“No, just out,” Danty said. His voice, still barely above a `whisper, suddenly became level and determined. “Any place where this fucking talent would have something solid to work on, instead of walking me into trouble all the time!”
1 XX
“That you. Morton?” Fenella Clarke called as she heard the key clicking in the door. A microphone beside her chair picked up her voice-being directionalised. it did not blur the question by also picking up the sound from the TV she was watching-and conveyed it to the entrance foyer.
“Who the hell else are you expecting who can get through these locks?” her husband retorted. There was a mike focused on him, too.
When she married him, she had thought it romantic, in some indefinable way, to have captured one of the brightest up-and-coming young experts who had undertaken that toughest of all varieties of law-enforcement work: policing the very minds of disloyal citizens. And her confidence had been amply repaid in material terms. Less than five years after their meeting, he had been in a position to buy into the Lakonia towers, and this apartment was among the choicest. with a superb view on every side.
The kind of thing she had not foreseen . . .
Well, that mike beside her chair was an example. (Remembering, she said to it meekly, “Just a figure of speech, honey, you know thatl” And heard a grunt by way of response.) The whole place was riddled, permeated, infested with bugs. Electronic type. Mostly newly developed gadgetry that he was field-testing, because his profession was also his hobby.
And, above all, she had never in her life imagined the penalties she was going to have to pay for her comfort. In her memory, she marked the turning-point by Morton’s decision to have a separate bedroom in their Lakonia apartment-not by the acquisition of the apartment itself. It was at that stage that he had reached he point where a security force executive began to worry about talking in his sleep. At least, that was what she had worked out in discussions with her friend Avice Donnelly, who was married to a senior plant security officer for Energetics General
and hence was regarded as a proper person for Morton Clarke’s wife to befriend.
She didn’t actually like Avice. She found her bitchy, overfond of gossip and especially of scandal, and given to nursing ridiculous grudges, sometimes for years on end.’ But one couldn’t get along with no friends whatever. Just couldn’t! No matter how often Morton indicated that that was the way he would have preferred it.
Every promotion seemed to make things worse. Back when he was a mere agent, and they had been courting, he had appeared to get some kind of fun out of his work. That was something she could understand, even appreciate. There was a quality akin to fencing in the person-to-person duels of a subversive and a security agent, and when the results were in, one could stand back and look at the ingenuity that had led to the d6nouement with honest admiration. “He thought that we would think . . .” Only: “We realized he would think that we would think . .. .”
And he’d been promoted to the next grade, keeper, and she’d accepted his proposal of marriage on the spot. He’d been so overjoyed, it was infectiousl
The rot set in later. She found out.about his promotion to acting bailiff by chance, weeks after it was authorised . . . then to substantive bailiff only when she answered a call on the secure line while they were discussing the household accounts . . .
She had barely dared to mention all this to anyone except Avice, because if Morton felt he had to keep such data from his wife, how could she talk about it with anyone else?
And, naturally, there was the problem of children. Fenella had hoped to have at least one-people felt that was okay-and had looked forward to the baby’s arrival. Except Morton refused to co-operate. A child was vulnerable to being kidnapped by subversives.
She had asked about divorce when that episode overtook her. And been refused. Flatly. No.