Tomorrow’s Heritage Read Online Free Page A

them churning out pure profit. SB Enclave was largely altruistic, operating at a loss. But it had gained favors from the contributing world governments for supplying that cryogenic storehouse: Saunderhome in the Caribbean; an Alpine mini-country of their own; a former billionaire’s office building and bombproof underground apartment complex in New York—Philadelphia; branch offices in New Washington, Yokohama, and twenty other locations around the planet.
    “Monarch?” Todd hadn’t heard Dian come into the office. But he nodded and smiled, welcoming her now as she slid her tether line along the rail beside his chair. Her slender brown arm went around his shoulders.
    “You mean, monarch of all I survey?” Todd returned her embrace. “Cancel and return to general ComLink net overview,” he said in a toneless programmer’s voice. The screens obeyed, once more displaying the standard fare. Todd looked up at Dian. “I’m just big brother’s eyes and ears in the sky, so he can pull Earth’s strings. No monarchs here.”
    “Huh! And good thing. Hey, ComLink is the strings. Without you, all those politicians, including your own brother, would be talking to themselves, not the voters. Might be a lot quieter down there if they did.” Dian laughed softly at the idea.
    “Ah, but it pays. ‘You say it, we’ll replay it, worldwide and all the way out to Goddard and the Moon. We’ll translate it, and pretty you up, and make you sound like the savior of mankind. For a fat fee.’ ” Dian’s dark stare forced Todd to ease off from the bitter tirade. “Ignore me. As a matter of fact, earlier I was trying to see Earth as if it were brand-new to me, wondering what I’d make of the view.”
    “Starting with the family’s impressive properties?” Obviously, Dian hadn’t missed the display of Saunder Enterprises’ holdings.
    Todd smiled sheepishly. “I’m a chauvinist, telling myself that the Saunders aren’t such a bad example of what’s been going on with Homo sapiens these past few years. It’s odd that we never acquired a permanent property where things all started to take off for us . . .”
    “In my territory, up by the Chicago United Ghetto States enclave,” Dian said. “From a rickatick lab out in the ‘95 war craters to Saunder Enterprises. Pretty impressive.” She was teasing again, but Todd didn’t respond.
    “Saunderhome’s the earliest photo record Jael kept for us. She must have thrown away the other pictures. She kept some of Dad and us kids, but not of the places we lived. And so many of those I associate with Dad, with the five of us, trying to stay alive . . .”
    Grief cut at him. Dian began kneading his neck and shoulders gently, working at the tension gathering there. She shifted with his body’s reactions, coping expertly with the zero gravity. After a lengthy silence while she soothed his nerves, Dian asked, “You still planning to save the announcement?”
    “Yes.” Dian didn’t stop the massage, but he could feel her impatience. He tried to crane his neck to look at her, but she pushed his head around face forward again, concentrating on a stubborn knot of muscles near his spine. “We’ve been through this,” Todd reminded her.
    “Okay. Risky. You sit on it too long, and it’s somebody else’s baby, not yours. You found it. You ought to have the credit for dropping it in the Science Council’s lap first . . .”
    “ We found it.”
    “Ar-gue! Project Search team , huh?” Dian spit out the words with capital letters and sarcastic underlinings. “You paid.”
    “Don’t bring that up. I’m still hurting from the tradeoffs it’s costing me. It was worth it, though.” Todd grunted as Dian popped loose a particularly nasty kink in his back. His voice was distorted by the pummeling she was delivering. “This isn’t going to be simple. Never is. But now that we’ve got it, it’s my job to untangle it. It’s not enough just to put out a press release and then spell