I believed that I had a detailed knowledge of ways to travel superior to the professional knowledge of travel agents because, as a courier, I often moved around by means that tourists can’t use and ordinary commercial travelers don’t know about. It vexed me to realize that I had never given thought to how to outwit the fates when all SBs are grounded. But there is a way, there is always a way. I ticked it off in my mind as a problem to solveÄlater.
I called the University of Sydney, spoke with a computer, but at last got a human voice that admitted knowing Professor Farnese but he was on sabbatical leave. No, private call codes and addresses were never given outÄsorry. Perhaps customer service might help me.
The Sydney information service computer seemed lonely, as it
was willing to chat with me endlesslyÄanything but admit that either Federico or Elizabeth Farnese was in its net. I listened to a sales pitch for the World’s Biggest Bridge (it isn’t) and the World’s Grandest Opera House (it is), so come Down Under andÄ I switched off reluctantly; a friendly computer with a Strine accent is better company than most people, human or my sort.
I then tackled the one I had hoped to be able to skip: Christchurch. There was a probability that Boss’s HQ had sent word to me care of my former family when the move was madeÄif it was a move and not a total disaster. There was a very remote possibility that Ian, unable to send a message to me in the Imperium, would send one to my former home in hopes that it would be forwarded. I recalled that I had given him my Christchurch call code when he gave me the code for his Auckland flat. So I called my erstwhile homeÄ
Äand got the shock that one gets in stepping on a step that isn’t there. “Service is discontinued at the terminal you have signaled. Calls are not being relayed. In emergency please signal ChristchurchÄ” A code followed that I recognized as Brian’s office.
I found myself doing the time-zone correction backward to get a wrong answer that would let me put off callingÄthen I snapped out of it. It was afternoon here, just past fifteen, so it was tomorrow morning in New Zealand, just past ten, a most likely time of day for Brian to be in. I punched his call, got a satellite hold of only a few seconds, then found myself staring into his astonished face. “Marjorie!”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Marjorie. How are you?”
“Why are you calling me?”
I said, “Brian, please! We were married seven years; can’t we at least speak politely with each other?”
“Sorry. What can I do for you?”
“I am sorry to disturb you at work but I called the house and found the terminal out of service. Brian, as you no doubt know from the news, communications with the Chicago Imperium have been interrupted by the Emergency. The assassinations. What the newscasters have been calling Red Thursday. As a result of this I am in California; I never did reach my Imperium address. Can you tell
me anything about mail or messages that may have come for me? You see, nothing has reached me.”
“I really could not say. Sorry.”
“Can’t you even tell me whether anything had to be forwarded? Just to know that a message had been forwarded would help me in tracing it.”
“Let me think. There would have been all that money you drew outÄno, you took the draft for that with you.”
“What money?”
“The money you demanded we return to youÄor be faced with an open scandal. A bit more than seventy thousand dollars. Marjorie, I am surprised that you have the gall to show your face .
when your misbehavior, your lies, and your cold cupidity destroyed our family.”
“Brian, what in the world are you talking about? I have not lied to anyone, I don’t think I have misbehaved, and I have not taken one penny out of the family. `Destroyed the family’ how? I was kicked out of the family, out of a clear blue skyÄkicked out and sent packing, all in a matter of minutes. I certainly did not `destroy the family.’ Explain yourself.”