himself a statue again. Jon turned and walked on.
Angelo did well for himself, he thought bitterly, no crowding here, no giving up
of his living space. The whole end of crosshall four was Angelo’s.
And Alicia’s.
He stopped at the door, hesitated, his stomach tightening. He had gotten this
far. There was a trooper back there who would ask questions, make an issue of
unusual behavior. There was no going back. He pressed com. Waited.
“Who?” a reedy voice asked, startling him. “Who you?”
“Lukas,” he said. “Jon Lukas.”
The door opened. A thin, grayed Downer frowned up at him from eyes surrounded
with wrinkles. “I Lily,” she said.
He brushed past her, stepped in and looked about the dim living room, the costly
furniture, the luxury, the space of it. The Downer Lily hovered there, anxious,
let the door close. He turned, his eyes drawn to light, saw a room beyond, a
white floor, with the illusion of windows open on space.
“You come see she?” Lily asked.
“Tell her I’m here.”
“I tell.” The old Downer bowed, walked away with a stooped, brittle step. The
place was quiet, deathly hushed. He waited in the dark living room, found
nothing to do with his hands, his stomach more and more upset.
There were voices from the room. “Jon,” he heard in the midst of it. Alicia’s
voice. At least it was the human one. He shivered, feeling physically ill. He
had never come to these rooms. Never. Had seen Alicia by remote, tiny, withered,
a shell the machines sustained. He came now. He did not know why he came—and did
know. To find out what was truth—to know—if he could face dealing with Alicia;
if it was life worth living. All these years—the pictures, the transmitted, cold
pictures he could somehow deal with, but to be there in the same room, to look
into her face and have to talk with her…
Lily came back, hands folded, bowed. “You come. You come now.”
He moved. Got as far as halfway to the white-tiled room, the sterile, hushed
room, and his stomach knotted.
Suddenly he turned and started for the outside door. “You come?” The Downer’s
puzzled voice pursued him. “You come, sir?”
He touched the switch and left, let the door close behind him, drew a breath of
the cooler, freer air of the hall outside.
He walked away from it, the place, the Konstantins.
“Mr. Lukas,” the trooper on guard said as he reached the corner, his eyes asking
curious questions through the courtesy.
“She was asleep,” he said, swallowed, kept walking, trying with every step to
put that apartment and that white room out of his mind. He remembered a child, a
girl, someone else. He kept it that way.
Chapter Ten
« ^ »
i
Pell: sector blue one; council chambers; 10/6/52; 1400 hrs.
Council was breaking up early, having passed what measures were set before it to
pass, with Keu of India sitting in grim witness of what they said and what they
did, his stone-still countenance casting a pall on debate. On this third day of
the crisis, Mazian made his demands, and obtained.
Kressich gathered up his notes and came down from the uppermost tier into the
sunken center of the chambers, by the seats about the table, delayed there,
resisting the outflow of traffic, looking anxiously toward Angelo Konstantin,
who conferred with Nguyen and Landgraf and some of the other representatives.
Keu still sat at the table, listening, his bronze face like a mask. He feared
Keu… feared to raise his business in front of him.
But he went nevertheless, edged insistently as close as he could get to the head
of it, into that private company about Konstantin where he knew he was not
wanted, Q’s representative, reminder of problems no one had time to solve. He
waited, while Konstantin finished his discussion with the others, stared at
Konstantin intently so that Konstantin should be aware that his particular
attention was wanted.
At last Konstantin took note of him, stayed a moment from his evident intention
to leave in Keu’s company, for Keu had risen. “Sir,” Kressich said. “Mr.
Konstantin.” He drew from his folder of papers one which he had prepared,