"Oh." Miriam stared at the second pizza, feeling a stab of acute déja vu. It was just like Erasmus's problems in New Britain, seen through a high tech looking glass. "I think I'm getting a headache."
The oven pinged for attention. Huw opened it, sniffed, then slid the steaming microwave-limp pizza in front of her. "Sorry-"
"Don't be, it's not your fault." She picked up a knife and began to cut as he put the second pizza in. "What do you want, Huw?"
"Huh?"
"What do you want?" She put down her knife. "Here, help yourself to a slice."
"Uh, you mean, what do I want, as in, what is my heart's desire, or what do I want, as in, what am I trying to achieve right now?" He reached over and took a piece, holding it twitchily on his fingertips.
"The former." Miriam picked up a wedge of hot pizza and nibbled at it. "Because I'd say, right now you're trying not to burn your fingers."
"Ouch, yes! Um, life's little ambitions. I want to finish my masters, and I wanted to do a Ph.D., obviously. Only the duke more or less handed me a doctoral subject a couple of few weeks ago! Hell, not a doctorate: a life's work. The implications are enormous. As for the other stuff… I'm a younger son. Clan shareholder, but at least I'm not going to get roped in and tied down into running a backwoods estate. There's more to life than the Gruinmarkt and if I must do the getting married and raising a family thing I want to do it somewhere civilized, with electricity and running water, and a partner of my own choosing."
"Got anyone in mind?"
"Oh, I think so." His expression turned inward for a moment. "Although it's too early to ask…" He shook his head. The microwave dinged again. "Is that what you wanted to know?"
"It'll do for a start." Miriam watched as he stood up and pulled the second pizza out of the oven. "How many-of your generation-do you think see eye-to-eye with you on the last bit? Electricity and running water and marrying for love rather than because your parents say so?"
Huw reached for the knife. "It's funny… there are a bunch of foreign students at MIT? You can't go there and not know a couple of them. We had a lot in common. It's like, we all got used to the amenities and advantages of living over here, but it's not home. The Chinese and Middle-Eastern and developing-nation students all wanted to spend time over here, earning a stake, maybe settle down. It's a deprivation thing. I didn't see that with the European students-there weren't as many of them, either-but then, you wouldn't. The difference in standards of living isn't so pronounced. But you want to know about my generation? There are those who've never spent much time over here-a minority, these days-and they don't know any better, but there's an outright majority who'd be over the wall in an instant if they could keep visitation rights. And if you promised to install electricity and running water and start Niejwein developing, they'd elect you pope-emperor. Shame that's not going to happen, of course. I'd have liked to see you on the throne in the Summer Palace, taking names and kicking butt. I think you'd have been good at it."
"You think." Miriam gnawed at a fresh chunk of pizza. "Well, we've got a bigger problem now."
"Yes, I was just thinking that…" Huw slid another portion onto her plate. "Here, have a chunk of mine. Urn. So what's your life's ambition?"
"Uh?" Miriam stared at him, a chunk of pizza crust held in one hand. "Excuse me?"
"Go on." Huw grinned. "There must be something, right? Or someone?"
"I-uh." She lowered the piece of crust very carefully, as if it had suddenly been replaced by high explosive. "You know," she continued, in a thoughtful tone of voice, "I really have absolutely no idea." She cleared her throat. "Is there anything to drink?"
"Wine, or Diet Coke?"
"Ugh. Wine, I think, just not too much of it…"
"Okay." Huw fetched a pair of glasses and a bottle.
"I used to think I had the normal kinds of ambition," she said thoughtfully. "Married, kids, the family thing. Finish college, get a job. Except it didn't quite work out right, whatever I did. I did everything the wrong way round, the kid came too soon and I gave her up for adoption because things were… fucked up right then? Yes, that's about the size of it. Mom suggested it, I think." Her face froze for a moment. "I wonder why," she said softly.
Huw slid a glass in front of her. "I didn't know you had a child?"
"Most people don't." She sipped briefly, then took a mouthful of wine. "I married him. The father. Afterwards, I mean. And it didn't work out and we got divorced." She stifled an unhappy laugh. That's what I mean about doing things in the wrong order. And before you ask, no, I'm not in contact with the adoptive parents. Mom might know how to trace them, but I bet"-she looked thoughtful-"she won't have made it easy. For blackmail, you see. So anyway, after my marriage fell apart I had a career for a decade until some slime in a vice president's office flushed it down the toilet. And I'd still have a career, a freelance one, except I discovered I had a family, and they wanted me to get married and have a baby, preferably in the right order, thanks, electricity and running water strictly optional. Oh, and my mother is an alien in both senses of the word; the first man I met in ten years who I thought I'd be willing to risk the marriage thing with was shot dead in front of me; the boyfriend before that, who I dropped because of the thousand-yard stare, turns out to be a government spy who's got my number; I'm probably pregnant with a different dead man's baby; and the whole world's turned to shit." She was gripping the glass much too tightly, she realized. "I just want it to stop."
Huw was staring at her as if she'd just grown a second head. Poor kid, she thought. Still at the mooning after girlfriends stage, not sure what he wants-why did I dump all that on him? Now she knew what to look for-now she knew the pressure that had broken Roland-she could see what was looming in his future, the inevitable collision between youthful optimism and brutal realpolitik. Did I really just say all that?
While she was trying to work it out, Huw reached across the breakfast bar and laid a finger on the back of her hand. "You've been bottling that up for a long time, haven't you?"
"How old are you?" she asked.
"I'm twenty-seven," he said calmly, taking her by surprise: He had five years on her estimate. "And I hear what you're not saying. You're what, thirty? Thirty-one? And-"
"Thirty-four," she heard herself saying.
"-Thirty-four is a hard age to be finding out about the Clan for the first time, and even harder if you're a woman. It's a shame you're not ten or fifteen years older," he continued, tilting his head to one side as he stared at her, "because they understand old maids; they wouldn't bother trying to marry you off." He shook his head abruptly. "I'm sorry, I'm treating your life like a puzzle, but it's…"
"No, that's okay."
"Ah, thank you." He paused for a few seconds. "I shall forget whatever you wish me to, of course."
"Um?" Miriam blinked.
"I assume you don't want your confidences written up and mailed to every gossip and scandalmonger in the Gruinmarkt?" He raised a wicked eyebrow.
"Of course not!" Catching the gleam in his eye: "You wouldn't. Right?"
"I'm not suicidal." He calmly reached out and took the final wedge of her pizza. "I bribe easily."
"Here's to wine and pizza!" She raised her glass, trying to cover her rattled nerves with a veneer of flippancy. Damn, he's not that unsophisticated at all. Why do I keep getting these people wrong?
"Wine and pizza." Huw let her off the hook gracefully. "You wanted to know what my life's ambitions were," she said slowly. "May I ask why?"