The Book of Strange New Things(178)

‘I need more practice,’ he said, panting.

‘Well,’ sighed BG, ‘you ain’t gonna get it, are you?’ It was the first time he’d alluded to Peter’s imminent departure.

‘I might,’ said Peter, sitting down on a low wooden pedestal whose purpose he couldn’t guess. ‘Nothing to stop me carrying a sandbag when I’m back home. Actually, I might have to, if there’s a flood. There’s been a lot of flooding lately.’

‘They need to put more thought into their sorry-ass water management systems,’ BG remarked.

Moro stood up and smoothed her clothing. Her exercise break was over and duty called. ‘Maybe you should do what you have to and then come straight back,’ she said.

‘Not without my wife,’ said Peter.

‘Well, maybe she can come too.’

‘USIC decided she couldn’t, apparently.’

Moro shrugged, and a flash of defiance animated her normally passionless face. ‘USIC schmusic. What’s USIC anyway? We’re USIC. Us, here. Maybe it’s time the eligibility tests got loosened up a little.’

‘Yeah, they’re tough,’ agreed BG, in a wistful tone, half-proud of himself for having made the grade, half-rueful for all the potential brothers and sisters who hadn’t made it. ‘Eye of a goddamn needle. That’s in the Bible, ain’t it?’

Almost as a reflex, Peter girded himself to craft a diplomatic answer, then realised he didn’t have to. ‘Yes, BG, it is. Matthew, chapter 19, verse 24.’

‘I’ll remember that,’ said BG, then grinned broadly, to signal that he knew very well he wouldn’t.

‘Husband and wife team,’ said Moro, stowing the bottle in her tote bag. ‘I think that would be kind of romantic.’ She spoke in a wistful tone, as though romance was something exotic and strange that might be observed in a tribe of monkeys or snow geese, not in anyone she’d ever known.

Peter closed his eyes. Bea’s final message, and his reply, were imprinted there, as clear as any verse of Scripture:

Peter, I love you, she’d written. But please, don’t come home. I beg you. Stay where you are. It’s safer and I want you safe.

This is the last message I’ll be able to send you, I’m not going to be able to stay in this house. I will be living with other people, strangers. I don’t know where exactly. We’ll be moving around. I can’t explain, just take it from me that it’s best. Nothing here is as it was when you left. Things can change so fast. It’s irresponsible for me to bring a baby into this rotten world but the alternative is killing it and I just don’t have the courage to do that. I expect things will end badly anyway, and it will be much kinder on you not to be here to see it. If you love me, don’t make me watch you suffer.

It’s funny, all those years ago when we first met, people warned me what a hardened, devious exploiter you were, always manipulating people to fall for you, but I know you’re just an innocent little kid at heart. This planet’s too cruel for you now. I’ll take comfort from thinking of you in a safe place, with some chance of a happy life.

Beatrice

To which he had replied, without pause for doubt or deliberation, just this:

Safe or unsafe, happy or unhappy, my place is by your side. Don’t give up. I will find you.

‘You take care of yourself, OK?’ said BG. ‘You’re goin’ to a baaaaad place. Stay strong. Keep focused. You promise me that?’

Peter smiled. ‘I promise.’

He and the big man shook hands, formally and decorously, like diplomats. No bear hugs, no high fives. BG knew how to tailor the gesture to the occasion. He turned and walked away, with Moro at his side.

Peter watched their bodies dwindle and disappear into the ugly exterior of the USIC base. Then he took a seat on a swing, holding the chains loosely, and wept a while. Not big sobs, not even aloud, nothing that Lover Five might have called a very long song. Just tears on his cheeks, which got licked up by the atmosphere before they could fall to the earth.

Eventually he walked back to the sandbag and kneeled down next to it. Without much difficulty, he dragged it up his thighs onto his lap. Next, wrapping his arms around it, he hauled it to his chest. It was heavier than Bea, he supposed, although it was hard to be sure. Lifting a person was easier somehow. It shouldn’t be, because both of you were subject to gravity; there was no escaping that. Yet he’d tried lifting an unconscious body and he’d lifted Bea and there was a difference. And a baby . . . a baby would be lighter still, much lighter.

He sat holding the sandbag until his knees were hurting and arms were sore. When he finally let it slip to the ground, he couldn’t guess how long Grainger had been standing near him, watching.

‘I thought you were angry with me,’ he said.

‘So you ran away?’ she said.

‘I just wanted to give you space,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘I have all the space I can handle.’

He checked her appearance, unobtrusively he hoped. She looked sober, dressed as normal, ready for work.

‘You’re going home too, right?’

‘Right,’ she said.

‘We’ll be together,’ he said.

The reassurance cut no ice with her. ‘We’ll be in the same ship but we won’t be aware of it.’