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looks at his pad. The numbers come up triple zeroes.
It's what he ordered, all right.
Giffey decides against checking more than one. The men around him are as
sensitive about honor as a bunch of teenage thugs.
The old man is talking again, aiming his words at the brothers, who listen
eagerly. "There's enough paste there to take care of all of Moscow.
Unbelievable bang per gram. Every man, woman, and jackrabbit from here to--"
"That's fine," Giffey says, staring hard to get him to shut up. The old man
works his lips, nods in understanding--no need to say too much, no need.
Then he offers Giffey a beer.
"Best assignment I've had since emancipation," he says. "I'd like to toast it,
for luck."
There's time--just barely. "Sure, I'm grateful," Giffey says. The old man
hustles back into the filthy kitchen to open a refrigerator. Giffey calls out
to him, "You have the delivery arranged?"
"Tonight at seven-thirty. Address?"
Giffey writes the address on a piece of paper, an old industrial warehouse on
the west side of Moscow. Giffey will not be there, but people he trusts will
receive the goods and give final payment. Jenner will accompany the goods to
their destination and stay with them. The old man brings out a bottle for
everyone.
The beer is good. Jenner's scalp is asleep. He almost looks normal. "Sald,"
Giffey says, and they all slug back the thick dark brew.
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Outside, Jenner joins Giffby at the roadside, waiting for the bus to take them
back into Moscow.
"How long you been out of the service?" Giffey asks Jenner. The young man
smiles and shakes his head.
"I was never really in," he says. "I got my training at Quantico and
Annapolis.
Special Operations. I had some trouble and they shipped me out and annulled my
enlistment papers. They were training me for sensitive jobs."
Giffey nods. He can tell from the man's expression and posture that Jenner is
reluctant to say any more. Jenner knows the ins and outs of military nano, so
Giffey's sources say; that's enough.
"How about you?" Jenner asks. The bus is coming back on its long circuit
around the country roads. They can see it on the horizon.
"Federal Army, honorable discharge, three years in extranational service."
"I'd like to do that sometime," Jenner says. His Adam's apple bobs. "Missed
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equal and an expert, or a conscript noncom. Jenner is twenty-two or
twenty-three at most.
Very young. That, however, is not Giffey's concern.
YOXIN' ROX! Tonight on PRANCING PREMIERE FIRST TIMER! Gene is angry at Fred
because he's dropped some WHOOPEE on Marilyn, and the whole studio's about to
crumble! Will they ever dance together again? Will Marilyn tell Fred about
(CLASPERS, GASPERS!) the BABY? And next street over, in PASSION
FRUIT, you're FREE (Hunh! KAH-Thunk!) to peek behind the PAISLEY CURTAIN and
see what Billie and
Johnnie C. are really FRYING UP in that WA YBACK
ROOM! ALL PAY-UP THEATER and All Brought to you (40% off!) by Rememory,
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MORE? (Y/N)
>N
9 DARK BITS
The household of Jonathan and Chloe Bristow flashes, screeches, roars with
bright colors and jagged sounds. Their adolescent children, Hiram and
Penelope, are up the stairs and down, shouting over a pretty stone one of them
found in the garden. They have gone red in the face with their shouting and
Chloe has stopped by the stairs to stand stiff as a tree, prematurely aged by
violent winds. She waits with some apprehension for Jonathan to come up from
the basement and try to straighten things out; she knows that his intervention
is not necessary, that all this will pass.
Penelope is fifteen and Hiram thirteen. Dark-haired Hiram sometimes appears a
little loutish even in his mother's tolerant eyes; Penelope is white-blonde
and lithe as an alder. Like alders, she tries to be a clone of the other girls
in her part of the forest. Chloe waits for the storm to pass. She worries that
Jonathan will only add to the din and the color with his very loud voice and
dark hues.
Chloe sees all situations in this household in colors; she has heard about
that in the LitVids which arrive on her pad every morning, gathered from
around the earth like fresh bouquets and generally just as wilted and worn
within a week. Today is a loud orange and black day.
"I did NOT give it to you, you swtt/" Penelope shouts.
Hiram tries to hold the rock out of her reach but she is taller and grabs his
c],=*a,-hitr ,C;,- TI. ......... k- .--
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GREG BEAR
"Watch out--" she begins; but she sees they are in no danger and draws her
lips tight shut again. She wonders what a su'tt is.
"You promised I could have it," Hiram claims, his voice high and loud and sad.
Hiram is her Caliban; a slow and dark fellow with fine black hair covering the
back of his neck. Soon he will need to shave. She never tells her children
what she really thinks of them--certainly not the temporary down things that
flit through her mind. It is easy to tell them about the permanent
things--about her love and admiration for them--because these are so constant
they hardly seem important enough to hide. It is the temporary observations,
trenchant and of mixed truthfulness, the insights that make her laugh or
question her fitness to be a mother, that she keeps inside, where they are
soon buried and seldom recalled.
"Give it to me, I swear I'll--"
"What is a sw/tt?" Chloe asks from the entryway.
Penelope turns her blazing green eyes on her mother. Her hair is in disarray
and she looks ready to kill. "Mother, he is goating that rock, and I found
it!"
Goating is what her grandparents would have called hogging. Chloe does not
think the word is any improvement. "What's so important about a rock?"
Intuition tells her Jonathan will appear in about ten seconds and she would
like the situation to be duller and quieter, for his sake but mostly for hers.
"It's rose quartz. I found it and I need it for school."
"She put it down in the yard," Hiram says. He looks worried. Chloe wonders if
her son can see in her face that she no longer thinks he is beautiful. When he
was a baby he was beautiful. "She didn't want it."
"Tro merde, that's a lie! I put it down on another rock to save it."
Jonathan is coming up from the bedroom. His step is fast and his footfalls
heavy. Their bedroom is on the bottom floor, below the entry level, with big
bay windows facing rear gardens that are now rather dismal despite a few banks
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