Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (47 page)

But Nelly was not maman. She liked it at first when Nelly put her arms around her, but Nelly always was Nelly, that was all, and all at once one night she felt so empty when Nelly did that. She didn't tell Nelly, because Nelly was telling her a story. But after that it was harder and harder to put up with Nelly holding her, when maman was gone. So she fidgeted down and sat on the floor for her stories, which Nelly seemed to think was all right.

Seely was just nobody. She teased Seely sometimes, but Seely never laughed. And that felt awful. So she left Seely alone, except when she asked him for a soft drink or a cookie. Which she got more of than maman would like. So she tried to be good and not to ask, and to eat vegetables and not have so much sugar. It's not good for you, maman would say. And anything maman said was something she tried to remember and keep doing, because everything of maman's she forgot was like forgetting maman. So she ate the damn vegetables and got a lump in her throat because some of them tasted awful, all messed up with white creamy stuff. Ugh. They made her want to throw up. But she did it because of maman and it made her so sad and so mad at the same time she felt like crying.

But if she did cry she went to her room and shut the door, and wiped her eyes and washed her face before she came out again, because she was not going to snivel.

She wanted somebody to play with but she didn't want it to be Sam. Sam knew her too well. Sam would know about her maman. And she would beat his face in, because she couldn't stand him looking at her with his face that never showed anything.

So when Nelly asked did she want to go back to playschool she said all right if Sam wasn't there.

"I don't know who there is, then," Nelly said.

"Then I'll go by myself," she said. "Let's go do the gym. All right?"

So Nelly took her. And they fed the fish and she played in the sandbox, but the sandbox was no fun by herself; and Nelly was not good at making buildings. So they just fed the fish and took walks and played on the playground and in the gym.

There was tapestudy. And a lot of the grown-ups did lessons with her. She learned a lot of things. She lay there in her bed at night with her head so full of new things she had trouble thinking of maman and Ollie.

Uncle Denys was right. It hurt less, day by day. That was the thing that scared her. Because if it didn't hurt the mad was harder to keep. So she bit her lip till it hurt and tried to keep it that way.

There was a children's party. She saw Amy there. Amy ran and got behind sera Peterson and acted like a baby. She remembered why she had wanted to hit Amy. The rest of the kids just stared at her a lot and sera Peterson told them they had to play with her.

They weren't happy about it. She could tell. There was Kate and Tommy and a kid named Pat, and Amy, who cried and snuffled over in the corner. Sam was there too. Sam came out from the others and said Hello, Ari. Sam was the only friendly one. So she said Hello, Sam. And wished she could go home, but Nelly had gone in the kitchen to have tea with sera Peterson's azi, and Nelly was having a good time.

So she went over and sat down and played their game, which was a dice game, and you moved around a board, which was Union space. You got money. All right. She played it, and everybody got to arguing and laughing and teasing each other again. Except Amy. Except they teased each other and not her. But that was all right. She learned their game. She started getting money. Sam was the luckiest one with the dice, but Sam was too careful with his money and Tommy was too reckless. "I'll sell you a station," she said. And Amy bought it for most of what Amy had. So Amy charged a lot and Ari just charged less. And what Amy had bought was off at the edge anyway. So Ari got more money and Amy got mad. And nobody wanted to trade for Amy's station, but Ari offered to buy it back, not for what Amy wanted for it.

So Amy took it and bought ships. And Ari raised her prices a little.

Amy sniveled. And pretty soon she was in trouble again, because Ari kept beating her by using her money to buy up cargoes and keeping a surplus of the only things Amy could get because stupid Amy kept coming to
her
stations instead of sticking to Tommy's. Amy wanted a fight. Amy got a fight. But she didn't want Amy to lose real soon and ruin the game, so she told Amy what she ought to do.

Amy got real mad then. And sniveled some more.

She didn't take the advice either.

So Ari got her in trouble and took all but one of her ships. Then the last one. By that time she had a way to win. But everybody else was looking unhappy and nobody was teasing anybody, except Amy left the table crying.

Nobody said anything. They all looked at Amy. They all looked at her like they wanted not to be there.

She was going to win. Except Sam didn't know it. So she said, "Sam, you can have my pieces."

And she went and got Nelly in the kitchen and said she wanted to go home. Nelly looked worried, then, and stopped having fun with Corrie, and they went home.

She moped around the rest of the day, being lonely. And mad. Which was fine. She thought of maman then. And missed Ollie. Even Phaedra.

And thought if Valery had been there he would not have been so stupid.

"What's the matter?" uncle Denys asked that evening. He was very kind about it. "Ari, dear, what happened at the party? What did they do?"

She could Disappear them all if she said they had a fight. Maybe they would anyway. She wasn't sure. At least Amy and Kate were still around, even if they were stupid.

"Uncle Denys, where did Valery go?"

"Valery Schwartz? His maman got transferred. They moved, that's all. You still remember Valery?"

"Can he come back?"

"I don't know, dear. I don't think so. His maman has a job to do. What happened at the party?"

"I just got bored. They're not much fun. Where did maman and Ollie go? What station?"

"To Fargone."

"I'm going to send maman and Ollie a letter." She had seen mail in maman's office. She had never thought of doing that. But she thought that would get to maman's office at the other place. At Fargone.

"All right. I'm sure they'd like that."

Sometimes she thought maman and Ollie weren't really anywhere. But uncle Denys talked like they were, and they were all right. That made her feel better, but it made her wonder why maman never even called on the phone.

"Can you call Fargone?"

"No," uncle Denys said. "It's faster for a ship to go. A letter gets there much faster than a phone call. In months, not years."

"Why?"

"You say hello, and it takes twenty years to get there; and they say hello and it takes twenty years to get here. And then you say your first sentence and they don't hear it for years. You could take hundreds of years having a conversation. That's why letters are faster and a whole lot cheaper, and they don't use phones and radios between any two stars. Ships carry everything, because ships go faster than light. There are more complications to the question, but that's more than you really want to know to get a message to your maman. It's just a long way. And a letter is the way you do things."

She had never understood how far far could be. Not when they were jumping ships around the board. She felt cold and lonely then. And she went to her room and wrote the letter.

She kept tearing it up because she didn't want to make maman worry about her being miserable. She didn't want to say:
maman, the kids don't like me and I'm lonely all the time.

She said:
I miss you a lot. I miss Ollie. I'm not mad at Phaedra anymore. I want you and Ollie to come back. Phaedra too. I'll be good. Uncle Denys gives me too many cookies, but I remember what you said and I don't eat too much. I don't want to be fat. I don't want to be hyper, either. Nelly is very good to me. Uncle Denys gives me his credit card and I buy Nelly lots of things. I bought a spaceship and a car and puzzles and story tapes. And a red and white blouse and red boots. I wanted a black one but Nelly says that's for azi until I'm older. Little girls don't wear black, Nelly says. I could too, but sometimes I do what Nelly says. I mind everybody. I saw Amy Carnath today and I didn't hit her. She still snivels. I study a lot of tapes. I can do math and I can do chemistry. I can do geography and astrography and I'm going to study about Fargone because you're there. I want to go to Fargone if you can't come here. Are there any kids there? Have you got a nice place?

Tell uncle Denys I can come. Or you come home. I'll be very good. I love you. I love Ollie I am going to give this to uncle Denys to send to you. He says it takes a long time to get there and your letter will take a long time to get to me so please write to me as soon as you can. I think it will be almost a year. By then I will be eight. If you tell Denys to let me come real soon I guess I will be almost nine. Tell him I can bring Nelly too. She'll be scared but I'll tell her it's all right. I'm not afraid of jumps. I'm not afraid to come by myself. I do a lot of things by myself now. Uncle Denys doesn't care. I know he would let me come if you said yes. I love you.

Florian was late again. There was a shortcut along between 240 and 241 and he took it, dodging out between two groups of Olders and skipping backward to nod a courtesy and murmur: "Excuse me, please," before he turned and sprinted across the road and up to Security.

"I'm very sorry," he said, arriving at the desk inside Square One. He was trying not to pant as he handed his chit to the azi at the desk. The man looked at the chit and put it in his machine.

"Blue to white to brown," the man said. "Change in brown. Instructions there."

"Yes," he said, and looked where the man pointed. Blue started with that door and he went, not running, but going in a great hurry.

He knew he was still late when he got to brown. The azi in charge was waiting for him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm Florian AF-9979."

The man looked him over and said: "Size 6M, cabinets on the wall, go change. Hurry."

"Yes," he said, and went into the changing room, hunted quickly for 6M, pulled out the plastic packet and threw it onto the bench while he peeled out of his clothes. He put the black uniform on, sat down quick to pull on the socks and put on the slippers, then hung his AG uniform on the pegs beside uniforms of all sizes and colors. He was so nervous he almost forgot his new keycard, but he got it off his other coveralls and clipped it to the black ones, then raked a hand through his hair and hurried outside again.

"Down the hall," the azi with the clipboard said. "Brown to green.

Run!"

He ran. And followed the halls till he found a door marked with green-in-brown. Inside, then, into a gym. He came bursting in where there was a man with a clipboard, and another Younger, who was dressed like him, in black coveralls. Who was a
girl.
He felt a shock, but gut-level, reacted to the Super and made a little bow. "Sorry I'm late, ser."

The Super looked at him just long enough to keep him worried, and he did not dare look back at the girl who was, he was sure now, here just like he was, to find her partner for this Assignment.

Then the Super made a mark on his board and said: "Florian, this is Catlin. Catlin is your partner."

Florian looked at the girl again, his heart beating hard. It was a mistake. It must be. He was late. He got a girl partner. He was supposed to change bunks and he had thought he was supposed to bunk with his partner. Wrong, then. He did not know where he was going to sleep.

He wanted his classes back. He had been upset about the new Assignment even if his old Super told him he could still have AG on his Rec hours. He wanted—

But the girl bothered him. She looked—

She was blonde, blue-eyed, a scab on her chin. She was taller than he was, but that was nothing unusual. She had a thin, very serious face. He thought he had seen her before. She stared at him, the way you weren't supposed to stare. Then he realized he was doing it too.

"Catlin," the Super said, "you know the way from here. Take Florian over to Staging, talk to the Super there."

"Yes, ser," she said, and Florian almost asked the Super to look and check if there was some mistake, but he was late, he had gotten a bad start with this man, and he did not know why he was as upset as he was, but he was panicked. Catlin was already going. He caught up with her as she walked toward another door behind the hanging buffer-mats at the end of the gym. She used her keycard, held the door for him, and led the way into another long cement hallway.

Down stairs then. And another cement hall.

"I'm supposed to have a bunk assignment?" he said finally, behind her.

She looked back on the stairs and he caught up with her in the long concrete hall at the bottom.

"22. Like me," she said. "We're going in with Olders. Partners room together, two and two."

He was shocked. But she seemed to know what was right, and
she
was not upset. So he just walked behind her, wondering if somehow the Computers had glitched up and he was supposed to have gotten tape to explain all this and help him not make mistakes. He had, he thought, to talk to the Super where they were going.

They got to the other place. Catlin keyed in, and there was a Super sitting at a desk. "Ser," Catlin said. "Catlin and Florian, ser."

"Late," the Super said.

"Yes, ser," Catlin said.

"My fault," Florian said. "Ser, —"

"Excuses don't matter. You're Assigned to Security. You go into Staging, you pick out what you think you might need. And both of you will be right. All right. Fifteen minutes to get your equipment. You do mess, you've got this evening to plan it out, you'll do a Room tomorrow morning. It's a one-hour course, you can talk about it. You're supposed to. Go."

"I—" he said. "Ser, I have to feed the pigs. I— Am I supposed to have gotten tape about this? I haven't."

The Super looked straight at him. "Florian, you'll do AG when you aren't doing Security. This is your Assignment. You can go to AG in your Rec time. Four hours Rec time for every good pass through the Room. There isn't any tape for this. It's up at 0500, drill at 0530, breakfast at 0630, then tape, Room, or Rec, whatever the schedule calls for; noon mess as you can catch it, follow your schedule; evening mess at 2000, follow your schedule, in bunks at 2300 most nights. If you've got any problems you talk to your Instructor. Catlin knows. Ask her."