Voices of Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 5) Read online

  Damn; he not spose ta see. I get up, stand by his chair. “Din’ mean nothin’.” He no answer. I pat his shoulder, feel funny inside, like bad. “’Pologize.” One a big words Chang try ta teach.

  Make him smile, anyway. He sigh. “Maces died to keep their turf. Couldn’ keep. Where Mace now? Turf ain’ worth dyin’ for. Or killin’.”

  “You don’ unnerstan’, Mista Chang. You ain’ tribe.”

  “Afta govermen done, tribes’ll be gone.” His blue eyes squint at mine. “Joeykit can’ imagine, but that day comin’.”

  “No one pushout Mids.” I go proud.

  “Midboys can’ stop Unies.”

  “Unies?” I laugh scorn. “They sick ol’ tribe, by riva. Can’ even get pas’ Sixth.”

  “Bah.” He push me ’way. “Not Unie tribe; real Unies! Governmen!” He search my face, don’ fin’ what he wan’. “When Goverman Bolan’ get his way, Unies’ll tear down city, put Uppie tower where Chang shop be.”

  “How you know—”

  “It’s inna holozines, stupid Midboy. Filmatleven. If you let Chang teach read—”

  “Don’ wanna read,” I grumble. “Ain’ no Uppie.”

  “Ya never gonna be, not know nothin’!”

  That stop our talk a while. He go wash cups, I pace shop, nervous, pickin’ up stuff, puttin’ down. Maybe Rocks fin’ ol’ fat man, an’ come fo’ venge when Pook run ta lair.

  Chang peer from behin’ curtain. “Okay okay, Midboy c’n stay night. Get hisself killed ’nother day.”

  “I ain’ ’fraid a no—”

  “Yah, yah, Chang heard it before. Wash.”

  Chang be glitch ’bout allatime wash. It ain’ trannie way. Howya gonna wash threads, onna street? He think everyone got Valdez permas ta dry wid? Think alla tribe got good runnin’ water, like Broads ’n few Mid lairs, or live near seawall?

  Chang ruffle my hair as I pass. Stupid ol’ man think he my motha.

  Nex’ day, sun shine warm. Wind blow dus’ around rabbly lot ol’ Chang call Mace.

  Daytime, streets ain’ like night. Tribes go about, sometimes even innifo passby each otha turf. Still, I gotta watch out, case someone knows I diss Rock.

  Mids live in lairs. Always secret place. Mids don’ like uppa flo’; mos’ly stay on groun’ or basemen’. I look roun’ ’fore goin’ in. No one see.

  Karlo be boss our lair. I wait fo’ him to look at me. He ain’ so pissoff since I brung innifo, but sometime he have a bad day. He nod, don’ say nothin’. I figga it be all ri’.

  Longtime back, my motha go ta ’nother lair, leave me behin’. Don’ matta; Bigsis look afta me ’til I growed. I be reg Mid joeykit, waitin’ fo’ upbringin’. But Karlo gotta say okay firs’, an’ he make me wait extra, causa pissoff. Rab an’ Swee had they upbringin’, an’ I bigger ’n Rab. I ain’ gonna cry like Swee, neitha, when they cut Mid mark. I ready.

  I peek in stewpot. Bigsis gimme look like jus’ ya try. I know stew be fo’ later, when alla tribe home in lair. Daytime eat, my biz. Tribe don’ care if joeykit go hungry inna day.

  “Whereya been?”

  I shrug. “Changman,”

  Bigsis give me checkout look. “Why spen’ allya time wid Neut?”

  “Dunno. Somethin’ ta do.”

  “How ya gonna learn, hangaroun’ allatime wid glitch ol’ man? Gonna be half Uppie like him?”

  I laugh. Chang no Uppie.

  “He shaggin’ ya?” She soun’ curious.

  “Nah.” Gimme idea, though. I gotta see if he inerest. Gemme buncha trayfo, if he do.

  She don’ much care. “He gon’ die soon, anyway.”

  My heart go pump, but I say casual, “We gonna dissim?” Maybe I warn ’im, if.

  “Diss a Neut?” She look at me like I glitch. “Naw. I sayin’ he ol’.” She frown at stew, stir. “Been ol’ since I was joeykit.”

  I can’ imagine street widout Chang. Gotta ask ’im if he think he die soon.

  Ol’ Chang spose ta be bes’ traytaman eva. Mids say, one time he even trayfo laser, back when Rock try takeova. If ya need cansa, Chang always got, long as ya bring trayfo. He got shivs, threads, even window glass. Dunno where he get.

  “Yo! Pook!” Bigsis squint at stewpot. “Gimme help.”

  “Innifo?” She gotta give me somethin’, jus’ little, else why I do fo’ her? Wha’s inni fo’ we?

  Her face get ugly. “I’ll innifo ya, dreckface joeykit! Wan’ eat tonigh’, or no?”

  “Watchew wan?” My voice what Changman call sullen.

  “Who got cansa veg? Tomatoes or somethin’?”

  “Dunno.”

  She scrounge unner table, pull up boots, good all roun’, jus’ little hole one side. “Go find trayfo.”

  “Me?” My voice come in squeak. I bring it low, redface. “I mean, sho’, Bigsis.”

  I grab boots ’fore she change min’. Trayfo be job fo’ grown Mids, an’ she askin’ me do it. I go proud.

  “Can’ giveaway boots,” she warn. “Not fo’ two, three cansa.”

  “Don’ tell Pook howta trayfo,” I say, scorny. Already I thinkin’, checkout street, fin’ someone wid lotsa cansa. Don’ even talk ta trannie wid jus’ a couple.

  If I can’ fin’ enough cansa, I go ta Changman. He help. On otha han’, maybe he skin me on trayfo. Chang worse ’p trannies onna street.

  Chapter 4

  ROBERT

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK, Robbie?”

  I snapped off the holovid, squinted into the glare of reflected sunlight on Dad’s worn cluttered desk. “You’re really pushing the upside.”

  “Bah.” He waved it away. “After thirty years of politics I know to come out swinging. Besides, what I say in the speech is true. The increase in land values alone will justify—”

  I jumped in before he found his full voice. “Not the whole spiel, Dad.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt for you to hear it again,” Dad grumbled. “So, how do I handle the launch?”

  “Prep the party faithful, so they follow with their own speeches in support.”

  “Of course. I don’t want to be hung out to dry on this one.” He brooded. “Could we get Nick on the bandwagon? I’ve tried, but he keeps asking for more data.”

  “The Captain won’t even consider a public stand.”

  “Letters, to some of our friends?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Ask him.” He shoved his caller across the desk.

  “Why not you?”

  “He has a soft spot for you, Robbie. I’m just another pro.”

  I sighed. After knowing him twenty years or more, I still felt uneasy pressuring the retired SecGen. The man was an enigma.

  Seafort had joined the U.N. Navy at thirteen, and sailed as a middy to Hope Nation. After a series of tragedies, he brought his ship home as Captain. More important, he brought news of the first aliens mankind had ever encountered, the fish that nearly destroyed us.

  Captain Seafort’s second voyage ended in disaster when a fool of an admiral abandoned him on the disabled Challenger with transpop passengers the commander disliked. With courage and tenacity, Seafort fought off the aliens and returned home with his crippled ship.

  He sailed again to Hope Nation, but became entangled in a seething planter rebellion. Desperately ill, left in charge after the fleet’s recall, Seafort managed to put down the revolt. Then, he went aloft in a shuttle and blew up Hope Nation’s orbiting station to destroy hundreds of marauding fish, believing that his act was treason and he would be hanged. Had not the law been overturned during his absence, he’d have been tried rather than feted.

  After, Dad and the Admiral of the Fleet wouldn’t let him retire. The Captain was made Commandant of Naval Academy, where’d I’d been sent as a green young cadet. A few months after, I’d been allowed to accompany him on his fateful cruise on Trafalgar.

  Dad moved restlessly.

  I asked, “Couldn’t it wait?”

  “Rob, I need to know.”

  Reluctantly I diale
d, waited for the connection to Washington. “Adam? Rob Boland here. The Senator’s fine, thanks. I’m going to send you a speech Dad’s planning. We’d like Mr. Seafort to look it over. I could call, um, tomorrow.”

  I ignored Dad’s frown. It was he who’d taught me patience. If we rushed the Captain, he’d just say no.

  Adam’s voice was warm. “Why don’t you catch the suborbital and join us for dinner? I know he’d love to see you.”

  “I don’t want to impose—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  I gulped, a carryover from the days when he’d been a lofty midshipman, and I a mere cadet. “If you’re sure, sir.”

  “See you at seven. Bring the speech along; he’ll read it if I tell him I gave his promise.”

  “Thanks, Adam.”

  “Looking forward to it. We’ll have drinks after, you and I.”

  “Zarky.” I rang off.

  Dad looked smug. “See? I’ve always known what lever to push.”

  “Is that what I am to you?” I smiled to remove the sting from my tone.

  Dad’s grin turned the lines around his eyes to crinkles. “That, and much more. Besides, you love to visit them.”

  “Of course.” I gathered my things. “On the other hand, Adam’s son will be there.”

  Dad’s mouth tightened. “Your ... nephew?”

  “I wish I’d never agreed to that ‘Uncle’ business. He’s a distasteful young joey.”

  A few minutes later I went home to pack; the Captain would no doubt invite me to stay the night. If he didn’t, Adam would.

  While selecting a change of clothing, I mused on my friend Tenere. He had made his own bed; he’d failed to put Jared over his knee when the boy had been small enough. Instead, Adam let the boy walk over him, until it was all but too late. Still, even at this late date, firm discipline such as the Captain had given me might yet save him.

  On the other hand, who was I to know? I’d not yet married. Perhaps raising a child was more difficult than it seemed. I glanced at my watch. Time to leave for the shuttleport.

  “What, Mother?” I tried to concentrate through the static of the caller, and the engine’s drone.

  “I saw you on the news the other night.”

  “The Freshwater Station? I had no choice but to go.” As General Assemblyman for Seaboard Cities, I’d had to be seen at the ribbon-cutting, though the Hudson Station was another of SecGen Kahn’s infamous boondoggles. I beckoned the steward to refresh my gin.

  “Richard looked grim,” said Mother. “How is he?”

  “He’s fine.” Since their divorce, my parents tended to use me as a conduit for news about one another. I didn’t mind; their mutual interest was benign, perhaps even amicable. Mother gave Dad curt advice about his public image; and he’d helped her through the dreary weeks following her transplant.

  “He’d better do more than show up, or that prick Kahn will preempt the water issue.” Mother was forthright, as always.

  “Dad knows.” We’d had no choice but to support Kahn’s Freshwater Project. Our New York tower constituents were squeezed for clean water, and the upcoming Delaware diversion wouldn’t help.

  “You’d think we’d have more drinking water, with the ice caps melting. When I was young ...” She sighed. “It was ages ago, and you’re too busy to listen.”

  “I’m free ’til we land.” I checked my watch. “Nineteen minutes.”

  “I was eleven when your grandfather took me to watch them build the seawall.”

  Slow but persistent global warming caused more snow, but the evaporation was also greater. The seven-foot rise in sea level obliterated Bangladesh, menaced Holland and other low-lying countries, and forced the hasty construction of the New York Seawall just below Wall Street. New York was threatened at high tides, but even more so by the furious summer storms that swept northward with ever greater frequency.

  “When will your father take his stand?”

  My eyes strayed to Dad’s speech, in my holovid. Not for the first time, I wondered whether Mother could read minds. Or perhaps she knew Dad too well to think he’d stay politically quiescent.

  I said, “It’s, ah, an insecure line.”

  “Bullshit. The Territorials know he’s ready to make a move.”

  “Mother, please.”

  Caller to my ear, I flicked on my screen, perused Dad’s speech. The Cities Redevelopment Project was the key to his political future. He’d been Senator from the Northeastern Quadrant for longer than I could remember, but our Supranationalist Party was out of power, and had been ever since the Seafort Administration’s fall.

  “I’ll let you go, dear. Back to my roses.”

  “Sorry, Mother. Should I stop by the house?”

  “Only if you can stay a while. I hate those flying visits of yours. You flit through the parlor like a bat and disappear.”

  “Perhaps next week. I love you.”

  “Take care, Robbie.” A click.

  Really, I ought to see her more often. Despite her heart replacement, she wouldn’t be around forever, and I cherished her blunt advice.

  I finished my gin and leaned back, musing on the collapse of Seafort’s government. The crowning irony was that the March 2224 vote of confidence was unnecessary. The Captain himself demanded it, against Dad’s advice, after the Territorials had worried at his heels for months over the Wade affair. He had known nothing of Senator Wade’s corrupt dealings, but the opposition had made that innocence itself sound like criminal negligence.

  If Seafort had sidestepped rather than admitting his fault at every opportunity, we might still hold office, and could deal directly with the towers’ water problems.

  Well, no matter. The Captain was out of political life, retired in his prime. Now, Dad was staking his claim to the SecGen’s red leather chair. Reconstruction was the issue that had catapulted him to party leadership, and hopefully would lead to the Rotunda itself.

  “Care for a refill, Assemblyman?”

  I glanced up, annoyed at the steward’s interruption, but careful to hide it. “No, thanks.”

  Too bad the Hudson Station wasn’t large enough to solve the city’s water shortage. Regardless of the potential unrest, we would have to rechannel the old city mains. After all, the burgeoning towers were bulwarks of civilization, and the source of many steadfast Supranationalist votes. They had to be supplied.

  If Dad eventually won the Rotunda, I’d try for his seat, and thanks to our name, I’d likely win. A big step for me; the U.N. Senate was far more powerful than the overcrowded General Assembly, with its thousand and fifty-five assemblymen.

  If.

  As my heli set down on the well-lit pad I tried to swallow my unease, knowing the warm welcome that awaited me. But, as usual in the Seaforts’ presence, I felt myself the fumbling youngster Dad had brought to Academy gates.

  Years later, as an Assemblyman, I wasn’t often received at the Rotunda during the Captain’s Administration. At our meetings he’d seemed cold and distant. Though it hurt, I did my best to conceal it. Perhaps my abandoning a Naval career had disappointed him. At least I’d made lieutenant, and I don’t believe my father had a hand in it. I was vastly proud of the achievement.

  One day, in the midst of a stiff discussion about colonial tariffs, the Captain had stopped short, spun his chair to the wall. When again he spoke, his voice was halting and pained.

  “Robert, forgive my rudeness.”

  “I didn’t notice—”

  “Of course you did.” He rose, stood at the tall, velvet-draped window, hands clasped behind him, and looked down to the filthy river.

  “I don’t—”

  “You see, you make me remember.” He turned, with a deprecating smile. “Some memories are ... difficult.”

  I got to my feet. “I’m truly sorry, sir. It’s not necessary that we meet in person. I didn’t mean to cause—”

  “Oh, stop. Please.” The force of his entreaty left me bereft of words. “Somethin
g I must tell you.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  His eyes met mine. “I was proud of you as a boy, and I am still.”

  I gulped.

  Damn it, I was not a cadet. I was grown. Why the lump in my throat?

  He’d come around his massive desk, touched my shoulder lightly. “I’ll bear my discomfort without inflicting it on you.” His eyes focused with determination on mine. “You’re welcome in my office, and in my home.” Shyly, as if fearing rejection, he embraced me. For a moment, I let my head rest on his shoulder.

  It was as if I had two fathers.

  I strove to please them both.

  Arlene curled on the couch, her head on her husband’s shoulder. I sat opposite; Adam sprawled in an easy chair.

  “I won’t stand in his way,” Captain Seafort said.

  I said, “I was hoping for more, sir.”

  “I know.” He perused the printout, biting his lip.

  I studied my mentor. Lean, prominent cheekbones, sunken eyes through which one occasionally glimpsed private pain. The Captain was trim and fit, and though he was of average height, one came away with the impression of great stature, a cold strength that was more than muscular.

  I prompted, “Perhaps a speech to the Naval Veterans ...”

  “No speeches. I’m done with that, thank Lord God.”

  As usual, his candor was disconcerting. How had such a man been elected SecGen? He was an elk among wolves.

  Well, eventually they’d brought him down.

  I’d known he’d reject a speech out of hand, and retreated to a fallback position, my real goal. “We’re fifteen votes short in the Senate, sir. If you wrote to a few friends ...”

  “They’d ignore me, or would if they deserved to hold office.” He shook his head. “Besides, I’m not sure I like Richard’s approach. Aside from the enormous cost, he’s trying to rebuild the cities from the top down. You really think more towers are the answer?”

  “Sir, I know that we’re pouring Unibucks into vast new buildings. But that’s what hooks the construction interests, and without them we won’t have the votes for renewal.”

  The Captain fixed me with a disapproving eye. “You’ll be displacing a lot of people for your ... steel elephants.”

  “Yes, streeters.” No point in denying it, with him. “But Dad’s a realist. The choice is that or nothing. Which do you prefer?” He was silent. I added, “The cities are falling apart, sir. London, Denver, New York; in a few years they’ll all be too far gone to save. Is that what you want?”