Analog Science Fiction and Fact - June 2013

ANALOG
an update.
Blake was beginning to smell a rat.
Chapter 34
The measure of just how lousy Rikki felt
was that, lifting her head at the sudden tapping
on her window, she felt relief at seeing
Li.
“Door’s open,” Rikki croaked. She let her
head flop back onto the sofa arm.
“I see you’re better,” Li chirped, coming
into the house. “I expected to find you in
bed.”
“I was going for some dry crackers. Halfway
to the kitchen I reconsidered.” When I remembered
they were made from sea slime.
Li set down her med kit. “I’d like to take a
scan.” Whatever Rikki’s nanites had to report
or the scanner found on its own must not
have merited specific comment. “You’ll live,
though from the looks of you, at the moment
that isn’t a selling point.”
The woman had no bedside manner.
“When will I be over this? Whatever this is?”
Rikki hesitated—fearful, almost superstitiously
so—of evoking a nightmare from an era before
med nanites. “Am I contagious?”
“Don’t know, don’t know, and do you see
me wearing a mask?”
Then came the repeat lecture about keeping
hydrated and foods that might stay down,
followed by megadoses of vitamins and antinausea
meds. It all wore Rikki out. “What have
you heard from Endeavour?” she asked as Li
helped her back to bed.
“Only that they’re still searching.”
“And Blake?”
“He’s busy. Now get some rest.”
Fitfully, disappointed that Blake hadn’t written,
or even acknowledged any of her brief
notes, Rikki drifted in and out of sleep.
A few more seconds, Li told herself. And,
don’t look bored.
Finally, it stopped.
Wearing his customary smug and oblivious
smile, Carlos rolled off her onto his side of the
bed. He pulled up the sheet. His breathing
slowed. In a minute or two, he would be snoring.
They needed to talk, and the best time for
that was after sex. When he was relaxed.
When even more than usual, the little head
did most of his thinking.
Propping herself up on an elbow, resting
her hand lightly on his chest, Li said, “You
awake?”
“Mmm?”
“The sun’s still high and there’s just us. We
can’t sleep now.”
“Watch me.”
“I’m serious,” Li said. “And this is important.”
“Marvin is watching the kids.”
“Eyes-open important. And sit up.”
Carlos sat. Li spoke. And he, once she had
finished, as she had known he must, had
agreed to everything. She had Carlos well conditioned.
Like Pavlov’s salivating dog. If only
just saliva were involved . . .
On the verge of triumph, she felt pangs of
disappointment. The grandeur of her vision
was wasted on Carlos. The meticulous beauty
of her planning—as much of it as she had
shared—interested him only as it assured their
success. All that he responded to was the expectation
of future coupling.
She could live with that. She needed his
help, and what mattered to her was the outcome.
As for the other four, she had given them
their chance.
Shuffling more often than walking, but feeling
human for the first time in days, Rikki
made her way down Main Street. She tried to
forget the uphill trip that she faced to return
home. As she passed the garage, its door began
to rise. Carlos had hitched a trailer to the
back of their dump truck; he sat on the backhoe-loader,
revving the motor, evidently about
to drive the contraption up the ramp onto the
trailer.
Her voice was as feeble as a kitten’s; he
must not have heard her over the growl of the
engine, asking what he was doing. Whatever,
she could find out later. Or not—curiosity
seemed too much like work. She waved, he
waved back, and she shuffled on.
Between fence slats, Rikki watched children
ramming around, climbing, swinging. Marvin
had unlocked the gate at her approach, but
she could hardly make it budge. “Marvin,” she
called. With a squeal of grit-clogged hinges,
the gates swung inward.
Activity in the yard all but ceased.
92 EDWARD M. LERNER