The Seeds of Time (6 page)

Looking around, Clio sized up the cast of characters: the old-timers, the youth, the same kind of eyes in both.

“I’m surprised you’re down here alone,” he said. “Guess you’re pretty fearless, huh?” He gave her arm a friendly hug.

“Yeah, just call me Wonder Woman.” The rain had made its way down her neck in rivulets, like Teeg’s constant, invasive voice. As they took a turn to Battery, she chanced a look down Second Avenue. No van.

“You think I’m a jerk, I guess. Everything I say is wrong, right?”

“Let’s not try to analyze it, Teeg. It’s the chemistry. Let’s just call our problem chemistry.”

“No chemistry,” he said, a sigh in his voice. “That’s kind of funny. Most women are crazy about me. Women are nuts about me.” They walked in silence for a while.

He had been following her, she was certain. But for his own aimless, maybe fixated reason, or for someone else? Was he really that hot for her, just couldn’t accept No? Whatever his motive, now that she was really going to meet Hillis, Teeg was a welcome tagalong. Maybe she should try to make friends with him, if men like Teeg had women for friends.

“What you got lined up for leave?” she asked.

He flashed a look toward her, an eager boyishness back on his face. “Resort Reno. The compound, full pass, the whole thing. Me and some friends.”

Clio nodded. “Expensive.”

“Oh, it’ll cost. But they have everything. The games, the shows, good air, even simulated breezes. It’s totally enclosed now. The girls are all clean. It’s guaranteed.”

Or your life back?
But Clio was working at a nice conversation. “You going to win anything?”

“I always win. I’m lucky, that’s why I go. I win.”

“Me, I’m unlucky. Never win at games.”

“You gotta be born with it. Nothing against you, but you have to be born with it. I’ve always been that way. A winner. How I like to look at it, anyways.” He was feeling
cocky now, he gave her arm a squeeze. “You could come along.”

“Busy.”

“You sure make it difficult.”

“Make what difficult?”

“Us, Clio. I see how you look at me.”

“Say again?”

“That look you give me. Drives me nuts.”

“You
are
nuts, Teeg.” Where did this guy get off? Maybe this little walk wasn’t such a hot idea.

They walked in silence a few moments.

Taking another tack, he said, “What do you see in him? Hillis. He’s such a Greenie.”

“It’s the chemistry, I guess.”

“I always thought he was a fag.”

Clio stopped dead, swung to stare at him.

“Sorry. Always saying the wrong thing. Sorry. That was way out of line. I’m just jealous.”

“You go around making accusations like that very often? When you’re jealous, or feeling out of sorts?”

“I said I’m sorry. But he’s not the man for you, Clio. I can guarantee that.”

Clio picked up her pace, maintaining an intense silence.

They mounted the steps to the old Excelsior Hotel. Above the portico, hunching stone gargoyles peered down with what remained of their faces, pecked featureless by the tincture of Northwest rain. In the hotel lobby, Hillis was reading the paper. Or pretending to read. When they walked in he cast down the paper and hurried over to them, frowning at Teeg, then ignoring him. “Jesus, it’s past midnight, where the hell have you been?”

Wrong question to lead off with, Hill
. Clio smiled sheepishly, said, “Had a drink with friends. Teeg offered me an escort back here.” She smiled wider, trying to lock on his eyes with hers. “Were you worried?”

Hillis was still scowling.

Teeg said, “Well, I got her back safe and sound, so no harm done.”

“You give up on the hookers, Teeg?” Hillis asked.

A light jumped into Teeg’s eyes, and he threw back, “No, I just tired them out. Show you how sometime, if you get bored with your plants.”

“Think you could get it up if I watched, Teeg?”

“Cut the crap,” Clio said. She tugged on Hillis’ arm, trying to snip the thread of conversation before it got worse. “I’m going up. You coming?”

Teeg was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, already in a fury. “You’re such a gimp, Hillis. Such a retroid. Someday somebody’s going to shove your nose into the back of your head. I’d do it myself, but Clio tells me she’s not sick of you yet.”

Hillis was already walking away with Clio, toward the elevators.

Teeg said to their backs, “When she is, I’ll be waiting.”

In the shower, Clio let the stream of water break over her face, pummel her eyelids, roar over her ears. It felt so good she nearly forgot to soap and rinse before the water cut off for the night. The Regrade left its deposits in her hair, a filmy unease in her mind. Zebra was gone, quarried. Could have been me, Clio thought. Then Teeg hitting on her, and damn strange:
I see how you look at me …
and what a fantasy that was, the reality being that he was watching
her
. Dripping water onto the mat, she raised her hands before her face, watched as they trembled, a gentle palsy that visited her hands, her stomach, maybe her brain itself.
Stuff is killing me
. Gonna give it up. But just a few more missions, girl. Squeeze out just a few more …

The light was still on in the bedroom. Hillis was playing a video game, sitting on the edge of the bed, jacked into the TV screen. She sat down next to him, toweling her hair. Hillis punched at the joystick, thrusting his chin with each squeeze, racking up points. She watched the tension ride across his shoulders, move into his jaw, settle there. She moved behind him and began kneading his shoulders.

“You got a headache?”

He shrugged. That meant yes. She started working the spot just under his left shoulder blade.

She wondered if Hillis had been in the Regrade tonight, if he had found some comfort, some release.
And you can be quarried for that too, no mistake
. The anti-gay laws were tied to Sickness paranoia, so there was no sympathy, no reprieve. Clio worked on his hard, sculptured shoulder. He needed her. Needed her for cover. The hetero façade.

“You pissed at me?”

Hillis punched in a score. “You could have called me after the hearing. For all I knew they could have been ripping your fingernails off in the basement of the Bureau.” Snide but cheerful, Hillis was enjoying his game, winning.

Clio smiled at his back. “OK, so next time I’ll call. Aren’t you even curious what happened? Meres decided the accident couldn’t have been prevented, so me and the company both got off, and everyone is happy, even Brish.” She started to work on his neck.

“Russo killed three people and everyone’s happy,” Hillis said, ramming home another score.

“If Russo screwed up, Brisher would have dumped her,” Clio said. “I think she was on orders from Biotime, so technically Brisher’s at fault.”

“And people like Brisher never go down.” Hillis jabbed at the stick, missing his prey, racking up a few debits.

“You’re such an idealist,” she said. Hillis sneered at that. “Yes, you are. You and your Old Green.” What was an Old Green, if not an idealist? The old forests, the old savannahs, all the old green places that he wanted to keep, that one percent of the people cared about; what was that if not idealism?

“And you and your New Green,” Hillis said. “You really think we’re ever going to bring back green from the stars? Green that will save us?”

Clio gave up on his back; it would never unbunch. She sprawled on the bed. “Sure. Better stuff. Stronger stuff. Stuff that can handle a little UV without crapping out. Sure we will.”

“Clio, Clio. Why don’t we just save what we’ve got? Too simple for you?”

“What do you want, to put me out of a job?”

“Jesus, Clio.” He killed the program, sat staring at the darkening screen.

“Hillis. Somebody doctored up a lab report to show a blood sample for me, from Crippen.”

“Looks like you got a friend in high places.”

“Yeah, but who?”

“Probably Brish. He needs you to Dive, and besides, he wants into your pants, right?”

“God, Hill. That means he knows I take medicine.”

Hillis glanced over at her, frowning. “Maybe some technician phonied up the report. Couldn’t find your sample, thought he’d get in trouble, and faked it.” He was in a good mood; why ruin it with her worries?

She crept around to sit beside him. “Yeah, maybe. Let’s get some sleep. We got a busy day tomorrow.”

Clio climbed into bed, suddenly weary. Hillis turned off the computer and the lights and crawled in beside her.

“We’ll take Zee with us tomorrow, all right with you?” Hillis asked.

“Zee?”

“He’s staying here. Just down the hall.”

“Sure. Zee’s all right.”

Hillis reached out, found her face, and rubbed his fingers into her scalp, tousling her hair. An affectionate gesture, a way to say goodnight, thanks for the backrub.

My pleasure
.

Clio hit the brakes, almost impaling their rental car on the swordlike fins of the car in front.

“Jesus, Clio.” Hillis snapped on his safety belt.

“Sorry. Been a while.”

They were crawling along in a tight pack of cars eight lanes wide. Had been for an hour. The traffic panel on the dash showed a block-and-search up ahead.

Off to their left the sun tried unsuccessfully to shoulder up the night sky; an orange blister seemed to swell for a moment on the horizon, then ebb as the curtain of night and pollution sank back into place. Zee was asleep in the backseat of the Ford Green Beret.

“How can he sleep with that much coffee in him?” Clio asked, riding the clutch to another rolling slowdown.

“Astronomers always stay up all night drinking coffee and then sleep all day,” Hillis said. He was doodling in his notebook, furiously, as though in a hurry to finish.

They crossed under two decks of freeways, each heading in a different direction, each jammed and moving even more slowly than their own procession. A thin dawn began to soak through the darkness. As if in response, traffic picked up speed, and the knot they had been traveling with dissipated. The panel showed the block-and-search had been lifted up ahead.

Zee’s head popped up in the backseat. “Guess they caught them.”

“Caught who?”

“The Greenies. Or whoever. Caught them before they executed a few more cars.”

They passed a long, low, carrot-orange convertible with a splash of fresh black graffiti across its flank, reading,
YOUR CAR, YOUR COFFIN
.

“Block-and-searches are illegal,” Hillis said. “But nobody cares. We’ll just drive ourselves to extinction. Lock the troublemakers up so we can kill ourselves off in peace.”

“No politics,” Clio said. “We’re on vacation.”

Four days was all they had. Four days Earthside, then back to Vanda; Biotime was tight on leaves. Can’t risk the company property, not Earthside, anyway. Earth was too risky. Simple things like breathing, having sex. Too risky. But they had four days—enough time to see some sights, and, for Hillis, stop by the transition farms east of the city to see how the alien green was doing.

They were well out of the city now, with the day heating up toward ninety-five, and the land spread out in every direction in a broad valley, as though too exhausted to raise itself up. Now and then, a shadow flitted across the fields, a cloud of piranha nymphs. It was the time of year when the fledgling locusts could dine gourmet on the new sprouts of alfalfa, lettuce, and the remaining maple trees.

“Piranhas,” Clio said to Hillis. She pointed up as he craned his neck to view them through the car window.

“A small swarm,” he reported. And went back to doodling.

Not so small
, Clio thought.

Though this was merely spring, already dust lay thick, chalk-like, clouding behind their car and settling on the few remaining roadside grasses and stumpy trees. Once there had been great stands of spruce and Douglas fir along this highway, in cooler times, former times. Their wood had been salvaged long ago, despite all the protests, the outrage at the cutting down of trees. They had conservation and what they called recycling, and people rallied around causes, such as trees. Now people had other things on their minds. They wanted to survive, never mind the old green that could not hang on. They wanted to live. And let the Recon missions find other trees, better trees.

It was a matter of surviving.

To her left, Clio saw a small dog trotting across a field, and she thought,
Target
, and then in the next instant, the swarm descended on the animal so that his yellow fur turned black with piranha nymphs. He raced madly for the cover of trees a hundred meters beyond, but lasted only a fraction of that before crumpling to the ground. The car sped on, out of sight of the kicking animal, but Clio didn’t need to stick around to know the outcome.

Hillis had been watching too. “Birds, especially sparrows, were their natural predators. Ask yourself where all the birds have gone.”

Clio sighed. “Tell me, Hill, where have all the birds gone?”

He had put down his pencil, and was staring out the window. Softly, he answered: “Gone to graveyards, every one.”