Chapter 17

 

 

 

Jared thought they should start the week with a little recreation. He saw Cara and Ann and Nelson off on Monday morning, had a second cup of coffee, discussed his plan with Saizy, put on his running shoes, and walked up to the Hardesty house, passing Sandy going the other way. She was dressed in running shoes, too, evidently planning another long walk. He hoped that didn't mean her head was still bothering her; her headache had cut short her visit with her family yesterday. He would have asked, but she was on the other side of the street, walking past the Bahtan house; he settled for a wave and she waved back.

Patterson and Tim were up, drinking coffee and passing noters back and forth over the dining room table. And Denise and Faashi were up, sitting on the floor by the coffee table, watching
Grace as she paced uneasily around the perimeter of her enclosure. "So you think there's a problem?" said Denise, chewing on the end of her stylus, and Grace turned her head on her long lizard neck to look behind her and to both sides.

Something, something, she said, and continued to pace.

Jared sat down beside Faashi, where he could look into the enclosure. "What something?" he asked Grace.

Something, she said, which was not much of a help.

"She says she can't get it clear," Denise explained over the stylus. "Something is wrong, but she can't tell us what."

"She senses something," said Faashi, "from those others of her kind, but she is not clear on what. I do not know if they block her on purpose, or if it is only distance. They are a great distance from here." He pointed over his shoulder, in a general northerly direction.

Movement, said Grace, who was continuing to move herself, as if to keep ahead of whatever menace she was sensing. They move.

"Toward us?" asked Jared. "The University? The school?" She might not recognize those concepts, but he brought Cara and Gina clearly into the forefront of his mind and she recognized them.

Always danger, always to them, she said. Your young ones. Now? Do not know. Something, do not know when. Do not know what.

Well, if it wasn't clear, perhaps it wasn't urgent, not yet, although Jared made a mental note to drive past the University, possibly even with a detour around Morris Hall, and a circuit of Multicultural wouldn't hurt anything, either. "Call me if she gets anything more definite," he told Phyllis, who was lingering by the dining room door, and he collected Denise and Faashi, who looked delighted to be included, and met Saizy out by her car, put an arm around her and guided her into the Seabreeze instead.

"Did you have a good visit with Cousin George?" Jared asked Denise, as he backed the Seabreeze into the street, and she smiled and nodded.

"Yes, it was good to see him and Chuck, and Faashi enjoyed them too," she said, and Faashi flipped his tail and nodded confirmation. "It worked. It really worked. So that was good. Mom's been on the phone," she added, looking down at her noter, "to everyone she ever knew. In Miramani, and here in Bridgeton. A few people have called me. Most of them have been nice." About half of them, Jared realized, picking it up with no great effort, had been polite. The rest had not.

"Don't answer your phone," he told her. "It doesn't matter what other people think."

They stopped first at Lt. Price's 43^rd Street apartment, although he already knew what they would find there. The place was empty. All the screens, the keyboards, the boxes of data chips, the coffee maker and the disposable dishes were gone. The table and the two straight-backed chairs were gone, and the readers and the mattress in the bedroom, and the shampoo and soap and the incongruous pink bathrobe in the bathroom. Jared opened the closet and saw that the safe was gone too, leaving a small scrape on the side of the closet door. The cleaner wandered about on low power, finding nothing much to do, not that Lt. Price had overburdened it when she lived here.

Jared led the way back to the parking lot.

Saizy insisted on a detour; there was, she said, a very nice florist on 28^th Avenue. She selected a budding rose, its color nearly matching Lt. Price's bathrobe, in a sturdy glass vase, and carried it with her as they drove to the address on 44^th Street.

This was an old house, broken up into apartments. It had parking in back, occupied only by a broken-down load hauler, much older than Faashi's, and an elderly brown car trimmed with rust. Lt. Price was on the third floor. "Issio found this address?" said Saizy as they got into the lift. "Very clever of him."

"She had it on her screen," explained Jared. "The original ad and the negotiations and everything, right where we could read it."

"Is she really trained for adversaries?" asked Denise. "Because she doesn't seem all that smart about it. If we could find out that easily, couldn't the adversaries, if they wanted?"

"What self-respecting adversary would want?" inquired Saizy.

They arrived in the upstairs hall. Lt. Price's apartment was wedged between two bigger ones; it looked very small. It didn't have a scope by the door, only a door chime, which Jared rang twice before allowing Faashi to try his breaking and entering skills, using Willis' tool as he had on 43^rd Street.

There was just room inside for the mattress-bed, one side tight against the wall, and the table with the two chairs, set against the minuscule food keeper. There was less cabinet space to be left empty. She had jammed her safe into the very small closet to the side of the room, and hung her pink bathrobe in the tiny bathroom, which had a shower and a tub so small that Jared thought it would do only for someone the size of Shamri.

"How did she get everything in here?" marveled Denise.

Saizy looked in the sink, which had nothing in it, and the chute under the sink, just in case there hadn't been enough garbage to trigger it to empty, but there was nothing there either. "No samples today," she said regretfully, and then she put the rose bud in its vase in the center of the table, with two screens, a keyboard, two boxes of data chips, and a screen in a case surrounding it. "Should I write a note also?" she pondered. "'Congratulations on your new home,' perhaps?"

"And sign it with love," said Denise.

The rusty brown car was gone from the lot by the time they got downstairs, but a woman about Denise's age was getting a bag out of the back seat of a pink runabout with white daisies painted on the doors. She looked at Denise with recognition. "Hi, Pam," said Denise.

Pam looked at Denise, ran an eye over Faashi, beside her, looked back at Denise. "Yes, how are you," she said in glacial tones, and brushed past them on her way into the apartment house.

"Bitch," said Saizy, as Pam opened the door, and the girl must have heard her, but she didn't turn around. Denise fumbled for Faashi's hand and Saizy, turning, put her arm around Denise's shoulders. "Ignorant bitch," she told Denise, in the tone of an eminent biologist classifying some lower life form passing under her microscope.

They left the parking lot.

Jared did drive by Morris Hall; it was solid and sturdy and showed no sign of invasion by Its, although there was a knot of students out on the lawn complaining to campus security about a reckless driver who had frightened them a few minutes ago. There was no sign of a reckless driver now. Jared circled past Multicultural, observing Issio's car parked in the middle of the lot by a security eye, as safe as he could be under the circumstances.

Jared would be glad when the school year ended.

By the time they got back to the Hardesty house, Grace was dabbling her little lizard feet in the miniature pool, looking much more relaxed. No more something, she said, something maybe later, not now.

"Did they change their plans?" asked Saizy.

Plans later, had to stop now, problem, said Grace. I try to see before later.

"Thank you, Grace," said Jared, "for trying to warn us."

Friend, she said, giving him her odd little sharp-toothed smile. Grace friend. Whether she meant that he was a friend to Grace, or Grace was a friend to him, Jared wasn't sure, but he accepted it either way. He smiled back.

 

Monday afternoon really was warm, full of sunshine, green grass; the trees opened leaves so small they looked like little green flowers. Jared brought a couple of noters upstairs from Ann's basement and settled at the picnic table, superimposing runes, comparing crack by crack, line by line, just as if they hadn't done this exact exercise last fall, and all the time his mind probed at Grace and her agitation this morning. She seemed calmer now, but watchful, as if the menace had only retreated, not retired. His mind moved relentlessly toward Cara and Gina. He couldn't help it. Your young ones, Grace said; Gina, and Cara, and the baby.

Shamri was a young one also, but she was with her mother, powerful in her own right, and her grandmother, and anyway Sofi's car was just now turning down the street heading for their car port. They had been gone all afternoon shopping, Sofi said, for what was needed for the wedding shower – and, she reminded him, other showers and celebrations were planned, and he would be wise to keep his mouth very tightly closed about such matters. He smiled and avoided promises, having been cornered some time ago by his wife and forced, under duress, to make certain commitments.

Sofi pulled into her car port and got out and opened the back door of the car to release Shamri from the restraint of the baby seat. "Will you watch her for a moment?" she called to Jared. "She is very bored with shopping; I wish to let her loose while we unload the car."

"Glad to," said Jared, willingly pushing his noters aside, and Sofi lifted Shamri and Reddy out onto the lawn. The instant she hit the grass she was off on hands and knees across the lawn toward the picnic table, towing Reddy by one ear. Reddy was beginning to look a little grubby, while Goldie, awaiting the birth of his owner, was still in pristine condition, but a few months would take care of that, of course.

"Pretty baby," he said and put out his hand for her.

Shopping shopping shopping, she said. No fun. No fun.

"I thought you would like to look at all the things in the stores," said Jared.

Too much things. Too long. Want to go, go, go, said Shamri, giving him a demonstration of going; she made it to the picnic table and sat up. She reached for his hand and pulled hard and got herself up on her feet. She wobbled, hung on hard, and stood.

"Hey, very good work, you made it," Jared said; this was still a new skill. He wanted to pick her up, but he restrained himself; he knew she wanted to stand more than she wanted to cuddle.

Shamri chewed her thumb for a moment, thinking about it, trying, Jared saw, to devise a way to improve her balance. She knew the adults around her could stand up, could walk and run and do all sorts of lovely fun things, and she could study their minds to see how they were doing it, but most of them stood and sat without thinking about the mechanics involved. Habit, Jared reflected, thinking of Grace on the ceiling of her enclosure, and the story of the centipede.

Rocky, passing, paused to sniff Shamri in a friendly way; Reddy bopped him on the nose. Sandy, hands plunged deep into the pockets of her open jacket, walked past, heading for the Hardesty house. She waved at him and smiled at Shamri but she didn't stop. He wondered if her weekend with Lewis and the boys had been less than perfect. Lewis disapproved. He wasn't going to come here to the neighborhood, where he would have to interact with his sister-in-law and her bridegroom, and he wasn't going to bring the boys around, either; this was the impression Phyllis and Lillian had got.

Zarei and Sofi came back for a second load of bags and packages, not, Jared thought, a good sign. The shower could easily get out of hand, just as his and Cara's wedding reception had. They hauled the bags into Sofi's house, and Shamri chewed her thumb and watched a bird fly from the roof of Jared's house to the tree outside the front door of the Bahtan house. Fly, she said. Fun, fun.

"Yes, it would be fun," agreed Jared. "When you're bigger, we can take you up in a flyer, so you can see what it's like."

No bigger, said Shamri, who did not believe in waiting. Big now!

Sandy opened the door to the Hardesty house. A pair of birds flew from the Bahtan house to Ann's house with a flapping of wings, and then Jared realized that he was hearing other wings, very big wings, not the shining scaled wings of the birds across the street, but the great long wide bat wings just over his head. He looked up, startled, to see Leroy descending over the picnic table, reaching for Shamri, who lifted her arms; he picked her up and sailed into the sky, his bat wings beating and the antigrav units humming.

"Oh, hell!" exclaimed Jared, springing to his feet, but it was too late; Leroy was far beyond his reach now. He was, in fact, rising above the Hardesty porch roof and Sandy, with a little shriek, was running back down the steps into the street. Spotting her, Shamri waved happily.

"Leroy! Down! Down!" Jared shouted, and Rocky shot around Mimi and Clyde's house and galloped down the street, barking joyously, his tail wagging. Leroy made a little dip, apparently in response to Jared's order, but then he rose again, and Sofi and Zarei tore across Sofi's porch and over the lawn and into the street.

"Shamri! Shamri!" cried Sofi. "Seventeen devils, return this instant, Shamri!"

Fun, fun! said Shamri, and she and Leroy sailed over the Hardesty roof and headed off toward the woods.

"Shamri!" Jared yelled, and broke into a run. Behind him a car squealed to a stop and he heard Willis uttering a curse or two; the car door slammed and he assumed the footsteps thudding behind him belonged to Willis in his work shoes. He didn't look; he was concentrating on catching up with Sofi and Zarei, who were already around the side of the Hardesty house.

Phyllis and Lillian came out of the back door; Lillian, still somewhat hampered by the knee damaged last summer, didn't join the race but Phyllis did, keeping up with Willis. Jared put on a burst of speed and came up just behind Sofi. Sofi had worked her way back to competition strength in ma/hifez, where she had been on the green level for some time; she was in excellent shape, and she had enough breath to curse as she pursued her baby. Jared didn't. But he kept up with Sofi anyway, crashing down the woodland paths the children had made, jumping the little creek, vaulting fallen branches, keeping Leroy in sight as they ran.

"Leroy!" panted Willis, behind them. "Leroy, down! Down!"

Fun, fun! retorted Shamri, and Leroy kept going.

Sandy, breathing hard, passed Willis. "Sofi! Stop! Don't chase them!" she gasped. "I have three sons! Don't chase them!"

Jared grasped the point. "She's right, Sofi, don't chase them!" he shouted, and put on a burst of speed to catch Sofi. Sofi had her tail bushed to its fullest extent and she was running fast enough to outstrip Rocky, but Jared managed to seize the hem of her jacket and slow her enough to get an arm around her waist, pulling her off the ground as he applied the brakes.

"Are you crazy?" she demanded, all her claws out, eyes shooting green fire.

"If you chase them, they'll just go faster," said Jared. "If you stop chasing them, they'll probably come right back."

"It always works that way," said Sandy, trying to catch her breath. They had run almost all the way through the woods; before them was a grassy slope of lawn leading to the street and the housing development beyond. Jared hoped that all the residents were occupied with affairs on the ground, that none of them would look up to see a bat-winged gargoyle carrying a little white-gold baby just above them.

"It's like a game when you chase them," said Sandy, and Sofi looked at her, and at Jared, and at Leroy and Shamri, who were flying over the housing development at a fairly good altitude. They might be mistaken for an unusually large eagle, Jared thought.

"What if he drops her?" cried Zarei.

"He won't drop her," said Willis, "but how come he picked her up in the first place?"

"She called him," said Jared. "Just like she called Rocky last winter. Scared your mother to death," he told Sandy, who managed a smile. "Rocky holding this little baby in his jaws."

"Oh, yes," said Sofi. "Shamri called him, and brought him down, and now she tells him where to fly. She started the dishwasher yesterday, all by herself. Also she made the laundry work backwards. She thought it was funny."

"She makes them run with her mind?" said Willis.

"The D'ubians," said Jared, "say she melds with the machines. They don't seem to find it all that surprising." They said that Willis did it too, he recalled, but this wasn't the time to go into that.

"I find it undesirable," said Sofi. "How can I explain to her the risks?"

"Well, as long as she knows how to control Leroy," said Sandy, "I don't think there are all that many risks. He won't drop her, and when she's tired of her game she'll have him bring her back."

"So I should allow my infant daughter to fly around with a mechanical gargoyle?" said Sofi.

"Can you stop her?" asked Phyllis, on a practical note, and Sofi snarled at all of them in general and turned back to watch Leroy and Shamri, swift-moving black dots in the sky, heading for a look at the school where Daddy went every day, and Sister.

"She melds her mind with the machines," said Sandy in a musing tone. The watcher in her head was getting an eyeful, Jared thought. He wondered what it was thinking about the situation. He would have reached for her, tried to find out, but she thrust her hands back into her jacket pockets and turned toward home again, setting the example for Sofi. Willis hesitated, watching the fliers, but Sofi, abruptly coming to a decision, muttered something about flaming demons dripping with slime and stomped after Sandy, Zarei scurrying after with many glances over her shoulder to see if Leroy might be coming back. He would, Jared thought, but it wasn't going to happen right away. Shamri was having a grand time.

"Incredible," said Willis, and he and Jared turned back also, with Phyllis.

"And to think," said Phyllis, beaming at Jared, "Your son will be doing the same thing in just a few months. Probably, with Shamri to show him how, he'll do these things even earlier than she does. Did you say Cara was going to go back to work next fall?"

"I don't think she's made up her mind. But I know she's thinking seriously about staying home for the first year. Although," he added, "I could take care of him during the day; we wouldn't have to try to explain him to a babysitter."

"Any sensible babysitter would head for the hills," agreed Phyllis, "but remember, Mimi and Lillian and I aren't very sensible. If you need a sitter, don't go outside the neighborhood for one. I've told Sofi this too. If she wants to go back to work next fall, we would be thrilled to take care of Shamri."

"And between you and Rocky and Leroy," said Jared, "what could possibly go wrong?"