The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [31]
During the eighties, Afghanistan had cheered him up for a while. He’d shaped up physically, patched up the marriage, and even taken Van camping and fishing in the California mountains. But in Angola, he’d done something indescribable. Generally the CIA never gave its top agents Third World assignments that risked malaria and guaranteed diarrhea, but Van’s father was a charmer. He had a genius for working himself into situations where he was unwelcome, unneeded, unwanted, and way too smart for the job.
In Angola, Van’s father had crossed some line, into some mess he just couldn’t mentally manage. Something oily and permanent had stuck to him for good in Angola. He’d returned from Angola with unblinking eyes like two saucers, quoting more poetry than ever before . . . Nightmare episodes in Van’s adolescence, when his mother would scream in betrayed anguish, and his father would storm into his home office, to snort cocaine and translate Walt Whitman into African dialects. Those were the moments when Van would quietly shut his bedroom door, warm up the modem, and vanish deep, deep, deep into his computer. In some sense, Van had never come out.
Dottie was doing all the talking for the group. Her lips were moving rapidly as Van stood there, moored in his silent crisis. For the first time Van realized what Dottie was actually saying. She had had a lot of time to think in the car, and she had bravely made up her mind about something. Dottie was talking about quitting her lab post in Boston and taking up an entirely different job.
“So it’s the perfect time for me to undertake a transition, if Derek is also switching careers,” she confided to everyone.
“Mmm-hmmm.” His father nodded unhelpfully.
“I do have a standing offer. Because Tony Carew . . . have you ever heard of Tony Carew? Tony is the only friend of ours who’s really famous. The Davos Forum, the Renaissance Weekend . . .”
“I’ve certainly heard of those,” said Rachel, looking interested for the first time.
“Oh, I see,” said his father. “So then, Derek. Tony must be that good friend of yours who works for Thomas DeFanti.”
Van saw that a response was required of him. “Sort of.”
Rachel bored right in. “Have you ever met Thomas DeFanti, Dr. Vandeveer?”
“Yes,” Van and Dottie chorused. They both always answered to “Dr. Vandeveer.”
“That’ll be my new research post in Colorado,” Dottie said. “With one of Thomas DeFanti’s foundations. He’s always been a very big supporter of astronomy.”
This whole business was very like Dottie, Van thought sadly. If he chose to mess up their fragile, tender status quo, then she would not fight with him about it. No, she would cooperate fully, by messing up their lives even faster. Would Dottie really move all the way from Boston to the Rocky Mountains while he’d be moving from New Jersey to Washington, and working for Jeb’s outfit? There would be nothing left of their life together.
Well, there would be e-mail.
Helga happily chowed down on her chicken wing. Helga didn’t realize it yet, but soon, very soon, Van would have to fire her. He didn’t have any place to keep her. Her nicely furnished suite in Merwinster would be history.
Van pulled a chunk of chicken from the bucket and jammed it in his mouth.
He gnawed silently as the rest of them chattered happily. Then Van dumped his bare chicken bone and went out to the Rover. He beeped it open and fetched the Iridium phone. It was heavy and shaped like a brick. Van hadn’t yet had a chance to try out an Iridium phone. The phones were clumsy, expensive, and didn’t work indoors. The Iridium satellite network had gone broke—but at the last minute, the new post-bankruptcy