"It still doesn't seem right." They hadn't bitten her yet. They hadn't bruised her, not more than incidentally. "To hurt them. They aren't bad, just-" Just pointless. "And what about Eleanor? I mean, the other ones."
"The other ones?" asked Seсora Maria.
"The competition," said Marcos. "We don't have a positive ID on them yet, but I presume they are working for Horn Enterprises. Horn wants the array, too."
"Horn filed a wrongful use claim against Surbrent-Xia for theft of their cell transduction protocol."
"Which came to nothing. But they had a grievance, too, and plenty of markets out-system who won't ask too many questions about whether they have patent rights. This is so much useless speculation, now. We got the array. They did not."
How could they analyze the day's nasty work so dispassionately, as though it were the script of an actie in development?
"You killed two men! Eleanor was really nice to me!" Another second and she would be blubbering, but she held it in, sniffing hard, choking down the lump in her throat.
"We killed no one," said Marcos angrily. "Just two hurt, in the Zona, but they are only stunned."
"There was blood."
"There is always blood. This other, this Eleanor-no se. There was a hover that flew off once they saw they had lost."
"What about me?"
Seсora Maria gestured.
Rose eased up to her feet, wincing with pain as her knees bent. "Ow."
"We should let this pauvre go home. She can use the call-up in Anselmo's house."
"The Constabulary will come," said Rose.
"Not soon," said Marcos. "Your flight plan registers a stop at San Lorenzo to visit the museum. They do not know otherwise. They will not be expecting you to leave for some hours. We have time."
"Andale," said Seсora Maria.
Marcos shrugged, sighed, and motioned with his gun for Rose to follow him. Perhaps he wasn't the commander after all, or perhaps he was just behaving as men ought-as her mother used to say: respectful toward the etsana, the grandmother, of his tribe.
The house belonging to Anselmo sat riverside, one door facing the road and a second overlooking the bank. A small receiver dish tilted precariously on the roof, fastened to the topmost beam. They had to walk up two steps made of stacked concrete blocks to get onto the elevated wood floor inside. Like the entire village, the little one-room hut was untenanted, except for a burlap cot without bedding, a table, and a bright yellow molded plastic bench pitted with pinprick holes. An old-fashioned all-in-one sat closed up on the table. Looking out through the other door, Rose watched as a loose branch drifted past, snagging on a tree, while Marcos powered up the box and tilted up its view screen.
"Where did you take the others?" she asked. The driftwood tugged loose from its trap and spun away down the river.
He mulled over the controls, not looking up at her, although a hand remained cupped over the scatter gun's readouts. "They will be safe." He spoke to the box in his own language. Lights winked on the console. "Here. You may enter a number. Use the keypad."
She had a priority imavision code, of course, that identified her immediately to her father's secretary since her father never ever took incoming calls personally.
A whir. A beep.
"One moment, Miss Rose. Putting you through."
The secretary did not turn on his own imavision. Although the screen remained blank, Marcos stepped away and turned sideways to give her privacy and to keep an eye out the door. But even so he started when that famous golden voice spoke across the net in a tone richly affectionate and so precisely intimate, using the pet name for her that no other dared speak.
"Mouse?"
"D-d-daddy."
"I didn't expect you to call." He hadn't turned on the imavision. Maybe he was getting dressed or entertaining visitors. Maybe today he just didn't want to see the blemish on her face. "It's been so long since we talked. I've missed your voice so much, here at home. All your little quiet noises in the background. It seems so empty here without you puttering around.
How are you? Are you having fun up there in the eternal sunshine?"
"N-n-no, Daddy. I'm just-" She faltered, glancing toward Marcos, who still stared out the door at the sluggish river.
"You should be in-" A pause. A voice murmured in the background. "San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan. Some kind of a museum there, I see. Olmec civilization. Pride of the collection is a large stone head! What will you children think of next!"
"D-daddy." She wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.
"Are you crying, little mouse?"
"Daddy, I'm in trouble."
A pause.
A silence.
"Rosie, you have a contraceptive implant-"
"No, Daddy. No. I'm in trouble. Please come get me."
"Come get you?"
The screen flashed, a nova of light that spread, swirled with color, coalesced, and formed into an image of his face. The most famous face in the universe, so people said.
He looked put out.
"Come get you?" he repeated, as though she just told him he had turned purple. "I have three interviews today to support the opening of Judge Not. The ratings aren't as strong as they need to be. After this a meeting with the Fodera-Euler Consortium to sign the contract for the Alpha Trek 3-D."
He glanced back over his shoulder, speaking to a person not within the imavision's range. "What's the time frame?"
"Ten days," said his secretary, off screen.
"And the Consortium wants to begin recording-?"
"Fourteen days."
He turned his brilliant smile on her. He had the most glorious blue eyes, warming as he stared intently at her through the ima-vision, as though he were really right by her side, comforting her infant sobs on a stormy night. He didn't even flinch, seeing her blemished face in such a close-up. "Listen, Rosie. You hang in there for ten more days and I'll come get you. We'll make the most of it, father and daughter reunited, that kind of thing. Let Joseph know when your first landfall comes once the ten days are up. I'll be there to meet you. No need to mention you called now and arranged it in advance. Pretend you're surprised to see me."
"But, Daddy-"
"Are you in danger of being killed?"