"Little girl," she said, "how would you like to earn a ten dollars?" My
parents had warned me not to talk to strangers but she obviously was a
resident. Besides, she had an ancient pair of exolegs strapped on, so I
knew I could outrun her if I needed to. She asked me to go to the store
for her, handed me a grocery list and a cash card and said I should bring
everything up to her apartment, 10W. I should have been more suspicious
because all the downtown groceries deliver but, as I soon found out, all
she really wanted was someone to talk to her. And she was willing to pay
for it, usually five or ten dollars, depending how long I stayed. Before
long I was stopping by almost every day after school. I think my parents
would have made me stop if they had known; they were very strict. They
would not have liked me taking her money. But neither of them got home
until after six, so it was my secret to keep."
"Who was she?" I said. "What did you talk about?"
"Her name was Margaret Ase. She was ninety-seven years old and I think
she had been some kind of counselor. Her husband and her daughter had
both died and she was alone. I didn't find out much about her; she made me
do most of the talking. She asked me about my friends and what I was
learning in school and my family. Things like that ...."
Her voice trailed off as my fingernail started to flash. I answered it.
=Michael, I am pleased to call you to here.= Silloin buzzed in my ear.
She was almost twenty minutes ahead of schedule.
"See, I told you we'd make the time fly." I stood; Kamala's eyes got
very wide. "I'm ready if you are."
I offered her my hand. She took it and let me help her up. She wavered
for a moment and I sensed just how fragile her resolve was. I put my hand
around her waist and steered her into the corridor. In the micrograv of
Tuulen Station, she already felt as insubstantial as a memory. "So tell
me, what happened that was so sad?"
At first I thought she hadn't heard. She shuffled along, said nothing.
"Hey, don't keep me in suspense here, Kamala" I said. "You have to
finish the story."
"No," she said. "I don't think I do."
I didn't take this personally. My only real interest in the conversation
had been to distract her. If she refused to be distracted, that was her
choice. Some migrators kept talking right up to the moment they slid into
the big blue marble, but lots of them went quiet just before. They turned
inward. Maybe in her mind she was already on Gend, blinking in the hard
white light.
We arrived at the scan center, the largest space on Tuulen Station.
Immediately in front of us was the marble, containment for the quantum
nondemolition sensor array -- QNSA for the acronymically inclined. It was
the milky blue of glacial ice and big as two elephants. The upper
hemisphere was raised and the scanning table protruded like a shiny gray
tongue. Kamala approached the marble and touched her reflection, which
writhed across its polished surface. To the right was a padded bench, the
fogger and a toilet. I looked left, through the control room window.
Silloin stood watching us, her impossible head cocked to one side.
=She is docile?= She buzzed in my earstone.
I held up crossed fingers.
