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He sees the shadow just before he enters the lounge, a dim silhouette against the bulkhead. A part of him
wants to turn and run back to his cubby, but it's a much smaller part than it used to be. Most of him is
just tired. He steps forward.
Lubin is waiting there, standing motionless beside the ladder. He stares through Scanlon with eyes of
solid ivory.
"I wanted to say goodbye," he says.
Scanlon laughs. He can't help it.
Lubin watches impassively.
"I'm sorry," Scanlon says. He doesn't feel even slightly amused. "It's just you never even said hello,
you know?"
"Yes," Lubin says. "Well."
Somehow, there's no sense of threat about him this time. Scanlon can't quite understand why; Lubin's
background file is still full of holes, the rumors are still festering over Galápagos; even the other vampires
keep their distance from this one. But none of that shows through right now. Lubin just stands there,
shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looks almost vulnerable.
"So they're going to be bringing us back early," he says.
"I honestly don't know. It's not my decision."
"But they sent you down to prepare the way. Like John the Baptist."
It's a very strange analogy, coming from Lubin. Scanlon says nothing.
"Did you didn't they know we wouldn't want to come back? Didn't they count on it?"
"It wasn't like that." But he wonders, more than ever, what the GA knew.
Lubin clears his throat. He seems very much to want to say something, but doesn't.
"I found the windchimes," Scanlon says at last.
"Yes."
"They scared the hell out of me."
Lubin shakes his head. "That's not what they were for."
"What were they for?"
"Just a hobby, really. We've all got hobbies here. Lenie does her starfish. Alice dreams. This place
has a way of taking ugly things and lighting them in a certain way, so they almost look beautiful." A shrug.
"I build memorials."
"Memorials."
Lubin nods. "The windchimes were for Acton."
"I see."
Something drops onto Beebe with a clank. Scanlon jumps.
Lubin doesn't react. "I'm thinking of building another set," he says. "For Fischer, maybe."
"Memorials are for dead people. Fischer's still alive." Technically, anyway.
"Okay then. I'll make them for you."
The overhead hatch drops open. Scanlon grips his suitcase and starts to climb, one-handed.
"Sir "
Scanlon looks down, surprised.
"I " Lubin stops himself. "We could have treated you better," he says at last.
Scanlon knows, somehow, that this is not what Lubin intended to say. He waits. But Lubin offers nothing
more.
"Thanks," Scanlon says, and climbs out of Beebe forever.
The chamber he rises into is wrong. He looks around, disoriented; this isn't the usual shuttle. The
passenger compartment is too small, the walls studded with an array of nozzles. Forward, the cockpit
hatch is sealed. A strange face looks back through the porthole as the ventral hatch swings shut.
"Hey..."
The face disappears. The compartment resonates with the sound of metal mouths disengaging. A slight
lurch and the 'scaphe is rising free.
A fine aerosol mist hisses from the nozzles. It stings Scanlon's eyes. An unfamiliar voice reassures him
from the cabin speaker. Nothing to worry about, it says. Just a routine precaution.
Everything's just fine.
Seine
Entropy
Maybe things are getting out of hand, Lenie Clarke wonders.
The others don't seem to care. She hears Lubin and Caraco talking up in the lounge, hears Brander trying
to sing in the shower as if we didn't all get enough abuse during our childhoods and envies their
unconcern. Everyone hated Scanlon well, not hate, exactly, that's a bit strong but there was at least
a sort of
Contempt
That's the word. Contempt. Back on the surface, Scanlon ticked everyone. No matter what you said to
him he'd nod, make little encouraging noises, do everything to convince you that he was on your side.
Except actually agree with you, of course. You didn't need fine-tuning to see through that shit; everyone
down here already had too many Scanlons in their past, the official sympathizers, the instant friends who
gently encouraged you to go back home, drop the charges, carefully pretending it was your interests
being served. Back then Scanlon was just another patronizing bastard with a shaved deck, and if fortune
put him down here on rifter turf for a while, who could be blamed for having a little fun with him?
But we could have killed him.
He started it. He attacked Gerry. He was holding him hostage.
As if the GA's going to make any sort of allowance for that...
So far, Clarke's kept her doubts to herself. It's not that she fears no one will listen to her. She fears the
exact opposite. She doesn't want to change anybody's mind. She's not out to rally the troops. Initiative is
a prerogative of leaders; she doesn't want the responsibility. The last thing she wants to be is
Leader of the pack, Len. Head wolf. A-fucking-kayla.
Acton's been dead for months and he's still laughing at her.
Okay. Scanlon was a nuisance at worst. At best he was an amusing diversion. "Shit," Brander said once,
"You tune him in out there? I bet the GA doesn't even take him seriously." The Grid needs them, and it's
not going to pull the plug just because a few rifters had some fun with an asshole like Scanlon. Makes
sense.
Still, Clarke can't help thinking about consequences. She's never been able to avoid them in the past.
Brander's finally out of the shower; his voice drifts down from the lounge. Showers are an indulgence
down here, hardly necessary when you live inside a self-flushing semipermeable diveskin but a sheer hot
hedonistic pleasure just the same. Clarke grabs a towel off the rack and heads up the ladder before
anyone else can cut in.
"Hey, Len." Caraco, seated at the table with Brander, waves her over. "Check out the new look."
Brander's in real shirtsleeves. He doesn't even have his caps in.
His eyes are brown.
"Wow." Clarke doesn't know what else to say. Those eyes look really strange. She looks around,
vaguely uncomfortable. Lubin's over on the sofa, watching. "What do you think, Ken?"
Lubin shakes his head. "Why do you want to look like a dryback?"
Brander shrugs. "Don't know. I just felt like giving my eyes a rest for a couple of hours. I guess seeing
Scanlon down here in shirtsleeves all the time." Not that anyone would even think of popping their caps
in front of Scanlon.
Caraco affects an exaggerated shudder. "Please. Tell me he's not your new role model."
"He wasn't even my old one," Brander says.
Clarke can't get used to it. "Doesn't it bother you?"  Walking around naked like that?
"Actually, the only thing that bothers me is I can't see squat. Unless someone wants to turn up the
lights..."
"So anyway." Caraco picks up the thread of some previous conversation. "You came down here why?"
"It's safe," Brander says, blinking against his own personal darkness.
"Uh huh."
"Safer, anyway. You were up there not so long ago. Didn't you see it?"
"I think what I saw up there was sort of skewed. That's why I'm down here."
"You never thought that things were getting, well, top-heavy?"
Caraco shrugs. Clarke, imagining steamy needles of water, takes a step towards the corridor. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]