Gwendy’s Final Task

“About the Bug Man. The only person in the crew I trust one hundred percent. The only one who believes in me completely. Adesh. I gave him the button box. I told him to put it in his lab.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where in the lab?”

Gwendy doesn’t have a clue. “Yes. I’ll show you.”

“I should kill you and find it myself,” he says. He raises the green tube … then lowers it again. And smiles. “But you’ve been troublesome, dear. So troublesome. I think I want you to watch me take possession of your precious box. I might even let you live. Who knows?”

You know, Gwendy thinks. And I know.

“Let’s go, while they’re still all at breakfast.” He gestures with the tube. “After you, Senator.”

43

SPOKE 5.

They float-walk down the corridor past signs in French: LAVEZ-VOUS LES MAINS and RAMASSE TA POUBELLE and even NE PASSE FUMER, which Gwendy would have thought a no-brainer. But with the French and their Gauloises, who could tell?

There’s that steady low creaking. Gwendy has gotten used to it, but Winston, it seems, has not.

“I hate that sound. It’s like the whole place is coming apart.”

“No,” Gwendy says, “you’ll be the one tearing it apart. Tearing everything apart.”

It doesn’t even touch him. Classic narcissist, she thinks. Maybe it’s true to some degree of all mega-successful businessmen and women. God, she hopes not.

“Why did you give it to the brownie? And what did you tell him?”

The brownie, Gwendy thinks. Jesus. And he probably thinks of Jafari as the blackie.

“Because I trusted him, I told you that. As for what I told him …” She shook her head. “Can’t remember.”

This is a lie. Now she remembers everything. How hard it was to actually hand it over, for one thing. She remembers Adesh’s look of curiosity, and most of all she remembers telling him he must not touch the buttons. You may feel an urge to do just that, but you must resist it. Can you? Adesh had said yes-yes, he was quite sure he could, and because Gwendy had to trust someone, she gave him the box. Then had to resist her own almost insurmountable urge to snatch it back, cradling it to her breasts and shouting Mine! Mine! She even remembers thinking about Gollum again, and how he called the One Ring his precious.

But she had given it over.

“Well, here we are,” Winston says. He examines the sign on the door: ADESH “BUG MAN” PATEL. KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING. “Maybe we’ll skip the knocking part.”

Gwendy wishes, not for the first time, that the doors of the rooms, suites, and labs on the MF station had locks. But they don’t.

“You first, dear. I’m not expecting a surprise, but always safe, never sorry.”

She depresses the latch and steps inside. Soft sitar music is playing from a boombox, which is strapped to the center worktable to keep it from floating away. Some small gadget is tucked under the strap.

The second thing she sees is the last thing she expected. She told Adesh to put the button box in one of the drawers, there are at least fifty of them, but it’s right out in the open, lying on the floor of the large cage where Adesh does his insect flight experiments. She can clearly see the tiny levers on the sides, and the colored buttons lining the top. The door to the cage is standing open.

“What’s with the flies?” Winston asks. There are six or seven of them hanging motionless above the button box. “Are they dead?”

“Resting,” Gwendy says. “According to Adesh, they’ve adapted quite well to zero-g conditions.” She’s looking at the boombox and the thing on top of it. Now she understands. How Adesh could have foreseen this situation is beyond her, but yes. She understands and knows what she must do.

If she can.

“Go in there, Senator. Get the box and give it to me.”

She says, very slowly and clearly: “The fuck I will. I protected it as long as I could and as well as I could and I’m not handing it over to you or anyone. Get it yourself.”

“Very well. But I think you’ll come with me.” He grabs her by her shoulder, fingernails digging into her flesh. “Dear.”

She pretends to struggle, backing up just far enough so her butt is against the worktable with its microscope, monitors, and centrifuge. She puts a hand behind her, hoping she looks like she’s trying to hold on to the table, actually grabbing for the gadget on top of the boombox. Please God don’t let him see and don’t let me drop it, she thinks. Not that it will drop; it will float.

She almost does lose her grip, but then the controller is in her hand and pressed against the small of her back. Winston snarls and points the green tube at her. “Enough! Get in there!”

“All right. I’ll go. Just stop hurting me.”

“I’ll do more than hurt you. Get in there. You’re not running for the door, if that was in your mind.”