“We have heard it said, even by those who agree with our goals, that we have committed a crime, and become like our enemies. We accept this judgment, with one distinction.
“Allied Transcon’s crimes are crimes against Nature. They harm the body and spirit of Gaea, immanent in the fabric of life. Our crimes are crimes for Nature. We harm only those who bring harm to our common home. We steal their wealth. We destroy their tools. We stand against them, and for the silent Earth.
“This is Jeremiah, speaking for the Homeworld.”
The jammer in the Gulf ran for just over six minutes, pumping two and a half repetitions of Jeremiah’s announcement out over E-l, G-l, and three Gulf State commercial bands before its power cells died. Float jammers in the South Atlantic off Brazil and the Mediterranean west of Sicily delivered the same message to Allied Transcon’s primary launch center at Prainha and the European administrative center in Munich, respectively. Off- planet, Aurora Sanctuary’s official broadcaster carried the announcement for the benefit of the sixteen satlands, following it with a two-hour debate on environmental activism.
There were failures: A relay jammer located across the street from Allied’s Tokyo facility was picked up in a security sweep twenty minutes before the tanker reached NASA Drive. And a reliable old Homeworld trick finally played out its string: The remora on the main feed for ComNet 3 cut in on schedule, replacing the broadcast of “Personal Combat” with Homeworld’s earth-globe logo and Jeremiah’s voice. But a ready controller blacked the net before more than a few words could go out.
A new trick, however, worked very well indeed. A routine stack upload into the Direct Information Access Network for North America suddenly showed itself to be a Trojan horse, commandeering nearly half of DIANNA’s data channels and piping Jeremiah’s announcement out through the terminals of more than six million surprised users.
And the ComNet blackout and DIANNA incursion together ensured the kind of attention Homeworld craved: a minute on the Current News stack, and a moment in the lives and thoughts of uncountable millions of Earth’s children.
On balance, Jeremiah was pleased.
Christopher McCutcheon rose early, escaping from a restless and unrewarding sleep, hoping to escape from encountering either of his wives. He padded softly through the big house on Denham Street as though a trespasser. Which, in truth, was how he felt that Monday, even though he not only lived there but held four-tenths of the fractional mortgage.
The door to Loi’s bedroom was still closed, which helped. It closed out the inevitable sounds of morning— running water and the muted voice of the housecom, the gurgle and hiss of the kitchen appliances. And it screened Christopher from the sight of Loi and Jessie together, though not from the memory of the sight of them last night.
He had stood in that doorway a long time, hammered by the tangled limbs, murmuring voices, and the raw fragrance of sex. The rumpled sheets, tousled hair, and skin-glisten of sweat had told him that what was happening was not a beginning but an encore. He had been in Freeport since midday; they had had more than enough time.
Stunned, silent, Christopher had watched Loi’s experienced hands exploring Jessie’s sleek secrets, her mouth ravening Jessie’s throat and breasts. He watched with pain, not pleasure, feeling as though he should be part of what was happening before his eyes, and yet knowing that he was not welcome. Waiting to be noticed, and yet knowing that to wait one moment longer was to invite more misery.
And then he had been noticed, Loi catching sight of him as she turned her lithe body on the bed, opening herself to Jessie’s touch. Her eyes fixed on him challengingly, reproachfully.
He did not withdraw. He could not move.
“Chris is back, Jessie,” she had said finally. Her voice was empty of apology or embarrassment.
Jessie had twisted her body toward where he stood, showed a mischievous smile. “Hi, Chris.”
Loi gave him no chance to read a greeting as an invitation. “Chris, would you close the door for us? I think Mobius must have pushed it open,” she had said, naming the family’s elder cat. “Oh, and you have some mail on the com.”
There was nothing in her words that he had not already foreseen, and yet he had felt sudden fury at being sent away. He remembered yanking the door shut with all the force he could muster, rattling the framed pictures hanging in the hall. And then fleeing to his room at the opposite end of the upstairs hall, expecting his distress to lure one or both of them to follow.
But neither did. He lay in the dark fighting to close out the sounds of Jessie and Loi’s pleasure—never sure if he was hearing or imagining them—and bleeding from a wound he had thought had closed over forever.
A miserable moment. A miserable night. And in both, more than enough reasons to avoid facing them that morning.
Christopher satisfied himself with a speedshower and a muffin from the warmer, then slipped quickly into his gray two-piece. When he was ready to leave, the house was still silent, Loi and Jessie presumably still cocooned in Loi’s bed. But he felt too acutely that he was running away, and in rebellion against the feeling stopped in the family room to retrieve his mail.
He was glad he had. There were five messages for him on the housecom, the last a brief notice from Allied informing him that the main entrance was temporarily closed, and asking that pools and dropoffs use the north entrance and that everyone else ride the tramline to work. Riding the tram was an annoyance, but less of one than reaching the main gate in his flyer and being turned away.
The price of his rebellion was high, however. By the time he shut down the display, there were footsteps on the balcony behind him. He turned to see Loi descending the stairs in her robe, her eyes sleepy, her short blond hair robbed of its usual sculpted look by her pillow. It was only in the morning that Loi’s true age showed. On the lee side of breakfast and her morning rituals, Loi usually passed for ten years fewer than her forty-six.
“Good morning, sweet,” she said. “I almost missed you.”
“I have to leave,” he said defensively. “I’m riding the tram.”
“You have time for a hug, don’t you?” But he was stiff in her embrace, and she drew back to study his face. “I wanted to see if you were all right this morning. I guess that tells me.”
“You might have thought about it last night.”
“Chris dear, you have no right to be angry with me, or with Jessie.”
“You shut me out,” he said sharply.
“As you do when you and Jessie take time together, as we do to Jessie at other times. Is there any difference?”
He frowned sulkily. “I didn’t know you were interested.”
“Jessie is a beautiful young woman, full of interesting energies,” Loi said. “How could you think I wouldn’t be attracted to her? And how could you not have noticed what’s been happening when the three of us are in bed together?”
For a moment, Christopher was silent. “Look, I’ve got to leave.”
“Not yet,” Loi said, grabbing his hand as he tried to turn away. “Yes, you met Jessie first. Yes, you were the one who suggested her as our third. But you don’t own her—or me, for that matter. I want a family in which we all share our lives and our selves, freely, without contracts, without artificial boundaries. I thought you wanted that, too.”
“I wasn’t expecting this,” he said angrily. “I didn’t think I’d have to fight her for your time. All I thought about on the way back from Freeport was coming home and making love with you. Except you were already busy.”
“Did you think that being the only male in this trine made you the center?” Loi retorted. “We’re not going to work like this, Chris. Not with you reacting to our love with jealousy. If you can’t find a better place to be on your own, maybe you’d better make an appointment with Arty.”
“I’ve got to leave,” he said firmly, pulling away.
This time she let him go. “We’ll talk tonight, then,” she said, “all three of us.”
“I’m not interested in a conversation on the subject of How Foolish Chris Is Being,” he said, his back to her. “Thank you
She came up behind him and slipped her arms around his waist, cuddling close and resting her head on his back. “I had in mind a conversation on how we can all help each other with the hard parts,” she said softly.
