“Of course,” Blundy said, professionally warm.
“Nice of you to say it.”
The old man stood there, nodding like any fan who had made the approach and didn’t really know what to say. “My wife really loved it. It was about the only thing that kept us going, the last couple of months,” he said.
“Well, that’s what it was supposed to do,” Blundy said politely. “Do you recognize Petoyne here? She played Liv on Winter Wife. The younger daughter, remember?”
“Really?” The man seemed quite interested as he studied the girl up and down. “I wouldn’t have known her,” he marveled, “but then, I guess everybody says that, don’t they? The augmentation and all. Well, I’m sorry to see you here, Petoyne, but you’re still under age, aren’t you? So it won’t be so oh,” he said in a different voice, as the door opened, “I guess it’s my turn. I hope I see you again.”
And as the door closed behind him, the executioner and his witness, Petoyne said, “Hopes to see you again! I bet he does! Did you hear that? He got a one in five! For murder. Do you know what I think, Blundy? I think it was probably his wife he murdered, don’t you think? Who else would an old guy like that kill? So maybe the show didn’t keep him going all that long, after all.”
Then there was another wait.
The wall screen was showing a musical group, which was getting on Blundy’s nerves. He got up.
“Mind if I try to get some news?” he asked. No one seemed to care, though they all looked docilely at the screen when it came on. The oil wells on Harbor Island had been successfully uncapped, the pipelines to the refineries on the continent checked and reopened but Blundy already knew that, because he’d seen the smoke on the horizon. The warmspring census, taken after the first crop of post-winter babies had had a chance to be born, showed a planetwide population of 534,907, the highest for that season in nine years. The water temperature in Sometime River was up to 3.5 C, and there was an 80% chance of rain And then the woman came back in. She was alone.
She looked very sober as she made a phone call to the crematorium. It only took a moment to arrange for the disposition of her father’s remains.
Then, long before they were ready for it, it was their turn.
Inside the room Blundy sought out the cameras and found them, discreetly inconspicuous in corners of the room; the carrying out of sentences was a matter of public record. Few bothered to watch unless some relative was at risk, but Blundy squared his shoulders and assumed a properly grave expression.
The clerk looked directly at Petoyne and then looked down at his charge sheet. “Larasissa Petoyne Marcolli, first year, for willfully failing to destroy a surplus animal,” he read. “Sentence is one in a thousand. Come on, and hurry up,” he said, “because I want to get home sometime tonight.”
Blundy rose with the girl. He took her arm firmly, though she didn’t resist. They didn’t say anything to the newcomers they had left behind in the waiting room, though Blundy could almost feel the resentment the adults felt toward a mere one-in-a-thousand.
The execution room was the one for children, with pretty pictures on the walls. The room itself was not much bigger than a closet, no chairs, just a sort of metal bench along one side of it and a low table that contained the urn. “Up on the table, Petoyne,” the executioner ordered. “You’ve been here before.” Petoyne climbed up, looking woebegone at Blundy, uncomfortable on the cold metal. There were drains around the edge of it to carry off the involuntary excretions an executed criminal often could not help but release, and there was a faint shit smell in the room to show that some had. The executioner turned to take a jar off its shelf, saying chattily over his shoulder, “I was surprised to see you out there, Blundy, but of course I knew you were just being a witness. I would have been sorry if it had been the other way around, because I really like your work.”
“Thank you,” Blundy said automatically. He was mildly annoyed, though; Winter Wife-was only a minor work in his eyes. His social, political, and philosophi-cal contributions were what he really prided himself on, and yet it was the video plays that everyone praised him for. Then he biinked. “I beg your pardon?” he asked.
“I said, do your job, Blundy,” the executioner repeated, and obediently Blundy bent to check the jar with its thousand little jellybean pills. The seals were intact. “When he said so, the execution clerk said fretfully, “Well, then, break it open, man!”
And he then took the lid off the jar, and offered it to Petoyne, who unhesitatingly thrust her little fist in, pulled out a pill, popped it in her mouth, swallowed, She looked suddenly lost and fearful for a moment.
Then she gave Blundy a broad, happy smile.
“Open your mouth,” the executioner commanded, and rummaged around inside it with his forefinger.
Then he nodded. “Sentence carried out,” he said. ‘Try not to come back here again, will you? Next time you’ll be grown up.” And opened the back door to let them out into the warm spring afternoon sun.
“You know, I’m getting to like the taste of those things,” bragged Petoyne, almost skipping along beside Blundy. “What do you want to do now? Have a drink somewhere? Go check on the slaughtering? Get something to eat? No,” she said, watching his face, “you’re off to see Murra, aren’t you? Why don’t you break it off with her, Blundy? She’s such a pain.”
He stopped and glowered down at her. “Leave Murra out of it,” he ordered. “And, listen, I’m not going to this place with you again, Petoyne. You’re going to be a one-year-old pretty soon, and then you won’t be getting any one in a thousand shots anymore. So straighten out if you want to live to see that ship come in.”
Chapter Three
When Mercy MacDonald came looking for Betsy arap Dee, she found her friend in the Lesser Common Room of the starship, working with her fingers on a scrimshaw sampler but her eyes on the picture of their next planet that was displayed on the wall screen.
“We’re getting good pictures now,” MacDonald commented, looking for a good way to start a conversation. They were only a couple of light-days out now; four or five more weeks and they would be in orbit, and then the frenzy of transshipping and dealing would start.
MacDonald stretched to reach up and trace the outlines of Slowyear’s single great continent with a fingertip. It was more or less pear-shaped, with the widest part of the pear right around the planet’s equator. “Where do you suppose the landing parties will touch down?” she asked. Betsy didn’t answer, except possibly with the faintest of shrugs, so MacDonald answered herself: “Probably right near their city, here ” putting her finger on the place the radio signals came from. “It ought to be nice by the time we get there. They say it’s their springtime.”
Betsy finally found some words worth saying.
“That would have been nice for the baby,” she said, bending her head back over her sampler.
MacDonald bit her lip and tried another tack.
“How about giving me a hand.?” she suggested. “I need to check the special-interest programs in the store so we can see what we’ve got to sell.”
Betsy glanced up at her. “Why? We already did that, Mercy.”
“So I want to do it again. To make sure. It’s not good if we suddenly discover something we overlooked after we’ve left, is iff”
Betsy sighed and put her sampler down. She gave her friend a level gaze. “I know what you’re doing.
You’re just trying to keep me busy so I won’t be depressed, aren’t you? But you don’t have to bother.