"God, no. But thanks for offering." When she was inside the sidekick again she touched his face with her be-ringed hand. Her expression was an odd mixture of satisfaction and uncertainty.
"You keep passing the tests, Cooper. As fast as I can throw them at you. I wonder what I'm going to do with you?"
"Are there more tests?"
She shook her head. "No. Not for you."
"You're going to be late for work," Anna-Louse said, as Cooper lifted one of her suitcases and followed her out of the shuttleport waiting room.
"I don't care." Anna-Louise gave him an odd look. He knew why. When they had been together he had always been eager for his shift to begin. By now he was starting to hate it. When he worked he could not be with Megan.
"You've really got it bad, don't you?" she said.
He smiled at her. "I sure do. This is the first time I've been away from her in weeks. I hope you aren't angry."
"Me? No. I'm flattered that you came to see me off. You... well, you wouldn't have thought of something like that a month ago. Sorry."
"You're right." He put the suitcase down beside the things she had been carrying. A porter took them through the lock and into the shuttle. Cooper leaned against the sign that announced "New Dresden, Clavius, Tycho Under." "I didn't know if you'd be angry, but I thought I ought to be here."
Anna-Louise smiled wryly. "Well, she's certainly changed you. I'm happy for you. Even though I still think she's going to hurt you, you'll gain something from it. You've come alive since the last time I saw you."
"I wanted to ask you about that," he said, slowly. "Why do you think she'll hurt me?"
She hesitated, hitching at her pants and awkwardly scuffing her shoes on the deck.
"You don't like your work as much as you did. Right?"
"Well... yeah. I guess not. Mostly because I'd like to spend more time with her."
She looked at him, cocking her head.
"Why don't you quit?"
"What... you mean—"
"Just quit. She wouldn't even notice the money she spent to support you."
He grinned at her. "You've got the wrong guy, A.L. I don't have any objections to being supported by a woman. Did you really think I was that old-fashioned?"
She shook her head.
"But you think money will be a problem."
She nodded. "Not the fact that she has it. The fact that you don't."
"Come on. She doesn't care that I'm not rich."
Anna-Louise looked at him a long time, then smiled.
"Good," she said, and kissed him. She hurried into the shuttle, waving over her shoulder.
Megan received a full sack of mail every day. It was the tip of the iceberg; she employed a staff on Earth to screen it, answer fan mail with form letters, turn down speaking engagements, and repel parasites. The remainder was sent on, and fell into three categories. The first, and by far the largest, was the one out of a thousand matters that came in unsolicited and, after sifting, seemed to have a chance of meriting her attention. She read some, threw most away, unopened.
The last two categories she always read. One was job offers, and the other was material from facilities on Earth doing research into the nervous system. Often the latter was accompanied by requests for money. She usually sent a check.
At first she tried to keep him up on the new developments but she soon realized he would never have her abiding and personal interest in matters neurological. She was deeply involved with what is known as the cutting edge of the research. Nothing new was discovered, momentous or trivial, that did not end up on her desk the next day. There were odd side effects: The Wacky Dust which had figured in their first meeting had been sent by a lab which had stumbled across it and didn't know what to do with it.
Her computer was jammed with information on neurosurgery. She could call up projections of when certain milestones might be reached, from minor enhancements all the way up to complete regeneration of the neuron net. Most of the ones Cooper saw looked dismal. The work was not well funded. Most money for medical research went to the study of radiation disease.
Reading the mail in the morning was far from the high point of the day. The news was seldom good.
But he was not prepared for her black depression one morning two weeks after Anna-Louise's departure.
"Did someone die?" he asked, sitting down and reaching for the coffee.
"Me. Or I'm in the process."
When she looked up and saw his face she shook her head.
"No, it's not medical news. Nothing so straightforward." She tossed a sheet of paper across the table at him. "It's from Allgemein Fernsehen Gesellschaft. They will pay any price... if I'll do essentially what I've been doing all along for Feeli-corp. They regret that the board of directors will not permit the company to enter any agreement wherein AFG has less than total creative control of the product."
"How many does that make now?"
"That you've seen? Seventeen. There have been many more that never got past the preliminary stage."
"So independent production isn't going to be as easy as you thought."
"I never said it would be easy."
"Why not use your own money? Start your own company."
"We've looked into it, but the answers are all bad. The war between GWA and Royal Dutch Shell makes the tax situation..." She looked at him, quickly shifted gears. "It's hard to explain."
That was a euphemism for "you wouldn't understand." He did not mind it. She had tried to explain her business affairs to him and all it did was frustrate them both. He had no head for it.
"Okay. So what do you do now?"
"Oh, there's no crisis yet. My investments are doing all right. Some war losses, but I'm getting out of GWA. The bank balance is in fair shape." That was another euphemism. She had begun using it when she realized he was baffled by the baroque mechanism that was Gitano de Oro, her corporate self. He had seen some astounding bills from Sidekick Inc., but if she said she was not hurting he would believe her.
She had been toying with the salt shaker while her eggs benedict grew cold. Now she gave a derisive snort, and glanced at him.
"The funny thing is, I've just proved all the theoreticians wrong. I've made a breakthrough no one believed was possible. I could set the whole industry on its ear, and I can't get a job."
It was the first he heard of it. He raised one eyebrow in polite inquiry.
"Damn it, Cooper. I've been wondering how to tell you this. The problem is I didn't realize until something you said a few days ago that you didn't know my transcorder is built in to my sidekick."
"I thought your camera crew—"
"I know you did, now. I swear I didn't realize that. No, the crew makes nothing but visual tapes. It's edited into the trans-tape which is made by my sidekick. I leave it on all the time."
He chewed on that one for a while, and frowned at her.
"You're saying you got love on tape."
"The moment of falling in love. I got it all."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She sighed. "Trans-tapes have to be developed. They aren't like viddies. They just came back from the lab yesterday. I transed them last night, while you slept."
"I'd like to see them."
"Maybe someday," she hedged. "For right now, it's too personal. I want to keep this just for myself.
Can you understand that? God knows I've never sought privacy very hard in my life, but this..." She looked helpless.
"I guess so." He considered it a little longer. "But if you sell them, it'll hardly be personal then, will it?"
"I don't want to sell them, Q.M."
He said nothing, but he had been hoping for something a little stronger than that. For the first time, he began to feel alarmed.
He did not think about money, or about trans-tapes, in the next two weeks. There was too much else to do. He took his accumulated vacation and sick leave and the two of them traveled to Earth. It might as well have been a new planet.