Glasshouse - Charles Stross [27]
“I don’t think that would be allowed,” she says guardedly. She makes a minute nod in my direction, then jerks her chin toward the others, who by now are making quite a buzz of conversation. “Shall we go and see who they’ve fixed us up with?”
On the other side of the room it turns out that Jen has broken the ice by insisting that all the males compete to demonstrate their merit, by pouring her a drink and presenting it to her elegantly. Needless to say she’s stinking drunk but giggly. She seems to have settled on Chris-from-the-back-row as her target—he seems to be a little embarrassed by her antics, I think, but he can’t get away because Alice and Angel have zeroed in on three of the others and are leaving him to Jen’s clutches. Big Guy, Sam, is standing stiffly with his back to the wall, looking almost as uneasy as Cass. I glance at Cass, who’s hanging back, then mentally shrug and approach Sam, bypassing Jen’s raucous gaggle.
“Life of the party,” I say, tipping my head at Jen.
“Er, yes.” He’s holding an empty glass and swaying a little. Maybe his feet are sore. It’s hard to read his expression—the black mane of fur around his mouth obscures the muscles there—but he doesn’t look happy. In fact, if the floor opens up beneath his feet and swallows him, he’ll probably smile with relief.
“Listen.” I touch his arm. As expected, he tenses. “Just come over here with me for a moment, please?”
He permits me to lead him away from the swarm of orthos trying to vector through the social asteroid belt.
“What do you make of this setup?” I ask quietly.
“It makes me nervous.” His eyes glance between my face and the doors. Figures.
“Well, it makes me nervous, too. And Cass.” I nod at the bunch across the room. “And, I think, even Jen.”
“I’ve read part of the backgrounder.” He shakes his head. “It’s not what I expected. Neither was this—”
“Well.” My lips have gone dry. I take a sip from my glass and look at Sam, calculating. He’s bigger than I am. I’m physically weak (and wait until I get my hands on the joker who set that parameter up), but unless I’m misreading him badly he’s well socialized. “We might as well make the best of things. We’re expected to go set up a joint apartment with someone who is a different gender. Then we get settled in, read the briefings, do whatever they tell us to do, and go to the Church on Sunday to see how everyone else is doing. Do you think you can do that if you treat it as a vocational task?”
Sam puts his empty glass down on the table with fastidious precision and pulls out his tablet. “I could, but it says here that the ‘nuclear family’ wasn’t just an economic arrangement, there’s sex involved, too.” He pauses for a moment. “I’m not good at intimacy. Especially with strangers.”
Is that why you’re so tense? “That’s not necessarily a problem.” I take another sip of wine. “Listen”—I end up glancing at the camera dome (thank you, Cass)—“I’m sure none of these arrangements are going to end up permanent. We’ll get a chance to sort out any mistakes at the meeting on First—uh, Sunday? Meanwhile”—I look up at him—“I don’t mind your preference. We don’t have to have sex unless we both want to. Is that okay by you?”
He looks down at me for a while. “That might work,” he says quietly.
I realize I’ve just picked a husband. I just hope he isn’t one of the hunters . . .
What happens next is anticlimactic. Someone’s probably been watching the group dynamics through that surveillance lens, because after another few centisecs our tablets tinkle for attention. We’re instructed to go through the doorway at the back of the lecture theatre in pairs, at least two seconds apart. We’re already in YFH-Polity, in the administration subnet,