he said in a whisper. “But according to these little characters, there is plenty of room for all of us in that lair you lived in the first few years after you were born.”
It was dark inside the barn. Before Max switched on the light, Ellie had already glimpsed the tiny glowing robots beside her on one of the windowsills. “Hello again, Ellie,” said little Joan, still dressed in her armor. “Your mother and father are both fine and send their greetings.”
“We have come to see you tonight,” the robot Eleanor added, “because Max thought it was necessary for you to hear for yourself what we have to say. Richard and Nicole are inviting you and your friends to join them in your old lair in New York, where your parents are living a Spartan but peaceful existence.”
“Everything about your lair,” Joan now said, “is the same as it was when you were a small child. Food, clothing, and other objects are still supplied by the Ramans after requests are made by using the keyboard in the White Room. Unlimited supplies of fresh water are available at the cistern near the bottom of the entry staircase.”
Ellie listened, fascinated, while Joan reminded her of the living conditions under the island city on the southern side of the second habitat. Ellie tried to recall the lair from her memory, but the picture that came to her mind was surprisingly vague. What she could remember clearly from that period of her life were the last few days in Rama, including the spectacular rings of color emanating from the Big Horn and drifting slowly toward the north of the giant cylinder. But her memory of the inside of the lair was foggy. Why can’t I remember at least the nursery more clearly? she wondered. Because too much has happened since? And made deeper impressions in my memory?
A montage of images from her early childhood streamed through Ellie’s mental vision. Some of the pictures were indeed from Rama, but far more of them were from the family apartment at the Node. The indelible features of the Eagle, a godlike figure to the child Ellie, seemed to preside over the montage.
Eleanor of Aquitaine had asked Ellie something, but the young woman had not been paying attention. “I’m sorry, Eleanor,” Ellie said, “please repeat your question. I’m afraid I was temporarily lost in my childhood.”
“Your mother asked about Benjy. Is he still in the ward out in Avalon?”
“Yes,” Ellie replied. “And doing as well as can be expected. His best friend in the whole world is now Nai Watanabe. When the war ended, she volunteered to work
with those who had been assigned, for one reason or another, to the Avalon Ward. She spends time with Benjy almost every day and has helped him immensely. Her twins Kepler and Galileo love to play with him-Benjy is essentially just a big child himself-although Galileo is sometimes unkind and causes Nai considerable heartache.”
“As I told you,” Max said, turning the conversation back to their primary business, “Nicole and Richard have left it up to our discretion to decide who should be involved if we do attempt a mass exodus. Will Benjy follow directions?”
“I think so,” Ellie said. “As long as he trusts the person giving them. But there is no way we could tell him about the escape ahead of time. We couldn’t possibly expect him not to say something about it. Secrecy and guile are not part of Benjy’s personality. He will be overjoyed, but—”
“Mr. Puckett,” Joan of Arc interrupted, “what should I tell Richard and Nicole?”
“Shit, Joanie,” Max replied, “have a little patience.. Better still, come back again in a week, after Ellie, Eponine, and I have had more time to talk this thing through, and I’ll give you a tentative answer. And tell Richard I find the whole damn thing intriguing, even if it is certifiably insane.”
Max placed the two robots on the floor of the barn and they scampered away. When Max and Ellie were back outside in the fresh air, Max pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. “I assume that it doesn’t offend you too much if I smoke out here?” he said with a grin.
Ellie smiled, “You don’t want to tell Robert, do you, Max?” she then said quietly a moment later, as Max blew smoke rings into the night air.
Max shook his head. “Not yet,” he replied. “Maybe not until the last moment.” He put his arm around Ellie, “Young lady, I like your doctor husband, I really do, but sometimes I think his attitudes and priorities are a little strange. I can’t say for certain that he wouldn’t tell someone.”
“Do you think, Max,” Ellie said, “that maybe Robert has made a private vow of some kind never to act against authority again? And that he is afraid?”
“Shit, Ellie, I’m no psychologist. I don’t think either of us can possibly understand what killing two people in cold blood did to him. But I can say that there is a finite chance that he would not keep our secret-to avoid a painful personal decision, if nothing else.” Max inhaled deeply on his cigarette and stared at his young friend.
“You don’t think he’ll come, do you, Max? Not even if I want him to.”
Again Max shook his head. “I don’t know, Ellie. It will depend on how much he needs you and little Nicole. Robert has made room for the two of you in his life, but he still hides his feelings behind continuous work.”
“What about you, Max?” Ellie now asked. “What do you really think of this whole scheme?”
“Eponine and I are both ready to go, to have ourselves a little ad-ven-toor,” Max said with a grin. “It’s just a matter of time before I get into serious trouble with Nakamura anyway.”
“And Patrick?”
“He’ll love the idea. But I’m worried that he might say something to Katie. They have a special relationship —”
Max stopped in midsentence when he saw that Robert, who was carrying his tired daughter, had come out onto the front porch.
“Oh, there you are, Ellie,” Robert said. “I thought that maybe you and Max were lost in the barn. Nicole is tired and I have a very early morning at the hospital.”
“Of course, darling,” Ellie replied. “Max and I were just sharing memories of my mother and father.”
It must look like a perfectly normal day, Ellie thought as she showed her identification card to the Garcia biot in the atrium of the Beauvois supermarket. I must do everything exactly as if this were an ordinary Thursday.
“Mrs. Turner,” the Garcia said a few seconds later, handing her a list printed out of the computer against the wall behind the biot, “here is your ration allocation for the week. We are out of broccoli and tomatoes again, so we have included two extra measures of rice. You may now proceed to the line to pick up your groceries.”
Little Nicole walked beside her as Ellie entered the main part of the supermarket. On the other side of a mesh screen, where in the early days of the colony the citizens of New Eden had done their own shopping, five or six Tiasso and Lincoln biots, all from the 300 series completely reprogrammed by the Nakamura government, were moving up and down the aisles filling the orders. Most of the shelves were empty. Even though the war had been over for some time, the unstable weather in New Eden, as well as the dislike of most of the farmers for Nakamura’s heavy-handed ways, had kept food production at a minimum level. The government had found it necessary, therefore, to supervise the allocation of food. Only the governmental favorites had more than the bare essentials to eat.
There were half a dozen people in the queue in front of Ellie and her almost-two-year-old daughter. Ellie shopped with the same people every Thursday afternoon. Most of them turned around when Ellie and Nicole entered the line.
“There’s that darling little girl,” a pleasant woman with gray hair said. “How are you today, Nicole?” she asked.
Nicole didn’t answer. She just backed up a couple of steps and fastened herself tightly to one of her mother’s legs. “Nicole’s still in her shy stage,” Ellie said. “She only talks to people she knows.”
A Lincoln biot brought out two small boxes of food and handed them to the father and adolescent son at the head of the supermarket line. “We won’t be using a cart today,” the father said to the Lincoln. “Please make a note of that on our record. Two weeks ago, when we also hand-carried our groceries, nobody noted that we didn’t take a cart and we were awakened in the middle of the night by a Garcia demanding that we return our cart to the store.”
There must be no trivial mistakes, Ellie said to herself. No carts not returned, nothing that anyone could suspect before morning. As she waited in the line, Ellie reviewed again the details of the escape plan that she and Patrick had discussed with Max and Eponine the previous day. A Thursday had been chosen because that was the day that Robert made his regular visits to the RV-41 sufferers in Avalon. Max and Eponine had applied for, and received, a pass to visit Nai Watanabe for dinner. They would look after Kepler and Galileo while Nai went to the ward for Benjy. Everything was in order. There was only one major uncertainty left.
