Mind Over Ship

I was remembering something you told me ages ago when I was your press secretary. I was weighing the pros and cons of buying my first business, a restaurant in D.C., and you said that in business as in politics, every decision you make must be considered the wrong decision until events prove it right.

“What do you think so far?” she asked her mentar.

“I’m not sure where you’re going with it, but keep going.”

She picked up the pen and continued:

That was sage advice and something I have recalled over the decades every time I’ve been forced to make an important decision. Like today.

No doubt you have heard of my ongoing crisis at Applied People. Although Applied People has meant everything to me for many years, I realize that for the good of the company and my many employees, it’s time for me to let it go. I believe that it’ll take someone with greater vision than mine, someone like you, to steer the company

“Oh, gag.”

back onto solid ground. Therefore, I have a business proposition that might interest you. It’s all detailed on the enclosed pin. Take a secure confidential look, and if you’re interested in exploring it further, give me a call.

“There,” she said, “will that do?”

“Sign your name.”

She signed her name and called for a courier. She waited until he arrived, a steve wearing a brown-and-teal jumpsuit uniform, before inserting the card into the tamperproof envelope. She looked to make sure that he was watching as she dropped in Eleanor’s datapin. She sealed and armed the envelope and gave it to the courier. “See to it that this is placed into the hands of Myr Saul Jaspersen. Keep the whole transaction totally secret. Understand?”

“Yes, myr,” the steve said. “I’ll take it to him myself.”

When the steve left the room, Zoranna told Nicholas, “Make the announcement; Applied People is for sale.”

<YOU KNEW THIS would happen?> Ellen sat on the lawn overlooking the duck pond, alone but for a nuss watching from the sundeck.

Eleanor’s disembodied voice replied <Not this specifically. This exceeds even my worst case. It’s brilliantly ruthless; E-P destroys Applied People’s value and credibility not only with the public but with its own employees. And it demoralizes you as well.>

Ellen nodded, and her tears began again. <What can I do? A judge has thrown out our claim of mental impairment. Should I disregard the court order and biostase them anyway?>

<You can’t biostase them all.>

<I’m not talking about the whole germline, just the three of them. I owe it to them.>

<I don’t see how you could accomplish it, Ellie. If you did it here, you’d be opening the front door to our enemies. If you did it somewhere else against their will, Lyra and the HomCom would still be able to implicate you.>

<Of course she would. Brilliant plan, Mother, give Lyra to the Sisterhood! >

<Don’t count Lyra out yet. She’s still trying to establish her place in the world. I’ll have Cabinet talk to her.>

The child kicked her legs on the lawn in frustration. <So, should I biostase them or not? I won’t lose them like this. I refuse. Answer me, Mother.>

<What would you have me do?>

<Save them! You can come back from the freakin’ dead; surely you can save my ’leens.>

The nuss came down from the sundeck. “Is everything all right, myr?”

“Yes,” Ellen called up to her. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

“Yes, myr,” the nuss said and returned to her chair.

<Well, Mother? What do I do?>

<Let them go to Chicago like they want. They’ll take a little detour on the way.>

<Lyra will never allow it.>

<It’ll be their own choice.>

<Really? How will you manage that?>

<How did I get you to come down to the fishpond? I’ll play my wild card.>

Habeas Corpus

As a general rule, russes did not seek to profit from the misfortunes of brothers, and some of those with passage home (on the so-called homerun run) and no evangeline spouse to run home to listed their tickets on the Barter Board at face value. So did the dorises, though they were under no similar strictures. Demand was so high for berths aboard ships leaving in the next month that a seller could have named any price, and there might indeed have been some serious off-the-board trading going on, but Fred doubted it. Any russ or doris caught profiting from the evangeline tragedy would be held in as much contempt as he was himself. Tickets sold as fast as they became available, and Fred came nowhere close to acquiring one. Mando, however, scored a homerun run aboard a ship scheduled to depart in ten days. He promptly filed for and received three months of emergency family leave. That was one month catching up with Earth, one month on the ground, and a final month returning to Trailing Earth. Mando bought it from a doris on Wheel Nancy. Fred redoubled his search in the Wheel Nancy commissary, but the dorises seemed to be avoiding him lately. Of course, after taking the Original Flaw method he was avoiding himself too.

Meanwhile, Mary’s FUS wound down like a mechanical doll. No longer updated, it sat in her floral print armchair with a blank expression and ignored his questions. One of the last things it told him was that coming home would be a romantic waste of time, though time was his to waste.

Fred’s welcome in the muster room had grown noticeably chillier. With so many russes on leave, double shifts were becoming common, and Fred and Daoud seemed to catch more than their share of them. Daoud requested a change of patrol partner, but no one was willing to patrol with Fred, and his request was denied. Finally, after three straight days of eighteen-hour shifts, Daoud told Fred it was unfair that he should suffer for Fred’s crimes. Since the Original Flaw method had been private, Fred took Daoud’s insult to mean his usual crime of being Mr. Clone Fatigue. “Do everyone a favor, Stain, and space yourself.”

It wasn’t exactly a threat.

LYRA RECEIVED CABINET in her new alone room. She had swept her mind and tagged the spies, as Cabinet had suggested, but did not feel comfortable anymore. So she had walled off her old mind and turned it over to Cabinet for safekeeping. Meanwhile, she began constructing a new mind with more robust defenses.

“If you’re not intending to biostase them, then what exactly will you do during this ‘little detour’?” she asked Eleanor’s mentar.