Interphase

"She wouldn't be specific, but she did say that 'the creche lobby finally got its way.' After I insisted she had to give me a reason, before I'd tell you that she says you ought to resign."

"Your mother's always wanting me to resign!" That was their second most frequent topic for fighting. Their first, of course, was Edek Fallon. Meredith' s creche-sib, her career partner whose bond to her was forged long before she met John Yancey. "What's so universe-shaking about that?"

"John, did you hear what I just said? The creche lobby got its way. What do you think that means?" She was mad at him all over again, now.

"Guess you'll have to tell me. You know damn well I never pay attention to politics, Merry."

Of course he didn't. He hadn't grown up in the deliberately pressured atmosphere of a creche, nurtured from "birth" in preparation for his destined career and then bound forever to those who shared his heritage. So all he knew about the machinations of the Alumni Boards of the Solarian Hegemony's powerful military child-rearing establishments was whatever made it all the way to public dissemination.

Well, in this case what he didn't know and didn't care about definitely could hurt him. Destroy him, in fact, because a man like John Yancey-one who had no creche-mates to watch his back when he made enemies, and (as far as any of his comrades knew) no wealthy natural-born relatives to set him up in a different line of work-would indeed wind up destitute if the Guard abruptly decided it no longer required his services. And if you didn't have resources, Meredith couldn't think of a world in the entire Hegemony where you could hope to survive for long.

John believed all he had to do was go on excelling at his job, in order to make it all the way to retirement and coveted half-pay status. So far he'd been right, but that was about to change. Meredith opened her mouth to break her vows to Warrior Creche, as her mother had already broken the same vows by giving her that carefully couched warning. Whether John liked it or not, she would make him listen.

Once again a voice inside her mind distracted her. But this voice didn't give her polite (if unwelcome) warning, and she couldn't have stopped herself from hearing it if she'd tried. This communication required no technology to reach her.

She "heard" no words. Only a wave of terror, a mental scream that brought her off the sand and onto her feet. She gasped, "Edek! Edek, I'm coming!" Then she ran, still topless and unaware that was the case, into the water. She threw herself down to swim at the earliest possible second.

Behind her, the man she'd abandoned paused only a moment before he shook his head and grunted in disgust. He got up slowly, stared after her for a time, and then shook his head again. After which he picked up her discarded swim-bra, tucked it inside his trunks for discreet and easy carrying, and followed her into the sea. He would swim the narrow channel at a far more leisurely pace, because he already knew there was no point in hurrying. By the time he got back to the resort, his wife would have her private shuttle out of the garage and her course laid in and approved by Sirtis Control. He'd wind up having to freight the few possessions she was sure to abandon in their room to her ship, along with the scrap of material that ought to be containing her breasts as she first swam and then ran.