Finity's End - a Union-Alliance Novel (6 page)

And that would create safe routes for new, tariff-paying merchanters, while employing the shipyards of Pell, which would be the key argument to move the industrial interests of Pell to agree to lower the tariffs and dock charges that would increase merchanter profit and sweeten the deal…

It all fell miraculously in line, and her skin felt the fever-chill of almost miracles. She'd invited James Robert and his fellow captains here to talk urgently about the future. They'd come here equally eager to talk and to deal, at this hinge-point of change in the universe,

And because she was here to put forward her requirements, she had everything. Everything, because it was sane and it was right to build more ships, and it
was
in everyone's best interests.

Even Earth's, in the long run, because it was good for the peace. They could have their prosperity —if James Robert was right. They could gain everything.

Then James Robert said:

"There's one sticking-point. The
old
problem. The lawsuit,"

She hadn't utterly forgotten. She'd even been prepared to have it float to the surface early in the dinner—but not now, not on the edge of agreement. It was Damon's department, Legal Affairs. And her stomach was moderately in a knot."Francesca's case."

"Third time," James Robert said moderately, "third time we've tried to settle the matter with Pell. We sue, you counter-sue. Your bursar, I'm sure some clerk in your office, just sent us a bill for a station-share."

"You're joking," Elene said.

"As we sent you one. I'm sure it will eventually cross your desk."

It hadn't yet. She was completely appalled. Her fingers, locked on Damon's, clenched, begging silence. She was sure Damon was disturbed at the impropriety.

But James Robert was far too canny a man directly to suggest a linkage.

"A very basic question of merchanter sovereignty," James Robert said "I'm sure our own Legal Affairs office made the point to yours some seven years ago that we are prepared to go to court,—which with other matters at hand, is a very untimely flare-up of an issue that should have been settled. We do not owe Pell Station any station-share. We will not pay living expenses. We will pay Francesca's medical bills. That is my statement." A wave of James Robert's hand, a dismissal. "Just so you know there's no ill will."

A ship-share of
Finitys End
was an immense amount of money—and so was a station-share on Pell. Francesca Neihart had run up medical bills, living expenses. So had her son.

"The boy is a year from his majority" Damon said

"And seven years older than the last time we sued. We're in the middle of cargo purchase. But here we are, with what seven years ago was a simple wash: your debt for our debt. Now we're dealing with real money, fourteen point five million credits of real money, which you will not see, I assure you in a very friendly way, and which your courts will
not
attach,
or
freeze, because we will sue the bloody clothes off you—so to speak."

James Robert did not bluff.

"The boy," Damon said, "is a ward of Pell courts."

Madison
cleared his throat, in what became a very long silence. The Konstantins were also known for stubbornness.

"He is
our
citizen," James Robert said. "And we no longer operate in harm's way. I believe that was the exact objection of the court in prior years. We cannot afford to debate this particular issue, Konstantin. Not at this particular moment. Yet on principle, we will sue."

Damon, who'd never contradict his wife in the midst of negotiations—Damon viewed the concept of law in lieu of God; and Damon was going to hit the overhead when they got home tonight. Elene could feel it in the rock-hard tension of his hand, his sharp, almost painful squeeze on her fingers. No children in a war zone, the Children's Court had held, in spite of the fact that there were children on every family merchanter ship out in space. The Children's Court had its hands on
one
of those children and in a paralysis of anguish over the War one judge and her own husband's office wouldn't let that child go. But in those critical words,
no longer operate in harm's way
, the advocacy system, the judiciary, which couldn't resolve its technical issues over Francesca Neihart's son because the court-appointed social workers and psychiatrists wouldn't agree, had just had its point answered.

Fletcher Robert Neihart had always been caught in the gears. It wasn't the boy's fault that elements in Pell's administration resented being a trailing appendage to the Merchanter Alliance, and some noisy few fools even thought that Pell should assess merchant ships to see whether they were fit for children. It was a ridiculous position, one that would have collapsed the whole merchanter trade network and collapsed civilization with it—but they were issue-oriented thinkers.

To complicate matters, years ago some clever child advocate in the legal office had thought it a fine argument to claim a station-share and sue
Finity
during wartime on the boy's behalf. In further bureaucratic idiocy, filing said claim with the court thereafter had made no difference after that that 14.5 million credits was a figure that never had existed, in or in any official assessment of actual debt. Once that sum had gotten onto the documents, politicians and bursars alike afraid to take the responsibility of forgiving a fourteen-million-credit debt. So it was in the court records, and it would persist until someone somewhere signed papers in settlement.

Now, to cap a macabre comedy teetering on the verge of tragedy, it sounded as if the Pell Bursar's office, unstoppable as stellar gravity, had just billed
Finity
for the amount outstanding on Pell's books and thereby annoyed the seniormost and most essential captain in the Merchanters' Alliance, a man to whom Pell and the whole Alliance owed its independence. And done so at the very moment the peace and the whole human future most needed a quiet, well-oiled, dammit, even slightly illegal personal agreement to fly through the approval process before Pell's enemies knew what was going on.

Her long-suffering husband knew where she stood. Her children—both near grown—they knew. Her son said she cared only for her daughter; her daughter said bitterly that her own birth was nothing but a means to an end

Far too simple a box, to contain all the battles of a lifetime. Pell Station knew what it wanted when it persistently elected a spacer and a zealot to the office she held… that in her soul there were places of utter, star-shot black.

Means-to-an-end certainly covered part of her motives, yes.

The next day—the next
days
—were glorious.

"This you female," Melody said, in their third meeting on the riverbank, and peered into Bianca's faceplate in very close inspection, perhaps deciding Bianca, this third day, was more than a chance meeting. "She young, good, strong come back see you." Melody patted Bianca's leg. "You walk?"

This spring was what Melody meant: mating, the Long Walk, And Bianca didn't understand. Bianca murmured something about coming from the Base, but Fletcher blushed behind his mask and said, "Not yet, not yet for us."

Then Bianca was embarrassed. And indignant. "
What
did you tell her, Fletcher?"

"That I sort of like you," Fletcher said, looking at his feet. And Melody and Patch flung leaves at them and shrieked in downer laughter.

He
did
sort of like her. At least he liked what he saw. What he'd imagined he'd seen in Bianca's willingness to come back here twice. And on that grounds he was suddenly out of his depth and knew it. He saw v-dramas and vid, and imagined what it would be like to have a girl who liked you and who'd maybe—maybe be part of the dream he'd dreamed, of living down here.

He hadn't gotten a lot of biochem done the last two nights.

This wasn't someday. This wasn't just dreaming. When he'd been a juvvie and thought almost everything was impossible he'd had fantasies of coming down to the world—he'd stow away on a shuttle. He'd pirate supplies and make an outlaw dome, and get all the downers on his side.

Then the downers would join them and humans at the Base would never again
see
a downer unless he said so. And the stationmasters would have to say, All right, we'll deal. And he'd be king of Downbelow and Melody and Patch and he together would run the world.

God, he'd been such a stupid juvvie brat in his daydreams, and now, realtime, just having embarrassed himself, he had to admit he'd caught another case of the daydreams almost as fantastical. She was embarrassed; he was. And if you shone light on some daydreams they evaporated.

No Family girl was going to keep on hanging around him. She was probably just trying to make Marshall Willett leave her alone. It had been two days of happiness interspersed with anxiety and a biochem test he might have blown. That was a pretty good run, as his runs went

He'd sounded like a fool. Reality was the best medicine for a case of daydreams, and he went off in his acute embarrassment to go over to the water and squat down and poke at stones at the river-edge, real stones, real world, important things like that

His real life wasn't like the vids, and daydreams didn't come true for somebody who wasn't anybody, somebody who for most of his life couldn't guarantee where he'd be. It was mortally embarrassing to have to go back to your instructors at school and have to say, with other kids listening, that, no, the reason you didn't know about the test was your mail wasn't getting to you and, no, you weren't still living at 28608 Green, you'd moved, and you were back at the shelter again, or you were out and living with the Chavezes this week.

Then about the time the stupid teacher got the records straightened out you still weren't getting your e-mail because you "just hadn't worked out" with the Chavezes. It was pretty devastating stuff when you were eight.

It was doubly devastating if you'd just had a counselor so stupid he didn't even shut his office door when he was talking about you to your foster parents—who didn't want you anymore because they were pregnant and thought you'd interfere with the baby.

It hadn't been fun. The administration eventually changed his psychiatrist to somebody who still asked stupid questions and put him through the same getting-to-know-you routine that by then had just about stopped hurting. It had bored him, by then, because he'd been switched so often, to so many people with court-ordered forms to fill out, you got a sample of the routines and you knew by then it was just business, their caring. They were paid to care, by the hour.

The station paid foster-families.

They paid downers, but not in money, and not to take care of stray station kids: Melody and Patch had cared for him for free.

A hand slipped over his shoulder. He thought it was Melody, and felt comforted.

But it wasn't Melody. It was Bianca who knelt down by him and touched her head to his so the faceplates bumped edges, and he was just scared numb.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "What did I do?

God, the world was inside out. What did
she
do? She was kidding. She had to be. But Bianca hugged her arm around him and he hugged her, and if it wouldn't have risked their lives he'd have taken the mask off and kissed her.

"Oh," Melody said, from somewhere near. "Look, look, they make love."

"Dammit!" he said, breaking the first ten rules of residency on Downbelow, and never would willingly curse Melody. He broke his hold on Bianca to rip up a stick and fling, and double handfuls of flowers. "Wicked!" he cried, thinking fast, and turning his reaction into a joke.

Melody squatted down, out of range of flower-missiles, and turned solemn, watching with wide downer eyes. "Fetcher no more sad," Melody said "Good, good you no more sad"

What did you say? What
could
you say, in front of the girl you hoped to impress, and who knew what an ass you'd just been with downers you were here to protect from human intrusions?

"I love you," he said to Melody, and fractured the rest of the rulebook, "You my mama, Melody. Patch, you my papa, Love you."

"Baby grow up"Melody said. "Go walkabout soon, make me
new
baby."

God, what did it say about him, that he was so suddenly, so irrationally hurt?

He shifted about on one knee to see what Bianca thought, but you could hardly see a human face through the mask.

As she couldn't see his. "Melody used to take care of me," he said to explain things. The truth, but not all of it. To his teachers and the admin people and his psychs and everybody, he was just trouble.
They
had families and Bianca had Family, and he was always just
that boy from the courts
.

"Where was this?" Bianca asked, not unreasonably confused.

"A long time back on the station. I got lost, and they sort of—found me. And got me home." He'd no desire to go into the sordid details. But he couldn't get a reaction out of her masked face to tell him where he stood in her opinion. He committed himself, totally desperate, a little trusting of the only girl he'd ever really gone around with. "I used to sneak into the tunnels, to be with them. And first thing I wanted when I got down here was to find Melody and Patch."

"You're kidding." she said.

He shook his head, "Absolute truth."

"Is he making fun?" she asked Melody, breaking the first rule: never question another human's character.

"He very small, very sad," Melody said, "Long time he sad. You happy he."

Sometimes you didn't know what downers meant when they put words together. He guessed, with Melody, and thought that Melody approved of Bianca.

"Make he walk lot far," Patch chimed in helpfully,

"This is way too far," she said, teen slang… which you weren't supposed to use, either. He guessed Bianca was overwhelmed with it all, and maybe adding it up that she was with a kid who wasn't quite regulation. Or respectable. Or following the rules. She sat there looking stunned, as far as a body could who was wearing a mask, and he took a wild chance and put an arm around her.

She pushed him back, sort of, and he let go, fast, deciding he'd entirely misread her.

But she patted his arm, then, the way they learned to, when they wanted someone's serious attention,

"I believe you," she said, and slipped her hand down and held his fingers, making them tingle, just touching her bare skin.

And by sunset walking home, not so long after, she held his hand again.

"I went through the program over in Blue," Bianca said, apropos of nothing previous as they walked along the river-edge. "Did you ever go to the games?"

"Sometimes."

They had the big ball games on Wednesday nights. And the academy in rich Blue Sector played schools like his, over in industrial, insystemer-dock White, where he'd lived with the
Wilsons
. Sometimes the games ended with extracurricular riot.

"Isn't it funny, we probably met," Bianca said.

"I guess we could have."

She couldn't imagine, he thought. From moment to moment he was sure she'd turn on him when she got safely back to the domes and tell everything she'd heard. But her fingers squeezed his, bringing him out of his fantasies of dismissal and disgrace. She talked about ball games and school.

He wanted to talk to her about his feelings, At one wild moment he'd like to ask her if she was as uncertain as he was about the line they'd crossed, holding hands, walking holding tight to each other.

But what did he say? He felt as if his nerves and his veins were carrying a load they couldn't survive.

Maybe normal people felt that way. Maybe they didn't. He wasn't ever sure. If Melody didn't know and peer wisdom didn't say, he didn't know who he could ask.

Damn sure not the psychs.