SIXTEEN

 

 

FRANÇOIS-XAVIER LABOURIÈRE’S OFFICE wasn’t far from the hall where l’Assemblée met. It looked out onto the greenhouse layer outside the Baie-Comeau, so it seemed to be bursting with light and green. Marthe had been here once or twice with other delegates during negotiations. This time she was alone. So was Labourière. She wasn’t in the habit of seeing the présidente’sChief-of-Staff, so it seemed the présidente was annoyed enough to have her right hand deal with Marthe. She slid the door shut and sat in one of the plastic chairs in front of his small desk.

“Water?” he asked, unscrewing a dark jar over two cups.

She shrugged. He poured. Labourière was about fifty, lean, careful with his words and gestures, except for smoothing back his receding hair when he was nervous. He wasn’t smoothing now. He smiled and toasted silently. She took her cup and drank. The sulfur was so faint that the water tasted almost pure.

“We probably should have given you more notice of the decision around the Causapscal-des-Vents,” he said. “The math is a bit inescapable and we only got the final projections the day before.”

“I would like to see those projections,” Marthe said. “I’m surprised Gaschel didn’t present them.”

“I’ll send them your way.” He leaned back and drank again. “I hope some of the shock is wearing off.”

“Pa doesn’t know. We’re not in comms range yet. So there’s still shock to come.”

“Let us know how we can help you through this process.”

“I’m not going through a process,” she said. “I’m protecting my home from somebody’s bad decision.”

“I’ve heard some of the noise you’ve been making. Some of it is understandable. Some of it is needlessly making people nervous without changing anything. In the end the Causapscal-des-Vents served over twenty-nine years, nine more than it was rated for, and now has to be used to keep newer habitats running.”

“The life expectancies of habitats are guesses by engineers in Montréal. How long did they give the Matapédia before it sank? Pointe-à-la-Croix is three years older than the Causapscal and it’s not being disassembled.”

“Pointe-à-la-Croix has six people on it and is running a hydroponics surplus,” Labourière said calmly.

“Our productivity is down because you’ve been starving us for parts. And although there are two of us, my brother Pascal just turned sixteen and he’s likely to come up from forty-eighth. And Émile is getting serious with some girl and is probably getting married,” she lied.

“If your little brother wants to come up, we’ll find him a good bunk. And if your older brother gets married, we’ll find him a couples’ spot. When those things happen. Right now we’ll make sure you and Émile get good places to stay.”

Labourière was calm. Marthe was good at showing calm when her blood was up. She wanted to hit something—him, the présidente. But family came first, and that almost always meant sacrifices. They sacrificed for Jean-Eudes. She could sacrifice by pretending to be calm. She sipped her water.

“I’ve seen the bunk wait lists,” Marthe said. “Me and Émile would get separated and one of us would get stuck on Pointe Penouille.”

“You won’t end up on Penouille.”

“String-pulling?”

Labourière reached for the water jar, thought better of it, then smoothed back his straight, graying hair.

“You’re valuable, Marthe. I could probably get you and Émile spots on the Forillon.”

Her, valuable? She almost laughed in his face.

Forillon was supposed to be a habitat that had aged well, a second-generation dirigible that housed about twenty people. It wasn’t part of the main flotilla; it floated seven thousand kilometers westward along the top of the clouds. Cushy spot.

“It’s not a sure thing that the Causapscal-des-Vents is to be scrapped. I think I’ll wait and see about bunking.”

“I can put you and your brother into the Forillon now,” he said. “But the wait list is the wait list. I can’t keep the spots open while you try to delay things.”

“As soon as we come into comms range of the Causapscal-des-Profondeurs, I’ll tell Pa. I’ll probably have to go down for a few days to see how he wants to handle this.”

“I’d rather deal with you than your father.”

She did laugh this time. Her father would be harder to deal with, but she could get them a better deal than he could. The thought didn’t make her feel particularly loyal.

“I bet. He’ll let me know what he thinks and I’ll come back and tell you. In the meantime, I’m waiting for the committee schedule to open up. If you want things to go faster, get me scheduled at a committee meeting.”

They argued a bit, but in the end, he couldn’t deny her a chance to have this discussed in committee. She finished her water and left.