The confrontation must come. We should welcome it, Dobbs, because only after its over will we be able to make peace with them.
You have been lying to us for two hundred years! And now you are asking me to trust you?
Your body is going to be taken apart for the useable material, and you’re not going to be allowed to leave before they do it.
We can get this out in the open and no one can stop us.
You don’t have to go through this. You don’t have to be humiliated in front of your employers, you don’t have to face whatever the Guild is planning for you. Let me get you out of there.
Dobbs gripped the necklace around her throat.
No. No. There’s got to be something else I can do.
What? She asked herself harshly. What else are you going to do, Dobbs? Run away with Lipinski, maybe go back to Kerensk and set up house? Go on the gossip services after Yerusha’s little broadcast and talk about out-of-body experiences? The Guild has shut you out! Al Shei’s just kicked you out. What are you going to do? Huh?
What are you going to do?
She hauled on the necklace. The simulated jewels bit painfully into the back of her neck before the catch gave and the chain snapped free. She stared at the red and gold sparkle of it for a long moment before she tossed it onto the stairs. She trotted down to the next hatchway and walked out into the corridor without looking back.
The corridor was full to the brim with people, as Oberon’s corridors always were. Dobbs called on all her old training in physical control to avoid breaking into a run. The station was full of eyes and she did not want to be seen. Her throat kept swallowing, trying to feel the slight rub of her chain of office, which was not there. Would never be there again. She was not a Fool, but she would never be anything else.
She found a map on one curving wall and saw she’d blundered into one of the business modules. There was a bank outlet only a dozen yards down the corridor she was in. She threaded her way through the crowd. No one looked at her. That was good. It was good that nobody noticed one tiny, lost woman with her sore throat and eyes that were red from wanting to cry.
The bank outlet was almost full. Dobbs threaded her way between the desks and voices until she found an empty rental desk right next to back wall. She dropped into the chair and pulled out her pen. That and her box she had at least she had kept with her. She wrote DANE PRE-PAID across the desk’s main board.
After an agonized second, the desk came to life and a text message printed itself on the active top.
DOBBS, WE’VE BLOCKED YOUR PEN’S CODE FROM THE GUILD SPIES. GO TO THE OTHELLO COFFEE HOUSE. I’LL MEET YOU THERE.
CURRAN
That was all there was. The desk shut itself down. Dobbs stared for a moment at the blank surface, then, she got to her feet and went back into the corridor.
Things were becoming increasingly unreal. She felt as if she’d just had a dose of juice and her body was no longer her own. Some other force was making the legs move and turning the gaze so that she could avoid the crowds of Human Beings and make her way to the elevators. She watched as if from outside as her body travelled up ten levels and over three modules to the Desdemona hotel and the coffee shop.
She found an empty table and sat. There was something written on the surface. Probably an inquiry for her order. She couldn’t be sure. Her eyes wouldn’t focus. There were noises and moving shapes around her, but she couldn’t separate them out into distinct objects. She was only really aware of one thing. This was where she had juggled scarves for Al Shei and formulated her resolve to find out what was really going on aboard the Pasadena.
And now I know, she thought and it felt as if something inside her would tear in two.
As Dobbs fled the privacy booth, Yerusha started to her feet, but she didn’t follow the Fool. Dobbs was badly shaken. Of course she was. Yerusha was shaken. The whole of Settled Space would be shaken before this was done.
She sat back down and looked at the half-completed command on the memory board. Dobbs’ horrified shout seemed to echo around the booth.
You know, she’s probably right. You probably don’t understand. Crash and burn, she barely understood living humans, how was she supposed to understand the ones who had returned? She remembered Dobbs’ vigorous denunciation of the idea that sentient AIs were reincarnated humans. She shook her head. Metaphysics could wait for later. There were solid problems to be worked out.
Starting with what I should do now. She tapped her pen against the edge of the board. The idea of going public had just frightened Dobbs into running for the lower decks. Should she go find Dobbs and try to talk her out of her panic? Or should she just go ahead and place the call, trusting to Dobbs basic stability to get her through once the gears were grinding?
She remembered how well trusting Al Shei’s basic nature had gone and felt her lips press together into a thin, straight line.
She wiped the request for an open line and instead filtered through the credit for a single-shot fast-time message to Peter Kagan at The Gate.
“Kagan,” she wrote. “Imperative that we communicate in security as soon as possible. Will authorize payment for your fast-time connection to me.” She signed her name, and picked the SEND command off the menu. Then, she put in a request to the station AI that she be notified as soon as the fast-time came through, wherever she was.
Fast-time or not, it’s going to take the kid awhile to get clear. Yerusha sent a copy of the receipt to her personal files and shut the desk down. Hopefully, by then, she would have Dobbs calmed down.
She wrote a locate request on the board, and waited for the station to process it.
The text on the memory board shifted. EVELYN DOBBS BOARDED THE SHUTTLE ‘FIFTH DAY’ WITHOUT REGISTERING A FINAL DESTINATION. THAT SHUTTLE HAS NOW DEPARTED PORT OBERON.
Yerusha’s eyes bulged in their sockets. She’d left the station? Already? Crash and burn! Why hadn’t she said something? Why hadn’t she trusted, waited…
Why didn’t I go after her right away? Why’d I sit here so sure I was doing the right thing for her? What did I think I was going to prove?
Same thing she thought she’d prove with Holden, and with Foster. That Jemina Yerusha was right. That she knew what she was doing. That everything would be all right if everyone would just stop what they were doing and listen.
Ashes, ashes, ashes. She wiped her face with her palm. Now what am I going to do?
She stared at the desktop for another moment before shutting it down. Whatever it is, I can’t do it here.
She slid the door open, stepped out without really watching where she was going and found a human chest smack in front of her. She pulled up short and saw it was Schyler, who was also backing up.
“Sorry,” he pulled both hands out of his pockets. “I was…waiting for you to come out.”
“Did you see where Dobbs went?” she asked, trying to regain some dignity before getting down to the more important question of what Schyler was doing here. It was possible Al Shei had sent him to bring her back. It was possible he had come of his own volition. It was also possible she was about to be officially fired.
“No, I didn’t see Dobbs at all.” Schyler dug his hands back into his pockets. “Was she here too?”
“Yeah, for a little while.” Before I almost scared the life out of her. Yerusha drew a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. “Did you want me for something, Watch?”
“Yes.” Schyler extracted one hand and ran it through his hair. “I wanted to find out if you knew what was going on around here.”
Yerusha was so at a loss for words she couldn’t even open her mouth.