“For a rational being, you’re a pretty twisted individual sometimes.” She handed his report back to him.
“I was brought up with humans,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t think it was good for me.”
“Am I to understand your siblings there were not brought up with humans?”
Tal was silent. He looked tired.
The all-citizens-notice bell went off. A voice said, “Ready for a message from the Protector. All citizens, ready for a message from the Protector.”
“And what will Adrian’s response be?” said Tal, in the same exhausted tone. “Damn. I don’t want him told about this.”
The bell sounded again. “This is Adrian Mercati speaking, giving first notice that Blackout will take place in five hours. That’s five hours, my friends. I want to say that you’ve all done a splendid job of preparation in the time we had to work with. All drive-sensitive individuals, report to your parish facility. All facility directors, start checking your lists. Notify Special Security to pick up anybody not checked in within the next ninety minutes.” There was a pause, then, “Report any emergency situations to Security Chief Tal Diamond.” Sound of a throat clearing. “This is the last you’ll hear from me until just before Blackout. Good luck to everybody; remember, if your neighbor needs a hand, offer it to him. We’re all on the same side in this. Adrian Mercati, signing off.” The bell sounded a third time, even longer.
Tal sat in the console chair, not moving. Then he said, “You’d better check on Spider. He’s drive-sensitive.”
He got up and moved to the walkway stairs. Keylinn went with him. She said, “So why did you refuse?”
He smiled wistfully. “It was a lie from the beginning. They would have taken the Crown, and whatever else I brought, and dumped me.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” said Keylinn.
“They’re my relatives,” said Tal. “I should know.”
“You’d be an asset. They might have kept you, just as Miranda said.”
“Well, we’ll never find out now, will we?” He turned and climbed the stairs to the glass and metal booth, and walked inside, alone.
She went to look for Spider.
Chapter 52
Men’s judgments are a parcel of their fortunes.
SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra
The citizens of the Three Cities prepared themselves with that combination of routine and nerves that their ancestors had brought to meet hurricanes, blizzards, floods, and other natural disasters. Nonessential personnel were dismissed from stations. Families locked themselves in their quarters with extra food supplies—technology, like human biology, functioned intermittently during a Blackout. A small percentage of people, less than one percent, would die before they returned to normal space; they preferred to do it with their loved ones.
On the Opal, Will accepted his new brother-in-law’s invitation and found himself in close quarters with both Lysette and Bernadette, wondering about his wisdom in not staying in the City Guard dormitories. Hartley Quince, being unburdened with loved ones, retired to his well-appointed suite with several stacks of paper data he wished to consult and a small container of illicit substances to beguile the tedium of the danger.
Spider had a bed in the parish infirmary, where he could be better looked after in case his system went into shock. There he was surrounded by emergency cots and the families of other drive-sensitives. Spider had been through twelve Blackouts in his lifetime and the controlled chaos was familiar to him. Kids ran up and down the aisles, until they were herded off by their parents or by the neverending procession of deacons, nurses, and volunteers pushing carts of water from bed to bed. At one hour to Blackout, his mother swept in, puffing, with her own emergency food supply: a basket of iced cakes and shortbread, followed by gin chasers. “My own,” she said, kissing him and swinging the basket onto the bed in one practiced movement, “my back won’t let me do this much longer.” She took a folding chair from the stack by the wall and set it beside the bed.
Spider manfully stayed out of the bottle at such times; he considered himself his mother’s champion in the world, and one of them ought to be sober, in case of emergency.
Like Hartley Quince, Tal preferred to be alone.
He was surprised, therefore, when the door to his office over the War Room opened, and Adrian walked in.
“Where’s your entourage?” Tal inquired, when the first startlement passed.
“Strolling about down below.” Adrian shut the door. “I see your stations are all locked down.”
“Not much call for weaponry when you’re separated from the universe at large.”
“Which raises the question of what you’re doing still here.”
“Working,” said Tal, shortly, in the manner of one trying his best to end a conversation.
“Working,” Adrian repeated, as though the word were new. “Your link will only function intermittently.”
“Then I suppose I shall have to use it intermittently.” Tal looked at him. “Is there some reason I’m not permitted to remain on duty?”
“Of course not.” Adrian seated himself on the cushioned bench against the front window, adjusting his cloak. “It’s just that this is a time when most people prefer to be with others. It’s almost ostentatious, this gap you insist on putting between yourself and humans.”
After a moment, Tal said, “It’s less than an hour till Blackout. If you’re experiencing some psychogenetic pull to huddle with your fellow primates at this time, I suggest you seek out your wife.”
Adrian smiled, his charming Mercati smile. “That’s very good. You usually don’t share with me the treasure of your disregard. Is it because Fischer’s not here as a target, or do you just want me to leave?”
“Now why would I want that?”
“Where’s Keylinn?” Adrian asked idly.
“In Transport, with the rest of the techs. What does that—”
“And how did that little matter with the Baret refugees go? Did they have anything worth buying?”
Tal hesitated. Adrian looked boyishly expectant, which worried him. “I hope you didn’t have your heart set on more artistic loot, because they backed out of the deal.”
“You surprise me. They seemed quite desperate.”
Tal shrugged. “I can’t
