A Silence in the Heavens Read Free Page B

and he’s the guest.”
    “An excellent idea.”
    “I didn’t spend my formative years tagging along after a couple of diplomats without learning something from the experience,” she said. “For the reception, we’ll need to pull together a theme that emphasizes Northwind’s local traditions and autonomy on the one hand and our loyalty to The Republic of the Sphere on the other.”
    “I have an idea or two about that,” Griffin admitted.
    “Good,” she said. “Then you have the whole job. I’d probably have asked for you anyway, because I want somebody from local intelligence in on the planning—you and I both know that the security aspects of this affair are going to be hellish.”
    4
    Elliot residence
    Village of Liddisdale, Northwind
    November, 3132; local winter

    N ight had fallen by the time Will Elliot reached his mother’s house in Liddisdale. Most of the shops clustered around the town’s central green had already closed, except for the fuel station and the all-night pharmacy, and the streetlights had come on. He parked the BannsonBuilt in the cottage’s attached garage next to his mother’s electric runabout, stowed his parka and boots in the mud room between the garage and the house proper, and went inside.
    The kitchen smelled of pot roast and fresh bread, and the lingering spiciness of baked fruit. His mother had made a berry tart earlier; he saw it waiting on the counter by the stove.
    Jean Elliot came bustling into the kitchen and enveloped her son in a warm hug. “It’s good to see you home, Will.”
    “It’s good to be home. You didn’t have to hold up supper on my account.”
    “I wouldn’t have cooked such a big meal if I didn’t plan on sharing it with you,” she said. She stepped back and gave him a gentle push. “Go clean yourself up while I get the table ready.”
    Half an hour later, scrubbed clean of mud and wood smoke and dressed in fresh clothes, Will joined his mother in the dining room. She’d brought out the good plates and the good table linen and her wedding silver, causing him to wonder for an instant if today was some special occasion whose significance he had forgotten. Then he remembered how, when his sisters were home, his mother had always liked to make at least one day a week a proper sit-down dinner—“for the sake of civilizing the heathen,” as she had put it—and he decided that she must be feeling nostalgic.
    For the first several minutes of the meal, he said nothing, only ate hungrily to make up for all the self-heating dehydrated rations he’d had to consume for breakfast, lunch, and dinner while out on the trail. Finally they reached dessert, and he was slowing down enough to say, as he took a slice of the berry tart, “I had a talk with Old Angus today.”
    “Ah,” said his mother, looking unsurprised. “I thought you might have something on your mind.”
    “He’s worried about the HPG network still not coming on-line. Doesn’t know how the guiding business is going to do if his offworlders can’t get in touch and don’t come back.”
    “Angus Macallan’s nobody’s fool. Bridie Casimir, down at the grocery, said that a DropShip came into Tara this morning with news that there’s been more fighting—on Addicks, this time. People aren’t going to be planning expensive vacations on foreign worlds as long as things like that are going on.”
    Will took a forkful of tart. The flaky crust fragmented into little pieces under the pressure, and the tines of his fork clattered against the china beneath. He looked down at his hand for a moment. A splash of purple berry juice stained the white tablecloth by his plate.
    “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll wash it later.”
    His mother waved the offer away. “No matter. What did Old Angus say to you that’s upset you so?”
    “He’s worried, like I said. Planning for the future. And he doesn’t think the business is going to be able to afford two guides for much longer.”
    “So he’s