The Book of Strange New Things(157)

Satisfied with what she’d done, she pressed the transmission button. The text trembled on the screen while, elsewhere in the compound, another pair of tired eyes examined it. Then it vanished.

‘Another five thousand bucks down the hatch,’ said Grainger, with a shrug.

‘Sorry?’

‘Each of your Shoots costs about five thousand dollars to send,’ she said. ‘And each of your wife’s also, of course, to receive.’ She wiped her face with her hands, breathing deeply, trying to suck much-needed energy from her own palms. ‘Another reason why the personnel here aren’t communicating daily with a bunch of pals back home.’

Peter tried to do a mental calculation. Maths wasn’t his strong suit, but he knew the number was appallingly big. ‘Nobody told me,’ he said.

‘We were told not to tell you,’ she said. ‘No expense spared for the missionary man.’

‘But why?’

‘USIC wanted you real bad,’ said Grainger. ‘You were, like, our first VIP.’

‘I never asked . . . ’

‘You didn’t need to ask. My . . . guidelines were to give you anything you wanted. Within reason. Because, you know, before you came, things were getting kinda . . . strained.’

‘Things?’ He couldn’t imagine what things. A spiritual crisis amongst the USIC personnel?

‘Our food supply got cut off for a while. No more whiteflower from our little friends.’ Grainger smirked sourly. ‘They come across so meek and mild, don’t they? But they can be very determined when they want to be. We promised them a replacement for Kurtzberg, but they thought it was too slow in coming. I guess Ella Reinman was ploughing through a million priests and pastors, poking them to see what was inside, then flunking them. Next pastor please! What’s your favourite fruit? How much would you miss Philadelphia? Frying ducklings alive – OK or not OK? What would it take to make you lose patience with my stupid questions and wring my scrawny neck?’ Grainger’s hands mimed the action, her thumbs crushing her interrogator’s windpipe. ‘Meanwhile in Freaktown, our little friends couldn’t wait. They flexed the only muscle they could flex, to make USIC hurry up and find you.’ Observing the bemusement on his face, she nodded, to signal that he must stop wasting energy on incredulity and just believe.

‘How bad did it get?’ said Peter. ‘I mean, did you starve?’

Grainger was annoyed by the question. ‘Of course we didn’t starve. It just got . . . expensive for a while. More expensive than you wanna think about.’

He tried to think about it and discovered she was right.

‘The stand-off wouldn’t have been such a big deal,’ she went on, ‘if only we could grow stuff ourselves. God knows we’ve tried. Wheat. Corn. Maize. Hemp. Every seed known to man has gone into this soil. But what comes up is not impressive. Vanity farming, you could call it. And of course we tried growing whiteflower too, but it was the same story. A few bulbs here, a few bulbs there. Like cultivating orchids. We just can’t figure out how those guys get it to grow in large amounts. What the hell do they fertilise it with? Fairy dust, I guess.’

She fell silent, still seated in front of the Shoot. She’d spoken in a dull, enervated tone, as though it was a stale subject, a humiliation too pathetic and tedious to revisit yet again. Gazing down at her face, he wondered how long it had been – how many years – since she had been truly, deeply happy.

‘I want to thank you,’ he said, ‘for helping me. I was in . . . a bad state. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’

She didn’t take her eyes off the screen. ‘Got somebody else to help you, I guess.’

‘I don’t just mean the message. I mean, coming to find me. As you said, I could have died.’

She sighed. ‘It actually takes a lot for someone to die. The human body is designed not to quit. But yeah, I was worried about you, driving off like that when you were sick.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘That part wasn’t difficult. All our vehicles have collars with bells on, if you get my drift. The tough part was getting you into my car, ’cause you weren’t rousable. I had to wrap you in a blanket and drag you along the ground. And I’m not strong.’

The vision of what she’d done for him flared up in his mind, even though he had no memory of it. He wished he had a memory of it. ‘Oh, Grainger . . . ’

She stood up abruptly.

‘You really love her, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Your wife.’

‘Yes. I really love her.’

She nodded. ‘I thought so.’

He wanted to embrace her, hesitated. She turned away.

‘Write her as much as you want,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about the cost. USIC can afford it. And anyway, you saved our bacon. And our chicken, and our bread, and our custard, and our cinnamon, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.’

From behind, he laid his hands on her shoulders, aching to let her know how he felt. Without looking round, she took hold of his hands with her own, and pulled them hard against her chest, not as low as the bosom, but near the sternum, where her heart beat.

‘And remember,’ she said. ‘When you mention USIC, keep it nice. No accusations, no end of the world.’