“That’s right.”
“Then I fear we have a rather embarrassing problem, Mr. Malone,” he said. “I have no job for you. With your brother—”
“I’m not here for a job,” I said.
“Oh?”
“I’m here to find out about my brother.”
“Your brother?” He looked again at Jenna Guild, as though expecting her to step forward with an explanation, then said to me, “Your brother’s dead. Gar Malone is dead.”
“That’s what I want to find out about,” I said. “How he died and why. And by whose hand.”
“On Anarchaos? My dear man, such questions are irrelevancies here. There are no answers.”
“Still I mean to look for them.”
“Why? What possible good can it do? You can’t bring your brother back to life.”
“I don’t mean to try.”
“What, then?”
“I want to know.”
“For its own sake?”
“For my sake. Once I know what happened to Gar I’ll know what to do about me.”
He sat back, frowning, perplexed, even his eyes showing uncertainty. “I hardly know what to make of you,” he said. “Or what to do with you.”
“You could help me, if you would.”
“How?”
“Tell me what is already known about Gar’s death. Where he died, how he was killed, any other circumstances that are known. And where I might find his grave.”
“Someone in the Department might know that,” he said, ruminating, and asked Jenna Guild, “Which Department would that be? Development?”
“Special Projects, I think,” she said.
He turned back to me. “You can talk to someone there in the morning, if you like. After that, we’ll have to decide what’s to be done about you.”
“In the morning? Why not now?”
He seemed surprised. “Don’t you know what time it is?”
I looked out the window, but then realized the fact of daylight meant nothing here. Hell stood always at two o’clock in the sky over Ulik. But I, used to the regularity of Sol around the Earth, had been assuming that daylight meant daytime as well. I said, “No, I don’t. I hadn’t thought about it.”
“It’s well after midnight,” he said. “You have no watch?”
“No. I… haven’t needed one.”
“Jenna, get Mr. Malone a watch.” Turning back to me he said, “A watch is indispensable here. So far as Anarchaos is concerned time does not exist.”
“I’m sorry I came so late,” I said, and got to my feet, leaving my untouched drink on the low table beside the divan.
“Perfectly all right,” he assured me. He smiled, and remained seated. “Jenna and I were still up,” he said. “Weren’t we, Jenna?”
Jenna agreed silently, smiling, nodding at the Colonel. Was I wrong, or was there something strange in that smile she gave him, something secret that glittered there like fury or hate? I couldn’t be sure.
The Colonel said, “Jenna will show you your room, and make arrangements for you to see the right people in the morning. Just place yourself in her hands.”
“I will. Thank you for your time.”
“Not at all. My only pleasure is speaking with new arrivals from home, even on such unhappy business.”
All the way across the room my back itched, between the shoulderblades, where I could feel his eyes.
IX
The room I was to sleep in was small and windowless, but nevertheless extravagant. The walls were covered in a textured fabric of rich blue, complemented by a gray carpet on the floor. The furnishings continued the use of blues and grays, with the addition of dark polished wood tones. The lighting was soft, indirect, and a bit whiter than I was used to.
Jenna had led me here in silence, her face stern and expressionless. She was clearly angry about something and was trying unsuccessfully to keep that anger hidden. I supposed that the clues Colonel Whistler had managed to call to my attention concerning the relationship between himself and Jenna were what had caused the anger, but I couldn’t understand why. Surely the implication of those clues was true; the services of a Jenna would almost have to be among the fringe benefits offered executives sent to a remote place like Anarchaos. Why should she be angry that such an obvious role had been made clear to an unimportant stranger?
Looking at Jenna, reflecting on her para-secretarial duties, I began to think of myself in regard to those duties, and how long it had been since I had shared pleasure with a woman. There had been the years in prison, of course, and since then my attention had been focused exclusively on the death of my brother. Only when the subject was called to my attention, as it had been by the presence of Jenna and the implications made apparent by the Colonel, did I remember my thirst, which then became feverish.
Jenna said, “If you’re hungry, I could have food brought to you. Not much, of course; everything’s shut down for the night.” She was trying to be civil, but her voice was made of ice and her words had sharp edges.
I said, “Is it me you’re mad at?”
She seemed surprised. “No no,” she said, and tried a smile which worked fairly well. “Don’t mind me, I’m just tired.”
“Do you have to go back to the Colonel now?”
Instantly, her face snapped shut again and coldly she said, “Why?”
“I wish you’d eat with me. I don’t like to sit at a table alone.”
Only slightly less hostile, she said, “It’s late, Mr. Malone. I’m not very hungry, but I am tired.”
Her coldness was helping me forget the thirst. “All right,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I’ll have some food sent to you.”
“Thank you. My luggage is still outside, in the auto.”
“I’ll have it brought in.” She hesitated, then said, somewhat contritely, “I’ll try to be pleasanter in the morning.”
“We all will be,” I said, “after we’ve slept.” It was meaningless politeness, and I was relieved when she accepted it as a goodbye and walked out, closing the door silently behind her. I sat down in a blue armchair, removed my shoes, and rubbed the bare soles of my feet back and forth across the carpet, giving myself over to the cat-pleasure of it while waiting for the food to be brought.
It came ten minutes later, and I wasn’t entirely surprised when it was brought by Jenna herself, who smiled apologetically at me and said, “Is it too late to accept your invitation?”
“You’re just in time.” I glanced at the two servings on the tray she carried, and said, “I couldn’t have eaten all that anyway.”
She laughed, perhaps more than the joke warranted, and I helped her set the table for two. She kicked off her own shoes when she saw I was barefoot, spoke brightly and humorously about her troubles in getting this snack from the kitchen help, and all in all made every attempt to make up for her past behavior. I responded more than I wanted to, my thirst returning stronger than ever, and it being now in part a literal thirst, my mouth and throat as dry as the desert around the city. I drank down the glass of milk she’d brought me, plus several glasses of water, but my mouth remained dry, my skin somewhat feverish, my thoughts random and confused and explosive.
During the meal she led the conversation, talking to me as her employer had done of Earth, except that Jenna seemed more interested in Earth as I knew it than as she remembered it. She asked me questions, and I gave her the most harmless parts of my biography. She mentioned Gar once or twice, each time with sympathy and what seemed very like regret, but asked me nothing about him and volunteered nothing that she knew of his last months on Anarchaos.
A knock at the door interrupted us at one point. I went to it, and found a guard from downstairs, who had brought my knapsack. When I shut the door and turned back to the table, I saw that Jenna had left it and had moved to a part of the room which could not be seen by anyone standing in the doorway. She seemed to be quite interested in a small wooden chair there, and commented on how seldom one saw that style of furniture these days. I agreed, we both returned to the table, and we went on with our meal and our conversation.