Star Rigger's Way (13 page)

A female voice behind him said softly, "Do you need help finding something, Rigger?"

Startled, he turned around. It was the woman he had seen on the flyer. He stared at her, embarrassed. She was about his height, taller and slimmer than the average on this world. Perhaps she was a native of a lower-
g
planet. Her figure was graceful and lightly full, like women he had seen on Doerning's World and Gabril. She smiled at his stare, and came up alongside. "Why don't you tell me where you want to go, and I'll see if I can steer you that way."

He nodded, feeling very nervous now that she was standing so close to him. "Actually," he said, "I may only have to go to one place, and if I get everything done there I'll just take the next flyer out."

"Oh," she said, "you shouldn't just leave. Stay and enjoy yourself. Go down to the lake, at least." She pointed. The lake shimmered blue and cool. From where they stood, a part of a long white beach was visible, and a small harbor full of sailboats and kiteboats and diving skates and canoes.

"I don't think I'll have time," he murmured.

"That's too bad, really," she said. "You know, we don't often see riggers here. But I don't see why you shouldn't enjoy it, too."

He reddened. This was not a rigger's place, not with all these businesspeople here.

"I hope I didn't say anything—I didn't mean to offend you."

He shook his head.

"Good. Well, I didn't mean to pry. I just thought . . . anyway, where did you want to go?" She gestured to warn him of a step; they had continued walking up to the main pedestrian road.

"Kloss Shipping Lines."

She stopped in surprise. "I should have guessed! That's where I'm going. Have you come to see Irwin? I mean, Mr. Kloss?"

"Yes. I mean . . . yes, yes, I have." He looked at her strangely.

"You must be the person who stopped in at the main office in Jarvis yesterday," she said. "Judith told me someone from the riggers was looking for Mr. Kloss." She stuck out her hand. "I'm Alyaca Perone. Personal aide to Mr. Kloss."

"Then you could take me to his office," Carlyle exclaimed. "I—well, I didn't make an appointment. Maybe I should have." Suddenly he realized that her hand was extended to him, and he took it nervously in a very light handshake. Her hand was slender, cool. He let go, afraid of holding it too long.

Her face clouded. "I could, yes—except that Mr. Kloss isn't here now."

"But I was told—"

"I know . . . that he was here. Unfortunately, he called this morning to say he was leaving on a forest safari, and he won't be back for at least four days, and possibly as long as ten." She looked thoughtful. "And he really can't be reached, except in extreme emergency." Her eyes were sympathetic but measuring as they met his. "Is your emergency extreme?" Her eyes suggested that nothing short of impending bankruptcy would be considered extreme.

"Wait," she said, before he could answer. "Would you like to have a cup of roast, or tea, or something? We have a very nice lounge in our offices, and it seems as if that's the least I can do, since I can't produce Mr. Kloss for you."

Carlyle accepted the offer, and they walked a block to a handsomely towered wood building. Once they were seated in the office lounge—on the top floor, with a splendid view—he explained his problem, or at least the part about the ship.

"You just want to find out what happened to
Lady Brillig
?" Alyaca asked. "Mm. I work with Mr. Kloss in other areas, mainly with transcontinental transport and that sort of thing. So I don't know anything about that ship, one way or the other. You'd have to find out from him—but he'd probably tell you."

Carlyle drank his roast quickly—and choked on it. He coughed until his windpipe was clear again. "Well," he grunted. "What do you think—"

She touched his forearm. "I think you should do what I said earlier. Why don't you stay here at the lodge and relax and wait for Irwin to return?" Her whole body seemed to shrug as she shifted in her seat. "Do you really have to go back?"

"Well—" and he started to say
yes
but thought about it. Why go back without information, if by waiting here he could get the information sooner? Except . . . how would he get along here in the open company of the public? A rather elite public at that—wealthy businesspeople. Would he have to endure hidden stares and invisible abuse?

She perhaps read his thoughts. "I'm not trying to talk you into anything. But if it's that you think the arrangements might be a problem, I could help you there."

"Thanks," he managed to say. Her touch on his arm had made him edgy as hell. He stalled, thinking.

"What?" he said, realizing that she had asked a question.

She tilted her head toward him. "You never told me your name. I told you mine. Come on, now. Fair's fair."

"Right," he said. "Absolutely. Gev Carlyle."

"Rigger Carlyle. Pleased to meet you!"

"Hi," he said, bobbing his head. Then he stopped. "Uh. I—ah, what was your name?" He tried, dizzily, to listen very carefully.

"Alyaca Perone." She pronounced it Uh-LIE-a-ka, with a smooth roll of the tongue.

A-
ly
-a-ca Per-one. Alyaca Perone, he repeated silently.

"You can call me Alyaca if I can call you Gev. Deal?"

"Deal, Alyaca. Perone." He swallowed, trying to hide his embarrassment. Perhaps he wouldn't have felt so awkward, except for the fact that she was so attractive. Absurdly, he wanted to make a good impression.

She was watching him, with a grin playing at her mouth.

"Miss—I mean, Alyaca. Why—why are you going to all this trouble?"

"No trouble."

"But still, you're—"

"Does there
have
to be a reason?"

"No—
yes.
No."

"So—there we are. Would you like another roast?"

He nodded. For a few moments, while she went to refill their cups, he sat quietly and watched the boats kiting back and forth across the lake. She set a fresh cup before him and sat down again. They watched the lake together, until he realized that she was watching him. He blushed and started to look her up and down, then caught himself and turned his gaze quickly back to the window. He concentrated very hard on a bright blue kiteboat which was skimming above the water, and hoped that she hadn't noticed. "That looks like fun," he said inaudibly.

She was relaxed, sipping her roast. He tried to conceal his agitation. "Hey, really," he blurted. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"You know. Why are you going out of your way to be nice to me?" No outsider was ever like this.

She thought for a moment before answering. "Well," she said. "If there has to be a reason, let's just say that I had a friend, and he left to become a rigger. That was a long time ago. But I thought, well—maybe it would be nice for me to be nice to another rigger." She looked at him, and this time he thought
she
was embarrassed. "That an okay reason?"

"Sure," he said. But it sounded false. She did not look to him like the kind of person who would have been involved with the kind of person who would have become a rigger.

Involved? he chided himself. She just said he was a friend. Now don't start making it something—

"Gev."

"Yes?"

"Do you want to stay? Because if not, you should be going now to catch the flyer. I wouldn't want you to miss it on account of me."

"Oh no, no, it wouldn't be on account of you. Anyway—" He looked at her and looked at the window. It was quite clean, but when one looked carefully, one could see a few small haze marks right down near the bottom, where perhaps someone had put his foot.

So did he want to stay or not? Conflicting urges knotted in his gut until he thought, well, he didn't want to get up this very instant and go running to the flyer, and it couldn't hurt anything to stay for the day. If he got lonely and depressed here, would it be any better back at the Guild quarters?

"I could show you around a little if you'd like to stay."

Impulsively, he grinned and nodded.

"Good! Now I have to go up to the office for a few minutes, and you can call the lodge from there and see about getting yourself a room." She put her cup down and got to her feet and, quite unsure of what he was doing, Carlyle followed.

While Alyaca was in her office, Carlyle called the nearest of the two lodges. Unfortunately, their accommodations were filled, and were in fact reserved for the next three weeks. Disappointed, he called the other lodge. They were less popular; they were only reserved for the next nine days. He signed off gloomily. Well, it wasn't as though he had planned to stay here in the first place, so he wasn't really losing anything. He could take the evening flyer back to Jarvis.

The gloom inside his head was so deep he couldn't see out. He didn't even notice Alyaca standing in front of him.

"Gev?" she said, for what must have been the third time.

"
Oh!
Hi," he said disconsolately.

"What's the matter?"

"No rooms."

She looked perplexed for a moment, then said, "Okay. Wait just a second." She disappeared back into the office. A minute later she came back and said, "All set. I've gotten you one of the Kloss guest rooms at the Taratelle."

"Is that all right?"

"Sure," she said, her eyes twinkling. "Irwin keeps three suites there—all the companies do that—and none of them are in use now. Don't worry, Irwin won't mind. He has to pay for them anyway."

He could hardly argue with that, so he went with her over to the Taratelle, which was a luxurious structure near the lake. Alyaca left him, saying that she'd be tied up for the next couple of hours. So he went up to see his room, which turned out to be a dazzling suite of three rooms. Dazed, he came back down and went out to see the lake and the beaches.

The late morning air was mild and the sun bright, and the sky deep and clear. The front terrace gave way to a stretch of twine-grass lawn, and then cream-colored sand sloping to the water's edge. He walked along the sand toward the boathouse, on a lagoon connected to the lake. A sailboat was moving out of the lagoon, past a kiteboat, which was heeled over at an impossible angle. That kiteboating looked interesting, he decided. He wondered if Alyaca would go with him.

Questions sprang into his mind with that thought. Such an attractive woman—just "being nice to a rigger"? Why? With what motive? Was it just possible that she found
him
attractive? His blood rose to his skin. Alyaca with a rigger? With him?

The notion was absurd.

Hold it, Carlyle, he thought. She was only being friendly. She had merely been courteous to him, and certainly there was nothing wrong in that.

He let the question wash over him for a minute, and then his real troubles rushed back. He had gotten nowhere in his efforts to connect his future with his past, and really he should be back at the Guild trying to see if anyone had a lead on the whereabouts of Janofer or Legroeder or Skan. He should be
doing
something.

He went to the lodge and found a call booth. It took him three minutes to get Walter Freyling on the phone. "Hello, Gev. I heard you were out at Lake Taraine. Are you having any success?"

"Not yet." He explained his situation to Freyling and said, "What I was hoping was that you might have found something on Janofer or Skan or Legroeder by now." His hope rose as he spoke. Surely something had been learned by now.

Freyling gave just the slightest nod to acknowledge Carlyle's hope, but his words were a gentle letdown. "No, I'm afraid I don't know anything more than the day before yesterday. So far we've come up with nothing beyond their original departure assignments. The only other thing is that I've issued a request for any staffer or rigger who knew your friends to come see me, but that hasn't turned up anything either." Freyling's eyes moved away from the phone for a moment, then he nodded and looked back at Carlyle. "Nothing on that missing letter, either. It seems fairly certain that Janofer Lief did not leave the letter on deposit here. Do you think she might have simply forgotten to leave it for you?"

Carlyle nodded reluctantly. It was all too possible. "I'm staying here for a few days, then, until Mr. Kloss comes back. Taratelle Lodge. Could you send out some of my clothes? And call me if—if—"

"We will," Freyling said. "Good luck, and enjoy yourself. Good-bye."

Enjoy yourself?

* * *

By the time Alyaca met him, he had become so edgy he found himself wishing that Cephean were here to complain and be temperamental.

She apologized for being late as she steered him into the restaurant for lunch. "That office is
supposed
to be just a front for vacationing, but there's always something coming up anyway. Did you get a good look around the place?"

"Uh-huh." He hesitated. "Do you know how to sail one of those kiteboats?"

"Sort of," she said. "Do you want to take one out?"

He shrugged. "Looks like it could be fun, if you know what you're doing."

"Oh, they're fun even if you don't."

"Does that mean—would you want to do it?"

She nodded with that grin playing at her lips again. Then she changed the subject and got him to order lunch, and they talked throughout the meal. Afterwards they went down to the boathouse and signed out a kiteboat.

The cockpit was just large enough for two people in fairly close quarters. In the vertical position they were riding about a meter and a half above water, with the feeling that nothing was holding them up. The keel-strut which bound them to the submerged tie-anchor unit was completely out of sight from inside the cockpit; and though in fact the keel-strut and tie-anchor held them down rather than up, that fact seemed like a lie when one watched other kiteboats gliding past. The levitators which actually held the boat in the air were mounted beneath the cockpit.

Alyaca got in first and took the front seat. "You can do the piloting," she said.

Carlyle looked up at the kite-sail buffeting over his head, freewheeling on the mast, and he picked up the lines which controlled the dump flaps at the top of the sail. The boat, he knew, was controlled primarily by shifting weight in the cockpit and changing the heel angle of the sail and strut, but the flaps presumably did something, too. He shook his head. "No." He handed the lines to Alyaca. "You drive. And show me how to do it." He couldn't help being embarrassed (a star pilot, afraid to handle a two-meter kiteboat?), but he was sure that he would only capsize them, and that would be a lot more embarrassing.