Slant by Greg Bear Page A

to him, "You have the delivery arranged?" "Tonight at seven-thirty. Address?" Giffey writes the address on a piece of paper, an old industrial warehouse on the west side of Moscow. Giffey will not be there, but people he trusts will receive the goods and give final payment. Jenner will accompany the goods to their destination and stay with them. The old man brings out a bottle for everyone. The beer is good. Jenner's scalp is asleep. He almost looks normal. "Sald," Giffey says, and they all slug back the thick dark brew.
    Outside, Jenner joins Giffby at the roadside, waiting for the bus to take them back into Moscow. "How long you been out of the service?" Giffey asks Jenner. The young man smiles and shakes his head. "I was never really in," he says. "I got my training at Quantico and Annapolis. Special Operations. I had some trouble and they shipped me out and annulled my enlistment papers. They were training me for sensitive jobs." Giffey nods. He can tell from the man's expression and posture that Jenner is reluctant to say any more. Jenner knows the ins and outs of military nano, so Giffey's sources say; that's enough. "How about you?" Jenner asks. The bus is coming back on its long circuit around the country roads. They can see it on the horizon. "Federal Army, honorable discharge, three years in extranational service." "I'd like to do that sometime," Jenner says. His Adam's apple bobs. "Missed
    / SLANT 63
    equal and an expert, or a conscript noncom. Jenner is twenty-two or twenty-three at most. Very young. That, however, is not Giffey's concern.
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    9 DARK BITS
    The household of Jonathan and Chloe Bristow flashes, screeches, roars with bright colors and jagged sounds. Their adolescent children, Hiram and Penelope, are up the stairs and down, shouting over a pretty stone one of them found in the garden. They have gone red in the face with their shouting and Chloe has stopped by the stairs to stand stiff as a tree, prematurely aged by violent winds. She waits with some apprehension for Jonathan to come up from the basement and try to straighten things out; she knows that his intervention is not necessary, that all this will pass. Penelope is fifteen and Hiram thirteen. Dark-haired Hiram sometimes appears a little loutish even in his mother's tolerant eyes; Penelope is white-blonde and lithe as an alder. Like alders, she tries to be a clone of the other girls in her part of the forest. Chloe waits for the storm to pass. She worries that Jonathan will only add to the din and the color with his very loud voice and dark hues. Chloe sees all situations in this household in colors; she has heard about that in the LitVids which arrive on her pad every morning, gathered from around the earth like fresh bouquets and generally just as wilted and worn within a week. Today is a loud orange and black day. "I did NOT give it to you, you swtt/" Penelope shouts. Hiram tries to hold the rock out of her reach but she is taller and grabs his c],=*a,-hitr ,C;,- TI. ......... k- .--
    64 GREG BEAR "Watch out--" she begins; but she sees they are in no danger and draws her lips tight shut again. She wonders what a su'tt is. "You promised I could have it," Hiram claims, his voice high and loud and sad. Hiram is her Caliban; a slow and dark fellow with fine black hair covering the back of his neck. Soon he will need to shave. She never tells her children