Safe House Part 11

"Look," Maj said. "At least give it some thought."

The Group of Seven were in session later that evening, sitting around in Kelly's present work s.p.a.ce, a bizarre multistory log cabin located in some mythical backwoods surrounded by mountains high enough to make Everest feel slightly inferior. Kelly changed work s.p.a.ce styles the way some people changed their underwear, so the Group made it a habit to meet regularly at his place, just to see what he was up to-mostly never the same thing twice.

The Great Hall of this particular cabin was scattered with animal hides which would have been extremely politically incorrect if they had been genuine. However, they weren't, and some of them were simply hypothetical. Mairead was presently curled up on one of the five huge sofas, absently petting one of the pelts, an amazing thing streaked in midnight blue and silver. "This is really pretty," she had commented when they first all came in. "They should make an animal to go with it...."

Now, though, she looked across to Maj, who was sitting on the sofa closest to the huge open fireplace. Maj had always been a sucker for fires, and she was presently gazing into this one, estimating idly that you could probably roast a whole cow in it, a.s.suming you had a block and tackle to swing the cow into the flames with.

"Look," Mairead said. "It's not that he's not a nice kid. He is. But I'm just not sure how committed he is to simming."

"Lots of people think it's simming they're interested in, when what they really want is to be a fighter jockey," Kelly said. "Nothing wrong with that. But it's not what we do. If we start diluting the purpose of the group, adding people who're going to pull it in different directions, it's going to start coming to pieces. I've seen that kind of thing too often before."

"Yeah," said Chel.

Shih Chin frowned. "Kel, it's easy to say that. But what about the other side of the argument? Do we want to shut ourselves off entirely from new blood, good people, just because we're not sure they fit some narrow little definition of our own purpose? Don't we have the room to grow a little?"

"Yeah, but-"

It had been going on in this vein for the better part of three-quarters of an hour now, and Maj felt like getting up, creating a can of spray paint, and graffiti'ing right across the biggest of the log walls YOU ARE ALL UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT YOU ARE ALL UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT. That might at least get their attention. However, it was considered bad form to trash others' work s.p.a.ces, no matter how sorely one was tempted-though there had been the time Chel had purposely built the Castle of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and everyone had lost their composure in unison- That was was unison, though, and the occasional outbreaks of unison were one of the things that made the Group of Seven worth sticking with. Maj sighed. unison, though, and the occasional outbreaks of unison were one of the things that made the Group of Seven worth sticking with. Maj sighed.

"Guys," she said.

There was a lull in the argument. This was not necessarily a good sign-there had been several so far, to no effect.

"Look," she said. "I'm not asking for an answer today. I'm not even sure I want want an answer today, whether everybody has one or not. I just felt the need to let you know that Niko really likes what we were doing. He thinks he might be good at it...and he'd like to 'try out.' He wants a chance to get to know you better. And possibly to fly with you on a regular basis, if possible. But otherwise, he just would really like to fly with us sometimes...for now." an answer today, whether everybody has one or not. I just felt the need to let you know that Niko really likes what we were doing. He thinks he might be good at it...and he'd like to 'try out.' He wants a chance to get to know you better. And possibly to fly with you on a regular basis, if possible. But otherwise, he just would really like to fly with us sometimes...for now."

"How long is 'now'?" Chel said.

That was where Maj had gotten stuck the last time, for she was unwilling to let them know or guess too much about what was going on. "His folks may be moving over here," she said. "They'll be coming to visit for a while-his dad, will, anyway-but I'm not sure how long it's going to last. I'm not even dead sure it's going to be permanent."

"Not that it matters when we're all virtual," Mairead said.

Yeah, but some of us are more virtual than others. Laurent had briefly shown her his small bare ported-over work s.p.a.ce-just blackness with text and pictures hanging in it-and she had been at pains to cover up her embarra.s.sment for him in a hurry, and to show him how to build it into an environment he could sit in and get comfortable with. He was a fast learner, but it was still going to take him time to get used to all the "special effects" now available to him, things that everyone else here had long taken for granted.

"What is likely to be affected is how often he can get in," Maj said, "after the immediate present. This is sort of a quiet time for him." She sighed. "Look, do I have to spell it out? He's lonely. You guys made him welcome."

Shih Chin made an aggrieved face. "Some of us called him ' of us called him 'Goulash.'"

"He didn't mind," Bob said.

"No," Maj said, "he didn't. He's a good-natured kid, for someone so young."

"There's that, too," Del said, a little dubiously. "I mean, it's nothing personal, we were all thirteen once-"

"Some of us may have done it twice," Mairead muttered into the fur she was still stroking, looking sideways at Sander.

There was some muted snickering about this-the juvenility of Sander's sense of humor was legendary in the Group.

Maj refused to be distracted. "In this case," she said, "I'm not sure how much chance he's had to be thirteen in the first place. He's had a bad time of it at home. I'm not going to get into details. There has been family stuff going on for him, and he's had to grow up fast. A lot of work, not much play, and not a whole lot of smart people who're also nice to play with."

"'Play?'" Sander said, a little archly.

"'When I became a man,'" said Bob suddenly, in a quoting tone of voice, "I put aside the concerns of a child, including the fear of looking childish, and the desire to seem very grown up.'"

Everyone looked at him. "Well," he said, only a little defensively, "we're old enough to cut each other some slack when we act underage, aren't we?" He looked at Sander. "We can surely make a little allowance for someone who's a little older older than his age." He looked at Maj. "Does he have any previous simming experience at all?" than his age." He looked at Maj. "Does he have any previous simming experience at all?"

"You're not going to believe this," Maj said, "but he had never even been been in a sim before last night." in a sim before last night."

"G.o.d," said Shih Chin, in complete astonishment. "Talk about deprivation."

"It's not like they don't have the Net over there, Maj," Kelly said. "What was the problem? Financial or something?"

"I think maybe so," she said. "Look, guys, please, there's no need for any 'final' decisions. But he'd like to fly with us a couple of times, get the feel for what we're doing. If it becomes obvious that he really is is just a rocket jockey, I'll take him aside and show him where better to practice the art. But, meantime..." just a rocket jockey, I'll take him aside and show him where better to practice the art. But, meantime..."

There was some silence. "When are we scheduled up next?" Bob said.

"You're the squadron leader. You don't have the schedule?"

"Schedule," Kelly said to his work s.p.a.ce. With a flourish of trumpets, there appeared in midair before them a meter-long parchment scroll supported at each end by a small flying cherub. The parchment unrolled, showing a Day-Timer page made large.

Mairead gave this apparition a look. "Very rococo," she said. "Obviously you're unconcerned that Della Robbia might sue." rococo," she said. "Obviously you're unconcerned that Della Robbia might sue."

"Wednesday," Kelly said.

"That's the old schedule. I can't do Wednesday," Bob said. "I have jazz cla.s.s that night."

"Tuesday?"

"Cripes, that's tomorrow already," Sander said.

"No good for me," Mairead said. "My turn to cook at home." She looked at Sander. "And by the way, what about those chiles you were going to get for me?"

"Uh, I forgot. Tuesday's out for me, though."

"I can do Tuesday," Bob said.

"Me, too," Kelly said. "Who else can't do Tuesday?"

Maj searched her mind. "I'm okay, I think."

"I'm in," Del said.

"Me, too," Robin said. "I have a half day. What time?"

Time zones...Maj thought. "Six o'clock Eastern?"

"I think I'm going to have to pa.s.s for me," Mairead said. "I have a ton of homework that night, and then a six A.M. A.M. bus the next morning. Sorry. I'll come in the next time." bus the next morning. Sorry. I'll come in the next time."

They played the "schedule game" for a few minutes more. Finally Maj agreed to meet Del and Robin and Bob on Tuesday night at seven. "We can show him some of the underpinnings of what we're doing," she said. "See if he catches fire at the idea of building one of these from scratch rather than just playing in someone else's sim."

"Fair enough," Bob said. "We'll report off to the rest of the Group. If this doesn't work out, though, Maj...even if he is is your cousin or whatever...." your cousin or whatever...."

"I'll let him down gently," she said. "I'm not going to ride you guys about this. I appreciate what you're doing, anyway."

"Okay," Bob said. "Kelly, for cripes' sake will you get those things out of there? They're creating a draft." He waved one hand at the cherubs.

"Begone, bugs," Kelly said. They and the "parchment" vanished.

"Okay," Bob said. "Down to work."

In the air in the midst of them appeared the wireframe model of the Arbalest fighter. It rotated in three axes, its usual "presentation" spin, and then fleshed itself over in black mirror alloy and settled in "plan view," horizontal to them. "Right," Bob said. "I think we can get rid of any worries about the camber of the wings, because they worked just fine. Now, here's what we might look at next...."

Maj breathed out a sigh of relief and leaned in to see what Bob was going to propose. One less thing to worry about One less thing to worry about, she thought. We'll see how Tuesday goes.... We'll see how Tuesday goes....

In the next room, or six thousand miles away, depending on how one looked at it, Laurent stood in the apartment he shared with his father, looking around him.

It was not really such a bad place. A work s.p.a.ce A work s.p.a.ce, he thought. He was going to have to learn the terms that they used here. Maj had been able to take a few minutes to show him how to manipulate the bare s.p.a.ce into which his own files had been moved.

It was still all so strange.... He was unused to experiencing virtual life as anything but dry text, flat or stereo images, everything a little remote and forbidding, concepts and pictures appearing in darkness and disappearing into it again...with always the hint that somewhere, out in that darkness, someone was listening to you, waiting for you to say something wrong.

It had been as unlike the waiting, welcoming darkness of the Cl.u.s.ter Rangers Cl.u.s.ter Rangers universe as anything could have been. universe as anything could have been. That That, Laurent thought, is the way virtuality always should have been. Friendly. Oh, naturally there will always be things that are scary-n.o.body wants to be protected all the time. But there's more than enough of that in the real world. Why does the virtual world have to be the same way...hard and chilly and always so determined and serious? Why won't the government at home let people have at least this kind of thing...this room to let their imaginations run free a little? is the way virtuality always should have been. Friendly. Oh, naturally there will always be things that are scary-n.o.body wants to be protected all the time. But there's more than enough of that in the real world. Why does the virtual world have to be the same way...hard and chilly and always so determined and serious? Why won't the government at home let people have at least this kind of thing...this room to let their imaginations run free a little?

Of course, that might be the reason, right there. Free Free. Imaginations, stimulated, in constant use, could be dangerous things. The The most most dangerous thing dangerous thing, he remembered his father saying. Every good thing there is started as someone's dream. So did nearly every bad thing that man has made-as a dream that went wrong, or one that was purposely twisted into a nightmare from the beginning. None of them could happen without imagination. It is the thing that most frightens people, after enthusiasm. Against the two of them together, there is no defense.... Every good thing there is started as someone's dream. So did nearly every bad thing that man has made-as a dream that went wrong, or one that was purposely twisted into a nightmare from the beginning. None of them could happen without imagination. It is the thing that most frightens people, after enthusiasm. Against the two of them together, there is no defense....

Except, Laurent thought, when whatever is chasing "imagination" and "enthusiasm" down the street has a gun, and they do not... when whatever is chasing "imagination" and "enthusiasm" down the street has a gun, and they do not...

He sighed and wandered off to the window, looking down onto the little bare courtyard that lay in back of their house. A hedge bordered it, and there were sidewalks on the other side of the hedge, and to either side were concrete multistory apartment buildings exactly like their own. Off in the distance straight ahead was a line of trees, and far beyond that a shadowy line against the sky, almost the same color as the sky in this weather-the hills of the north. And over those hills...the rest of the world, the world he had believed he would never see.

But now all that was changed. This was the world he had given up, the world he would-strangely-now give anything to be standing in again. He would turn around and see his father- Laurent turned around...but the room was empty. Cupboards, the dining room table, the little kitchenette where the two of them made their meals, the doors leading to each of the two bedrooms, everything very white and plain and neat-there it all was. But his father was not there. On the kitchen table was a note, turned facedown.

Laurent let out a long breath and went over to the table, stared down at the note. Before Maj went to take care of her own business, she had shown him a little about how to bend his mind against this s.p.a.ce, ordering it to manifest visual and tangible links which would hook into other resources on the Net and also make the place look less bare. The standard virtual work s.p.a.ce was endlessly malleable, and would give him, in illusion anyway, anything he wanted.

Laurent pulled out one of the chairs and sat on it, looking around at the cool afternoon light that was filling the apartment. Everything was very quiet. Properly, he knew that he should instruct the program to fill in some background noise, but he was in no hurry about that.

Maj, Laurent thought. She had been very kind to him...a lot kinder than she needed to be. The whole Green family had-Mr. Green, his father's friend, and the m.u.f.fin, who climbed up in Laurent's lap and looked around her to make sure no one was within earshot, and whispered very conspiratorially, "Are you sure sure you aren't my brother?" They you aren't my brother?" They felt felt like family-it was almost as if the cover story was trying to come true. like family-it was almost as if the cover story was trying to come true.

But he was still a little shy with Maj's mother. It was not that she reminded him specifically of his own mother, gone six years now. Those memories were faint already, getting fainter all the time-the memory of a hand touching his shoulder, the echo of a voice, laughing. He was already finding it hard to remember his mother's face, and this troubled him. It felt obscurely like some kind of disloyalty. But you couldn't make your mind remember what it refused to. Sometimes it just let go of things, he thought, because they hurt too much. He shied away from Maj's mother a little, not because she was unkind, but because if he too freely accepted the kindness, he might be further tempted to forget the touch, the echo, completely...and he didn't dare. Besides, there was always the fear lingering at the edge of things, not to get too involved, not to commit yourself...because just when you're getting used to it, when you think things might change, it can all be taken away from you again, leaving you emptier than you were to start with.

Laurent sighed, looked toward the closed front door, which led into Maj's work s.p.a.ce. She was elsewhere, he knew. He thought he would invite her in when she was free. But then the idea of what she might think when she looked in here, after being so used to the sumptuous s.p.a.ces she routinely moved through, began to chill him a little. She would be polite about it. But he knew she would be thinking how poor it all looked, how barren. She would know it wasn't his fault...but she would still think think that. And he had been embarra.s.sed enough lately. that. And he had been embarra.s.sed enough lately.

No, let it wait awhile, let him find time to do some more work. There was likely to be too much time to work anyway, for a while, until they found his father.

If they found his father... they found his father...

He turned around, then, and made the image. The tall man in the worn dark coat.... Popi never had a coat that wasn't a little too short for him in the sleeves. He just had unusually long arms and wrists and hands, and they never failed to hang out of the State coats, which were made to averages and not for individuals. Tall and blond, a little hawkish looking, the high cheekbones and the long nose reinforcing the look-but the gla.s.ses always adding that last touch of owl, turning the hawk-expression friendly and quizzical. There he was-his father. Laurent turned.

The figure standing there was incomplete-it had no face.

I'm forgetting already, Laurent thought, in rising panie. It's only been a couple of days...! It's only been a couple of days...! "I won't! I "I won't! I won't won't forget!" he shouted. " forget!" he shouted. "Go away!"

When he looked again, the figure was gone.

He stood there, breathing hard, feeling silly for having overreacted. Finally Laurent let out a long breath, a sigh, and reached down to the table, to the note-turned it over.

The other side was blank.

He let it fall.

Laurent got up, then, and turned to the shelf by the window, where he had placed one thing which did not exist in the real apartment. It was a model of an Arbalest fighter-an icon leading to Maj's fighter in her Cl.u.s.ter Rangers Cl.u.s.ter Rangers account. She had, she said, put the "training wheels" on it for him, so that he could fly it with minimum experience, inside her own simming s.p.a.ce. account. She had, she said, put the "training wheels" on it for him, so that he could fly it with minimum experience, inside her own simming s.p.a.ce.

Laurent decided not to wait. She'll understand She'll understand, he thought, and went over to pick up the model of the fighter. I really need a break, something to take my mind off... I really need a break, something to take my mind off...

Say it. Off the fear Off the fear. That your father will never come back, never get out. That they have him in some dark place, and they're doing to him what they did to Piedern's father two years ago, when they caught him handling foreign publications. But what they do this time will be worse, much worse, because your father was one of the special ones...and he turned on them. They never forgive that. Never.

Laurent took in a long breath, let it go. Took another breath.

All right, he thought. Let's get a grip, here. Let's go somewhere that the dark is friendly, just for a little while. I won't stay long. I promised I wouldn't overdo it-and Mrs. Green will probably have dinner ready in a little while...it would be rude to be late Let's get a grip, here. Let's go somewhere that the dark is friendly, just for a little while. I won't stay long. I promised I wouldn't overdo it-and Mrs. Green will probably have dinner ready in a little while...it would be rude to be late.

He put the model of the Arbalest down on the shelf again and stood there touching it. "Guest ingress," he said.

Laurent vanished, leaving the model there by itself, the one black thing in the white room.

7.

Elsewhere, another room was very small and dark. It had been a coal bin, once, in the cellar of this house, in a time when people still used coal for heating in the cities; its walls were all black with soot, and a few forgotten lumps of coal still lay around on the rammed dirt of the floor. The coal cellar had just one way to the outside, a pair of metal doors at a forty-five degree angle to the stucco of the building. The doors' hinges were long since rusted shut, as was the padlock through the old hasp, connecting them. They had been painted over, for good measure, some time in the last decade, with (in a gesture of optimism) a rustproofing paint. Plainly, from its external appearance, no one could possibly be in here...which made it an excellent place to hide.

Armin Darenko sat as comfortably as he could, leaning against the sooty wall, concentrating on the tiny line of light that came to him through those old doors, from a not-quite-painted-over crack on the right-hand side of one of them. He had come in a couple of days ago, in the dead of night, through the tunnel in the middle of the floor. His clean clothes were down in that tunnel, now, so as not to become smirched with soot that would draw attention to him when it was time to leave. He knew that time would come in the next few days-his friends were working for him, out there. But that did not stop him from being very afraid, as he sat here, and his mind ran in frightened circles like a rat in a particularly inhumane Skinner box, always looking for the cheese and never finding it, and being shocked again and again by the same fear.

He sighed, took a deep breath, and tried, for the thousandth time, to break the cycle. Laurent was safe. Of that much he was sure. Laurent was in Alexandria, with the Greens, and was almost certainly coping splendidly. His son had all his mother's old toughness, that ability to deal with what was happening around her and not be more trouble to others than necessary. And he was carrying the silent little helpers which would keep him healthy, protect him by brute force from pa.s.sing infections against which he might not have been inoculated, keep his system chemistry in kilter, and otherwise make themselves useful. Very useful indeed they would be, some day, when they were in the right hands and turned loose to help a suffering world. For the moment, though, Laurent was their unwitting custodian, and in a safe place...so the two things about which Armin Darenko had been more concerned than about anything else in the world were now where he did not need to worry about them. Now Armin was free to concentrate on getting himself out of here.

Getting in had been easy enough, for a man who for a long, long time had been idly considering that there might come a day the events of which called for a sudden departure. Escapes planned at the last moment rarely do well, he knew. So quietly Armin had begun, about twenty years ago, keeping his ears open for information which might come in handy eventually. And sure enough, it came. When the governments started changing over with more than the usual speed, rumors started turning up here and there about tunnels under the city. Some of them were just that, rumors-but occasionally they were true. This particular network of tunnels, which apparently went right back to the bad old Ceaucescu days, was one of the true ones. They did not lead anywhere really useful-just from cellar to cellar of some of the houses in this part of town-but that fact in itself made them useful, since tunnels which actually led directly to escape would have been found long since and filled in, or blown up. Right now a simple place to hide was all that Armin could want in the world.

He had enough food and water to keep him going for a couple of days yet, and a cache under a rock in the nearby park where he could, with the greatest caution and in the dark of night, slip out and get more, if he needed it. He was intent on not going out if he could avoid it, though-not until he heard, on the tiny radio he was carrying, the coded news from the people who had agreed to help get him out. Armin had risked enough going out to the lakes, three days ago, to leave the false trail that he much hoped would concentrate the authorities' search in that direction. It was too much to hope that they would keep looking there for long, after they found no sign of him in the s.p.a.ce of a couple or a few days. They were not stupid people. But even a couple of days' distraction would allow the friends who were helping him here to complete their own plans. With luck, in a couple of days, maybe less, he would go to join Laurent.

And then the world would have to be started all over again, for both of them. He knew the medical community in the States would welcome him. So would others...and this time he would have to be more careful than he had been here. It was not as if there were not cruel, venal, and evil people in the United States, just as well as here; people who would see, in the delicate and intelligent little machines he had created, a weapon instead of a tool. He would have to work with Martin, and with Martin's friends at Net Force and elsewhere in the intelligence and scientific communities, to find ways to control his creations so that they could not be modified for deadly purposes.