Fists clenched, shivering, Christopher stood in the middle of the room, staring at the blank white wall on which he seemed to see his life. But it was not until Meyfarth rose from his chair and wrapped him in a quieting hug that Christopher began to cry in earnest, and let himself feel at last the pain of a crippling cut which had never healed.
Christopher drove back to the center dazed and benumbed, the flyer’s radio merely noise in his ears.
“Top news of the hour: from Diaspora Project headquarters in Prainha, Brazil, word that the certification flight of the star-ship
“The announcement came from Takara construction crew chief Benjamin Burns, who had this to say: ‘You have to remember that
“Burns announced no firm date for the test flight and refused to give specific details about the reason for the delay. But Anne-Lee Adams, a space system analyst with Grodin Associates, pointed to claims made last week by Homeworld spokesperson Jeremiah:
“ ‘In my view, this confirms the rumors and reports of a major sabotage incident at Allied Transcon’s Munich center. For them to acknowledge it at all means that the damage must have been quite serious. I expect we’ll see this one-month postponement turn into a much longer delay before the story has run its course.’ ”
The news barely penetrated Christopher’s consciousness and distracted him not at all from his thoughts. Though Meyfarth had mercifully found an extra forty minutes to spend with him, that time had bought him only a measure of composure, carried him only a tiny step toward peace. The walls of denial were still toppling, and his eyes hurt from the light that was shining in.
He could see all the way back, all the way in. He could no more close his eyes to it than he could stop breathing, though both had their temptations. There was nothing soft beneath him to catch him when he fell. There was nothing firm enough to carry the weight of his life.
Tear apart the memories and assemble them anew, all the sharp edges restored, the polish removed. Too many pieces to hold at once. Too many connections to make between them.
Truth was a solvent for illusion, but there was nothing tidy about the process, nothing cheap about the price. He had bought a dose of truth that morning and paid for it with the rawness of his throat and the battered ache in his body.
And the hardest truth was that it was not over.
It was not just the work ahead—sorting untouched feelings, touching disowned thoughts, assembling all the pieces into the picture he had so long rejected. It was the knowledge that all of that work would only solve half of the equation. For the other half, he would have to look to William McCutcheon.
“It’s a hard choice, confronting a parent,” Meyfarth had told him. “You have to risk losing the relationship that you have in order to get a better one. And that’s difficult for some people to do. Unsatisfactory as that relationship might be, your definitions of love and self and family are all tied up with it. You’re going to need some support from outside and some strength from inside. Don’t force a showdown now. Give yourself time.”
Time to heal.
Waiting in his skimmer in the security check line at the south entrance to the compound, Christopher wondered if it wasn’t time to go back to riding the tram.
Ever since the Homeworld assault on the NASA Boulevard checkpoint, it had been more trouble than it was worth to try to bring a private vehicle through the relocated gate. Sentinel now took control of approaching vehicles the moment they crossed the security threshold, and the open-gate on-the-fly check had been replaced with a stop-and-go double-gate inspection. It was like putting a navigation lock on a busy river, with the predictable result—traffic was always backed up, no matter what the time of day.
But after last week’s concert, he had turned to the skimmer as a way of hiding from the media who followed him onto the tram. The nosy suspicion of the sentries was less of a nuisance than the nosy intrusion of the reporters. But the cul-de-sac had been empty that morning, miracle of miracles. If the miracle repeated itself tomorrow, he would leave the skimmer in the carport.
Presently, he was first in line, the outer gate opening for him. Sentinel eased the skimmer forward, then closed the outer gate behind it. At that point, Christopher was sealed in a square cell formed by the double gates and the flanking gatehouses.
Ordinarily, it took only a few seconds for the red-eyed laser to strobe the code plate on the skimmer, the bomb sniffers and telltales to pronounce it clean, the telescopic camera in the leftside gatehouse to scan Christopher’s face and check it against the hyper.
But this time, the kill-Q alarm came on, a sirenlike sound that startled Christopher. The skimmer settled to the ground, its lifters shut down. While he gaped in surprise, doors on both gatehouses yawned, and brown- uniformed guards hurried out through the openings. In seconds, Christopher found himself looking out at four hard expressions, four unslung assault rifles.
“Christopher McCutcheon”—he heard the words over the skimmer radio—“this is Captain Jackson of base security.” In truth, it was Sentinel; “Captain Jackson” was merely a stern-voiced AIP.
“Yes.”
“Please get out of your vehicle.”
Numbly, his face proclaiming his bewilderment, Christopher obeyed. As he did, a blue-striped Security flyer coasted to a stop beyond the inner gate, and one of the corpsecs stepped forward.
“Would you come with me to Building 100, sir?”
The inner gate opened a walk-through to the flyer, but stubbornness rooted Christopher’s feet. “What’s going on?”
“If you please, sir,” the corpsec said, nodding toward the flyer.
Reluctantly, and still without any conception of why he had failed the check, Christopher allowed himself to be bundled into the flyer and whisked off to Building 100—the security office. He only braved the obvious question once, not knowing if they could hear him, not knowing how to penetrate their professional distance. “What did I do?”
No one answered.
At Building 100, they left him waiting in the flyer, watched by more of the hard-eyed Corporate Security officers. Presently, a broad-shouldered man wearing a steel-gray jumpsuit emerged from the building and joined him in the flyer.
“Christopher McCutcheon?” the man said as the flyer lurched forward.
“Yes?”
“I’m Donald Lange, site security,” the man said. “You’re wanted at another location. I’m going to escort you.”
“Wanted where? For what?”
“I’ll tell you once we’re in the air.”
“In the air?” Christopher tried to shake his fog. “I don’t have any clothes.”
“That won’t be a problem,” said Lange.
They took him to a six-seat screamer already warming up on a taxiway. Christopher, Lange, and two corpsecs boarded. In less than five minutes, Houston was falling away behind them.
“Now can I know where we’re going?” asked Christopher, turning away from the small window.
In lieu of an answer, Lange turned his seat and locked it so that it faced Christopher. From the small case beside him, he retrieved a flip-flop slate and plugged it into the SkyLAN port on the right armrest. Finally, he placed a black-banded eyecup headset on his head, tugging the display down into place.
“Recorder on. Analyzer on. This is a contract compliance interview, clauses 29 and 33. Donald Lange,
