Crashlander

But it doesn't. Elephant's going back. He's got a little flag with a UN insignia, about two feet by two feet, with spring wires to make it look like it's flapping in the breeze, and a solid rocket in the handle so it'll go straight when the flag is furled. He's going to drop it on the antimatter planet from a great height, as great as I can talk him into.

It should make quite a bang.

And I'm going along. I've got a solidly mounted tridee camera and a contract with the biggest broadcasting company in known space. This time I've got a reason for going!

GHOST: FOUR

«But he never went back,» I said.

«It happens I know why,» Ander said, and then the crowd drowned us out. Administration and Structure swirled together; Entertainment saw a chance and arrowed into the dance behind its dolphin. The depleted fourth team, Police, hung back in a nervous arc. All the teams looked to be milling without purpose, and from listening to Sharrol I could guess why.

So I said, «Prey submerged.» The last of the prey turtles must have escaped into the sand. For the next few minutes I watched the game with a concentration that would have surprised Sharrol.

This was the story I was telling Ander: If I hadn't been led here by a woman, why was I here? I must love the game! «There! Yellow prey!» I shouted as sand stirred. An instant later the glowing mock turtle emerged outside the melee and flapped clownishly toward safety. A Police swimmer dove to capture it, his dolphin keeping station to block for him, and everyone converged too late: he was swimming like mad, and so was the prey; he was through the yellow arch at the point of a great angry cloud –

And that was the end. I bellowed over the crowd's roar: «Dinner!»

«Oh?»

«I missed brunch. I'm starving.»

I didn't want to fight the crowds trying to leave. We crossed the slidebridge instead, this time in comparative quiet. The booths lined below us were whirlpools in a surging sea of escapees.

Ander's hand was above my elbow, companionably. I was a prisoner, and that was hard to ignore. Make conversation? I asked, «Did you know there's an ice age going on Earth?»

«Sure.»

«Well, I never even wondered. I did wonder why Cuba wasn't much hotter than Nome.»

Ander said, «The whole planet's a web of superconductor cable. We had to restart the Gulf Stream five hundred years ago, and it just went from there. Nome imports heat; Cuba imports cold. Even so, Earth would be pretty cold if we weren't getting so much power from the orbiting satellites.»

«Uh huh. What are you going to do when the ice age turns off?»

«Move.» Ander grinned. «Where did you go after the antimatter system?»

«I moved in with Sharrol in Nome.»

He looked at me. «You? Settled down like a Grog on a rock?»

Maybe he had the right to sneer. Ander and I had toured singles nodes together on two worlds, blowing off steam after marathon work sessions. I held my temper and said, «You can spend a lifetime seeing Earth.»

«Where do you want to eat?»

I said, «The Pequod Grill is good.» Good and expensive, and an offworlder would have heard of it. Just the place a destitute B. Shaeffer might pick if someone else was paying. And nobody would ask me where Sharrol was.

We had almost reached the transfer booths. Just to pull Ander's chain, I turned suddenly into the phone booth to see if I could break his grip.

He pulled me back effortlessly. «What?»

«I thought I'd phone and see if the Grill's full up,» I said, and remembered. I couldn't use my pocket phone. It was in the wrong name.

«I'll do it.» He used a card. It took him ten seconds to get a reservation. There are mistakes you don't pay for.

We pushed into a transfer booth. He said, «So there you were, nesting —»

I said, «It was love, stet? We weren't lockstepped … well, we were, a little. I didn't know any women on Earth. Sharrol had some playmates, but a lot of the men she knew were moaning and clutching themselves.» I grinned, remembering. «Rasheed. 'Lockstepped, sure, but you can't mean me! with a great dramatic wave of his arms, like he could have been joking. There were some couples we played with, but not so much of that, either, after a while. We talked about having children. Then we looked into it.»

Ander said, «You?» I wasn't sure how to read his expression. A little disgust, a little pity.

I dialed the Pequod.

* * *

We flicked in on the roof, under a rolling curve of greenblack water. The daylight was fading. Ander led off toward the restaurant twelve floors down. He seemed to be familiar with the Pequod. Might even be registered here.

Test that. «I need to visit a 'cycler, Ander. Long day.»

«Me, too,» he said. «This way.»

In the 'cycler he maneuvered himself between me and the door, and I let him. Amusing scenarios came to mind: If I needed a booth, he could watch the door, but what if he needed a booth? Not that it mattered. I didn't want to escape, not until I could know I was loose. I wanted to speak of lost treasure.