Society of the Mind

comfortable.'

'Thank you: It was,' she said as Gray took the seat opposite Laura's. A waiter appeared and poured red wine into their glasses.

'I had heard about those new planes — about the supersonic ones.'

'Oh, the… the Grumman-Sukhoi?' Laura realized to her embarrassment that he had no time for details like what plane they'd sent for her. 'It's really a good idea. Time is such a valuable commodity, and the technology existed to speed up travel, [missing].' He shrugged, draping his napkin over his lap. 'If they hadn't built such a good product, I would've had my people working on it.'

Laura took a sip of the wine to hide her smirk. 'My people,' she thought, the gentle serfs of the Village below. The tart bite of the wine settled quickly into a wonderful aftertaste, and Laura peered at the dark liquid and took another sip. It was fabulous.

'So,' Gray said, 'where are you staying?'

Laura's eyes shot up, and she almost choked on her wine and had to cough into her napkin. After clearing her throat, she asked, 'Pardon me,' in a still raspy voice — amused.

'Where did they put you up?' Gray repeated in a tone more tentative than before.

'I'm… upstairs. In your house.' He seemed surprised, and his face noticeably reddened. 'Is that all right?' Laura fumbled. 'I mean, I didn't… I just…'

'No, no, no! That's… it's…'

'Because I could,' Laura shrugged, 'you know…'

'No! Absolutely not.' Gray cleared his throat. 'So, do you have everything you need?'

'No,' she replied, then rushed to amend her confusing response. 'No — no… I mean no, I don't need anything. So I guess… I guess 'yes,'' she said, managing a weak laugh. Laura took another, larger sip of wine.

'Yes-s-s… what?' Gray asked, at a loss.

She filled her lungs but paused. 'I mean, yes — I have everything I need — thank you.'

An utter stillness descended upon the room. In the quiet, Laura's breathing assumed the proportions of a sigh of profound exasperation.

She looked down to dab her white linen napkin at her lips, and she saw her plain dress. But she looked up and realized for the first time that Gray himself wore a casual jersey with sleeves rolled up his forearms. Blue jeans and a jersey. She thought that strange. When Laura had first seen Gray, she had in her mind's eye the picture of a man in a conservative business suit.

Gray took a bite of the sauteed mushrooms that had been placed before them by two waiters serving in silent synchrony. He caught her studying him, and she lowered her eyes to her plate.

'You have a beautiful home,' Laura said, spearing one of the delicate morsels and popping it into her mouth. It was delicious.

'Thank you,' Gray replied. 'I can't say I had much to do with the decor.' He looked around as if to find something upon which to comment. 'It looks, sort of,' he mumbled as he chewed, 'old English with a touch of science fiction.' Her eyes roamed the crystal decanters, silver serving dishes, and ornamental plates that lined the shelves, but her gaze ended on the wall of glass. Seemingly suspended in the darkness were the glowing assembly building and launch pads. A quick check of Gray revealed a slight wrinkling around his eyes. He'd made a joke. Laura smiled belatedly.

'Well,' Gray said as he placed his fork on his plate and wiped his lips with the napkin, 'as for business, I've wired your fee into a Chase Manhattan checking account we opened for you in Boston. That's one million dollars, less taxes.'

Laura felt her face redden on his mention of the obscene sum.

'Thank you,' she said instantly deciding it was a woefully inadequate response. Gray seemed not to notice.

A million dollars, she found herself thinking, then guiltily forced the subject from her mind. She still had no plans for the money. It hadn't really even sunk in that the money would be there when she got home. But she imagined now for the first time opening her bank statement and seeing her balance.

When Laura looked up, she realized Gray had finished his appetizer. She quickly stabbed at the remaining mushrooms on the small dish. They tasted so extraordinary she was unwilling to let them go back to the kitchen.

'By my timekeeping,' Gray said, 'your week's service began when you boarded your flight, and will end…' His pause drew her gaze.'… well, upon your return to Boston on Sunday, I guess, although I'm not sure your work will take the entire week.'

The first course was whisked away and a second — tournedos of beef, assorted vegetables, and creamed potatoes molded into the shape of a seashell was laid in its place.

'You see,' Gray said, carving unceremoniously into his tournedos, 'we have a bit of a time crunch. We're a twenty-four-hour operation, although, of course, you're expected only to work at whatever pace you can handle.'

A waiter appeared with a new bottle of red wine. 'Oh. I'd like some more of that,' Laura said, indicating the still half-full bottle on the table. Gray poured it for her, and the waiter disappeared.

'What is this?' Laura asked, taking another small sip. 'It's wonderful.'

Gray turned the bottle to read the label. He clearly had no idea. 'It's a Merlot California, 1978.' He poured himself another glass, showing no further interest in the subject.

They ate now in total silence, the only sound the faint clinking of silverware on plates. Laura feigned interest in the tapestry on the wall behind Gray as she chewed. In the carved stone mantel. In the flowers of the large centerpiece that adorned the long table. Each time she caught glimpses of Gray. He was slender, but his shoulders were broad. His jaw was square, but not so square as to spoil the oval of his face. There was hair on his forearms and at the bottom of the V of his collar, but his neck and hands were smooth.

The next time she looked his way, he lowered his head quickly.

He'd been looking at the bare skin of her upper arms. Laura stole a glance not at Gray but at herself. At her arms.

They were too skinny. Too pale. He was tanned, and compared to him she looked sickly.

This is going well, Laura thought — the quiet of the room suddenly stifling. There might as well have been a metronome, ticking off the rhythm of their silence — tolling the passage of time during which Laura had nothing to say. The stillness suddenly seemed to weigh on her, to make her want to squirm under the growing pressure of it.

'What is it…?' she began, just as Gray said, 'You arrived on…' There was a momentary confusion, but Laura eventually won the battle of insisting that Gray proceed with his comment first.

'You arrived on a good night for a show,' Gray said, holding his wristwatch up to check the time. 'We have a shuttle landing in about five minutes.'

'You mean right over there?' Laura asked, nodding at the three brightly lit pools of light suspended in the mirrored darkness of the window.

She turned to catch him looking at her again. Gray lowered his head and nodded, preoccupied suddenly by the mechanics of consuming his food. The uncomfortable silence again descended on the table. Once again, Gray finished the course before Laura was even half through.

'We have about two launches and recoveries a week,' he said out of the blue, dropping his napkin on the table and resuming a conversation she thought had died long before. 'Mainly just maintenance on the satellites these days. A few new markets, though. A satellite to complete the coverage over Indonesia went up today.'

'Yes, I saw it,' Laura said as she ate in a single bite a slice of beef easily twice the portion she normally consumed.

Gray looked out the window — not at the ground, but at the sky. He checked his watch again. 'Our antennas are so small,' he continued, catching Laura again by surprise, 'that the satellites need to transmit at a very high power. We explored the traditional method of collocating our satellites in geosynchronous orbit so they could cover fixed, wide areas, but at thirty-six thousand miles out they couldn't give us the narrow bands we needed for five hundred channels and a one-meter antenna. So, we put up a few hundred low-earth-orbit satellites instead. They pass by fairly rapidly, but there's always at least one over every market we service. It's an enormously complicated matter, actually, to schedule the overflights so that they seamlessly hand off the broadcasting duties. A satellite will