Then it was done, his memory spilled, and he laid the batch on top of the next
canister and reached for the wine bottle. He drank and set it down. “Met
Bluetooth. Said your mother’s fine. Give you this.” He drew the brooch from his
pocket and watched as Damon took it into his hands with that melancholy look
that told him it might have some meaning beyond the gold itself. Damon nodded
glumly and pocketed it; he did not much speak of his family, living or dead, not
in reminiscence.
“She knows,” Damon said, “she knows what it’s coming to. She can see it from her
vid screens, hear it from the Downers… Did Bluetooth say anything specific?”
“Only that your mother thought we needed it.”
“No word of my brother?”
“It didn’t come up. We weren’t in a place we could talk, the Downer and I.”
Damon nodded, drew a deep breath and leaned his elbows on his knees, head bowed.
Damon lived for such news. When it failed him his spirits fell, and it hurt.
Hurt both of them. He felt as if he had dealt the wound.
“It’s getting tight out there,” Josh said. “Lots of anxiety. I delayed a little
along the way, listening, but no news; everyone’s scared but no one knows
anything.”
Damon lifted his head, took the bottle, drank down half the remaining wine,
hardly a swallow. “Whatever we’re going to do, we’ve got to do soon. Either go
into the secured sections… or try for the shuttle. We can’t go on here.”
“Or make ourselves a bubble in the tunnels,” he said. In his reckoning, it was
the only realistic idea. Most humans were pathologically frightened of the
tunnels. What few humans who would try them… maybe they could fight them off.
They had the guns. Might be able to live there. But they were about out of time…
for any choices. It was not an existence to look forward to. And maybe we’ll be
lucky, he thought miserably, looking at Damon, who looked at the floor, lost in
his own thoughts. Maybe they’ll just blow the area.
The storeroom door opened. Ngo came in on them, walked up and gathered up the
cards, read through the notations, pursed his wrinkled mouth and frowned.
“You’re sure?”
“No mistakes.”
Ngo muttered unhappily at the quality of the merchandise, as if they were at
fault, started to leave.
“Ngo,” Damon said, “heard a rumor the market’s going for the new paper. That
so?”
“Where did you hear that?”
Damon shrugged. “Two men talking in front. That true, Ngo?”
“They’re dreaming. You see a way to get your hands into the new system, you tell
me.”
“I’m thinking on it.”
Ngo muttered to himself and left
“That so?” Josh asked.
Damon shook his head. “Thought I might jar something loose. Ngo won’t shake or
there’s no way anyone knows.”
“I’d bet on the latter.”
“So would I.” Damon set his hands on his knees, sighed, looked up. “Why don’t we
go out and get something to eat? No one out there who’s trouble, is there?”
The memory which had left him came back with dark force. He opened his mouth to
say something, and of a sudden came a rumbling which shook the floor, a boom and
crash which overrode screams from outside.
“The seals,” Damon exclaimed, on his feet. Cries continued, wild screams, chairs
overturning in the front room. Damon rushed for the storeroom door and Josh ran
with him, out as far as the back door, where Ngo and his wife and son had
scrambled to get out, Ngo with his market records in hand.
“No,” Josh exclaimed, “Wait… that would have been the doors to white… we’re
sealed—but there were troops up at nine two—they wouldn’t have troops in here if
they were going to push the button—”
“Com,” Ngo’s wife exclaimed. There was an announcement coming through the vid
unit in the front room. They rushed in that direction, into the restaurant area,
where a handful of people were clustered about the vid and a looter was busy
gathering an armful of bottles from the bar. “Hey!” Ngo shouted in outrage, and