Flatlander - Larry Niven [125]
Taffy looked good, brisk and happy. “I like Marxgrad,” she said. “I like the people. I’m brushing up on my medical Russian, but everyone speaks enough English for social purposes. I miss you mostly at night.
“I hope you haven’t changed your mind about having children. I can find the time starting a year from now. We do have a problem. Neither of us intends to drop his career, right? And we’re both subject to emergency calls. That could be tough on children.”
Another complication I hadn’t dealt with yet.
“So think it over,” the recording said. “We may want to go into a multiple marriage. Think about the people we know. Is there anyone we can both stand to live with for the first, oh, five to ten years? For instance, how do Lila and Jackson Bera feel about children? Do you know? Think it over and then call me. My love to you and Harry,” she said, and was gone.
Laura was watching me. She started to say something, but the next message beat her to it.
The picture was fuzzy. Two men and a laughing little blond girl floated in free fall at skew angles. The man holding the little girl’s hand was a rotund, cheerful man with thick white hair. The other was short and dark and very round of face, partly or wholly Eskimo, I guessed. I didn’t know any of them.
“I am Howard de Campo, called Antsie, citizen of Vesta,” the smiling Eskimo said. “You called to be informed of the motions of Mrs. Naomi Mitchison during certain hours. From 2250 Tuesday to 0105 Wednesday the lady in question was in Chili Bird, visiting I and my passenger, Dr. Raymond Q. Forward. The purpose of the visit is secret, but we will tell if necessary, of course. If you have to know more, call us at Confinement, please.” The picture blinked out.
“By God, you were right,” Laura said. “I could probably even guess the crime.”
“They haven’t admitted anything,” I said. But the blond, blue-eyed little girl must have been included deliberately. She was Naomi at age four.
Laura said, “‘Love to you and Harry.’ No lunie could ever have said that.”
“She meant it.”
“Suppose she’d known I was listening?”
“Would you object to my telling her someday?”
“Please don’t,” Laura said. She controlled it well, but the idea upset her. “Are you thinking of having children by Taffy Grimes?”
“Yes.”
“What about us?”
I hadn’t thought of that at all. “I wouldn’t be here to act like a father. And I’ll be sterile for another four months. Anyway, would my genes be right?”
“I didn’t mean … never mind.” She rolled over and came into my arms. The rest of our conversation was nonverbal. But what had she meant?
* * *
Shaeffer and Quifting had called Ceres to ask that a third Belter be chosen and sent to the moon as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the conference would continue without Chris Penzler.
A nervous urgency was apparent while we were still involved with coffee and rolls. Charles Ward tried to assure us, before anyone else had suggested the possibility, that Chris had not been murdered by local terrorists bent on disrupting or exterminating the conference. The other lunies were quick to agree. Sure. Where were they getting their data?
Just before 0900 I phoned the mayor’s office from the conference room. “You’ve heard about Chris Penzler?”
“Yes. A very sticky situation, Gil.” The mayor was perturbed, and it showed. “We’re doing all we can, of course. I imagine this will disrupt the conference.”
“We’ll see. That might have been the whole idea. Has Naomi Mitchison been released from the holding tanks?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Releasing a convict from a holding tank isn’t done by a wave of the hand. The medical—”
“Mayor, your holding tanks aren’t that different from the ones on the slowboats, the interstellar colony ships. Crew members go in and out of the holding tanks a dozen times during any trip.”
Hove’s eyes flicked past my shoulder. I glanced back and found that I had an audience. Several conference members were following our conversation. That was all to the good, I thought.
Hove was