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sailed model yachts. I watched them.
Love. Maybe it was love. Could that be it? Had Linter fallen for somebody, and
was the ship therefore concerned he might not want to leave, if and when we
had to? Just because that was the start of a thousand sentimental stories
didn't mean that it didn't actually happen.
I sat by the octagonal pond, thinking about all this, and the same wind that
ruffled my hair made the sails of the little yachts flutter and flap, and in
that uncertain breeze they nosed through the choppy waters, and banged into
the wall of the pond, or were caught by chubby hands and sent bobbing back out
again across the waves.
I circled back via the Invalides, with more predictable trophies of war; old
Panther tanks, and rows of ancient cannons like bodies stacked against a wall.
I had lunch in a smoky little place near the St Sulpice Metro; you sat on high
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stools at a bar and they selected a piece of red meat for you and put it,
dripping blood, on a grid over an open pit filled with burning charcoal. The
meat sizzled on the grille right in front of you while you had your aperitif
, and you told them when you felt it was ready. They kept going to take it off
and serve it to me, and I kept saying, '
Non non; un peu plus ... s'il vous plait'
The man next to me ate his rare, with blood still oozing from the centre.
After a few years in Contact you get used to that sort of thing, but I was
still surprised I could sit there and do that, especially after the memorial.
I knew so many people who'd have been outraged at the very thought. Come to
think of it, there would have been millions of vegetarians on Earth who'd have
been equally disgusted (would they have eaten our vat-grown meats? I
wonder).
The black grill over the charcoal pit kept reminding me of the gratings in the
memorial, but I just kept my head down and ate my meal, or most of it. I had a
couple of glasses of rough red wine too, which I let have some effect, and by
the time I was finished I was feeling reasonably together again, and quite
well disposed to the locals. I even remembered
to pay without being asked (I don't think you ever quite get used to buying
), and went out into the bright sunshine. I walked back to Linter's, looking
at shops and buildings and trying not to get knocked down in the street. I
bought a paper on the way back, to see what our unsuspecting hosts thought was
newsworthy. It was oil. Jimmy Carter was trying to persuade Americans to use
less petrol, and the Norwegians had a blow-out in the North Sea.
The ship had mentioned both items in its more recent synopses, but of course
knew it
Carter's measures weren't going to get through without drastic amendment, and
that the drilling rig had had a piece of equipment fitted upside down. I
selected a magazine as well, so arrived back at Linter's clutching my copy of
Stern and expecting to have to drive away.
I'd already made tentative plans; going to Berlin via the First World War
graves and the old battle grounds, following the theme of war, death and
memorials all the way to the riven capital of the Third Reich itself.
But Linter's car was there in the courtyard, parked beside the Volvo. His auto
was a Rolls
Royce Silver Cloud; the ship believed in indulging us. Anyway, it claimed that
making a show was better cover than trying to stay inconspicuous; Western
capitalism in particular allowed the rich just about the right amount of
behavioural leeway to account for the oddities our alienness might produce.
I went up the steps and pressed the bell. I waited for a short while, hearing
noises within the flat. A small notice on the far side of the courtyard caught
my attention, and brought a sour smile to my face.
Linter appeared, unsmiling, at the door; he held it open for me, bowing a
little.
'Ms Sma. The ship told me you'd be coming.'
'Hello.' I entered.
The apartment was much larger than I'd anticipated. It smelled of leather and
new wood;
it was light and airy and well decorated and full of books and records, tapes
and magazines, paintings and objets d'art, and it didn't look one little bit
like the place I'd had in Kensington.
It felt lived in.
Linter waved me towards a black leather chair at one end of a Persian carpet
covering a teak floor and went over to a drinks cabinet, turning his back to
me. 'Do you drink?'
'Whisky,' I said, in English. 'With or without the "e".' I didn't sit down,
but wandered around the room, looking.
'I have Johnny Walker Black Label.'
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'Fine.'
I watched him clamp one hand round the square bottle and pour. Dervley Linter
was taller than me, and quite muscular. To an experienced eye there was
something not quite right - in Earth human terms - about the set of his
shoulders. He leaned over the bottles and glasses like a threat, as though he
wanted to bully the drink from one to the other.
'Anything in it?'
'No thanks.'
He handed me the glass, bent to a small fridge, extracted a bottle and poured
himself a
Budweiser (the real stuff, from Czechoslovakia). Finally, this little ceremony
over, he sat down. Bahaus chair, and it looked original.
His face was calm, serious. Each feature seemed to demand separate attention;
the large, mobile mouth, the flared nose, the bright but deep-set eyes, the
stage-villain brows and surprisingly lined forehead. I tried to recall what
he'd looked like before, but could only remember vaguely, so it was impossible
to tell how much of the way he looked now had
been carried over from what would be classed as his 'normal' appearance. He
rolled the beer glass around in his large hands.
'The ship seems to think we should talk,' he said. He drank about half the
beer in one gulp and placed the glass on a small table made of polished
granite. I adjusted my brooch.
'You don't think we should though, no?'
He spread his hands wide, then folded them over his chest. He was dressed in
two pieces of an expensive looking black suit; trousers and waistcoat. 'I
think it might be pointless.'
'Well ... I don't know ... does there have to be a point to everything? I
thought ... the ship suggested we might have a talk, that's -'
'Did it?'
'- all. Yes.' I coughed. 'I don't ... it didn't tell me what's going on.'
Linter looked steadily at me, then down at his feet. Black brogues. I looked
around the room as I sipped my whisky, looking for signs of female habitation,
or for anything that might indicate there were two people living here. I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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