Copyright
2014 by Stephen Goldin. All Rights Reserved.
The
Secretary of the Quasiverse Settlement Administration sat in his New
York office, trying to project measured confidence. The surroundings
radiated calm assurance: rich walnut wood-grained walls; a large,
though not ostentatious, desk with inset monitor; a dignified pen set
with totally unnecessary blotter. There was a picture of himself, all
chummy with the president, hanging strategically on the wall behind
him. People seeing this image were supposed to be reassured, and maybe
a little intimidated. The Secretary was obviously an influential and
important man.
The person at the other end of the line in Los Angeles, though, was not
assuaged by these trappings. Daniel Rosenthal, an influential and
important man himself, was pacing the room in a combination of fury and
panic. The Secretary couldn’t see what was on the walls behind him;
the camera tracked him, and never stayed still long enough. Rosenthal
moved with such agitation the background was little more than a blur.
“She’s just a little girl, for Christ’s sake,” Rosenthal was saying,
running his hand through his hair for perhaps the fifth time this
conversation.
“She’s over eighteen, isn’t she?” the Secretary said, even though he
knew calm, reasoned tones wouldn’t work on a distraught father.
“Twenty-four, and a college graduate,” Rosenthal said, waving the
Secretary’s words away dismissively. “What’s that got to do with
anything? She’s my little girl. You’ve got daughters. You know what
it’s like.”
The Secretary breathed deeply and evenly, trying to set the tone of
patient reason. Yes,
and I had the good sense to steer them into sensible careers. Lainie’s
a patent attorney, Julie’s a pediatrician, and both are thankfully
married and settled down with kids. That was what he wanted to say, but he was too much
of a diplomat to say it.
“How did all this happen, anyway?” is what he did say. “Last time we
talked it sounded like everything was going smoothly. Didn’t you tell
me Martia had a job at one of your companies?”
Rosenthal chuffed. “Yeah, second assistant general manager at my
central offices. Not so high it looked like nepotism, but on a firm
career path, engaged to a good-looking boy rising in the firm. Her job
reviews were excellent. I had my security vet the boy, and they thought
he looked good. Everything was perfect. Then bang! The boy skips back
to Italy with a couple billion in company secrets, the engagement’s
broken, Martia’s in tears, and the next thing I hear, she’s signed up
for the goddamned Quasi Corps. Christ on a pogo stick, how’s a father
supposed to keep up with a girl these days?”
The Secretary deliberately did not bridle at Rosenthal’s slighting
reference to his agency. Rosenthal was too big a contributor to the
president and the party to allow that. “Can I do anything to help?” he
asked calmly.
“You can get her out of this damned thing, that’s what you can do.”
“Sorry, Dan, but no.” The Secretary spread his hands. “That’s one thing
I can’t
do. You know how bad it looks when a chief executive starts messing in
petty personnel matters way below his station. Raises all sorts of
hackles and red flags. Even something perfectly innocent starts to look
sordid and tawdry.”
“Well, what about a job in your office?”
The Secretary almost winced. He was already staffed out the window with
home office jobs filled by appointments for friends. There weren’t
enough shoehorns in all of New York to squeeze in another, particularly
for a young rich girl mooning over a broken love affair. “I’m well past
quota there, Dan.”
“Well, what good are you, then?” Meaning, why did I donate all those millions?
“You haven‘t been able to talk her out of it?”
“She says her mind’s made up. I learned those code words years ago.”
“Well, she’s of age and supposedly knows her own mind. Yes, I know,
what father thinks his daughter truly does? Still, that’s what the law
says, and we have to abide by it. The QSA has trouble enough recruiting
people as it is. We have to hold them to it when we get them, at least
for the minimum three-year term.”
“Yeah,” Rosenthal said bitterly, “But how many ever come back?”
The Secretary felt on firm statistical footing here. “Don’t listen to
the exaggerations in the press, Dan. Fully sixty-eight percent come
home from their first tour, and twenty-seven percent more either
re-enlist or stay in the Quasiverse in some other capacity. There’s a
great settlement bonus, you know. It’s a successful program.”
Rosenthal snorted. “She doesn’t need the pennies you’d call a
settlement bonus. And there’s a few percent unaccounted for, there.”
“Four point eight,” said the Secretary with a shrug. “Accidents and
misadventures. They can happen anywhere, even New York or L.A.”
“If five percent of the people who went to New York died in accidents,
they’d call it a calamity.”
“It’s a frontier, Dan. Give me a break. If only five percent of the Old
West settlers died in their first three years, it’d be the most
successful settlement in history.”
“So more than thirty percent of the people you send out never come
back, and you call that a success. And that’s just your employees. What
about settlers? How many of them
come back?”
The Secretary hesitated. “Well, they intended
to go out permanently, so—”
“Right. And of the sixty-eight percent who do come home, how many are
the same as when they left? All body parts intact? More important,
their minds?”
“It’s impossible to quantify statistics like that.”
“Jeez, you hear stories of nervous breakdowns, insanity, permanent
psychoses—”
“You’re working yourself into a state over something neither of us can
prevent. But there are some things we can
do.”
Rosenthal stopped in mid-rant, blinking. “Huh? What?”
“There are two things that help someone survive out there. The same two
things that help them survive anywhere, in fact—money and power. Martia
has money of her own, right?”
“She got her grandmother’s trust when she turned eighteen, not to
mention her shares in my
companies. Last year she was ranked the thirty-fourth richest person
under age twenty-five.”
“I thought it was something like that. Let me tell you what I
can do. No, I can’t wrap her in cotton batting and keep all the
bogeymen away, but I’ve got the next best thing. While we’ve been
talking, I’ve been going through the agency’s records to find the
perfect situation for her. We can send her to Burgundy.”
“France?”
“No, it’s a town in the Quasiverse. It’s made to order for you—probably
the dullest place out there. Not a peep out of it since it was settled.
The legate’s reports are all short and uneventful. He’s never
requisitioned any extra help. Everything goes smoothly, never a hint of
trouble.”
Rosenthal furrowed his brow. “Well—”
“And just to make sure nothing goes wrong I’ll appoint Martia the
sub-legate. Second-in-command of a town where nothing ever happens. If
anything drives her crazy, it’ll be boredom. She’ll be perfectly safe,
it’s a quiet post. Trust me.”
“I still don’t see why you have to go to that horrible place,” Elaine,
Martia’s stepmother, said with a sniff. She did not, of course, bother
to meet Martia’s eyes.
Martia Rosenthal sighed. She’d been doing that a lot in the past few
months since Carlo’s betrayal. “I told you what Dr. Shigeta said.”
“Yes, yes, you’re depressed over that Italian boy and you have to get away. But it’s easier
to get away to Paris, or Tahiti, or even the real
Burgundy. At least there they have good vineyards and decent wine. Not
like that place that tries to fool you by taking the name of somewhere
real.”
That wasn’t all Dr. Shigeta had said. He’d suggested she make a clean
break from her parents for a while as well, to snap her out of the
depression. But Martia wasn’t about to tell her stepmother that.
Instead, she tried to deflect the conversation. “They’re not trying to
fool people, Mother. The U.S. names all its Quasiverse colony towns
after colors, so they won’t offend anyone.”
“I swear, for the fortune you pay that quack, I could have found you a
much better therapist.”
Why do you think I chose him?
Martia wanted to say. And as for the “fortune” she was spending, she
could have paid Dr. Shigeta’s weekly fee for a thousand years without
scratching the surface of the trust fund from her maternal grandmother.
So she just shrugged and remained silent.
If she ever needed tangible proof she was depressed, she only had to
look around her. She’d eaten here at the Garden Court of the Sheraton
Palace Hotel many times when she visited San Francisco, and normally
thought the place beautiful and refined. But today, the splendor of the
arched skylight and the elegant golden chandeliers left her unmoved—and
she’d barely glanced into the bar at the gorgeous Maxfield Parrish Pied Piper painting. Any therapist would have diagnosed
that as depression.
Martia’s father decided to enter the conversation. “But you have to
admit, Princess, there are all those stories about people coming back
from the Quasiverse stark, raving crazy.”
Another shrug. “A few. People go crazy in L.A. too, Daddy. And in
Paris, and in Tahiti. If it happens, Mother can send me to one of those
real psychiatrists she just bragged about.” Elaine insisted on Martia
calling her “Mother,” as though trying to erase Martia’s real mother
from existence. Although, in truth, Martia’s real mother was doing a
credible job of that on her own.
“And as for taking that silly stuffed monkey along—” Elaine began.
“Excuse me,” Martia said, standing. “I need to visit the restroom.”
Martia sat in the stall for long minutes after she finished peeing,
leaning forward with her elbows on her thighs, her head in her hands.
How many more minutes would she have to endure before she got away?
Nobody could understand what she was going through, how stupid she felt
about what happened. Not her family; her father kept telling her it
wasn’t her fault, even his security team was fooled by Carlo, while
Elaine kept going on about how European men were slimy and couldn’t be
trusted. Not Ronnie, her best friend from college, who’d gotten married
and popped out two babies in quick succession; she simply couldn’t get
her head out of the nursery. And definitely not May, who thought the
answer to all problems was a long orgy of fashion buying at the most
expensive boutiques-du-jour.
Oddly enough, it was her mother who suggested the path she took. Not
directly, of course; she hadn’t had personal contact with Mom in well
over a year. But Shirley’s latest blog on ways to save the world had
been titled “The Quasi Corps: Making Sense out of Nonsense, Order out
of Chaos.” And suddenly, Martia knew what to do.
But sitting here wasn’t doing it. With a sigh, she finished up and left
the restroom.
When she got back to the table, she was composed again. “I think we’d
better be leaving now, Daddy,” she said. “I want to be sure we get to
the station in plenty of time.”
Both her parents rose. “You know I’d love to go with you,” her
stepmother said, “but I did promise to go shopping with Berta Feingold
in Union Square today.”
“I’ll be fine, Mother,” Martia said. Elaine’s air kisses didn’t even
come close to Martia’s cheeks.
The sun shone brightly outside the Contra Costa County Quasiverse
Tunnel Station, otherwise known as the Concord Quasiverse Tunnel
Station, otherwise known as the Mt. Diablo Quasiverse Tunnel Station,
otherwise known as the Herman C. Gutierrez Quasiverse Tunnel Station,
otherwise known locally as the East Quasi Tunnel Station. For many, it
was more than fitting it should be called so many things, given that it
opened into an area of such high volatility.
This was the smaller of the two West Coast tunnels in North America. It
accessed, at present, only thirteen active nodes—as opposed to the Mt.
Tamalpais Quasiverse Tunnel Station, otherwise known as the Marin
County Quasiverse Tunnel Station, otherwise known as the North Bay
Quasiverse Tunnel Station, otherwise known as the James “Sunny”
Corcoran Quasiverse Tunnel Station, otherwise known locally as the
North Quasi Tunnel Station, which accessed no fewer than thirty-four
nodes and seemed to be acquiring a new one a month.
If Martia had been in a jollier mood, she might have thought this was a
very propitious day to begin her new life. The sky was blue and
cloudless, the air was warm with but the light hint of a cooling breeze
to keep it from being oppressive. The crowd at the station was busy,
but not obnoxiously packed with people. The depot itself still had the
new-building look of chrome and glass—lots of glass on three sides,
with the fourth side abutting the mountain.
But Martia hadn’t been feeling jolly for over three months. All days
were gloomy, regardless of the weather, which she took no notice of;
she was from L.A., where all days were supposed to be sunny and
temperate as a matter of course. All buildings worth visiting were new
and shiny. And Mt. Diablo didn’t look like a real mountain anyway.
Mountains were supposed to be tall and conical, whereas Mt. Diablo
looked from a distance like some enormous Bactrian camel that had knelt
to rest and then stubbornly refused to get up again.
Martia’s six large trunks—five packed with clinical precision by her
stepmother and one, a little less precisely, by herself—had already
been taken inside the train and stowed until she reached her
destination. Her rolling suitcase—which she’d packed herself and had
her day-to-day clothes for the journey—was by her side, handle in her
hand. Her two-and-a-half-foot tall stuffed monkey—not furry, but blue
and white gingham except for the red left arm that had been repaired
years ago—clung to her left side with its long arms stretched around
her right shoulder. As far as she was concerned, she was more than
ready to be away.
“You’re sure I can’t talk you out of this?” her father said.
“Y-e-s-s,” Martia said with exaggerated slowness.
“Well, can I at least talk you out of taking that silly monkey with
you? I agree with Elaine, it makes you look like a little girl.”
“Oh Daddy. I’m going to a new place. It’s not like I’ll be taking her
out on the street or to the legation with me. She’ll just be a private,
friendly face.”
Her father grimaced and looked about to launch into another of his
litany of complaints about her choice. Martia looked up and decided now
would be the perfect time to indulge her strategy. “Oh, look at that
line for inspections. Do I have to wait in that with all those people?”
Mr. Rosenthal followed her gaze, and scowled. “You most certainly do
not,” he said emphatically. “You’re the new sub-legate for Burgundy.
You don’t have to stand around like riffraff.” He stalked off toward
the gate where the security guards were screening the prospective
passengers.
Martia watched him go, and a tight smile briefly curled at the corners
of her mouth. She bent her head down close to the monkey’s ear and
whispered, “I think it’s going to work.”
‘I hope so,” the monkey whispered back. “I don’t want to get left
behind.”
“Shhh. We don’t want anyone to hear you. That’d screw everything up.”
The monkey went back to its silent clinging.
Mr. Rosenthal began talking to one of the security officers. Soon a
second officer became involved. Then a third officer joined the
discussion. Mr. Rosenthal never yelled; men like him never needed to
yell at hired staff. But his body language became more animated. He
waved his arms a couple of times. He showed the officers Martia’s
paperwork. He pointed three times to specific wording. The third
officer took the papers, scanned them closely, then nodded slowly. She
handed the papers back to Mr. Rosenthal and pointed to a door in the
right-hand wall. Mr. Rosenthal nodded appreciatively, turned and walked
back to Martia.
“Well, Princess,” he said when he reached her, “they finally agreed
that the sub-legate deserves diplomatic immunity and they have no right
to search you. You’re to use the VIP boarding lounge over here, and no
one’ll bother you.”
Fighting hard not to show the relief she felt, Martia dropped the
handle of her suitcase, wrapped an arm up around her father’s neck and
gave him a heartfelt kiss. “Thanks, Daddy. You’re terrific.”
Mr. Rosenthal blushed and smiled. He could almost forget how upset he
was at his daughter’s decision to go away.
Martia picked up the wheeled suitcase’s handle with her left hand and
gripped her father’s hand with her right, then walked with him to the
door of the VIP lounge. They stopped there awkwardly, and Martia said,
“I guess this is where we have to say goodbye.”
“I guess so,” he said, almost sheepishly.
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him again. “Don’t worry, Daddy. It’s
only three years. I’ll be home before you know it. I’ll make you proud,
I promise.”
Mr. Rosenthal gave a wan smile. “I know you will, Princess.”
Martia went up to the door and showed her papers to the officer there.
The man’s brows knit. “You’re MAR-tee-uh?”
Martia gave the smallest of sighs. “Like ‘Martian,’” she said by rote,
“without the ‘n,’”
She turned back and smiled confidently at her father. Then she went
through the door and vanished from his sight.
Apparently, not a lot of VIPs traveled from this station into the
Quasiverse, because the lounge was pretty spartan. There were only
three chairs—admittedly more luxurious than the institutional ones in
the main depot—a large clock on the wall, a water fountain, and a door
across the room from where she’d entered. So much for special
accommodations. But at least she wouldn’t have her belongings searched,
which was the point of this exercise.
Martia settled into the green leather chair closest to the exit door. The Imbecile’s Guide to the Quasiverse
was zipped into the outside pocket of her suitcase, but she didn’t
bother taking it out. She’d already skimmed it once and expected to
read it a couple more times during the trip to Burgundy, but wasn’t in
the mood right now. She let the false shine of optimism slide off her
face, to be replaced by the sour look of depression that had lived
there for months. She sat unmoving for over an hour, until a bright
young man, maybe a couple years younger than she was, appeared in the
doorway and told her it was time to board. Listlessly, she stood up and
followed him through the door.
“Welcome aboard, Madame Sub-legate,” the young man said cheerily. “My
name is Richard, and I’ll be one of the staff serving you on this
journey to Burgundy. May I carry your bag for you today?”
“No, thanks. I can roll it on my own.”
“Very well. What a cute monkey you have. Have you ever visited the
Quasiverse before?”
“No,” Martia said glumly.
“I thought you looked pretty young. Well, be prepared to have your mind
blown. You’re in for a great adventure.”
“So everyone tells me.”
“I don’t get to see very much of it myself, these train runs keep me
busy, but I hear plenty of stories.”
He led her down a pale green hall that ended at an open metal doorway.
“Please watch your step over the gap. Make sure your suitcase wheels
don’t get stuck. There we go. Your compartment is in Car Two, just a
short trip up the passage here. Sorry it’s a bit narrow—they forgot the
word ‘spacious’ when they designed this train. Still, it’s hard to get
lost—everything’s either forward or back.
“Well, here we are. Compartment Two-A, your home for the next three
days.” He took a keycard from his pocket and inserted it into the lock,
then handed the card to Martia when the door light flashed green. He
opened the door and stepped inside first, holding the door open for
Martia to enter. “I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s not what you’re probably
used to, but I assure you this is the finest compartment on the whole
train. You even have your own bathroom and shower. No maid service, I’m
afraid—”
“Not necessary,” Martia said. She was fishing through her purse. “I’ve
got a lot of studying to do before we get to my new assignment, so I
probably won’t be leaving the room. Can you please see that I remain
undisturbed and have my meals served here?” She pulled out a fifty
dollar bill and handed it to him.
Richard pocketed the bill with professional smoothness. “Yes, ma’am.
And if it turns out you do need anything, I’m button four there on the
wall panel. Press that and I’ll be here on the double.”
He showed her a notepad and pen on the dresser. “Fill out one of those
slips and post it outside your door to order your next meal. I’ll
provide room service for you and remove the dirty dishes when you’re
done.”
With a professional nod, he left, and Martia was finally alone.
The designers of this room spared no expense at looking cheap. The
walls, once brightly polished aluminum, had been scratched into
dullness by many uncaring occupants. The bed was either luxurious
twin-sized or a double for a pair of heroin-chic fashion models. A
video monitor with a postage-stamp sized screen was set in the wall
facing the bed. There were curtains sewn shut where a window might be
expected. The dresser was built into the wall, and the drawers didn’t
pull all the way out. The accordion-door closet had no hangers, but
she’d been prescient enough to pack her own. The carpet was just a
shade too plush to serve as good sandpaper.
Martia could well believe this was the finest compartment in the whole
train.
She waited a few seconds, went to the door and opened it. Richard had
vanished down the hallway. She closed the door again and double-locked
it.
She un-Velcroed the monkey’s arms from around her shoulder and sat it
down on the dresser top. “Well, Lydia, I guess we made it.” Then she
tossed the suitcase on the bed and unzipped it.
“I was sure you would,” the monkey replied.
Martia didn’t look at the stuffed toy, just took the already hangered
clothes out of the case and shook them out, then hung them in the tiny
closet. “I don’t know. That ‘no computers’ warning sounded pretty
strict. But I guess Daddy is good for something.”
She paused. “But then, you’re not really that much of a computer.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Lydia. “I’m an EG-13 AI.”
“You’re an ereader with pretensions,” Martia insisted absently as she
turned from the closet to grab underwear from her suitcase and stow it
in the dresser. “You’ve got the intellect of a four-year-old with a
giant vocabulary. You can hold up your end of a conversation, and
that’s about it.”
The monkey gave a barely audible sniff.
Martia grabbed the figure and held it tightly to her chest. “But I love
you anyway, you silly monkey.”
“I love you too, Martia,” the monkey said.
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