Death Match - Diane Duane [52]
“I think I might be able to,” Catie said. “It’s worth a try.”
Catie’s dad raised his eyebrows and gave her a look she couldn’t quite decipher. “Is this opinion entirely motivated by the desire for justice and fair play,” he said, “or does it have something to do with George?”
Catie flushed. “Naturally it has something to do with him,” she said, “but, Dad, it’s not what I think you’re thinking. If you are thinking that.”
“What,” her father said, “that he’s a little old for you?”
Now she laughed at him. “Of course he’s a little old for me. It’s not that kind of interest, Dad. Maybe—” The sudden realization brought her up short. “Maybe it’s that I feel a little sorry for him.”
“Huh…?” Her father looked surprised. “Why? When he’s suddenly becoming a national celebrity, and he could be rich if he wanted to?…And probably will be, no matter what his intentions are,” her father added. “They have a way of getting to you, the sponsors, the big money…if they want you. Time is on their side.”
Catie filed that thought away for consideration later. “It’s more like that he’s a little lonely,” she said. “He has friends, there’s no problem there…but I get a feeling that he doesn’t discuss the stuff that’s going on with the team with them all that much. If he suspects there’s a problem, maybe he’s afraid of involving them.”
“But not afraid of involving you,” her father said, suddenly sounding a little fierce.
“If I hadn’t made it plain I was interested,” Catie said, “he wouldn’t have taken the issue much further. I’m sure of that.”
Her father sat there for a few more moments, turning the lens over in his hands. “Well,” he said eventually, “your mom’ll be home from the library in a couple of hours…she and I will have a talk then.” He gave Catie another of those undecipherable looks. “Hold off on talking to George for the time being, okay?”
“Okay,” Catie said. “But we’re playing chess. If a move comes through—”
Her father allowed a slight smile to emerge. “All right,” he said, “deal with that, obviously.” He got up. “Mean-while I have to get on the Net and try to get some satisfaction out of Zeiss, who will doubtless tell me that I’m out of my mind, and why should they replace this optic again….” The smile turned into a very sour grin. “‘Customer service’…another of the great implied oxymorons of our time. Go on, honey, scoot out of here.”
Catie scooted.
She paused long enough to make herself a tuna sandwich, and while she was making it, considered her options. I might have to hold off on talking to George for the moment…but there’s nothing to prevent me talking to Mark Gridley. Assuming I can find the little twerp.
Catie finished the sandwich and had a Coke, then went off to the family room and sat down in the implant chair, and just vagued out for a moment or so. Her eye fell on the crack in the corner of the room, by the bookcase. Is that thing getting bigger? she thought. Really must mention it to Mom. Her father might do repairs and so forth around the house, but it was her mother who usually noticed such things needed to be done, and got them organized. She was, in most ways, the silent power in the family. Though Catie’s dad might come down hard in one direction or another, he rarely did so without consulting her mother first, except as regarded small things. And how’s she going to take this business with George? I wonder, Catie thought. Her mom could be unusually protective, sometimes. A little too much so, by Catie’s way of thinking. But then, if as Dad says we’re so much alike, it would seem that way to me, I guess….
Catie sighed and lined up her implant with the Net box, activating it. A moment later she was standing in the Great Hall, looking at her beat-up comfy chair, along with piles of e-mails and art projects that she hadn’t yet finished filing. It’ll have to wait. “Space—” she said.
“What, you again?”
She smiled grimly. “Get me Mark Gridley.”
“Checking his space for you now.”
She stood there