Greg Bear Slant

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Giffey's father was a tough brave man but his mother had been fragile and
frightened as a deer when the big bearded men had moved into the compound and
separated them.
Giffey never forgives. Giffey hates them all. He hates the Federals for
encouraging the world to change so quickly in the late twentieth, for
encouraging the nano revolution throughout twenty-one, for being insensitive
to the pressures these changes put on the poor inflexible survivalists and
orthodox Christians.
Those denominations and parties unable to accept so much change simply went
insane.
Many migrated to the central states, unable to tolerate the ribbons and
corridors and top spin financial hothouses of the coasts and big cities; they
chose Northern Idaho as their sanctuary, and dared Federals to come and get
them. And so the tiny brutal little war began.
Giffey understands them, but he still doesn't like them.
He orders a corned beef sandwich from a cute brunette and looks at the antique
neon beer signs in the window over his booth. Some of those beers he remembers
his father drinking.
Giffey's anger is ramping down now. He grinds his teeth one last time, then
opens his mouth wide and tries to persuade his jaw muscles to give it up. A
little wriggle of the mandible crosswise, a twist of the head, and he is back
where he had been this morning: cool and thoughtful and once again in charge
of himself.
For the first time he really notices the waitress as she comes to his table
with his sandwich. She is about twenty years younger, with wavy brown hair, a
sharply pretty face with a prominent nose, wide hazel eyes, strong hands with
chewed fingernails painted over in dark red polish. Green Idaho is a place of
waitresses, actresses, aviatrixes, authoresses, congressladies, perhaps even
doctresses, if any self-respecting male in the republic will let a woman
examine hN nrivate t>arts. Despite the fact that the republic's president is a
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SLANT 53
about the sex roles here, and no doubt in Giffey's mind that he can read this
woman's life like an open book.
She is handsome, young, her body is slender and probably very fertile, her
breasts are naturally generous and (he judges from years of experience)
slightly but not grossly pendulous, very womanly. Giffey is not fond of the
prevalence of the nineties cannonshells so many of the women in Green
Idaho affect. Surprising how much plastic surgery the women go for in this
God-fearing, independently governed but non-seceded state republic. Men strong
enough to be afraid of, women eager to keep them happy and calm.
Paradise on Earth.
The waitress gives him a quick look that Giffey instantly categorizes. He has
never been inordinately fond of the chase, regarding women as decent creatures
deserving of more stable and supportive partners than he can ever be.
But there's something in her look--a half-buried homesick yearning--that
Giffey knows and, in all kindness, will not let go without some further
exploration.
"Hard week?" he asks.
The waitress smiles thinly.
Giffey lifts his sandwich and smiles back. "I am a connoisseur of fine beef,"
he says. "And very well served."
"Anything else?" she asks blandly.
He knows her now, to a seventy-percent certainty. She's not married but lives
with a fellow gone most of the time looking for work outside of town.
She's no more than twenty-five but looks thirty. Her face has already taken on
a patient dullness. The partner male is vigorous and quick in bed and will not
let her start a family "Until the republic's situation settles." It never
will.
Green Idaho is an economic backwater and what flows through here is State
Bank paper money, much grumbled over, or treaty minted specie, not data.
But he is straying from his focus.
"Pretty slow, after lunch," he observes. "I'd love it if you sat down and
talked with me. Tell me about yourself."
The woman gives him a look as har-d as she can make it. But his face is
sympathetic, he is older and probably unlike any man she's known, he looks
solid and wise but a little on the untamed side with his smooth gray hair down
to his neck, and in truth maybe she's thinking of her father: her ideal
father, not the real one, who was likely a disappointment. But she loved him
nonetheless...
She knows she is a good girl.
The hard look shifts and she glances around the restaurant. It is indeed
quiet, empty but for Giffey; the government workers have all gone back to
their buildings, and there isn't any other trade at this time of day in
Moscow.
"What's to tell?" she asks, as she sits in the booth and folds her hands in
front of her. "And why do you care?"
"I like to talk to women," Giffey says. "I like the way you look. I like the
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54
GREG BEAR
"It's hard for Al to get good corned beef," she says, pointing. Giffey will
take a bite soon, but needs his mouth uncluttered for a couple of minutes.
"Don't I know it," he says. "How many times have you thought about heading
south for Boise, or west?"
The woman sniffs. "Our roots are here. People fought and died so we could live
the way we want."
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"Indeed," Giffey says. He nods west at the great Outside.
"Where are you from?" she asks.
"You first, then me."
"Billings. My dad brought me here fifteen years ago. He and his girlfriend
home-schooled me, and I got top honors in the Clearwater Scholastic Com
petition when I graduated� Now--you?"
"I've done all sorts of things, some of them a little shady," Jack says with a
grin. Not a bold grin, but a shy one, a little out of place in that beard.
"Let me guess," she says. "You worked out of country."
"Bingo," Giffey says. "My name's Jack�"
"I'm Yvonne," she says. Jack stretches his hand across the table and she
shakes it. Her grip is warm and dry and her fingers have a utility roughness
that he likes. "Where out of country?" she asks.
"Africa and Hispaniola, after I got out of the federal army�"
Yvonne's eyes widen. Federal army folks, if they come to Green Idaho at all,
usually don't admit their history�
:;
"I served five years with Colonel Sir John Yardley's boys in Liberia and
Hispaniola. Left when he started getting snake's eyes and took over the coun
try.''
"Oh," she says� She's interested, and not just in history.
"Married for five years, no kids, divorced." Something flickers in his mem
ory; the faces of two women. One of them is like a pin-up queen, the other
� . . ghostly� "Now you." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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