Variable Star Read Online Free Page B

and so help me God, if a wisecrack should come out of it…that’s better. You’re a poor-but-decent young Persian girl, working hard at some menial trade, struggling to better yourself, and so is—”
    A strange alto voice suddenly spoke, seemingly from the empty space between Jinny and me, just a little too loudly. I was so startled I nearly jumped out of my seat. “Your vehicle’s hull temperature has dropped sufficiently to permit safe debarking now, Miss Jinny.”
    If I was startled, Jinny was furious. I could tell because her face became utterly smooth, and her voice became softer in pitch and tone and slower in speed as she said, “There are only four letters in the word ‘wait,’ Smithers. There seems little room for ambiguity.”
    “I’m sorry, Miss Jinny,” Smithers said at once, and although there was no noticeable cessation of any background hiss or power hum, somehow he was gone .
    “And so,” she went on before I could ask who Smithers was, “is your boyfriend…call him Jelal. The two of you are very much in love, and want to get married, but you just don’t have the means. And then one day—”
    “Wait,” I said, “I think I see where this is going…sort of. One day the beggar who lives next door comes over, right, and it turns out he’s incredibly rich and he says he’s been eavesdropping and he understands our problem and he offers Jelal a—”
    I stopped talking. The penny had just dropped. All of sudden, I actually did see where this was going, at least in general terms. “Oh…my… God …” I breathed. “I’ve got it just backward, don’t I?”
    Her eyes told me I was right. “There wasn’t any other way, do you see? Once I met you as Jinny Hamilton, I couldn’t tell you. And anyway, the whole point was to—”
    “ You’re Harun al-Rashid!”
    “Well, his granddaughter,” she said miserably.
    I was stunned. “You’re rich.”
    She nodded sadly. “Very.”
    Tumblers began to click into place. I tried to think it through. “You’re not even an orphan, are you?”
    Headshake. “I couldn’t let anyone at Fermi meet my parents. They’re…pretty well known. Hiring a pair of Potemkin parents for social purposes seemed grotesque.”
    “And you came to Fermi, instead of Lawrence Campbell or one of the other top prep schools, so you could—what? See how the other half lives?”
    “Well…in part.”
    I was ranging back through my memories, adding things up with the benefit of hindsight, understanding little things that had puzzled me. Silver’s previously unsuspected power. Jinny’s extraordinary confidence and poise, so unexpected in an orphan. How, whenever someone brought up one of the really fabulous vacation destinations—Tuva, or the Ice Caves of Queen Maud Land in the Antarctic, or Harriman City on Luna—Jinny always seemed to have seen a good documentary about it recently. The way, when we ate pistachios, she always threw away the ones that were any trouble at all to open—
    I became aware that Jinny was absolutely still and silent, studying my face intently for clues to what 1 was thinking. It seemed like a good idea; maybe I should get a mirror and try it. I thought about banging my head against the dashboard to reboot my brain.
    Instead I looked at her and spread my hands. “I’m going to need some time to process this,” I admitted.
    “Of course,” she said at once. “Sleep on it. There’s no hurry. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to my real father. And meantime I’ll answer any questions you have—no more evasions, no more white lies.”
    I didn’t feel as though I knew enough to formulate a coherent question yet. No, wait, I did have one—purely for form’s sake; I didn’t see how the answer could help me. Still—
    “What is it really ?”
    She blinked. “Crave pardon?”
    “You said, ‘Once I met you as Jinny Hamilton…’ So that’s not your real name. Okay, I’ll bite. What is?”
    “Oh, dear,” she said.
    “‘Jinny Oh.’