Gwendy’s Final Task

Gareth interrupts. “What happened to cutting this short? I’d like to get settled in.”

Kathy registers momentary irritation at this rudeness, but a moment later it’s gone. Gareth is important to TetCorp’s plans for tourist travel above the earth and therefore must be cosseted. Up to a point, Gwendy thinks. If he has to be busted on his behavior, I think I can be the bad guy. She certainly busted the man she replaced in the Senate on his behavior, and on statewide TV. She just can’t remember his name at present. She’s never known such feelings of helplessness.

“I suggest we all settle in,” Kathy says. “After one more thing.”

Gareth gives a longsuffering sigh. But really, what does he have to do? It’s not like he has a job up here, and Gwendy certainly doesn’t intend to ask for his help on the weather deck.

“You all have the run of the place, except for Spoke 9. That one is currently Chinese territory.” She points to an info panel below the big window, where there are eight green lights and one red one. “Should they unlock—which they do sometimes, to use the exercise room and the International Room, where they play video games and use the canteen machines—you will still stay clear. They are not particularly hospitable. But all spokes lead to the outer rim and that’s common territory. I always enjoy a run there. In this gravity, which we call lo-no, I can do a mile in just over two minutes.”

“Please?” Gareth says, and Gwendy knows what he sounds like: a rich Type A passenger at the end of a long flight, dismissing the flight crew the minute the plane touches down. Sometimes Gareth can be friendly, even charming, but she thinks that’s just thin paint over a man who expects to be obeyed and kowtowed to. “How about it, Kathy?”

“Big Zoom meeting to get to?” Bern asks mildly.

“None of your affair, Plant Man,” Gareth says.

“Go,” Kathy says, making an amiable shooing gesture. “Get settled. My advice, take today to explore the station before starting whatever job you came here to do.”

Most of them head back down into the Eagle, Gareth Winston in the lead. Gwendy lingers, then makes her slow way to Kathy, who is talking with Dr. Glen. “Got time for a question?” Gwendy asks.

“Of course. How can I help?”

Dale Glen bounces his way over to the window and stands looking out into the infinite blackness, hands clasped behind his back. The others have gone.

“My room,” Gwendy says. She can’t bring herself to call it a suite. “Does the door lock?”

“None of them do, but your accommodation comes with a security safe, very much like the kind they have in hotel rooms. It is sort of a hotel room, actually.” She looks meaningfully at the steel box Gwendy’s carrying. “You punch in a four-digit combo. Your special cargo should fit quite nicely, Senator.”

She’s speaking officially because this is official business, Gwendy thinks. “Thank you. That’s something of a relief.” She glances toward Dr. Glen. He’s at a safe distance, but she still lowers her voice. “Mr. Winston—Gareth—has shown … um … an interest.”

“Perhaps he was interested in this, as well.” She reaches into the elasticized waist pocket of her jumper. What she brings out, to Gwendy’s horror, is her red notebook. The one where she keeps all the things she doesn’t want to forget, including the code that opens the CLASSIFIED box.

“He said your cabin door was ajar and he found it floating in the corridor. That must have been the case, because he wouldn’t have any reason to be snooping in your cabin, would he?”

“Of course not,” Gwendy says, taking the notebook and stowing it in her own pocket. She feels cold all over. “Thank you.”

Kathy takes Gwendy by the shoulder. “Do you think he was snooping? Because I’d have to take that rather seriously, Mr. Moneybags or not.”

The hell of it is, Gwendy doesn’t know. She doesn’t think she left the notebook unsecured, she doesn’t think she left the door of her cabin unlatched so it could float out in the constant circulation of the air purifiers … but she can’t be sure.

“No,” she says. “Probably not. Kathy … you have the Pocket Rocket, correct? It’s onboard?”

“Yes. Although what it’s for is apparently above my pay grade.”

“And I’m go for a spacewalk on Day 7?”

Kathy doesn’t reply at first. She looks uncomfortable. “That’s the plan, but plans sometimes change. Several people have been talking to me, including—”

“Including me,” Dr. Glen says. He has rejoined them without Gwendy noticing, and now he asks the very question she’s been dreading. “Senator, is there anything you want to tell us?”

25