Free Dark as Day by Charles Sheffield Page A

when your cousin Juliana opted to become a Commensal, with permanent sterility. Suppose that Mobarak’s second child had been a boy? Family needs didn’t make your mother become a Commensal, either.”
    “I wish she hadn’t. I worry about that. Nobody really knows what being a Commensal can do in the long run.”
    “But she did it anyway. And so did one of your great-aunts.”
    “Agatha.”
    “So they are allowed to choose multi-organism symbiosis and sterility, in exchange for guaranteed health and beauty. But you can’t. Let’s get back to the subject. To be a negotiable asset with Cyrus Mobarak, you have to be young, male, of adequate intelligence, and able to breed . Like you. It’s a miracle they let you come and work here in the first place. Who knows who you might sleep with? Who knows what diseases you might pick up? And there’s another thing.”
    Here it came, the moment Alex had been dreading. Kate held her glass in front of her face, so he couldn’t see her mouth and chin as she said, “What about us?”
    “Us?”
    “Us. Do you want it spelled? U-S. You and me. I suppose all this pressure of important family business has made it escape your attention, but you and I have been sharing a bed for the past two months. I had the illusion that you were enjoying it. What happens if the great family union is achieved, you are the popular choice, and Lucy becomes Mrs. Alex Ligon?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Well, I do.” Kate slammed her glass down hard, so that the sweet and sticky liquor splashed out onto the table. “I’m not a possessive person, but sharing a dick with somebody else—even if she’s the heir to the whole Mobarak fortune—isn’t my idea of a good time. You go fuck Lucy if you want to. And while you’re at it you can go fuck yourself.”
    Kate stared at Alex, her eyes blinking rapidly. Then she stood up, tugged her dress higher so that it covered her to the neck, turned, and was gone.
    Alex sat alone. He had hoped to share with Kate his concerns over his mother. He had examined Lena Ligon closely during the meeting at family headquarters, and believed he saw evidence that the Commensal his mother had become was profoundly different from the original person.
    He wasn’t going to be able to talk about those worries tonight; nor would any bed he slept in have Kate Lonaker by his side. The evening stretched out in front of him, empty and barren.
    He stood up and headed for his office. Should he run his computer models now, rather than waiting for the morning? Maybe not. So far, the glories of Seine-Day had not lived up to their billing.

6

    Humans had been listening for messages from the stars for a hundred and fifty years. What were the chances that you, Milly Wu, would here-and-now discover the first one ever?
    Milly told herself, all the time, that the odds were enormously against her; and yet, every morning, as she sat down in her little cubicle she felt an odd frisson of expectation.
    It was her third week of work, and the routine was already familiar. Incoming signals from all wavelengths went first to the central “mill” of the station, for basic processing and reduction to a standard format. The mill was fully automated, and no human played any part in the operation.
    Next came a series of computations and tests, again without human involvement, designed to discover deviations from randomness. There is a fine line between a signal that is unpredictable but well-determined, and one that is totally random. For example, the digits of such numbers as π or e or Euler’s constant, γ, form an infinite sequence in any number base you care to choose. You can calculate each element of that sequence, such as the number-string that begins π’s base-10 representation, 3.14159265358979323846 … for as long as you have time and patience. No matter where you stop, at the millionth or the billionth or the trillionth digit, there will always be a specific and unique next digit. The