Forty signs of rain - Kim Stanley Robinson [111]
Not there.
A quick search of the desktop turned up nothing there either.
He couldn’t think of any other high-probability places to look for it. The halls had surveillance cameras, and besides, where would he look? It was supposed to be here, Diane had been gone when he had left it in her in-box. Laveta had nodded, acknowledging receipt of same. Laveta?
Helplessly he searched the other surfaces and drawers in the office, but the letter was not there. There was nothing else he could do. He went back to the window, unclipped his line. He clipped his ascenders back onto it, making sure the good one was high, and that he had taken all the slack out before putting his weight on it. Faced with the tilted window and the open air, he banished all further consideration of the mystery of the absent letter, with one last thought of Laveta and the look he sometimes thought he saw in her eye; perhaps it was a purloined letter. On the other hand, Diane could have come back. But enough of that for now; it was time to focus. He needed to focus. The dreamlike quality of the descent had vanished, and now it was only a sweaty and poorly illuminated job, awkward, difficult, somewhat dangerous. Getting out, letting down the window, rescrewing the frame, leaving the cut seal to surprise some future window washer…Luckily, despite feeling stunned by the setback, the automatic-pilot skills from hundreds of work hours came through. In the end it was an old expertise, a kid skill, something he could do no matter what.
Which was a good thing, because he wasn’t actually focusing very well. On various levels his mind was racing. What could have happened? Who had his letter? Would he be able to find the woman from the elevator?
Thus only the next morning, when he came into the building in the ordinary way, did he look up self-consciously and notice that the mobile now hung at a ninety-degree angle to the position it had always held before. But no one seemed to notice.
Department of Homeland Security CONFIDENTIAL
Transcript NSF 3957396584
Phones 645d/922a
922a: Frank are you ready for this?
645d: I don’t know Kenzo, you tell me.
922a: Casper the Friendly Ghost spent last week swimming over the sill between Iceland and Scotland, and she never got a salinity figure over 34.
645d: Wow. How deep did she go?
922a: Surface water, central water, the top of the deep water. And never over 34. 33.8 on the surface once she got into the Norwegian Sea.
645d: Wow. What about temperatures?
922a: 0.9 on the surface, 0.75 at three hundred meters. Warmer to the east, but not by much.
645d: Oh my God. It’s not going to sink.
922a: That’s right.
645d: What’s going to happen?
922a: I don’t know. It could be the stall.
645d: Someone’s got to do something about this.
922a: Good luck my friend! I personally think we’re in for some fun. A thousand years of fun.
ANNA WAS working with her door open, and once again she heard Frank’s end of a phone conversation. Having eavesdropped once, it seemed to have become easier; and as before, there was a strain in Frank’s voice that caught her attention. Not to mention louder sentences like:
“What? Why would they do that?”
Then silence, except for a squeak of his chair and a brief drumming of fingers.
“Uh-huh, yeah. Well, what can I say. It’s too bad. It sucks, sure…Yeah. But, you know. You’ll be fine either way. It’s your workforce that will be in trouble. —No no, I understand. You did your best. Nothing you can do after you sell. It wasn’t your call, Derek…. Yeah I know. They’ll find work somewhere else. It’s not like there aren’t other biotechs out there, it’s the biotech capital of the world, right? Yeah, sure. Let me know when you know…. Okay, I do too. Bye.”
He hung up hard, cursed under his breath.
Anna looked out her door. “Something wrong?”
“Yeah.”
She got up and went to her doorway. He was looking down at the floor, shaking his head disgustedly.
He raised his head and met her gaze. “Small Delivery Systems closed