Glasshouse - Charles Stross [26]
“But if we don’t, we don’t have any points of reference for what we’re trying to understand and live in, do we?” I say, fighting the urge to stare at Cass. Is that you in there, Kay? It might just be a coincidence, her knowing something about ice ghouls—there was a huge fad for them about two gigasecs ago, when they were first discovered. Then again, the bad guys might have noticed Kay and sent a headhunter after me, armed with whatever they can extract from her skull for bait . . .
“I want to know where they got these books,” I say. “Look, all they’ve got is publication dates and rough sales figures, so we’ll know they were popular. But whether they’re accurate indicators of the social system in force is another matter.”
“Who cares?” Jen says abruptly. She picks up a glass and splashes straw-colored wine into it from a glass jug. “I’m going to pick me a ‘husband’ and leave the other details for later.” She grins and empties her glass down her throat.
“What diurn?” Cass’s brow furrows as she grapples with the tablet’s primitive interface. It’s the nearest thing we’ve got to a manual, I realize. “Aha,” she says. “We’re on day five of the week, called ‘Thursday.’ Weeks have seven days, and we are supposed to meet on day one, about two-fifty kilo—no, three days—from now.”
“So?” Jen refills her glass.
Cass looks thoughtful. “So if we’re supposed to mimic a family, we probably ought to start by pairing off and going to whatever dwelling they’ve assigned us. After a diurn or so of ploughing through these notes and getting to know each other, we’ll be better able to work out what we’re supposed to be doing. Also, I guess, we can see if the partnering arrangement is workable.”
Jen wanders off toward the knot of males at the other side of the room, glass in hand. Angel fidgets with her tablet, turning it over and over in her hands and looking uncertain. Alice eats another lump of cheese. I feel quite ill watching her—the stuff tastes vile. “I’m not used to the idea of living together with someone,” I say slowly.
“It’s not so bad.” Cass nods to herself. “But this is a very abrupt and arbitrary way of starting it.”
Alice rests a hand on her arm, reassuring. “The sexual relationship is only implicit,” she says. “If you pick a husband and don’t get on, I’m sure you can choose another at the Church meeting.”
“Perhaps.” Cass pulls away and glances nervously at the group of males and one female, who is laughing loudly as two of the males attempt to refill her glass for her. “And perhaps not.”
Alice looks dissatisfied. “I’m going to see what the party’s about.” She turns and stalks over toward the other group. That leaves me with Cass and Angel. Angel is busily scrolling through text on her tablet, looking distracted, and Cass just looks worried.
“Cheer up, it can’t be that bad,” I say automatically.
She shivers and hugs herself. “Can’t it?” she asks.
“I don’t think so.” I pick my words carefully. “This is a controlled experiment. If you read the waivers, you’ll see that we haven’t relinquished our basic rights. They have to intervene if things go badly wrong.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she says. I look at her sharply.
“Look, we need to pick a ‘husband’ each,” Angel points out. “Whoever’s last won’t get much of a choice, and as it is we’ll be stuck with whomever the others have rejected. For whatever reason.” She looks between us, her expression guarded. “See you.”
I stare at Cass. “What you said earlier, about the ice ghouls—”
“Forget it.” She cuts me off with a chopping gesture. “Maybe Jen was right.” She sounds downbeat.
“Did you know anyone else who was going into the experiment?” I ask suddenly, then wish I could swallow my own tongue.
Cass frowns at me. “Obviously not, or they wouldn’t have admitted me to the study.” Then she looks away, slowly and pointedly. I follow the direction of her gaze. There’s an unobtrusive black hemisphere hanging from the ceiling in one corner. She sets her shoulders. “We’d better socialize.”
“If you’re worried about the