He was a trim, neat little man: flat features, smooth cheeks, and even
curve of chin, remote dark eyes behind the inevitable thick lenses of
the Oriental scholar.
Francine tossed her briefcase onto the table, and pulled out a chair
opposite Ohashi. She wiped away the grit with a handkerchief before
sitting down. The ever present dirt, the monotonous landscape, her
own frustration--all combined to hold her on the edge of anger. She
recognized the feeling and its source, stifled a wry smile.
"No, Hiko," she said. "I think we're late. It's later than we think."
"Much later when you put it that way," said Ohashi. His Princeton
accent came out low, modulated like a musical instrument under the
control of a master.
"Now we're going to be banal," she said. Immediately, she regretted the
sharpness of her tone, forced a smile to her lips.
"They gave us no deadline," said Ohashi. "That is one thing anyway." He
twirled his brush across an inkstone.
"Something's in the air," she said. "I can feel it."
"Very much sand in the air," he said.
"You know what I mean," she said.
"The wind has us all on edge," he said. "It feels like rain. A change
in the weather." He made another note, put down the brush, and began
setting out papers for the conference. All at once, his head came
up. He smiled at Francine. The smile made him look immature, and she
suddenly saw back through the years to a serious little boy named Hiko
Ohashi.
"It's been seven months," she said. "It stands to reason that they're
not going to wait forever."
"The usual gestation period is two months longer," he said.
She frowned, ignoring the quip. "But we're no closer today than we were
at the beginning!"
Ohashi leaned forward. His eyes appeared to swell behind the thick
lenses. "Do you often wonder at their insistence that _we_ communicate
with _them_? I mean, rather than the other way around?"
"Of course I do. So does everybody else."