The Companions by Sheri S. Tepper Read Free Book Online

whether the dogs were able to count, but I knew they could tell when something was missing. As Scarlet lay down and nosed the puppies against her belly, her growl faded to a low rumble, but she still glared past me to Jon, who refused to look at her. He wouldn’t let himself hope. He was too busy convincing himself that disappointment and death were inevitable, despite anything I might do. I hated that, people giving up, not trying to fight. I just hated it.
    I stayed where I was until Scarlet let me stroke the babies. Then I straightened my clothes, left the pen, and repeated my intentions, to be sure Jon understood. “I’m going home, Jon. You let the dogs alone. I’m going to talk to Witt.”
    Which I did, though I sat by the phone for hours before he returned my link message.
    â€œI know there’s very little time…” I said.
    He said, in his very topstory voice, “That’s true, but there are possibilities. You know Shiela Alred?”
    â€œI know who she is. Some kind of philanthropist.”
    â€œI know her pretty well. She’s quite friendly with Mama the Dame, and she has an exempt estate in Tower 69.”
    â€œ In Tower 69?”
    â€œHer family owned the land the tower’s on. It was sold with the proviso the family got the top three floors as an exempt estate into perpetuity, so yes, it’s at the top of the tower, two residential floors and one park floor on the bay, two towers over from Government Center.” He fell silent for a moment. “Have you cleaned up, Jewel, since you left the kennel?”
    I flushed. He knew I hadn’t. Who could think of cleaning up with all this going on? “Of course,” I said.
    â€œThen get yourself into something appropriate. Give me twenty minutes to link Shiela Alred, then I’ll pick you up at the west flit lobby on 200.”
    That was very much Witt. Thinking about introducing me to his friends, but making sure I’d be clean and properly dressed before he did it. I was very fond of Witt, but sometimes little things like that itched at me. Considering the situation, it shouldn’t have mattered if I smelled like dog, which I did.
    Nonetheless, I was neat and clean when Witt picked me up in his private flit. He cut among a clutter of other traffic and spurted up into the private lanes before cutting across toward Tower 69. From that height I could see the whole ten-by-ten grid of the hundred-towered urb, each mile-square roof black with solar collectors, the chasms between towers glittering with podways, the depths at their foundations invisible in the dark. Outside the city, the huge cables that brought power from earthcore-generators snaked away across the farmlands, on to another urb, tying everything together. Almost every tower had a huge poster of Evolun Moore grinning at us, his eyes following the flit: “Vote for Moore, for Humanity’s sake!” He was running for the legislature or the Urban Council or something, whatever office was a step higher than the one he held.
    Trees poked out of the top of Tower 69, and I realized I’d seen them before when I was pod-hopping, the only roof in the urb with trees poked through it. From the private flit lobby we were escorted into a sun-drenched parlor just inside, a room that looked all the way across the sluggishlyshifting surface of the bay to the line of scum harvesters squatted on the horizon. Shiela Alred came fluttering in—she was dressed in green that day—and Witt introduced us.
    â€œWitt, my dear! So nice to see you. Sit down, take that chair, my dear, it’s comfortable, and you look in need of comforting!” Shiela seated herself without pausing in her chatter. “I’ve been devising, my dears, since early this morning.” She cocked her head as she asked Witt, “Do you know Gainor Brandt? No? Well, he’s an old friend of mine who happens to be second-in-command at Earth Enterprises,