watchers, some jealous, said Marak might test him for years before he said a thing to him of a personal nature.
Or Marak might never talk directly to him at all. He knew it must frustrate the Planetary Office that Marak wasn’t talking to his day-time watcher in the frank, offhanded way he’d talked to the last one. A source of information had gone. And all he could be, all the PO could be, was patient, and hopeful, and meticulously correct.
He didn’t know where his career would take him, though he doubted he would be shunted aside, as he’d been moved from his last assignment, unless he did something extravagantly objection-able to Marak. So he had a certain security, being as high as he could get, while getting a major vacation now and again, enjoying his work as the dream job, and being paid exorbitantly.
The drawback—there was one true drawback to it all—was that he couldn’t tell anybody on the outside what he did for a living.
Watchers—Project taps—worked inside a security envelope that, if you breached it, would just swallow you down and never let you out again, in any physical sense, let alone the informational one. So assuredly he had no desire to break the rules and end up living his entire life as a shadow in the farthest recesses of the Project offices.
And what was that job? He monitored Marak’s whereabouts, activities, and observations, he took notes, he made his hour-by-hour transcript, he passed that on to Drusus, who passed it on to Auguste, who passed it back to him, as watchers had done, time out of mind. He was a highly classified instant communications system and still an observer-in-training, but he never forgot it was a dangerous planet down there, and his attention to what he did 4 2 • C . J . C h e r r y h
could conceivably make a difference between life and death for a man on whom the integrity of the Project depended, a contrary and independent man who’d lived longer than any human mind could grasp.
His job, in effect, was keeping tabs on God, or such a god as the planet had, besides the Ila, besides Luz and Ian.
And learning. Fast. Marak, when he was in the Refuge, had encounters with people with various agendas hour to hour, and it was his job to consult with other watchers and suspect who was up to what. When Marak dealt with his own family, in their enclave—or with the Ila—where politics was definitely at issue—transcripts were a fast and furious production. A tap knew a mistake could racket to the halls of government.
But this, this venture into the outback, was six months of pure wonder, observations, close work with the science departments, instead of other taps. Marak traveled out into the world with his wife, enjoying the days, observing a land whose scale of change was more like his own life span and Hati’s.
Out there Marak could say, as he had yesterday, of a certain landmark—it’s almost all worn away now, the way some people would say, Hmmn, that frontage was painted green yesterday, wasn’t it? Or, The camelia’s in bloom. How nice.
His job, his enviable job, was watching God watching the world change.
Third cup of caff. Take a walk around, stretch the legs. Take a break. Meddle with the displays. Tinker with a 3-D puzzle he had laid out on the counter days ago. Take a note or two. Since the tap was audio, mostly, and one-way, at his selection, he could do that, while keeping up the transparent transcript he was building. There were other aspects he could use, including voice from his direction, simply by talking aloud and letting the resonant bone of his skull carry the sound to the tap, but such contacts were rare. He wasn’t supposed to talk aloud during his hours of observation, in order not to annoy Marak. He used a keyboard, used a tablet, drew and typed in a rapid code. Across the station, in various apartments, in various offices, the day’s records grew and sifted from one office to another, everything from repair requests to
Or Marak might never talk directly to him at all. He knew it must frustrate the Planetary Office that Marak wasn’t talking to his day-time watcher in the frank, offhanded way he’d talked to the last one. A source of information had gone. And all he could be, all the PO could be, was patient, and hopeful, and meticulously correct.
He didn’t know where his career would take him, though he doubted he would be shunted aside, as he’d been moved from his last assignment, unless he did something extravagantly objection-able to Marak. So he had a certain security, being as high as he could get, while getting a major vacation now and again, enjoying his work as the dream job, and being paid exorbitantly.
The drawback—there was one true drawback to it all—was that he couldn’t tell anybody on the outside what he did for a living.
Watchers—Project taps—worked inside a security envelope that, if you breached it, would just swallow you down and never let you out again, in any physical sense, let alone the informational one. So assuredly he had no desire to break the rules and end up living his entire life as a shadow in the farthest recesses of the Project offices.
And what was that job? He monitored Marak’s whereabouts, activities, and observations, he took notes, he made his hour-by-hour transcript, he passed that on to Drusus, who passed it on to Auguste, who passed it back to him, as watchers had done, time out of mind. He was a highly classified instant communications system and still an observer-in-training, but he never forgot it was a dangerous planet down there, and his attention to what he did 4 2 • C . J . C h e r r y h
could conceivably make a difference between life and death for a man on whom the integrity of the Project depended, a contrary and independent man who’d lived longer than any human mind could grasp.
His job, in effect, was keeping tabs on God, or such a god as the planet had, besides the Ila, besides Luz and Ian.
And learning. Fast. Marak, when he was in the Refuge, had encounters with people with various agendas hour to hour, and it was his job to consult with other watchers and suspect who was up to what. When Marak dealt with his own family, in their enclave—or with the Ila—where politics was definitely at issue—transcripts were a fast and furious production. A tap knew a mistake could racket to the halls of government.
But this, this venture into the outback, was six months of pure wonder, observations, close work with the science departments, instead of other taps. Marak traveled out into the world with his wife, enjoying the days, observing a land whose scale of change was more like his own life span and Hati’s.
Out there Marak could say, as he had yesterday, of a certain landmark—it’s almost all worn away now, the way some people would say, Hmmn, that frontage was painted green yesterday, wasn’t it? Or, The camelia’s in bloom. How nice.
His job, his enviable job, was watching God watching the world change.
Third cup of caff. Take a walk around, stretch the legs. Take a break. Meddle with the displays. Tinker with a 3-D puzzle he had laid out on the counter days ago. Take a note or two. Since the tap was audio, mostly, and one-way, at his selection, he could do that, while keeping up the transparent transcript he was building. There were other aspects he could use, including voice from his direction, simply by talking aloud and letting the resonant bone of his skull carry the sound to the tap, but such contacts were rare. He wasn’t supposed to talk aloud during his hours of observation, in order not to annoy Marak. He used a keyboard, used a tablet, drew and typed in a rapid code. Across the station, in various apartments, in various offices, the day’s records grew and sifted from one office to another, everything from repair requests to
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