Meridian Days Read Free

to do so. He knew nothing about my dependency.
    There were times when I wanted to tell him everything, as if to absolve myself from blame, but I feared his censure and valued his occasional company too much to risk losing it.
    The pterosaur regarded me accusingly. The staple diet of these birds was the flower of the thorned cacti which grew on Brightside and which they consumed without any side-effects.
    "Bob, how would you like to go to a party tonight?"
    "Well, to be honest..."
    "I've been invited to an 'event' down the archipelago. I wasn't going to go, but it might be interesting... You do need to get out, you know."
    I tried to think of an excuse, but came up with nothing. I temporised. "What is this 'event', exactly?" I disliked the way every novice artisan and ambitious technician graced their shows and exhibitions with the soubriquet of event .
    Abe tried not to smile. "It's a combined poetry recital and film show. It might be good. And anyway, even if it isn't, the fact remains that you need a change of scenery. The guests won't all be Altereds and Augmenteds. There'll be a whole crowd of techs from the Telemass station, along for the free drinks."
    I was still casting about for an excuse not to attend. "Who's the artist?" I asked.
    "Have you heard of the sculptress and poet Tamara Trevellion?"
    "Wasn't she...?"
    Abe nodded. "You probably saw her on the news last year, when she lost her husband. She's an Altered fish-woman."
    I watched little news — most of it was from Earth, and that planet held bad memories for me — but I had caught the news-flash reporting the Telemass accident. Three citizens had been mistranslated and lost somewhere along the Earth-Meridian vector, with little hope of recovery.
    The tragedy became even more sensational when it was announced that Maximilian Trevellion, the famous crystal artist, was one of the missing persons. Tamara Trevellion was interviewed, and she turned the performance into an 'event' worthy of her finest creative endeavour. Few who watched her could fail to be moved by the poise and valour of the mer-woman as she told the world that now, after three days, she acknowledged that her husband was lost but that his spirit and his work would live on, both in her heart and in the minds of those who appreciated true art.
    Later, the tragedy was compounded when it was disclosed that the trip to Earth taken by her husband, to represent Tamara Trevellion at a reading of one of her prose-poems, was to have been made by her daughter, Fire. At the last moment, Fire Trevellion had fallen ill, and Maximilian had taken the fateful trip instead.
    "Well?" Abe asked now. "I was told to bring someone. You're more than welcome to come along."
    "Do you know Tamara Trevellion?" I tried to conceal my surprise that the artist should wish to socialise with a lowly conservationist.
    "I've supplied her with a number of exotic pets over the years," Abe said. "Well?"
    I recalled again the tragic mask of beauty and her brave soliloquy at the loss of a loved one, and I wondered how the passage of time had treated Tamara Trevellion. This, and the fact that I knew Abe was right when he said that I needed to get out more, overcame my resistance.
    I nodded. "Why not?"
    Abe smiled, poured more whisky and began a speech to the effect that the best scotch was still made on Earth. We chatted about our homeplanet for a time. "By the way," Abe said, "the last time we met you were talking of going back."
    I shrugged. "The thought does cross my mind from time to time, I must admit. I like it here, but—"
    "But Earth is home, right? So what's stopping you? The fact that Earth still has smallships?"
    I looked up. Abe was casually stroking the bill of his pterosaur. He knew he'd scored a hit.
    "Okay, maybe that does have something to do with it."
    Earth still used smallships on all the in-system runs, and I knew that the sight of one would release a whole slew of unwelcome memories and associations. At the same