"Can I play with that?" Afeefah's father was dozing again, and the little girl was gazing covetously at the TI-55.
"I don't think your father would like it, dear," Tib said, putting the instrument back in his pocket. The man opened his eyes.
"You know?" he drawled. "You right." He sat up straight and turned Afeefah around in his lap again, facing away from Tib. Tib glowered and stared down at his notes, but the subdued giggling from Afeefah made him steal a look. Her father was searching through her corn-row hair, nipping at invisible things with his fingernails, inspecting them and dropping them on the floor. Sonderman was shocked and repelled. Then he saw the strain of a suppressed grin in the man's cheeks and realized that that was what was intended.
What a surly brute! He closed his eyes and allowed himself to feel the anger that was always inside. Such mean- hearted people there were in the world, and such stupid ones! This man was a symptom, just as the stoned young hippies at Arecibo were symptoms, of what he disliked most in the world he lived in. He could not define it exactly, but it included violence and carelessness and stupidity and ugly behavior in public places. He responded to it as he had practiced to do; he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.
His expression was placid enough, but that was an artifact. Tib Sonderman was rarely placid. He would have spent half his life gnashing his teeth if he had allowed the internal rages to reach the surface. He had given up anger. Or thought he had; he rarely allowed his internal fury to erupt into flame. He had learned that lesson very young. When Tibor Sonderman was a newborn in the "resettlement" camp in Hungary, the thing his mother feared most was that her baby would cry. As the wife of a known partisan, fighting the Germans somewhere out in the gorges, her life balanced very precariously in the camp, if the baby cried the guards might hear. And be annoyed. And move them one step closer to the gas ovens. She had taught him self-control, and he had never forgotten.
Near a spot on the surface of the sun a surge of great heat released a burst of X rays. The source itself was tiny—it was no larger than Australia—but its fierce explosion was only the start of a huger event. An immense plume of hot gas sprang up from the sun's surface, tunneled through the diffuse bright gases that surrounded it, and flew out into space. On Earth, astronomers recorded a minor solar flare.
Friday, December 4th. 8:22 PM. PST
Saunders Robinson, later Khalid Mustafa Muhammad, later still (and at present) Saunders Robinson again, carried his daughter off the plane and put her down on a bench near the phone booths. "You go to sleep a minute, Feef," he ordered. Obediently she squeezed her eyes shut, the corners wrinkled with the effort. "No foolin', now! And don't talk to nobody."
"Specially if he's white," she nodded, the eyes still tightly closed.
"No matter who he is! Yeah, specially if he's white, though." He tucked her sweater under her head and raced to the phone in time to beat an elderly black woman into it. He grinned at her in a brotherly way as he dumped a handful of change onto the counter and began the job of finding him and his daughter a place to stay. He dialed a number and smiled widely into the telephone. "Jesty! What's happening? What do you mean, who's this? It's Rob!" The smile faded as he talked. "Yeah, later, man," he finished, pushed down the phone hook and tried again. In the first five phone calls the best he did was the suggestion that he go to the mosque for help. But he didn't want to do that. He owed something to Al-Islam. When he got out of CMR-East he found they'd taken care of Afeefah for him—not Afeefah's mother; she'd sloped off somewhere. But owing them something and getting tight with them again were two different things; he couldn't hang in there with Allah. It took twelve phone calls, and almost all the change he'd saved up, before he got an offer. Some kind of ashram, way down off Wilshire. No money. But he could crash there, and maybe get something to eat. The good thing about it was that the airport limos went to the big hotels across the freeway, and then it would be only about a ten-minute walk. He picked up the five dimes remaining of his change, investigated the coin return for mistakes, and went over to wake Afeefah up. He almost bumped into a very young-looking man with a fretful expression, heading for the men's room. Robinson recognized him without being sure where he recognized him from, and then put it together. It was the honk from the first-class section, the one with his hand over his nose to keep out nigger smell. Most of the passengers were gone now, and Robinson thought for a moment of following Mr. First Class into the toilet to see what he might have in his pockets.
But he'd given all that up. "Come on, Feef," he said. "We got to go on home now."
The Santa Ana had been blowing for two days. Down in the canyons the chaparral was dry as matchwood. When it caught a spark or a cigarette butt it burned, and kept on burning.
Friday, December 4th. 8:25 PM.
First class wasn't really first class as long as you had to fight everybody else for the exits. Tommy Pedigrue had learned how to deal with that. You sit back and chat up the stewardesses while you wait for the traffic jam to end, because you don't have to worry about getting out fast since your driver will be right there waiting for you.
The other thing wrong with first class these days, however, was that all those affirmative-action and sexual- discrimination lawsuits had resulted in putting the most senior stews in the most attractive jobs, instead of putting the most attractive stews in with the most senior passengers. There was only one who was really worth hitting on, and she claimed to be happily married. That was okay, though. Tommy Pedigrue expected to bomb out now and then. When you counted up for the year, his batting average worked out pretty high, though not as high as his brother's.
What wasn't okay was that his driver wasn't waiting for him. Worse. He needed to pee. He didn't like to pee in public washrooms. He wished he had thought to go in the airplane, but who knew the driver wouldn't be there? Now if he ducked into the toilet it was just as likely as not that the driver would come running in, not find him, and tear-ass off in some other direction and they'd never get together.
Tommy fumed, standing indecisively in the middle of the lounge. He couldn't try calling the car; the phone booths were all filled. Probably he would have to take a taxi all the way out to Hidden Hills. Probably he would have to find his own baggage, and schlep it out to the curb. Probably—probably the driver would hear about this, he thought grimly, marching toward the john.
His first thought was that the men's room was empty, which was a whole grateful surprise. Then he saw he was wrong. A young boy, thirteen or fourteen at the most, was standing in front of the full-length mirror by the door. He was sloppy-looking, sullen-faced, not, evidently, recently cared for by a mother; and what he was doing gave Tommy Pedigrue a brisk electric shock. The boy's fly was unzipped, and his penis was in his hand. He was not looking in the mirror. He was looking at Tommy Pedigrue, with an unwinking, uncommunicating stare.