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“What …?”
“An old coracle,” Ben said, “registered to me. They will be busy for a while. With luck, they will believe we were aboard.”
Another whump took Crista’s breath away, and as she pulled on the unfamiliar clothing she saw that the security squad had not disappeared with the crowd. They came on with the same precision and deliberation, door to door. The street was nearly empty as everyone else who was able-bodied fought the fires or moved nearby boats to safety.
While Ben stood watch beside the window, Crista pulled on a heavily embroidered white cotton dress that was much too big for her. Her breasts bobbled free inside, another luxury Flattery wouldn’t allow. She held the fabric away from her flat belly and looked questioningly at Ben.
He tossed her a black pajama-type worksuit of the Islanders that appeared identical to the one he wore. From a drawer beside the bed he pulled a long woven sash and handed it to her.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re pregnant. Quite a ways along, too.”
When she still didn’t follow his intent, he said, “Strap the worksuit on your belly to fill out the dress,” he said. “You’ll need it later. For now, you are a pregnant Islander. I am your man.”
She strapped the worksuit around her as instructed and adjusted the dress. In the mirror beside the hatch she did look pregnant.
Crista watched in the mirror as Ben wrapped a long red bandana around his head, letting the tails fall between his shoulder blades. It was embroidered with the same geometries that appeared on her dress.
My man, she thought with a smile, and we’re dressing to go out.
She patted the padding on her stomach fondly and rested her hand there, half-expecting to feel some tiny movement. Ben stood behind her and tied a similar bandana around her forehead. He gave her a floppy straw hat to wear over it.
“This manner of dress is the mark of the Island I grew up on,” he said. “You have heard about Guemes Island?”
“Yes, of course. Sunk the year before I was born.”
“Yes,” he said. “You are now the pregnant wife of a Guemes Island survivor. Among Islanders you will receive the greatest respect. Among Mermen you will be treated with the deference that only the guilty can bestow. As you know, it means absolutely nothing among Flattery’s people. We have no papers, there wasn’t time …”
Two whistles at their hatch. Two different whistles. “That’s Rico,” he said, and matched her smile. “Now we get to go outside.”
Chapter 9
The things that people want and the things that are good for them are very different. … Great art and domestic bliss are mutually incompatible. Sooner or later, you’ll have to make your choice.
—Arthur C. Clarke
Beatriz dozed awhile on the couch after shutting off her alarm. The dark, plazless office at the launch site helped keep the fabric of her dream alive. Freed from the confines of her mind, it flowed about the room with the ease of a ghost. In a way, it was a ghost.
She had been dreaming of Ben, of their last night together, and parts of the dream she wanted to savor. It was two years ago, the night before she made her first trip up to the Orbiter, before she met Mack. She was nervous about her first shuttle flight to the Orbiter, and Ben was going off to the High Reaches to meet with some Zavatan elder. In spite of the fact that they’d been lovers for years, they both felt awkward. It was ending, they knew it was ending, but neither of them could talk about it.
Early evening, clear and warm. A shot of sunset still streaked the horizon pink and blue. They sat aboard one of HoloVision’s foils at dockside, in the crew’s quarters. She remembered the familiar shlup-shlip of water against the hull and the occasional mutter of wild squawks settling down. Children played their evening games before being called in for the night and they whistle-signaled from pier to pier. She and Ben had talked of children, of wanting them and of bad timing. This night the rest of their crews had discreetly left them alone. She found out later it was at Rico’s suggestion.
“Women are the answer,” Ben said, handing her a glass of white wine. “And what was the question?”
She touched glasses with him, sipped, and set it down. She did not want to ride a rocket into orbit in the morning with a hangover.
Ben’s green eyes looked particularly beautiful against his dark skin. His lean, muscular body had always been perfect with hers. She couldn’t understand why he had to go off on his wild projects chasing down Shadows when he could stay and work with her. She’d covered as much death as she cared to, it was time they thought of themselves.
I want to report on life, advances, progress.…
“Women represent life, advances, progress,” he said.
The hair prickled at the back of her neck. “Are you reading my mind?”
“Would I dare?” he asked.
Those green eyes twinkled in their way that shot something straight into her heart, something warm that always melted downward like a hand inside her underwear. Beatriz was a strong woman, and Ben Ozette was the only man who ever made her weak in the knees. She sipped her wine and kept the glass at her chest.
“What am I thinking now?” she asked, feeling she had to change the subject.
“You’re wishing I’d get on with whatever it was I was going to say so that we can get on with the evening.”
She laughed a little louder than she liked, and ran a hand through her black hair. “Why, Mr. Ozette, what kind of girl do you think I am?”
He ignored her flirtation. His manner turned serious.
“I think you’re the kind of girl who wants to see the best for everyone—for the refugees, yourself, even Flattery. You’ve covered some of the most horrible disasters and bloodiest atrocities this world has seen. I know because I was there. Now it won’t go away, so you’re going away. You want to see progress, you want to see good things. Well, so do I …”
“But look what you’re doing!” She punched her thigh and scooted back in the couch. “OK, security is more than enthusiastic, that’s bad enough. If you make heroes out of the people fighting them, then more will join them. They will have to fight the same way. There will be no end to the cycle. Dammit, Ben, that’s why they call it ‘Revolution.’ Wheels turn and turn in place and the vehicle gets mired down. I’ve come damned close to dying more times than I can count—most of those times with you—and now I want to get somewhere. I want a family …”
Ben set down his glass and grasped her hand across the table.
“I know,” he said. “I understand. Maybe I understand more than you think. I want to offer you life, advances, progress.”
Neither of them spoke for a while, but their hands conversed with each other in the familiar language of lovers.
“OK,” she said. She tossed off her wine, trying to appear lighthearted, “what’s the plan, man?”
“I don’t know the plan, yet,” he said. “But I know the key. It’s information. Our business, remember?”
“Yes?” She refilled her glass, then his. “Explain.”
“You didn’t see any women in Flattery’s security force, and you set out to do a story, remember? What happened?”
“Not approved, we never shot a photon’s worth …”
“And how many times has that happened?”
“To me? Not much. But then, there are plenty of stories to do, more than I’ll ever live to do, I just find another one or take an assignment …”
“An important point,” Ben said. He hunched over their little table, tapping the top with his index finger. “If Flattery doesn’t get flattered, the story, whatever it is, doesn’t get aired. He is from a different world—literally, a different world. He is from a world that starves women and children because they are on the wrong side of an imaginary line, and he won’t allow them to cross it. We are from a world that used to teach: ‘Life, at all cost. Preserve life.’ Pandora has been adversary enough. We haven’t been able to afford the luxury of fighting amongst ou
rselves.”
“So, I don’t get where …”
“Half of the shows I do get dropped,” Ben said. “It’s not because they’re not good, it’s just harder and harder to keep Flattery from looking like the hood that he is. What would happen if people refused to have anything to do with him—refused to speak with him, feed him, shelter him—what would happen then?”
She laughed again. “What makes you think they’d do that? It would take—”
“Information. Show him up for what he is, show the people what they can do. This whole world’s been a disaster since Flattery took over. He promises them food and keeps them hungry. He keeps us in line because we know what he can do to us. If people knew they’d be no more hungry without Flattery, without the Vashon Security Force, would they put up with him?”
“It would take a miracle,” she finished.
