Shelter by Susan Palwick Page A

around when it got too dangerous. I'm home now."
        Sergei cleared his throat. "Inappropriate risk-taking behavior. Roberta?"
        She closed her eyes, trying to remember the jargon so she could use it in her own defense. Interdependence: that was the buzzword. The diagnosing psychiatrist had explained it all to her as if she were a child. We all share in one another, Roberta; we're interconnected. So if you take good care of yourself, you're taking care of everyone, and if you take good care of others, you're taking care of yourself But—and here the psychiatrist, admonishing, had waved his pencil at her—if you care for yourself at the expense of others, you hurt them, and thus also yourself, since all are linked. And if you care for others at the expense of yourself, you hurt yourself, and thus you hurt them too.
        QED. Fucking Green psychobabble, Deep Ecology channeled through affluent privilege, Buddhism meets Beria. It meant what state-sanctioned mental-health theories had always meant: keep to the middle way, because if you stick out too much, you're doomed. And whatever you do, look out for number one. If there's anything left over later, you can donate it to the poor and congratulate yourself on your generosity.
        She'd wanted to punch the psychiatrist in the nose. Don't worry, buddy: this hurts me worse than it hurts you, since we're interconnected. Except that under the circumstances, that would have been quite literally true. She couldn't afford to curse out Sergei either, as much as she wanted to. "I turned around when the water got too high," she said, desperately attempting sincerity. "I was worried about the clients, of course, but I never intended to endanger myself. It wasn't clear from the radio reports how badly flooded that part of the city was. I'm okay, Sergei. A little wet, that's all."
        "No," he said. "You're not okay. It's not okay, Roberta. What did you think you were going to do if you got there? Did you think the building would be open? Did you think the clients would be lined up on the street in rowboats, waiting for ham and cheese sandwiches?"
        Roberta winced. Mason wouldn't need a wheelchair, if he had a rowboat. But he didn't have a rowboat, and his current wheelchair certainly wouldn't float. "If I'd been able to get there," she said, choosing her words as carefully as if they were land mines, "that would have meant that some of the clients could have gotten there too." QED. "And if any of them had been able to get there, I didn't want them to be alone. I didn't want them to think no one cared." Did that sound dispassionately compassionate enough? She'd never been any good at faking this stuff.
        Sergei sighed. "All right. Believe it or not, some of us care about you, too." Fat chance. "Stay at home until I tell you to go back to work, all right? That's an order. If the GPS shows you out of the building, I'll have to reevaluate your case. Do you understand, Roberta?"
        Of course she understood. "Sure," she said, her voice brittle. "Sergei, I have to go clean up some water that just came in a window, all right?"
        "No. Hang on a minute. I'm not going to put you under house arrest without making sure you're all right. Do you have enough food and water? Do you need anything?"
        "No," she said, and heard a squeak from the kitchen. Her bot had picked up the word clean and thought it was being summoned. Unable to keep the acidity out of her voice, she added, "And even if I did, how would you get it here without endangering yourself, Sergei?"
        "Very funny. Helicopter: How you do think? Your building does still have a roof, doesn't it?"
        Oh, of course. Civil servants had access to 'copters. It was so easy to be appropriately altruistic, with the right equipment. "Yes, I believe we still have a roof Are helicopters safe in these winds, Sergei?"
        "That's a good question. I'd trust the pilot, woudn't I? A good