ings that involve lawyers and bankers rather than violence. Oh, they sometimes do fight with hired armies but they don't admit it and it's not their usual style. But these current jokers are using exactly the weapons with which a multinational can be hit and be hurt: assassination and sabotage. This is so evident that it worries me that we don't hear of it. Makes me wonder what is happening that they are not putting on the air."
I swallowed a big chunk of French bread that I had soaked in that heavenly soup, then said, "Ian, is it within possibility that some one-or more-of the multinationals is running this whole show through dummies?"
Ian sat up so suddenly that he jiggled his soup and spotted his bib. "Marj, you amaze me. I picked you out of the crowd originally for reasons having nothing to do with your brain-"
"I know."
"-but you persist in having a brain. You spotted at once what was wrong with the company's notion of contracting for artificial pilots-I'm going to use your arguments in Vancouver. Now you've taken this crazy news picture... and stuck the one piece in the puzzle that makes it make sense."
"I'm not sure that it does make sense," I answered. "But, according to the news, there were assassinations and sabotage all over the planet and on Luna and as far away as Ceres. That takes hundreds of people, more likely thousands. Both assassination and sabotage are specialist jobs; they call for training. Amateurs, even if they could be recruited, would botch the job seven times out often. All this means money. Lots of money. Not just a crackpot political organization, or a crazy religious cult. Who has the money for a worldwide, a systemwide, demonstration like that? I don't know-I just tossed out a possibility."
"I think you've solved it. All but 'who.' Marj, what do you do when you are not with your family in South Island?"
"I don't have a family in South Island, Ian. My husbands and my group sisters have divorced me."
(I was as shocked as he was.)
There was silence all around. Then Ian gulped and said quietly, "I'm very sorry, Marjorie."
"No need to be, Ian. A mistake was corrected; it's over and done with. I won't be going back to New Zealand. But I would like to go to Sydney someday to visit Betty and Freddie."
"I'm sure they would like that."
"I know that I would. And both of them invited me. Ian, what does Freddie teach? We never got around to that."
Georges answered, "Federico is a colleague of mine, dear Marjorie... a happy fact that led to my being here."
"True," Janet agreed. "Chubbie and Georges spliced genes together at McGill, and through that partnership Georges met Betty, and Betty tossed him in my direction and I scooped him up."
"So Georges and I worked out a deal," Ian agreed, "as neither of us could manage Jan alone. Right, Georges?"
"You have reason, my brother. If indeed the two of us can manage Janet."
"I have trouble managing you two," Jan commented. "I had better sign up Marj to help me. Marj?"
I did not take this quasi-offer seriously because I felt sure that it wasn't meant seriously. Everyone was making chitchat to cover the shocker I had dropped into their laps. We all knew that. But did anyone but me notice that my job was no longer a subject? I knew what had happened-but why did that deep-down layer of my brain decide to table the subject so emphatically? I would never tell Boss's secrets!
Suddenly I was urgently anxious to check with Boss. Was he involved in these odd events? If so, on which side?
"More soup, dear lady?"
"Don't give her more soup till she answers me."
"But, Jan, you weren't serious. Georges, if I take more soup, I will eat more garlic bread. And I'll get fat. No. Don't tempt me."
"More soup?"
"Nell... just a little."
"I'm quite serious," Jan persisted. "I'm not trying to tie you down as you are probably soured on matrimony at present. But you could give it a trial and a year from now we could discuss it. If you wished to. In the meantime I'll keep you for a pet... and I'll let these two goats be in the same room with you only if their conduct pleases me."
"Wait a minute!" Ian protested. "Who fetched her here? I did. Marj is my sweetheart."
"Freddie's sweetheart, according to Betty. You brought her here as Betty's proxy. As may be, that was yesterday and she's my sweetheart now. If either of you want to speak to her, you'll have to come to me and get your ticket punched. Isn't that right, Marjorie?"
"If you say so, Jan. But it's only a theoretical point as I really do have to leave. Do you have a large-scale map of the border in the house? South border, I mean."
"As good as. Call one up on the computer. If you want a printout, use the terminal in my study-off my bedroom."
"I don't want to interfere with the news."
"You won't. We can uncouple any terminal from all the others- necessary as this is a household of rugged individualists."
"Especially Jan," agreed Ian. "Marj, why do you want a big map of the Imperium border?"
"I would rather go home by tube. But I can't. Since I can't, I must find some other way to get home."
"I thought so. Honey, I'm going to have to take your shoes away from you. Don't you realize you can get shot trying to cross that border? Right now the guards on both sides are sure to be triggerhappy."
"Uh... is it all right for me to study the map?"
"Certainly... if you promise not to try to sneak across the border."
Georges said gently, "My brother, one should never tempt one of the dear ones to lie."
"Georges is right," Jan ruled. "No forced promises. Go ahead, Marj; I'll clear up here. Ian, you just volunteered to help."
I spent the next two hours at the computer terminal in my borrowed room, memorizing the border as a whole, then going to maximum magnification and learning certain parts in great detail. No border can be truly tight, not even the bristling walls some totalitarian states place around their subjects. Usually the best routes are near the guarded ports of entry-often in such places the smugglers' routes are worn smooth. But I would not follow a known route.
There were many ports of entry not too far away: Emerson Junction, Pine Creek, South Junction, Gretna, Maida, etc. I looked also
at Roseau River, but it seemed to flow the wrong way-north into the Red River. (The map was not too clear.)
There is an odd chunk of land sticking out into the Lake of the Woods east-southeast of Winnipeg. The map colored it as part of the Imperium and showed nothing to stop one walking across the border at that point-if she were willing to risk several kilometers of marshy ground. I'm no superman; I can get bogged down in a swamp-but that unguarded stretch of border was tempting. I finally put it out of my mind because, while legally that chunk was part of the Imperium, it was separated from the Imperium proper by twenty-one kilometers of water. Steal a boat? I made a bet with myself that any boat, crossing that stretch of lake, would interrupt a beam. Failure to respond to challenge correctly would then result in a laser burn in the bow you could throw a dog through. I don't argue with lasers; you can neither bribe them nor sweet-talk them-I put it out of my mind.
I had just stopped studying maps and was letting the images soak into my mind when Janet's voice came out of the terminaclass="underline" "Marjorie, come to the living room, please. Quickly!"
I came very quickly.
Ian was talking to someone in the screen. Georges was off to one side, out of pickup. Janet motioned to me to stay out of pickup, too. "Police," she said quietly. "I suggest that you go down into the Hole at once. Wait and I'll call you when they've gone."
I answered just as quietly, "Do they know that I'm here?"
"Don't know yet."
"Let's be sure. If they know I'm here and they can't find me, you'll be in trouble."
"We are not afraid of trouble."
"Thanks. But let's listen."