She stared at her videophone. The message light blinked reproachfully. She turned on the menu and the screen lit up. Fifty-two calls. She sorted them by origin.

The ID's on twelve of them were news organizations, both local and mainland. Ten of them were business calls, mostly dating from before she sent the footage off.

Twelve of them were from concerned friends who'd seen the footage. Six of them were from her mother's office and another three from her mother's apartment. The other seven were from New Galveston Assembly members.

Five of them were from Geoffrey.

It was too early to call most of them, though her mother, in D.C., would probably be up. She skimmed the business calls, noting the Engineering Office's reminders about the inspections. She deleted the calls from Geoffrey, as well as the ones from reporters.

The many that remained were still too intimidating, but she called her mother's apartment, hoping she'd already gone into the office. Thankfully she got the voice mail and left a brief message saying she was all right.

Coward.

Her last three phone calls to her mother, like her last meeting in Austin, had been disastrous. There's nothing more infuriating than someone who wants to help. She shook her head. That wasn't quite it. There's nothing more infuriating thansomeone whose offers of help imply you're incapable of managing your own affairs.

She pulled the shorts on and, barefoot, walked out the door between the picture window and her dad's bronze bust of Shakespeare.

Will, I need coffee.

She came out into a large courtyard formed by three stretches of building and a chest-high wall overlooking a stretch of dark blue water with more buildings on the far side. Her immediate foreground was a patio defined by knee-high planters filled with bushes, flowers, and small trees.

Beyond the planters, a large open space in the middle of the courtyard was inset with dark red rubber tiles surrounding an enormous play structure made of colored tubes, steel platforms, bubbles of plastic, and nets of rope. It stretched almost three stories into the air, higher even than the tops of the surrounding buildings, and was connected by walkways to the building on her right at the next floor and roof levels.

The building on her left was distinguished by more planter-lined patios. She walked through a gap between planters, cut across the corner of the rubber tile, and entered another patio, one with white plastic tables and chairs. She settled slowly into one of the chairs and rubbed her eyes.

Almost immediately, a slight black woman appeared in the door opening onto the building. "Bonjour, mademoiselle. You are up with the birds."

"Bonjour, Celeste. Is there coffee?"

"Mais oui. A moment. I must send Philippe out to look for Marie."

"Don't bother. She's in my bed."

"Again! Merde! No wonder you are reveille. Je regrette. I will beat her. I swear it."

Patricia suppressed a smile. Celeste's idea of a beating consisted of a barely perceptible swat on the bottom followed immediately by hugs and tears, mostly Celeste's. "It's not important. She likes me, that's all. If you'd sleep later, she'd stay in bed with you, but you get up very early."

"If you would just lock your door..."

She thought about the INS and shuddered. "Believe me, I did."

"Merde! When I picked up your laundry, I could have sworn I locked it after."

"I would forgive you," said Patricia. "But without coffee, my heart is hard and cold."

This time Patricia could see Celeste bite her lip to keep from smiling. "

Directement, ma chere!" She vanished within.Across the courtyard, Consuela Madrid, the principal of The Art of Learning School and Day Care, was propping open the doors. She looked up and waved at Patricia, calling softly, "I saw you on the news."

Patricia's original smile turned to a frown and a shrug.

Assembly Alternate Patricia Beenan, vomiter-at-large.

It had been the late news, so hopefully not too many kids would be having nightmares. Now if I could do something about mine.

She tried to think of something to say-something witty or trenchant or even relevant-but it eluded her. In the end she just shrugged again and said, "You still need me this afternoon?"

"Yes. Just from four to six. Belinda has a sonogram at the clinic and you know how long the wait is."

"I'll be there. We'll talk."

Consuela nodded vigorously. "You can depend on it."

Patricia groaned and hid her face in her hands until Celeste returned with a large double latte and half a baguette with butter and strawberry preserves.

"All right. I forgive you for not locking the door."

"Merci. I breathe easier now. I must collect Marie before I go to the factory."

"Bien. If those clothes I was wearing don't come clean-just throw them away."

"What a waste! Don't be absurd. Throw away good clothing?"

Celeste walked across the courtyard to Patricia's patio, muttering to herself. In a moment she returned, followed by Marie, who was yawning and rubbing her eyes.

As they passed, Patricia ran her fingers over the little girl's hair.

"Stop it, Tante," the little girl complained, stepping out of reach. She stuck out her tongue.

Patricia stuck her own out in return and Marie giggled as she was herded inside by her mother.

Other children, escorted by adults, began arriving for school, coming up from the public level by way of the stairway at the end of the courtyard, or from the inside stairs that led up from the rest of the Elephant Arms. The adults trooped inside the day-care center and then left, sans children. She knew many of them, and they waved, but only a few said, "Saw you on the news last night."

She couldn't help but think that the presence of children protected her from more explicit inquiries. Thank god for small favors.Marie reappeared, dressed in a T-shirt, shorts, and sandals, carrying a cup of juice and buttered bread. She sat at the table with Patricia, silent and grave, eating steadily. Occasionally her eyes would dart sideways toward Patricia, but she remained silent.

More small favors.

Celeste appeared again, this time carrying a child's lunch box and her purse. She put the lunch box on the table and kissed Marie on the head. To Patricia she said, "I forgot to mention but votre vieux amour came by yesterday, after the television."

Perfect. Patricia groaned. "And did Geoffrey leave, too?"

"Mais oui."

"C'est bon."

Celeste laughed. "When you are done eating, would you escort Marie across?"

She tilted her head toward the school.

"Mais oui," replied Patricia; trying for Celeste's Haitian accent and failing.

"Au revoir." Celeste left at a brisk walk, anxious not to miss the next ferry. She worked for Sony America, putting together video player chassis on the assembly line, and it was a twenty-minute boat ride to the industrial park. After work, she would come home and do laundry and clean apartments. She was a woman of incredible industry and it made Patricia tired just to look at her.

As her mother disappeared down the public stair, Marie sat up straight and said, "Did you really find a whole bunch of dead people?"

Patricia rolled her eyes and sighed. "Why didn't you ask me when your mother was here?"

"She said not to."

"Oh, really? And what did you just do?"

"She's not here," Marie said reasonably, as if that caused all previous instructions to evaporate.

"I believe I'm going to tell your mother about this little conversation."

"Tante! You wouldn't!"

Patricia leaned back in her chair and cradled the hot coffee in her cupped hands.

"And why not?"

" 'Cause you're not that sort!" the little girl said forcefully.

She's got your number.

"You know, you're right. I'm not that sort. However, I'm also not the sort toanswer your question. Your mother had a very good reason to tell you not to bother me about it. You really should listen to her. She's really very wise for an adult."

"But I want to know!"

"It's none of your business. Are you done eating?"

Marie narrowed her eyes and looked stubborn, but there was nothing left on her plate but crumbs. "Yes," she said reluctantly.

"Very well, it's time to go to school." Patricia stuffed the last piece of her own bread into her mouth and, carrying her coffee, shepherded the girl across the courtyard, into the school, and to her classroom door.

Patricia crouched, putting her eyes level with Marie's enormous dark brown ones. "Someday we'll talk about it."

"When I'm older? That'll take forever!"

Patricia smothered a smile. "No, when I can talk about it. It's not easy, sometimes, to talk about certain things. Give me some time, okay?"

The little girl nodded.

"Okay. Give me a hug. I need it."

She drank the contact like wine, savoring it, storing every trace of it. Reluctantly she let go and let Marie run off into the classroom.

Thank you, child.

It was the first item in her new collection.

That's one memory to turn to. One memory to displace the floating dead.

She left, sipping her coffee.

What else can I collect?

5.

Becket: De vuelta al fuego

At breakfast Thomas's memory swam with faces chewed by crabs and fish, and the closest he'd advanced in his investigation was to wonder if the people who'd sunk Open Lotus actually knew what was in her hold.

He was about to go to sleep in Lieutenant Callard's bunk when he received a callthat caused him to shout for Seaman Guterson. "Get our things together. I'm getting us transport to New Galveston."

"Yes, sir. May I ask what's happened, sir?"

"That Beenan woman has resurfaced. Literally." He laughed to himself. "And I want to talk to her."

Thomas was tempted to recall Ensign Terkel's transport, the small patrol hydrofoil, from Buffalo Bayou, but ended up hitching a ride on a patrol helicopter to the sheltered water airport at Houston Galeria, to catch the noon SEA to New Galveston.

The SEA-surface effect airplane-was a giant two-engine turboprop with downward-drooping wings half a football field long. The wingtips ended in pontoons and the plane's tail section drooped down to another float. It flew fifteen feet above the waves, taking advantage of the decreased drag and thrust necessary when an aircraft gets down to one-tenth the length of its wingspan. Unlike those aircraft, the SEA didn't operate above this surface-skimming height with the exception of emergency "jumps" to clear unexpected obstacles. At 220 miles an hour, it could climb briefly up to three hundred feet if it had to clear a ship, but it couldn't sustain that altitude.

Radar and FLIR made this ability a last resort. Obstacles were usually navigated around rather than jumped. The surface effect increased fuel efficiency tremendously.

Thomas watched the water skimming beneath the SEA wings for five minutes before his head dropped back in the seat and his eyes closed. The attendant's voice announcing their impending arrival woke him. He checked the time: twelve-fifty-seven.

The edges of New Galveston, aka the Strand, were visible out his window. The extreme eastern border was reminiscent of the Houston dikes, an area of raised walls against invading sea, but as the SEA skirted the low border, beyond it Thomas saw what looked like a series of vegetation-cloaked hills, emeralds on a string, a Strand if you will. White towers projected from the summits, rising even higher. The SEA banked again, heading west about a mile away from the southern edge, passing between a large tanker and a cruise liner headed for the southwest channel, one of five channels that opened into the Strand's low sea barrier.

He saw a large passenger jet coming in from the west, flying parallel with them toward the conventional runway atop the barrier wall. As it touched down, the SEA banked sharply north again, headed directly for the barrier. The barrier was a mere ten feet in the air and the pilot lifted the SEA slightly; then they were skimming across it and the runway and dropping down into an interior lagoon, a truncated triangle over two miles across at its widest point.

They settled on the surface with a hiss and planed on the smooth water until theirspeed dropped. When the floats finally dug in, there was a sudden slowing and the nose of the SEA dropped briefly before rising again. They taxied slowly to their dock, one of many thin piers projecting out from the airport terminal. Other SEA craft, as well as smaller pontoon-geared aircraft, were moored alongside. The terminal, a sprawling structure made, like nearly all buildings on the Strand, of huge hexagonal prisms, stretched beside another conventional runway, this one running southwest to northeast atop an interior sea barrier-one separating the interior lagoon of the airport with the municipal lagoon of New Galveston.

He could've come on a conventional flight, but the overall travel time-helicopter to Houston Intercontinental on the coast north of the Houston dikes, then wait for the next flight-was actually greater. That flight wouldn't arrive here for another forty-five minutes.

The SEA pulled right over the end of the narrow pier, its wingtip floats straddling it, the tail section coming to rest against bumpers on its very end. The engines cut and the sudden silence, as always, surprised Thomas as the oppressive din lifted to be replaced by the chatter of passengers unstrapping, taking luggage from the overheads and beneath seats, and standing, just to be standing, since they couldn't get out until the front of the plane cleared.

Thomas, still tired, sat back and watched his fellow passengers. There were executives from the maquiladora offshore factories, tourists coming for the duty-free shopping and pristine though artificial beaches, sportsmen coming for the deep-sea fishing downstream in the nutrient-rich effluent of the Strand's OTEC plants or its floating lagoons, and expatriate Americans, either displaced wetfeet who couldn't find decent living in the shrunken States or fully landed citizens who preferred the freedom of offshore living.

The INS also had a strong presence aboard. There were several, in uniform and out, returning to duty at the Abbott Base Refugee and Detention Center. When they'd boarded, Thomas had spotted a plainclothes INS agent seated near first class handcuffed to a Latino, almost certainly destined for the Abattoir. He must've been more than just an illegal alien to be flown to the Strand. Most of the deportees were sent on the INS transport, a relatively slow, hot, and uncomfortable converted car transport that made a regular circuit, collecting illegals from all the gulf ports.

Thomas let Guterson retrieve their bags from overhead, while he stayed in his seat. They were way back in row forty-five, and he was still tired from traveling and messed-up sleep schedules. I don't care what happens today; I'm going to stay in bed tonight. He'd made reservations for two cubes at the airport Hilton while they waited for the helicopter back at the site and he intended to stop there first to get into civvies.