Absorption (8 page)

More children reinforced the girl in red, including one with a water balloon. The little boy made a strategic retreat. Abruptly Brett integrated the scene on the beach with maps he had viewed earlier. The blue building was a breeder facility where nanomachines were produced. In a war, that building would be a target. Brett suspected that the Oceanians would defend it, knowingly or not, under the influence of the hive mind.

And there were children playing outside it. Brett had a momentary vision of children maimed by wireguns in a battle for a facility that should not have been erected near a civilian city. He regretted not having found a way to work up to this, but leaving it unsaid would reduce the chance of finding a peaceful resolution that Peterson would accept, and that would safeguard humanity. He kept his voice calm and level, neither raising it in anger nor flinching from the hard words that had to be said.

“As unhappy as saying this makes me, I might have a lot of blood on my hands if I fail to say it clearly. We are aware that what we require will mean huge changes in your infrastructure, and we are prepared to bear much of the cost, but we are prepared to use military force as a last resort if you refuse.”

Nocker said coolly, “I’ll convey that to my superiors.”

Brett’s threat hung in the air as they left.

Brett sat very straight, mostly because the tabs in the collar of his dress uniform dug into his neck when he did anything else. He didn’t enjoy formal occasions.

The salad before him had glowing vegetables, but everyone else was eating it. He speared a luminescent shape with his salad fork and cautiously chewed it. It tasted like any other pepper. At first he thought the small red sphere next to it was a tomato. It wasn’t, but it had a crunch and a pleasantly tangy taste.

Brett looked up from his salad, from the lace fringed tablecloth and gleaming silverware. The waiters wore tuxedos, presumably to give the banquet a cosmopolitan air. They contrasted pleasantly with the blue and white or blue and cream worn by most of the other men there. Women wore all the colors of the rainbow.

The small talk was more interesting than he had anticipated. Even the commonplaces of this planet were new to him. He met a man who created tiny sculptures from single artificial diamonds, and another who spoke with enthusiasm of wagering on a sport involving two teams of eight men and one dog. The Ambassador wasn’t eating or talking much, and looked rather pale and almost ill. Brett felt a pang of sympathy. Most of the people around them were ordinary beings and not people who had had their individuality absorbed by the Oceanian supermind. Presumably Williams knew that, but he didn’t seem to feel it.

A few moments later, the dinner ended and a band began to play live music. Brett heard the strains of an ancient waltz from Old Earth, a cultural contact point for people from many worlds with a classical education. Landfall was a multicultural city, near the planet’s largest spaceport, with visitors from several worlds. Many of the people around them got up to dance.

The Ambassador hadn’t been seated far from Brett, and Brett moved a few seats so they could talk privately. “Are you all right?”

Williams nodded. Brett decided his discomfort around Oceanians was the problem. Very odd for an ambassador. Brett found something sympathetic to say. “I suppose you were originally slated to be part of the off planet support staff, and meeting Oceanians personally came as something of a shock to you. I’m sure you’ll be comfortable with them in no time.”

Williams snapped back at him. “I’m fine. Just remember we’re here to prevent a war, not start one.”

A couple of people turned their heads, but hopefully hadn’t made out the words. Brett felt all the sympathy drain out of him. He was tired of hypocrisy and unmerited criticism. “Thanks for reminding me. Speaking of which, I’m sure the Oceanians know they make some other humans uncomfortable. Maybe we should ask a couple of them to dance, so they’ll know we see them as regular folks.”

The ambassador nodded, and mumbled. Brett couldn’t make out all the words. Possibly to the effect that Brett should indeed ask one of the women to dance. Also Williams was happy Brett about getting over his prejudice, but wanted to sit a few more minutes. Brett should circulate, and if by any chance he couldn’t find Williams they would meet back at the embassy.

Some of the words escaped under the ambient noise, but the general spirit was clear. Brett shut off that line of retreat. “Ah, but Ambassador, notice how most of the female wallflowers are talking together in couples? It’s rather hard for a woman to be alone at a dance waiting to be asked. And it’s rather hard to walk out to two women and ask one to dance while leaving one standing.”

While the ambassador struggled in a trap of his own devising, Brett glanced around. The arrangement of the huge square ballroom resembled a giant donut. Tables lined three walls the band had set up in front of the entrance. The pastry ring within them remained unfurnished, clear for dancing. The hole consisted of an island of tables, hopefully dignitaries rather than outcasts. Couples now danced past them.

Brett picked out a likely pair with which to torment the ambassador. They were actually rather pretty. The one with the flower in her hair looked a little tawdry, but in a come-and-get-it rather than a repulsive manner.

Brett gestured in their direction. “Come on, get up and let’s go talk to them.”

Brett wasn’t keen on dancing just now, but knew his bluff wouldn’t be called. The ambassador’s knuckles were white where his hand gripped the table. A couple of young men walked up to the ladies Brett had spotted and began talking. He would have to find another pair.

Brett’s eyes were drawn to a woman. She moved on the beat, though not a superb dancer by conventional measure. There was something detached about her. She floated where her partner led her, seemingly out of carelessness rather than abandon. Soft red boots ended in high heels. Her white dress was trimmed with red, and her fair skin by the slight flush on her cheeks, which appeared to be natural rather than makeup. Blond hair hung to the middle of her back, a soft cloud rather than perfectly straight.

She was a candy cane angel, Brett thought irreverently. He realized he had stared too long when her eyes met his for a moment. Brett wasn’t sure what held his attention, but as she was escorted the diplomatic thing was probably to look elsewhere.

Many would have considered the man with her handsome, but his too smooth features irritated Brett. The couple was only a few steps away from Brett when the candy cane angel spoke. “If you’re still tired you can sit down awhile, Michael.”

Her voice was just as Brett would have imagined it, sweet but with a hint of mischief. Had she seen Brett looking at her?

The opportunity was too perfect to ignore, and Brett stood up impulsively. “May I cut in?”

As he spoke, the spell broke, and he wondered what he was doing. Brett wasn’t shy, but she seemed heart-stoppingly beautiful at that moment, and this was a ball on an unfamiliar world. Landfall was near the largest spaceport on Oceania, and could assume the patina of ancient Earth when she chose to make her guests feel comfortable, or cast it off when they crossed a line.

She smiled at her companion, presumably Michael. “Do you mind?”

The girl had made it difficult for him to say no without seeming churlish by reminding him of some earlier claim of tiredness. From the sullen expression on his face as he took in Brett, the reply could have been ‘Who let that pig in here?’ Instead Michael said, “If you want to.”

She walked lightly towards Brett. With perfect timing, the band started a tango. As they danced, he felt her body against his. Brett pretended not to notice the black look from the man who was headed back to his seat. After all, he could have objected.

They danced in silence until the tango ended. Brett spoke softly as they began a waltz so she had to hold her head a little closer to hear him. “I’m Brett Johnson.”

“I’m Ariel Lilac.”

“Lovely planet you have here.”

Brett hadn’t realized how that sounded until after it came out.

Ariel laughed lightly, a pretty peal of sound. “You can’t have seen much of it yet! Or have you? What do you think?”

Brett nodded judiciously. “This city is so beautiful. I couldn’t figure out what all the quiet came from, until I realized it was the lack of vehicles on the street. Your transportation network is underground, right?”

She nodded. “The Podlink, yes.”

“From a distance everything looks so peaceful. Up close you see doors opening as people walk up, and pods arriving without people pushing the button, so it’s kind of uncanny. I know that sort of thing is done with your brain interface, but still.”

Suddenly Brett’s mouth was dry, but Ariel was willing to carry the conversation. “Do you have anywhere else to compare it to? Has the Space Force shown you many worlds?”

So she recognized the uniform, or there weren’t many off world uniforms here. “Three, counting my home world, which I guess they didn’t really show me.”

Michael tapped Brett on the shoulder, “May I cut in?”

Brett repressed his reluctance. Under the circumstances, further pursuit was excluded by his job description. It required a distinct effort not to follow her with his eyes before she vanished into the crowd. He stood a few moments as the crowd swirled around him, grappling with an absurd sense of loss. At least he was doing a better job mingling with the crowd than Williams, though he didn’t care as much as he had a few minutes ago.

What the heck. No sense thinking of the impossible. He saw a woman who had white hair proudly done up in an elaborate hairdo. She was seated, but something about the way her feet tapped to the music told Brett she wouldn’t mind a dance. Either her hair and skin appeared older than they were, or else her lively movements were another tribute to Oceanian medical technology and long Oceanian life expectancies.

He couldn’t quite catch her musical sounding name, after asking her to repeat it once Brett decided to pretend he had heard it. It amused him to think he might be a bull in a china shop when it came to negotiations, but he was more sociable than his nominal boss. As they circled round the ballroom, Brett noticed things he had missed before. Most visitors not native to Oceania seemed to be concentrated near the center of the room, and standard English was spoken there, the English language that had been carried from Old Earth in recordings and electronic documents.

From around the edges of the room he could pick up strange and unusual sounds, the languages that had evolved on Oceania. Somehow the contrast made Brett think of a planet alive with a secret, with the center of the room not as the heart but as the superficial skin.

When the waltz ended the woman with the liquid name wanted to sit down to talk with some friends. He escorted her to her table and then mingled with the crowd, moving farther from the center of the room. Still determined not to think of Ariel, and to see at least a little slice of this new planet, he began to distinguish the sounds of one unfamiliar language from another. There were still voices speaking English. Many languages were spoken on Oceania, although ones descended from English predominated. It wasn’t only the language that changed as Brett crossed an invisible line into another world. Someone had set up a little buffet table (why after dinner?) with plenty of clean plates. There were foods nobody had thought to offer to the off-worlders. Brett sampled something that looked like curried chicken, but found the spice was unfamiliar as his eyes started to water.

On the wall he was surprised to see a familiar image: Eduardo the elder freeing the pigs from the tiny pens they had been raised in their whole lives, next to the slaughterhouse. Behind him were the men with torches who had burned him to death, though traditionally they had not found him until he had freed the monkeys. Of course there were Lifists on Oceania, but it didn’t seem quite the thing for a ballroom. What other functions did this room serve?

Brett’s ear was caught by a voice a table or so away, in easy to understand English with only a slight Oceanian lilt.

“Everybody stop laughing. I’m not going to tell you her name, but it really did happen. Anyway, the marriage counselor says he has to charge her for the session even though her husband didn’t show up because he would have scheduled another couple. She bargains him down to seventy percent, then decides she’s had enough aggravation for the time being and heads home for a nap. When she walks into her bedroom she finds her husband screwing a girl less than half his age. For a split second she stops to think. This marriage doesn’t have anything left for her, and she’s sick of his self serving guilt mixed with smugness at his conquests, and sick of being pitied. So she keeps her voice polite.

‘Honey, I wish you’d told me to reschedule our appointment because the therapist said he has to charge us anyway. If you wanted me out of the house because you’re too cheap to rent a motel room I would have gone shopping.’

“Then she tells the girl underneath him, ‘Dear, I’m sure you could do better.’”

Brett failed to suppress his laughter in time, and so was revealed as an eavesdropper. He recognized the next voice.

“Ariel, I think your new friend has come to see you again. He follows you around like a lost puppy.”

Ariel waved Brett over and introduced the others at the table, perhaps an implicit apology for Michael’s rudeness. He stood behind an empty chair.