The Best of All Possible Worlds (32 page)

THE UNLIKELY ANGEL

O
n the first
day after I spoke to the Sadiri Consul, I went to visit my mother.

This was a bit of a mistake because Maria and Grace were still there, Rafi was only
home from school every other weekend, and my mother had taken to spending long periods
of time at another retiree friend whose apartment was uncluttered by offspring. Okay,
perhaps that sounds a little unkind, but that was my first impression of the situation.
Then, when I got there, I was entirely on my mother’s side. Maria was refusing to
continue therapy—wait, “refusing” is too strong a word. She was apathetic. Gracie
was at the other extreme, suddenly acting out after years of suppression. My mother
was at her wits’ end and would escape for a little sanity from time to time.

“Darling, she’s my daughter, and I love her, but she’s making me crazy,” my mother
confessed to me. We were sitting on her balcony, plotting strategy and carefully ignoring
the yells coming from the kitchen as Maria struggled to get Gracie to finish eating
lunch.

I put on my dead-calm, responsible voice. “This family already has its full quota
of crazy, Mom. Let’s not go over the edge. There’ll be no one left to act as anchor.”

“Well, what can I do? I mean, I was even thinking about proposing to Connie just to
have an excuse to get out of the house permanently. Then I could leave this place
to Maria and—”

I blinked. “Proposing to
Connie
? What happened to the guy you kept talking about—Davi was his name?”

“Well, dear,” she said, lowering her voice to a hushed whisper, “I didn’t want to
shock you, but it was Connie I meant all along. Davi’s her husband, but I
think
I’ve almost persuaded her that she’s better off without him.”

I tilted my head and pondered. “Mom,” I said, “you’re still a homesteader at heart,
so I’ll say this gently. Are you sure
she’s
interested in you or is it
both
of them?”

My mother began to scoff, paused, and looked suddenly startled, then confused.

“Right; then it seems to me we’d better make sure you hold on to your apartment for
a little while longer. Better if Maria and Gracie come to my apartment. I’ll be doing
more work down on the Sadiri settlement anyway, and it’ll be harder for her to avoid
therapy when she’s near all the best institutes.”

“But, dear,” my mother protested, “are you sure you want to do that? I mean, unless
there’s someone you’re thinking of moving in with, I wouldn’t wish Maria on you either.”

Too much Ntshune in my family. Too damn much. Her eyes lit up.

“There
is
someone,” she said, leaning forward avidly. “Go on! What’s he like? How old is he?
Oh, it is a
he
, isn’t it?”

He’s Sadiri. Furthermore, he’s a Sadiri savant who is, in fact, older than you
. “But I think we were discussing
your
love life?” I chided her with lofty dignity.

“Oh. I do seem to have made a mess of that,” she said ruefully.

I zapped a contact from my comm to hers. “There. That’s my
friend Gilda. She’s lovely and approachable and will give you all kinds of good advice
about negotiating the currents of city polyamory. Just … don’t date her. Please. I
would find that awkward.”

I picked up my handheld. “I’m making arrangements for Maria to move into my apartment
within a couple of weeks. Please find a way to talk her into it by then. I’ll do my
best to push her back to therapy, but I think even a part-time job would work wonders.
The credits from the divorce and compensation are only going to last so long, anyway.
Now, how’s Rafi?”

“Terribly unhappy,” she admitted, looking very distressed.

I felt a pang of dismay. She’d been our rock all the time we were growing up. She
shouldn’t have to shoulder these burdens at her age. “Never mind. I’ll go see him
tomorrow.”

Thus it was that
on the second day after the Consul sent for help, I went to visit my nephew at his
boarding school. Fortunately, Rafi wasn’t so much terribly unhappy as quite naturally
stressed by the new environment and the fact that he had come into it in the middle
of the school year, when friendships are already sealed and group allegiances formed.
He also viewed his being there as a kind of sentence rather than a privilege and a
mark of distinction from the average Cygnian. We walked the immaculate school grounds,
and I tried my best to cheer him up.

“They all show off so much. Talking mind to mind. Levitating scraps of paper, even,”
he said, glum and resistant to consoling.

I looked him over, noting his extra six centimeters of height and a face that was
moving from cute to handsome with less adolescent awkwardness than the norm. He could
be popular. He must not be trying. “I’ve seen your psi profile. You’re stronger than
any of them. Why don’t you show off a little yourself?”

He shrugged. “I could make everyone like me, but that sort of thing is frowned upon,
oddly enough. As for the telepathy—there’s no one I really want to talk to, I guess.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Who’s in charge of your welfare around here?”

“My House Master, I suppose. Why?” He looked a little wary. “Don’t embarrass me.”

I gave him an incredulous look. “When have I ever not been cool? Don’t turn all teenage
on me now. Just answer me one thing. Do you still like elephants?”

A quick consultation with his House Master ensured that Rafi and one other student
would spend the next half-term holiday on an educational visit to the forest uplands.

“There’s more than one way to be popular, my boy,” I told him as I was leaving. “Elephants
are cool. Eccentric aunts who send you and a fortunate friend to ride on elephants,
they too are cool. You’re lucky I’ve had no reason to dip into my holiday fund this
year. I can’t do this too often. Anyway, once should be enough to seal your reputation.”

He grinned at me. He knew I was up to something, more than was evident on the surface,
but he trusted me enough to be amused and excited rather than worried.

“And by the way,” I added, “I’d practice my telepathy while I was out there if I were
you. Loudly. Vacation is no reason to slack off.”

Transferring the lease on
my apartment and spending such a large sum on impulse meant that I had to consider
my future sooner rather than later. And so on the third day after the Consul’s leap
of faith, I collared Nasiha in her temporary office at the Sadiri Consulate and asked
bluntly, “Want to work with me?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You appear to have made certain assumptions about my future
plans.”

“Or perhaps I’m trying to influence them.”

She smiled then, just a little. “I
had
noticed that in spite of the fact that your breach of the Cygnian Science Code has
caused you to be barred from empirical research, you have somehow managed to become
the cause of academic papers by others. I would welcome the opportunity to examine
the phenomenon further by continuing our association within an entrepreneurial framework.”

“Tarik?” I asked. It was interesting, this new vocal shorthand. I was finally living
my life as if I had no time to waste.

Nasiha’s gaze softened, and I was reminded just how much those two did love each other,
although they would have found some other way to phrase it, no doubt. “We have assessed
various locations in terms of safety, stability, and support networks. We have decided
to spend at least one year living in the Tlaxce Sadiri Settlement so that our child
can be born there. After that, Tarik will probably return to working with the Science
Council while I remain as primary parent for the first seven years. At the end of
those seven years … who knows? I may return to the Science Council while he becomes
the primary parent. We may all return to New Sadira or to whatever planet we may be
assigned. But that is in the future.”

I smiled. “Tarik is a good husband and will make an excellent father.”
He loves you so much
.

Nasiha gave me an amused look. “Of course.”
And I love him
.

For two days after
that I didn’t try to save the world or solve anyone’s problems. I worked on my reports
diligently from home, having wisely turned down the offer of office space at the Sadiri
Consulate. With everything that was happening, I didn’t trust my
professionalism that far. At home, I could at least periodically get up from my desk,
look at the calendar, and scream into a pillow set aside for that purpose.

Then I got a call from Dr. Freyda Mar herself.

“I heard you’d come in, but I thought I should wait a bit. I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Freyda, it’s so good to hear from you.” In spite of everything, I smiled when I heard
her voice. “Things have been a bit grim, but where there’s life, there’s hope.”

“That’s so,” she agreed. “Look, I’m going down to the homesteadings this afternoon
to start the week’s rounds. Would you like to come with me?”

My gaze drifted to my handheld. I had been checking my messages in the minutes before
Freyda’s call. A rather large number of the messages were from Fergus—several variations
on the tune of his comm and the fact that I had not returned it, no doubt. Since I
had last seen it in bits and pieces in the Consul’s living room, I was beginning to
think that it might be a prudent move to try a change of scenery.

“Why, thank you, Freyda! That’d be perfect. We can catch up.”

Freyda was as kind as ever. She opted for nav but no autopilot so that I wouldn’t
feel pressured to make small talk for the entire journey. I dived right into the important
stuff, using my new blunt-and-direct mode. “You and Lanuri. Progress?”

Her face was calm, her tone lighthearted. “You are aware, Ms. Delarua, that government
officials are not encouraged to fraternize with colleagues. It might interfere with
efficiency. What they do at the end of the assignment is, of course, their own business.”

“Entirely appropriate,” I agreed.

There was a small silence, and then we burst out laughing.

“I can play Sadiri for about ten minutes, tops,” I admitted.
“Longer if I’m really concentrating. So, you guys looking to get married soon after?”

She nodded happily. “Yeah. It’s funny; I didn’t even have to make any moves. Once
I started looking at things differently, it all seemed to unfold naturally somehow.”

“How do you attract a Sadiri’s attention?”

“Sound intelligent,” she answered. “Tell them something they didn’t know or hadn’t
figured out for themselves. How do you know you’ve got their attention?”

“Intensity like whoa,” I said immediately. “They drop everything and listen to you
and then come up with all kinds of reasons to keep you around. How do you know they
like you?”

“Unusually touchy. Brushing fingers when handing you a cup or a handheld. Protective,
solicitous behavior. Very quick to catch you if you stumble or lose footing, very
concerned if you’re unwell. Personal distance decreases significantly. Then one day,
next thing you know, he’s holding your hand and gazing into your eyes,” she concluded
dreamily.

But do you ever kiss?
I wanted to ask that really badly. I just smiled instead.

She smiled too. “And you?”

“Better ask when my assignment’s formally over, Dr. Mar,” I said archly. Then I fell
silent, remembering the number of days till then and also the unknown number of days
before the Consul’s miracle would arrive. Might arrive.

When we reached Lanuri’s office, he greeted me with unexpected warmth, clasping my
hand and saying, “It is fitting that you should be here for the memorial.”

“What memorial?” I asked, confused.

He looked slightly concerned. “You have not received word? The rescue has been called
off. Increased seismic activity in the area has made it impossible for excavation
to continue safely.”

The unopened messages from Fergus
, I thought. The room slid slowly to one side, and I was surprised to find that Freyda
was gripping me by the shoulders. I shrugged her off.

“I’m all right,” I insisted. I took a step and swayed. “I just need to sit down for
a bit,” I amended in a small voice.

They were very attentive. They took me to Lanuri’s residence and made me sit still
and drink tea. It was all I could do. My brain simply shut off, refusing to accept
any possibility that I would never again hear Lian’s laugh and Joral’s earnest voice.

The following day, I
was at a Sadiri memorial service or, as I preferred to call it, a funeral for bodies
that were very likely still breathing. Two memory trees were planted before the Local
Council Hall in a ceremony that was a curious mix of Cygnian and Sadiri traditions,
and then the attendees retired to the Hall for a few solemn minutes of awkward interaction.

I found it indecent. “They could have waited,” I said angrily.

Nasiha, who didn’t even know about the Consul’s call for help, also found it unseemly,
but she tried to excuse it. “The chances of survival are now negligible,” she stated,
her morose expression suggesting that she disliked the sound of her words even more
than I did. “Furthermore, the council was of the opinion that delaying the customary
rituals would give the event more weight than is warranted.”