Besides, Trevor had mentioned his wife first, hadn’t he? I reviewed itÄyes, he had.
After lunch he perked up some. I was telling him to come back here after his business appointment because I was punching in as a guest in order to have comfort as well as privacy in making satellite calls (true) and that I might stay overnight (also true), so come back and call me and I would meet him in the lounge (conditionally trueÄI was so lonely and troubled I suspected that I would tell him to come straight up).
He answered, “I’ll call first so that you can get that man out but I’ll come straight up. No need to make the trip twice. But I’ll send the bubbly up; I won’t carry it.”
“Hold it,” I said. “You have not yet sold me your nefarious purpose. All I promised was the opportunity to present your sales talk. In the lounge. Not in my bedroom.”
“Marjorie, you’re a hard woman.”
“No, you’re a hard man. I know what I’m doing.” A sudden satori told me that I did know. “How do you feel about artificial persons? Would you want your sister to marry one?”
“Do you know one who might be willing to? Sis is getting to be a bit long in the tooth; she can’t afford to be particular.”
“Don’t try to evade me. Would you marry one?”
“What would the neighbors think? Marjorie, how do you know I haven’t? You saw my wife’s picture. Artifacts are supposed to make the very best wives, horizontally or vertically.”
“Concubines, you mean. It isn’t necessary to marry them. Trevor, you not only are not married to one; you don’t know anything about them but the popular myths . . . or you wouldn’t say `artifact’ when the subject is `artificial persons.’
“I’m sneaky, underhanded, and despicable. I misused the term so that you would not suspect that I am one.”
“Oh, babble! You aren’t one, or I would know it. And while you probably would go to bed with one, you wouldn’t dream of marrying one. This is a futile discussion; let’s adjourn it. I need about two hours; don’t be surprised if my room terminal is busy. Tape a message and curl up with a good drink; I’ll be down as soon as possible.”
I punched in at the desk and went up, not to the bridal suiteÄin the absence of Georges that lovely extravagance would have made me tristeÄbut to a very nice room with a good, big, wide bed, a luxury I had ordered from a deep suspicion that Trevor’s low-key (almost reverse) salesmanship was going to cause him to wind up in it. The difficult louse.
I put the thought aside and got to work.
I called the Vicksburg Hilton. No, Mr. and Mrs. Perreault had punched out. No, no forwarding address. Sorree!
So was I, and that synthetic computer voice was no comfort. I called McGill University in Montr‚al and wasted twenty minutes
“learning” that, Yes, Dr. Perreault was a senior member of this university but was now at the University of Manitoba. The only new fact was that this Montr‚al computer synthesized English or French with equal ease and always answered in the language in which it was addressed. Very clever, these electron pushersÄtoo clever, in my opinion.
I tried Janet’s (Ian’s) call code in Winnipeg, learned that their terminal was out of service at the subscribers’ request. I wondered why I had been able to receive news on the terminal in the Hole earlier this day. Did “out of service” mean only “no incoming calls”? Was such arcanum a close-held secret of ST. and T.?
ANZAC Winnipeg bounced me around through parts of its computer meant for the traveling public before I got a human voice to admit that Captain Tormey was on leave because of the Emergency and the interruption of flights to New Zealand.
Ian’s Auckland code answered only with music and an invitation to record a message, which was no surprise as Ian would not be there until semiballistic service resumed. But I had thought that I might catch Betty and/or Freddie.
How could one go to New Zealand with the SBs out of service? You can’t ride a seahorse; they’re too small. Did those big waterborne, Shipstone-driven freighters ever carry passengers? I didn’t think they had accommodations. Hadn’t I heard somewhere that some of them didn’t even have crews?