“If you want to know what I feel about it—I’m uneasy. Just uneasy. He’s coming
here, and he’ll be here for us to entertain, and frankly, I don’t know what
we’re going to do with him.” She turned to the mirror and tugged at the
waistline. “All of which is what I think. I’m hoping he’ll be at ease and we’ll
all have a pleasant evening.”
He could see it otherwise… long silences. “I’ve got to go get him,” he said.
“He’ll be waiting.” And then with a happier thought: “Why don’t we go up to the
concourse? Never mind the things here; it might make things easier all round,
neither of us having to play host”
Her eyes lightened. “Meet you there? I’ll get a table. There’s nothing that
can’t go in the freeze.”
“Do it.” He kissed her on the ear, all that was available, and gave her a pat,
headed out in haste to make up the time.
The security desk sent a call back for Talley and he was quick in coming down
the hall… a new suit, everything new. Damon met him and held out his hand.
Talley’s face took on a different smile as he took it, quickly faded.
“You’re already checked out,” Damon told him, and gathered up a small plastic
wallet from the desk, gave it to him. “When you check in again, this makes it
all automatic. Those are your id papers and your credit card, and a chit with
your comp number. You memorize the comp number and destroy the chit.”
Talley looked at the papers inside, visibly moved. “I’m discharged?” Evidently
staff had not gotten around to telling him. His hands trembled, slender fingers
shaking in their course over the fine-printed words. He stared at them, taking
time to absorb the matter, until Damon touched his sleeve, drew him from the
desk and down the corridor.
“You look well,” Damon said. It was so. Their images reflected back from the
transport doors ahead, dark and light, his own solid, aquiline darkness and
Talley’s pallor like illusions. Of a sudden he thought of Elene, felt the least
insecurity in Talley’s presence, the comparison in which he felt all his faults…
not alone the look of him, but the look from inside, that stared at him
guiltless… which had always been guiltless.
What do I say to him? He echoed Elene’s ugly questions, Sorry? Sorry I never got
around to reading your folder? Sorry I executed you … we were pressed for time?
Forgive me …usually we do better?
He opened the door and Talley met his eyes in passing through. No accusations,
no bitterness. He doesn’t remember. Can’t.
“Your pass,” Damon said as they walked toward the lift, “is what’s called
white-tagged. See the colored circles by the door there? There’s a white one
too. Your card is a key; so’s your comp number. If you see a white circle you
have access by card or number. The computer will accept it. Don’t try anything
where there’s no white. You’ll have alarms sounding and security running in a
hurry. You know such systems, don’t you?”
“I understand.”
“You recall your comp skills?”
A few spaces of silence. “Armscomp is specialized. But I recall some theory.”
“Much of it?”
“If I sat in front of a board… probably I would remember.”
“Do you remember me?”
They had reached the lift. Damon punched the buttons for private call, privilege
of his security clearance: he wanted no crowd. He turned, met Talley’s too-open
gaze. Normal adults flinched, moved the eyes, glanced this way and that, focused
on one and the other detail. Talley’s stare lacked such movements, like a
madman’s, or a child’s, or a graven god’s.
“I remember you asking that before,” Talley said. “You’re one of the
Konstantins. You own Pell, don’t you?”
“Not own. But we’ve been here a long time.”
“I haven’t, have I?”
An undertone of worry. What is it, Damon wondered with a crawling of his own
skin, what is it to know bits of your mind are gone? How can anything make
sense? “We met when you came here. You ought to know… I’m the one who agreed to
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