Heber shook his head. “Not quite. It eventually connects to the Sound, but through a maze of inlets. You’d need to know them to find the way out.”
“I think it’s wonderful—the sort of change I could stand for a while.”
“Oh? So where do you live?”
“The city, right in the center. But that’s where the firm is. I don’t think I could stand a long commute twice every day.”
“Yes, I understand exactly what you mean,” Heber said.
The woman who greeted them at the door was short and mousy haired, fortyish perhaps, dressed in tan slacks and a lightweight patterned sweater—nothing at all like the person Michelle had pictured. As the arrivals entered, she chided Kevin about not leaving his laundry out again. Kevin returned some remark that Michelle didn’t catch, and ducked with a laugh when the woman tried to tweak his hair. Michelle realized then that this was a housekeeper, or equivalent. Heber introduced her as Harriet.
“Will everyone be staying for dinner?” Harriet asked Heber.
“I don’t think so—it wasn’t the plan.” He looked at Michelle and Ohira. “But if you want to change your minds, it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Thanks, but I have to be in town tonight,” Michelle replied.
“A coffee would be very welcome,” Ohira said.
“How about a pot of coffee, sodas or whatever for Kevin and Taki, and some cheese or snacks or something?” Heber suggested.
“I’ll see what I can rustle up,” Harriet said with a nod, and disappeared along a corridor leading off to one side.
The interior echoed the easy informality that Michelle had read into it outside. In addition to the regular hallway furniture of coat stand, side table, and chairs, there was a case of bookshelves that looked as if it carried overflow from other rooms, and a grandfather clock wearing a sombrero. Some kind of early scientific instrument made of polished wood and brass hung on the wall, along with a couple of old, framed sea charts and other pictures. A gray cat, curled on one of the chairs looked up and regarded the intruders balefully, otherwise refusing to be budged.
“That’s Batcat,” Heber said. “It usually guards the house from there. When it isn’t on that chair, it manages to be on the wrong side of every door, no matter how many times you let it through. Sometimes I think it has clones.”
“Liquid cat,” Kevin said. “It flows under the crack and reconstitutes on the other side—but never when you’re looking.”
“Why Batcat?” Michelle asked.
“Oh, I can’t remember,” Heber said. “Harriet got it from somewhere as a kitten. Why did we call it that, Kevin?”
“It could cross a room from one side to the other without touching the floor,” Kevin said.
“Oh, that’s right. I believe it, too.” Heber led the way through toward the rear of the house.
The story as Michelle understood it was that Kevin and Taki had long ago become expert mec “pilots,” and Heber had started giving them old prototypes and obsolete models to experiment with, which he let them modify for their own purposes. From these, they had built up a collection of what they called “battlemecs”—like tiny Heinleinesque power suits or computer-game war-robots—that they used for acting out combat games, performed in miniature over real landscapes. Apparently Taki had a lab at home also, and there was an area behind Kevin’s house that they reserved for their exploits “in” these bug-size machines. They called it “Bug Park.”
Ohira, always an entrepreneur, had become fascinated by these games that the boys had created, and wanted to develop the concept commercially as a novel form of entertainment for the public. The Circus Worlds, Water Worlds, and all the other familiar themes had become, in his opinion, boring. The visit to Neurodyne had shown Michelle the technology. Now Ohira wanted to give her a feel of the kind of thing they could do with it.
Michelle was less sure about where Vanessa stood with regard to the prospect. It seemed she was also a scientist by background, and, like Doug Corfe, had worked with Heber at a company called Microbotics, toward Redmond on the far side of Lake Washington, east of Seattle, which also produced microscale devices but of less advanced design. She had married Heber after the death of Kevin’s natural mother, Patricia, and moved with him when he left Microbotics to start Neurodyne. Her attitude mattered because Ohira’s plans would require licensed use of the Direct Neural Coupling technology that made Neurodyne’s mecs unique. Even if the patents were filed in Eric’s name, which Michelle thought would most likely be the case, Eric didn’t strike her as the kind of person who would press matters if Vanessa had some objection; and if, on the other hand, the company owned the patents, Vanessa would almost certainly be a co-owner—which would make her agreement necessary anyway. When Michelle sounded out Ohira to see if he knew the situation, he had seemed surprised. It had never crossed his mind that what a wife might think could be relevant to business affairs.