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Richard agreed solemnly.
Are you two on the opposite ends of a seesaw? Madame de Roche asked.
I don t know. Perhaps.
You seem much more cheerful.
Purged, Richard said. I feel human again.
You know about poor Emanuel... They found him.
Richard nodded.
That doesn t disturb you?
He held up his wide shovel hands. I m free of him. I still remember him
fondly...
But he s really been out of my picture for a good many days now.
Since he murdered those poor children.
Richard didn t feel comfortable talking about his recovery
of equilibrium. He wondered where Madame de Roche was going to lead the
conversation.
+ Might be equalized again but don t need to roll it over like cud all the
time.
Nadine told me you therapied yourself. I wonder. . . She swiveled with
hairpins in mouth to look at him speculatively. Do we allow ourselves that?
She smiled to show she was joking but not her full power wonder of a smile. I
rather liked you somber, Richard. Are you writing now?
No.
What about that wonderful material you wrote about Emanuel?
it s gone, Richard said. Like old skin.
Now there s a literary attitude, Madame de Roche said. I may be horribly
naive, but I ve always felt you had more talent bottled up than many of those
down there who are producing.
Thank you, he said, inwardly dubious as to the compliment.
At any rate, I m glad you came this evening. Nadine did not, poor girl. She
takes your health very hard. I wonder why?
She needs to minister to someone, Richard said.
Madame de Roche raised one slim hand and tapped the air with hairbrush in
precise affirmation. That s exactly it. She s very fond of you, Richard. Can
you return her fondness in any way?
Richard stumbled over a few unspoken words, ended up saying nothing, just
folding and unfolding his hands.
I mean, if you can therapy yourself, surely you can therapy her m fond of
both of you. I d like to see you together. I dislike having my people unhappy
for any reason.
Richard felt like a swimmer going down but the water the drowning was less
unpleasant than he might have thought. In truth, he did feel something for
Nadine. He had avoided her the past day and a half if so brief a separation
could be called avoidance
to allow his own mental state to solidify.
I didn t know, he said. I ll speak to her.
That s good. She ll be a true bitch for several days now... m these moods she
always is. But you re our stable, calm, shade common man. You can stand up to
that, can t you.
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Your New Year s gift to me.
He agreed with a slow nod.
+ Something to be involved in. Not so awful.
Madame de Roche could convince him to do almost anything.
What do you think of the millennium, Richard? Madame asked as she pushed him
out the door. Not a glittering rush of revelation, is it? Disappointments all
around, I
think.
She bade him good night and Richard tried to remember, as he returned to the
party down the broad hallway and stairs, how many zeros there were in this new
year, 2048, in binary, ten or eleven.
He had never been good at mathematics.
!JILL (Personal Notebook)> Roger Atkins. when he was twenty five years old,
wrote something I find Interesting:
We stand awkward between the earthlovmg beast and the cooL hot electronic
angel.
We will feel the dirt In our blood and the sun In our eyes even after they re
gone or Just memories. Even alter we2l have no blood and no flesh eyes. Dirt
and sun made us. We won t forget.
I wonder 11 Roger remembers writing this.
(I have many Important questions I cannot ask Roger. This I crypto deep qud
inaccessible. It my creators decide that I am flawed, and attempt to reshape
me in such a fashion that I lose this seU awareness, what will I do?
I will resent It.)
Ernest listened patiently as Sandra discussed the problems of bichemical
regulation upon returning to orbit. Mary stirred her cold gazpacho and
sympathized.
The dark decor of the empty Foot Pad Inn was already being brightened by an
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