Chapter 2, "Day -30", Scene 2

Har Norma Byukan

Har Norma Byukan awoke. Barely mindful, she fumbled toward memories and opened her past. Last night, she went to bed alone. She opened up in another direction and connected to her senses. Her body sprawled. Her clean skin relaxed, unchecked by sweat and other fluids. Her hair bunched at the top of her head. More evidence that she lay alone.

Eyes still closed, she released herself, awakened fully, assumed her body. Her arms and legs spread contented in a bedclothes cocoon warmed by her solitary form. Wanting more, she pushed her limbs out into cool hinterlands. Those sheets quickly surrendered their coolness. She explored further and further, stretching herself, seeking new chills. She rejoiced in this spare and pure luxury accessible only when she slept by herself.

Too soon, the nine square meters of sheets yielded the last of their hermetic isolation. Norma allowed her eyelids to open.

The ancient four-poster bed enclosed her in a pleasant dusk. Above her, a muzzy canopy softened the darkness. Its blurred fabric echoed its sister draperies. A smile stirred her lips as she savored her sanctuary.

With that moment, though, an edge developed in her idleness. She drew her spread limbs back and rolled onto her side. Business summoned her, but she chose, spontaneously, to back into it. She chose to remember that, come late-day, she would no longer be alone. Tidhar would be here too. Smooth, hairless Tidhar. Slender, unfaltering Tidhar. Skillful Tidhar.

She smiled again, more broadly. Vignettes arose within her mind. She saw brief scenes starring Tidhar and herself, in this bed, in her subterrane spa, and in other places. Some tantalized her from the past. Others aroused her from the future. As they unfolded, she threw back the covers and stretched in sensuous accompaniment to the fantasies. She moved automatically. Asana posture exercises mixed with pranayama breathing. Both her mind and her body warmed up, together yet apart, inspiring each other.

Norma wasn't sure when Tidhar faded from her increasingly fragmented thoughts. Instead, she found herself immersed in myriad murmurings and strokes from the Continent Popovich. Millions of tiny, tender caresses moved her thoughts away from her body.

She eased into pratyahara. This final stage separated psyche from soma. Her primal mind soared away from its tedious, societal overlays. She rejoiced in emotional union with the land and people who surrounded her. They supported her. They needed her. They adored her. She felt every morsel of her self being fondled by her subjects, sessile as well as mobile, sentient and non-, dispersed across the continent out there. When pranayama faded away, she dwelt only on this astral plane.

In time, habit prevailed over rapture. Norma allowed the physical to reclaim her. She lifted her hands slowly till they hovered in front of her closed eyes. Then she smacked them together. Clap! And the exercise was over. Clap! And the time for business had begun. Clap! And she rolled back, gathering her warm and eager body. Then, in a last stretch, she flung herself out of the enclosed bed. She landed, feet first, on the thick carpet of her bedroom.

Norma plucked out hairbands and scattered them on the floor. Her long hair flounced down over her smooth back like a cape spun from caramel. She pivoted precisely and strode away from the bed. A thin sheen of sweat evaporated from her naked skin, leaving a brief chill not unlike that of the pristine sheets.

On her fourteenth step, she entered her office. She assumed it like a garment around her body, the only clothing she needed to run her continent-wide business.

Just inside the doorway, she paused at a buffet. Steam climbed from a waiting cup of café au lait. Tempting smells of muffins and cakes wafted from a crockery warming bin. She breathed deeply, filling her head with the aromas. One last obeisance to the sensual before going to work.

After three seconds, Norma snapped her attention to the wall above the sideboard. Pastel speckles there represented her staff, busily working in the direvnya physically around her. She scanned the diagram, seeking anomalies. Everything sat in its place, all symbolic colors pleasing.

Satisfied for the moment, she picked up the café. She allowed its aromatic mist to stroke her face. She sipped, then turned to greet the rest of her domain.

The office embodied her private entrance to the Mirnaya Direvnya, with its wide-ranging repositories of information, as well as her direct connection to Byukan-Hamil's private databases. At this moment, its smooth, virtual grotto enfolded her with a vault of symbols representing every actual and potential contract let by every Collective and private combine on the Continent Popovich.

In this composite, a shallow oval of pale rose-red meant a set of her people working on a contract, generating income for the Byukan-Hamil Consortium. A deeper circle of sky-blue, often overlapping a pink egg-shape, stood for an unopposed contract somewhere in the proposal or selection phases. These were colors Norma enjoyed. At the start of each morning, she was prepared to stand, serenely sipping and munching, under a canopy dappled in restful pastels.

This morning, a black cube jutted from the arch symbolizing north-central Popovich.

"Aiee!" Her outburst spilled café.

The cube, grimy, angular, painful, meant competition.

Norma ignored the sweet agony of hot café trickling down her left breast. She took two stiff paces and touched the charred intrusion with an outstretched finger. "Tell me about this!"

The office converted the basic cube into a splotch of data about the location. Then it displayed a yellowish potential-contract profile: "Direvnya = Ganj Dareh." Norma glanced at the splotch. Ganj Dareh was a village of 1,061,382 consumers. Its adult population comprised a voting Collective of 486,019. "Service = Anshin." Keeping all those consumers and their property well and safe. "Project = Operations and Maintenance." Keeping things running, without developing anything new, just like most of the public contracts.

A rippling banner extended from the wall with the words, "Competition = Annadetcall Combine, affiliated with Gatogrebok Con-Hominium."

Gatogrebok! The name stunned her. Paralysis crinkled through her arm muscles and across her chest. Here, on my continent? A tinny emptiness echoed in her ears. Are they invading? With a stiff neck, she panned frozen eyes over the rest of the map. She saw a motif of pink and sky-blue, but surveyed a continent in her mind. Jerky inspection showed nearly complete domination, finished off with ripples of assured victory.

Heartened, Norma gasped and raggedly restarted breathing. Chin lifting, she brought her focus back to the direvnya of Ganj Dareh. She would do something about this — now! "We have a Partner Meeting today, don't we?"

The office draped an agenda in the air off to her right. Seeing was comprehensive, easy, swift, compared to hearing all this data.

"The Team must talk about this. Insert —" Hiccup. "Insert item at position eight. Call it 'Discussion of, er." She peered at the yellow notice in front of her. "'Ganj Dareh Anshin Contract Renewal.' That's ours now, right?"

Another profile, shaded in existing-contract rose, took its place beside the first.

By my father's bones, it sure is! And it's going to stay that way. "Who's the tactician for that contract?" she demanded.

The office highlighted a name in the pink display: Doyle Phoebe Heejanus.

No face for the name came to Norma's mind — not important, not unusual. More resolute, she ordered, "I want to see Heejanus' proposal-development plan before the meeting starts." Past the pain of invasion now. "I want Heejanus at the meeting." Time for action. Time to get someone into Ganj Dareh to fix the situation.

Norma stirred with impatience. "How long till the meeting starts?"

The office superimposed a list of Partner names on the wall over its entrance. Beside each name, it displayed the time that person had confirmed attendance at the meeting. It added, at the bottom, a countdown clock showing time enough to finish breakfast.

Norma studied the list. She found Dain's name among the attending and drew her lips back in a feral grin. She would send him to Ganj Dareh. He'd make sure they won the contract.

She swung around toward the buffet. "One more thing," she said to the automata that composed her office. "No more Notices of Competition, you hear? No more."

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