“That’s part of our responsibility, Holly.”
“Our responsibility?”
“As leaders of this community. As directors of the government.”
“You’re the chief administrator. I just run human resources.”
“Don’t say just, Holly. You hold a position of great responsibility.” He made his best smile for her. “Remember, that was my position when we first came to this place.”
She couldn’t help but smile back at him. “I click.”
“I really want to build a fair and generous government here,” Eberly said with great seriousness. “I really do.”
“I guess.”
“And I need your help, Holly. I can’t do it by myself.”
“My help?”
“As director of human resources you hold a key responsibility. I want to make certain that we’re on the same team.”
“Of course we are. What else?”
Eberly walked on for a few paces before answering. Holly matched him, stride for stride. She was slightly taller than he, her legs longer.
“You know our reelection campaign will start in a few weeks,” he said at last.
“The election isn’t for another six months, Malcolm.”
“I know, but the deadline for registering as a candidate is January fifteenth. And once the candidates are registered, the campaigning has to begin. We can’t just sit around and expect people to go out and vote for us without a campaign to stir them up.”
“Not us,” Holly said. “You. You’re the only one who has to get elected. The rest of us are appointed.”
“Yes, that’s true, but I think of us as a team. You, me, the other department heads. We’re the ones who have to make this government work. We’re the ones who have to serve the people.”
“Not that the people care that much, one way or the other,” Holly said. “Most of ’em won’t even bother to vote, betcha.”
“We’ve got to make them care. It’s their government, their lives.”
Holly looked into his face. He seems so blinking serious, she thought. Maybe he really believes what he’s saying.
“Malcolm, all they really want is to be left alone. The less they see or hear of the government, the better they like it.”
He fell silent again for a few paces. Then, “You may be right.”
“Just leave them alone. That’s all they really want.”
“You may be right,” he repeated.
“There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?” Holly asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re worried that my sister might ask for citizenship and then run against you. That’s why you want to start the campaigning so early, to preempt her.”
Eberly’s pale smile returned. “You’re a very perceptive woman, Holly.”
“No prob,” she said. “Pancho’s retired. She doesn’t want to do anything, let alone run for chief administrator. She says she’s finished with sitting behind a desk.”
He thought that over for a heartbeat or two. “That may be what she says now—”
“Pancho says what she means and means what she says. She’s not running for your job, Malcolm. Jeeps, she’s not even sure she’s going to stay here for more’n a few months.”
“I’m relieved.”
“I bet.”
“Not for the reason you think,” Eberly said. “It’s not because I’m glad she won’t oppose me. I’m relieved because you won’t be caught in the middle, between us. I’m relieved because you can work with me with a clear conscience, and no family ties getting in your way.”
“Oh. Yeah, I click. Me too, I guess.”
Eberly refrained from smiling. Show her you’re serious, he told himself. Show her you care about her feelings. But inwardly he exulted. I won’t have to worry about Pancho Lane! And I’ve got Holly’s undivided allegiance. Now to get my campaign rolling.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I’d better be getting back to my office. There’s no end of work for me to see to.”
Holly nodded. “Think I’ll finish walking around the lake, then go back.”
“All right.” He turned and started back toward the village.
“Oh, hey, Malcolm,” Holly called.
He turned, a questioning look on his chiseled features.
“In case I don’t see you—Happy New Year.”
“Oh! Yes, of course. Happy New Year to you, too, Holly.”
Nadia Wunderly waited for Kris Cardenas in the corridor outside the nanotech lab. The warning light on the heavy steel hatch began flashing red, indicating that the inner door had been opened. Impatiently, Wunderly watched the light panel cycle through yellow and green before the corridor hatch swung slowly inward. Cardenas stepped through, looking chipper and bright in butter-yellow coveralls.
“Hi, Nadia.”
“Hello, Kris. Is Raoul coming, too?”
“Soon as he gets through the airlock,” Cardenas said, gesturing at the light panel.
Once I get down to the weight I want to be, Wunderly thought, I’ll have to get Kris to flush the nanos out of my body. The authorities won’t allow me back on Earth if I have nanos inside me. I’m not going to stay in this habitat forever, she told herself. I’ve got to go back home someday.
“Are you coming with us tonight?” Cardenas asked. “I reserved a table for ten at the pavilion.”
Wunderly felt her cheeks flush. “You bet I am. With our chief computer engineer. His name’s Da‘ud Habib. A real hunk.” That wasn’t entirely true, she knew, but Da’ud was a good-looking guy in a quiet, intense way.
“Good,” Cardenas said absently.
Tavalera came through the airlock, carefully closing the heavy steel hatch into its rubberized frame. Wunderly could feel a sigh of air pass by her.
Raoul Tavalera’s normal expression was a worried, suspicious scowl. He had been plucked from his home in New Jersey by the New Morality as soon as he graduated from engineering college and sent to the research station orbiting Jupiter for his mandatory two years of public service, complaining every centimeter of the way. When the habitat Goddard passed Jupiter on its two-year journey to Saturn, it took on a load of hydrogen and helium isotopes scooped from Jupiter’s upper atmosphere to fuel the habitat’s fusion propulsion engines. Tavalera had been hurt in an accident during the refueling procedure and would have gone drifting to his death if Manny Gaeta hadn’t saved him in a daring impromptu rescue.
But that resulted in Tavalera being brought into Goddard, an unwilling passenger heading for Saturn. He bitterly resented that, all the more so because he could hardly complain that the habitat had saved his life. Then he met Holly Lane and gradually, almost grudgingly, fell in love with her. He impulsively decided to remain in Goddard to be with her. He even applied for citizenship. Yet two uncertainties plagued his mind with doubt: He was not truly convinced that he wanted to remain in Goddard forever and never return home; and he was not truly sure that Holly loved him deeply enough to return to Earth with him should he decide to leave.
So, as he walked with Wunderly and Cardenas, his boss, to the bustling, clanging cafeteria, his face remained set in that troubled, distrusting scowl.
Wunderly felt nervous as she moved along the cafeteria counter, filling her tray. Her resolution to stick to fruits and salad always melted away once the aroma of real food reached her. Today it was roast beef, sliced thin and accompanied by mouth-watering sauces. Wunderly knew that the protein had never been within a billion kilometers of a cow; it was all synthetic, but it still smelled too delicious for her to pass up. A glance at Cardenas, though, firmed her resolve. I’m going to make a New Year’s resolution, she told herself. I’ll lose another ten kilos; I’ll look great then. Then Kris can flush the nanos out of me. Nobly she ignored the dessert table on her way to joining Cardenas and Tavalera at a table by the window. But she couldn’t help noticing that they had three different types of cobblers on display. Fruit, she thought. That’s not fattening.