Glasshouse - Charles Stross [65]
“Ye-yes.” The poor guy sounds genuinely shaken. I don’t blame him—I’ve had a few hours to think about it, and I’m still getting used to the idea. “I’ll just find one—”
“Think about it. We signed up to join the study knowing it would run for a hundred megs, yes? Funny thing about libraries: You can look things up in them. The gestation time for a human neonate in a host body is twenty-seven to twenty-eight megs. Meanwhile, we’re all fertile, and we’ve been told we can earn points toward our eventual termination bonuses by fucking. The historical conception rate for healthy orthos having sex while fertile is roughly thirty percent per menstrual cycle. What does that sound like to you?”
“But I, I—I mean, you could have—” Sam holds a soup bowl in front of himself as if it’s some kind of shield, and he’s trying to keep me at bay.
I glare at him. “Don’t say it.”
“I—” He swallows. “Here, take it.”
I take the bowl.
“I think I know what you thought I was going to say and you’re right and I take it back even though I didn’t say it. All right?” He says it very fast, running the words together as if he’s nervous.
“You didn’t say it.”
I put the bowl down very carefully, because there really is no need to throw it at his head, and also because, once I calm down a fraction, I realize that in point of fact he’s right, and he didn’t say that if I’d fucked him the other night and become pregnant it would have been all my own fault. Smart Sam.
“It takes two to hold a grudge match.” I lick my lips. “Sam, I’m very sorry about the other night.” What comes next is hard to force out. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you. I’ve been going through a bad patch, but that’s no excuse. I’m not—I’ve never been—particularly good at self-restraint, but it won’t happen again.” And if it does, you won’t get an apology like this, that’s for sure. “Much as I like you, you’re not big on poly and this, this shit—” My shoulders are shaking.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he says, and takes a step forward. Before I know what’s happening he’s hugging me, and it really is good to feel his arms around me. “It’s my fault, too. I should have more self-control and I knew all along you were getting interested in me, and I shouldn’t have put myself in a position where you might have thought—”
I sniff. “Shit!” I yell, and let go of him then spin round.
The soup is boiling over and there’s a nasty smell from the burner. I kill the power and grab the handle to shift it somewhere safe, then hunt around for something to mop it up with. While I’m doing that Sam, like a zombie with a priority instruction, keeps methodically unloading the washing machine and transferring crockery to the cupboards. Eventually I get what’s left of my soup into a bowl and pile my slices of bread on a plate, wondering why I didn’t just use the microwave oven in the first place.
“By the time I get to eat this, it’ll all be cold.”
“My fault.” He looks apologetic. “If I’d let you get on with it—”
“Uh-huh.” We’re apologizing to each other for breathing loudly, what’s wrong with us? “Listen, here’s a question for you. You know the contract you, uh, signed—do you remember if there was a maximum duration on participation?”
“A maximum?” He looks startled. “It just said minimum one hundred megs. Why?”
“Figures.” I pick up my plate and bowl and head toward the living room. “Human neonates hatched in the wild in primitive conditions took at least half a gigasec to reach maturity.”
“Are you”—he’s following me—“saying what I think you’re saying?”
I put my bowl and plate down on the end table beside the sofa and perch on the arm, because if I sit on the sofa, it’ll try to swallow me for good. “Why don’t you tell me what you think I’m saying?”
“I don’t know.” Which means he doesn’t want to say. He sits down at the other end of the sofa and stares at me. “We’re being watched, aren’t we? All the time. Do you think it’s wise to talk about it?”
I blow on my soup to speed evaporative cooling. “No, but there