The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [79]
For the first time in his life, Van had some insight into what had gone wrong with his own father. It was guilt. That was why the guy had finally crumbled. Because of burning guilt, dirty guilt, painful, humiliating, fully deserved guilt. There were bad acts in a man’s life that could never, ever be repaired.
Van sat on Dottie’s bed, which was narrow and hard. Dottie’s high-tech eco-room was creeping him out. This was like the home of some alternate Dottie from a bad Star Trek episode. Dottie’s tight, virginal sheets had tiny blue flowers. Dottie had a small, oval-shaped, Energy Star fridge. She had a hot plate and a pretty teapot on top of her bamboo clothes drawer.
Dottie’s computer desk was ergonomic and very disturbing. It had many adjustable plastic cranks and was made of swoopy red plastic lozenges. The desk had one special kidney-shaped shelf way up on a tall metal arm. The shelf was poised at a weird, unlikely, Dr. Seuss angle. The tall shelf held one empty, dusty little flower vase.
This was a room that was silently screaming for a man’s disturbing touch. This room really needed its hair mussed. It was all Van could do not to start hitting things with a bat.
“Ted, son, how do you live here?”
Ted replied with bitter whimpering.
Van persisted. “Hey, Edward.”
Ted turned his small face toward Van, but he was openly skeptical.
Van zipped open his backpack. “You wanna see something really cool? I’m gonna show you my ray gun!”
Feet skidded down the hall. Dottie had a new haircut and had put on five or ten pounds. Van stood up. Dottie zipped across the room and gave him a kiss. It was a nice, solid “I am your wife, here are my lips” kind of kiss.
“A long trip, honey bear?”
The feel of her soft arms around his neck was saving Van’s life. Loneliness drained out of him like poison. “This place is the middle of nowhere!”
Dottie nodded, blue eyes bright. “It is! It is. But no one ever leaves us.” She shrugged out of her padded jacket.
“Why not?”
“Because the catering is too good! There’s Indian food, Chinese food, they had a barbecue chef in today . . . We ate wild elk!”
The sight of Dottie meant so much to him that he felt faint. “You look great, honey.”
“This is my TV outfit.” Dottie went to the cubbyhole bathroom and flicked on its fluorescent, eco-correct lightbulb. “There was a crew in tonight from Australian television. I seem to be the big PR person around here now . . . It turned out that I’m pretty good at that. This is not the biggest adaptive telescope in the world, but you know, it really looks great on TV.”
“No kidding.”
“This is the only telescope facility ever designed by a major modern architect. Did you see all that fiber-optic out there? We got really big pipes here!”
Van sighed. It was hard for him to rally any enthusiasm for another Internet money hole. After the stock crash, Mondiale was doing a scary reassessment of the company’s physical assets. Internet routers were in such oversupply that they were worth only twenty-five cents on the dollar. No wonder Tony had stuck some surplus Net hardware up here in the high backwoods. All out of sight, out of mind.
Dottie found a heavy quilt. “It gets so cold up here,” she said. “They don’t like us running the electric heaters . . .” She lifted Ted and put him back into his crib. Ted looked relieved and interested. Ted hadn’t seen his parents together in several baby eons, but his mom was happy, and the routine was jogging his memory.
For the first time, Ted offered Van a smile. Van put a hand on his son’s face and looked deep into his eyes. It was like gazing through a powerful mirror straight into the youth of the universe.
“Derek, look, this thermostat has a power meter built right into it, isn’t this great? They’re in all the rooms.”
“Why won’t they let you heat the place? We’re way up in the hills!”
“Astronomers get used to that.” Dottie tucked Ted into a spotless blanket. “It’s a very nice place up here, honey. We get health care. We get paid vacations . . . There’s horseback riding. We got workout rooms and massage