopped me hoping.
“Will you tell me about it? Tell me what happened to make you do it? It was something to do with that last test she took, wasn’t it?”
For the first time since I had begun to speak, she met my eyes and I looked into hell. It took her three tries before she could shape the words.
“I went home early. It wasn’t enough to hear her news on the vid; I wanted to be with her. To celebrate.”
I heard the irony in her voice. Winced. Knowing wasn’t the same as hearing the words which made it true. She took a breath. Went on.
“I was waiting for her when she came in. I knew at once something wasn’t right. She insisted on making a meal, giving me a drink. It took me almost an hour to make her tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“That the child, our daughter, wasn’t perfect after all. There was a DNA flaw. She would never be more than a child, however long she lived. No! Don’t touch me, Humility, or I won’t be able to say it. Sheba told me that the … the baby … could still be ours, we would still love her, no one could make us terminate.”
In the Community they would have done. I tried to keep my voice as soft as possible.
“What did you say?”
“What could I say? I reminded her of the plans we’d made. Of how irresponsible it was to replicate faulty genes. How we might be able to try again. How impossible it was to let the pregnancy go on. How wrong.”
“She didn’t want to terminate?”
“She said she wouldn’t.” She stared at me with eyes so dry they looked scorched. “Did she think I wanted it to end like that? Did she think I didn’t care?”
“Of course not. She loved you.”
“And I loved her! I didn’t mean her any harm. I only meant … I don’t know what I meant. I remember shaking her because she wouldn’t listen. Then she fell…
“She hit her head?”
“I think so. I don’t think I hit her. I wouldn’t have hit her, Humility, would I? Not Sheba?”
Neither of us would ever know.
“Of course you wouldn’t.” I had her hands in mine now. I don’t think she noticed.
“But I’m still a killer. Like Milo. Like that tekkie.”
“No! Perhaps you killed, perhaps you did no more than cause an accident, but you’re not a killer. No one else is going to die because of what happened here. Sheba’s not hurting any more: you’re the only one who’s still suffering because of what you did.”
Her hands were cold and still in mine. “So what happens now?”
It was a child’s question in a voice I’d never heard her use. The same question I had asked Byron. I had no easy answer for her.
“Life goes on. You bury Sheba, you take a while away from work, then you come back to the Port and run our lives again and think of a way of getting even with Em and Clim and the others and another of stopping Tom Lee setting up shop in the new facility.”
I’d hoped for a flicker of anger. Nothing.
“I’m sorry. None of it seems real any more.”
“Of course it doesn’t. You should eat something. Sleep if you can.”
She let me prepare a meal and pushed it around her plate. She let me urge her into a bath and then into bed. I’d changed the bedding. Wished there was a spare bed so that she need not lie where Sheba had lain. Tried to make her come back with me to the Pig. Failed.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.”
Neither of us believed it. I waited there all night, unsleeping in the too-soft chair, and in the morning she insisted that I leave her. She said she had things to organise. Things she wanted to do on her own. So I left her. I went home and when I saw the cards on the table I was sick. Then I swept them on to the deck and cried.
And then I got drunk.