Instead, she seemed to relax, at least a little.
“Life on this ship isn’t terribly exciting, is it?” he said.
“No, I suppose it isn’t.”
For long moments neither one of them knew what to say. At last Bracknell asked, “Your name—Addle. Is it short for Adelaide?”
She broke into an amused smile. “No, certainly not. My full name is Aditi.”
“Aditi?”
“It is a Hindu name. It means ‘free and unbounded.’ It is the name of the mother of the gods.”
Hindu, Bracknell thought. Of course. The captain told me she’s from India. That explains the lilt in her accent.
“Free and unbounded,” he echoed. “Kind of ironic, here on this nutshell of a ship.”
“Yes,” she agreed forlornly. Then she brightened. “But my father is making arrangements for me to marry. He has amassed a large dowry for me. In another few years I will be wed to a wealthy man and live in comfort back on Earth.”
“You’re engaged?”
“Oh, no, not yet. My father hasn’t found the proper man for me. But he is seeking one out.”
“And you’ll marry whoever he picks?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Don’t you want to pick your husband for yourself?”
Her smile turned slightly remorseful. “What chance do I have for that, aboard this ship?”
Bracknell had to admit she was right.
He went back to his quarters, but before he could close the door, the captain pushed against it, glowering at him.
“I told you to keep away from my daughter.”
“She was in the galley,” Bracknell explained. “We spoke a few words together.”
“About marriage.”
“Yes.” Bracknell felt his temper rising. “She’s waiting for you to find her a husband.”
“She’ll have to wait a few more years. Fifteen’s too young for marriage. Maybe it’s old enough in India, but where I come from—”
“Fifteen? She’s only fifteen?”
“That’s right.”
“How can she be a doctor…?”
The captain’s twisted lip sneered at him. “She’s smart enough to run the computer’s medical diagnostics. Like most doctors, she lets the computer program make the decisions.”
“But—”
“You keep your distance from her.”
“Yes,
“Remember, I watch everything you do,” the captain said. “Stay away from her.”
He left Bracknell’s quarters as abruptly as he’d entered. Bracknell stood there alone, shaking inside at the thought that a fifteen-year-old could look so alluring.
YAMAGATA ESTATE
He was the family’s oldest retainer, a wizened, wrinkled man with a flowing white mane that swept past the shoulders of his modest sky-blue kimono. Nobuhiko remembered riding on those shoulders when he’d been a tot. The man had never accepted rejuvenation treatments, but his shoulders were still broad and only slightly sagging.
They walked together along the gravel path that wound through the carefully tended rock garden just inside the high wall that sheltered the Yamagata estate in the hills above New Kyoto. A cutting, clammy wind was blowing low gray clouds across the sky; Nobuhiko suppressed the urge to shiver beneath his light gray business suit. He had never shown such a weakness before his servant and he never willingly would.
Never show a weakness to anyone, he reminded himself. Not even yourself. He had been shocked when he learned that four million had been killed by the skytower’s collapse. Four million! Nobu had known there would be deaths, that was unavoidable. It was what the military called “collateral damage.” But four million! It had taken years to overcome the sense of guilt that had risen inside him like a tidal wave, threatening to engulf him. What difference does it make? he argued against his own conscience. Four hundred or four thousand or four million? They would have died anyway, sooner or later. The world goes on. I did what I had to do. For the good of the family, for the good of the corporation. For the good of Japan, even. What’s done is done. It hadn’t been finished easily, he knew. There were still more lives that had to be snuffed out, loyal men and women whose only offense had been to carry out Nobuhiko’s wishes. They were repaid with death, the ultimate silencer. But now it’s done, Nobuhiko thought. It’s finished at last. That’s what this old man has come to tell me.
Once they were too far from the house to be overheard, Nobu said politely, “The years have been very kind to you.”
The old man dipped his chin slightly. “You are very gracious, sir.”
With a wry grin, Nobu patted his belly. “I wish I could be as fit as you are.”
The man said nothing. They both knew that Yamagata’s tastes in food and wine, and his distaste for exercise, caused the difference between their figures.
Delicately changing the subject, the old man asked, “May I inquire as to your father’s well-being?”
Nobu looked up at the sky. This man had served his father since he’d been a teenager. He still regards Saito as the head of the family, Nobu thought, no matter that Father has been retired in that lamasery for so many years.
“My father is well,” he said at last. It was not a lie, although Nobu had not heard from his father for many months.
“I am pleased to hear it. He has great strength of character to abandon this world and take the hard path toward enlightenment.”
And I do not have strength of character? Nobu snarled inwardly. Is this old assassin throwing an insult into my teeth?
Aloud, however, he said merely, “Yet some of us must remain in this world and carry its burdens.”
“Most true, sir.”
“How many years has it been since the skytower fell?” Nobuhiko asked.
“Not enough for anyone to dare suggest building another.”
“So. That is good.”
The old man dipped his chin again in acknowledgement.
“Have all the people who participated in the event been properly disposed of?”
“They have been tracked down and accounted for.” Both men knew what that meant.
“All of them?”
The old man hesitated only a fraction of a second. “All but one.”
“One?” Nobu snapped, suddenly angry. “After all this time, one of them still lives?”
“He is either very clever or very lucky.”
“Who is he? Where is he?”
“He is the nanotechnology expert that we recruited from Selene.”
Nobu could feel his pulse thundering in his ears. Before he could respond to his servant’s words the old man added:
“He has changed his identity and his appearance several times. Even his retinal patterns have been altered, my agents report. The man is something of a genius.”
“He must be found,” Nobu said firmly. “And dealt with.”
