in, there.”
He shoved it into the slot. It registered. THANK YOU, the screen said. He stared
at it like some oncoming mass.
Took his card back.
She patted his shoulder. “Haircut for us both,” she said. “And clean up. We’re
meeting someone for dinner.”
“Who?”
“The rest of us, who else? And why don’t you get yourself a proper patch, while
we’re at it? I looked in the directory. There’s this place does them to order,
all computer set up. Anything you like, on the spot. It’s really amazing how it
works.”
“Lord, Reilly—does it matter?”
“I’d think it would.” She touched the misembroidered nymph on his sleeve. “You
could do yourself a class job. Or they’ve got the over-the-counter stuff. If you
really want.”
That was low. He scowled and she never flinched. “Mind your business,” he said.
“If I like the tatty thing it’s my business.”
“You’re really going to go blank like that. They’ll think you’re a pirate for
sure.”
“I’ll just get me a handful of the tatty ones. Thanks.”
Lips pursed. So she knew how far she had pushed.
“The name’s not Stevens,” she said.
That’s what you’re asking, is it?”
“Maybe.”
That’s my business.” And after a moment: “I’ll get some blamed patch. I don’t
care what. But no shamrock. I’ll promise you that.”
“Didn’t think so.”
He nodded, gathered up his packages, all of them but the stuff they had ordered
on catalogue, that would see ship delivery when they made the loading schedule.
When.
Chapter IX
He had his doubts—had them following Allison to the patcher; and getting trimmed
and shaved and lotioned at the barber—his first time, for a haircut that gave
him a sleek, blond look of affluence. Doubts again in sleepover, spoiling the
hour he snatched for sleep: his privacy, he kept thinking; the life that he
had—It was a miserable life, but he controlled it; there was comp, with its
peculiarities; and the sealed rooms that these Dubliners would demand to open.
There were things they would hear and see that were worse than public nakedness
to him; that undercut his pride, and rifled through his memories.
But it had to be, he reasoned with himself. He had never had such a chance.
Never could dream of such a chance. He looked at Allison looking at him in the
minor—and the warmth of that drove the chill away. “You look good,” she said, to
the silver-suited image of him, and he faced about toward her with a surge of
confidence that sent some feeling back into his hands and feet “Reckon so?” he
asked.
“No question.”
So it fed him his courage back. He drew a deeper breath, reassessed himself and
the pathetic ridiculousness, the childishness of the things stored in comp, the
nature of the sealed compartments and the relics he lived among. So if she
thought that, so if she felt that, then she would not laugh—and the others,
these strangers they went to meet—she could handle. As long as she was with him;
as long as she found nothing humorous in a man trying to be what he was not—who
listened to voices instead of family, who had never had the strength to clear
out all the debris of the past; who kept a secret voice that talked to a child
who should have long ago grown up; excruciating things. A lifetime of illusions.
There was always the alternative, he reminded himself. He could wait for the
military; in his mind he heard the laughter of the dockside searchers who might
get into such privacies. Or the techs who might strip his mind down, when his
scams caught up to him, discovering the twisted child he was. They would put it
all together, taking it all apart; and the thought of that—of the questions; the
exposure of himself—
He wore a patch, had sewn it on: LUCY, it said, white letters on a black,
blue-centered circle; and that was as close as he dared come to the old one. It
looked naked, too, without the swan in flight that belonged there. But someone
might know Le Cygne, and Krejas; and he and Ross and Mitri had always agreed, in