Delta Pavonis (24 page)

Dierdre, normally suspicious of unfamiliar people, felt relaxed. No one of this woman's stature had anything to gain from flattering her, so she was sure that the goodwill was sincere. Seconds later, a servobot of truly antiquated design rolled in on fat little wheels.

It was little more than a covered serving table with a rudimentary electronic brain, just sufficient to maneuver from the kitchen to readily accessible rooms. Its top deck bore covered dishes of decorated silver.

"As I said, old but efficient." Anastasia lifted a cover, releasing steam and fragrance. Much of the fare was seafood, raised in Avalon's huge salt-water tanks. There were few synthesized items, another evidence of the family's wealth.

Dierdre loaded a plate and bit into an enormous butterflied shrimp. The flavor almost brought tears to her eyes. It had been a long time since she had eaten like this.

"It's rather commonplace, I'm afraid," Anastasia said, "after you've been used to living on dinosaur meat."

Dierdre began to laugh, then to choke, while Anastasia thumped her back. "We only did that once!" she said when she could talk, "but nobody'll believe us. They think we're carnivorous cavemen down there."

"I suspected that. Yet you seem to have come through the deprivation and drudgery well."

"I wish I could have had more of it." It occurred to her that this might sound disloyal. "I love the work with Sieglinde; among other things it's the greatest education anyone could ask for. But I miss being out there in front, seeing things nobody has seen before. Things only happen for the first time once."

"I know what a thrill it can be. Still, you can't stay a hell-raising young adventurer forever. I know far too many who have blighted their lives by trying to remain as children for too long. You showed mature judgment in accepting Linde's offer to become her assistant. Your record shows that you would not bend to authority from mere submissiveness."

Dierdre found it difficult to react to sincere praise. She had experienced adulation, in her time, and had little use for it. This was different. "At least she keeps me too busy to be bored."

"And, a public persona has its uses, when dealing with the public. I saw your little display at the port today. It's good to see a little bravura in these pallid times."

Dierdre grinned, feeling about ten years old. "I wish they'd left it there, I'd have shot it down. I hate those things. That would've given them something for the late-shift news and made them leave Sieglinde alone."

"Well, there's no reason you have to grow up too quickly." She became more serious. "We have been very impressed with Linde's reports about you."

"Reports? She was sending in evaluations on me?" This was new.

"Oh, it's all quite informal. Nobody spies or keeps dossiers or anything like that. But Linde's a collateral member of the family, as a Taggart widow. And we do like to hear about promising new talent. I did mention that we adopt."

Dierdre was speechless. She didn't know whether to be flattered, angry or just shocked. "I already have a family," she said, finally.

"Most of us have several, it's no impediment."

"Did Sieglinde mention that I'm attached?"

"She did mention something about you and Mr. Forrest. She also said that it was not likely to last long, something about an excessive similarity between the two of you."

Dierdre felt her ears burning. It was an improvement. A few years before, it would have been a full-blown rage. "She seems to know quite a bit."

"She doesn't miss much. I realize that this is sudden, and that you have a great many other things on your mind just now. Think about it when you have time. There's no rush. And don't be angry with Sieglinde."

"She's told me a little about her ideas on conspiracy."

Anastasia smiled again. "It's not much of a conspiracy. Sometimes, Linde gives us a recommendation. She doesn't have to, and we don't have to act on them. It's a family thing."

"Thank you for the offer. It's something unique in my experience and I'll need time to consider it. In the meantime, however I decide, I'll always appreciate the honor." Tact. She was actually acquiring tact. She thanked Anastasia for her hospitality, then pleaded fatigue. Anastasia gave leave as graciously as she had extended welcome.

On the way back, Dierdre pondered this new turn of events. Was Sieglinde trying to manipulate her personal life, or was she just looking out for Dierdre's interests? She was always generous in promoting the careers of her students and subordinates, but no one had ever mentioned her sponsoring someone for inclusion in the clan. It was hard to figure, because Sieglinde just wasn't a normal human being. Dierdre had always considered herself different, an outsider, but she was positively conformist compared to Sieglinde.

What it was, she decided, was that her life had become an exercise in surrealism, ever since that Survey woman, whose name she could no longer remember, had, against her own better judgment, allowed Dierdre a planetary assignment. It seemed like decades ago. Between then and now had come dinosaurs, sabertooth cats, matter transporters, Sieglinde, and an alien whose intentions toward her were unclear. It wasn't the sort of thing they prepared you for back at the Academy, especially when you were pursuing a degree in topographical analysis.

When their belt units woke them, Dierdre felt oddly refreshed and ready for anything. Something had broken while she slept. It had fallen away and now she was free of it. She wasn't sure yet what it was, but she felt good.

Sieglinde noticed. "You're looking joyous for someone with such an uncertain future."

Dierdre brushed out her hair. It was almost elbow-length now, as black and glossy as obsidian. "Nobody's future is certain. But in a little while, we'll be doing something while almost everyone else has to sit and watch. We'll be taking the active role."

Sieglinde beamed. "That's my girl. You make me feel young again."

"You make me feel grown. Come on, Doc, we'll be late for the big show."

They dashed for the tube landing and caught a car just in time to hear a voice over the intercom: "The alien delegation will be received at the South Polar main lock.
Althing
members and authorized personnel are to proceed there at once. All others are to stay away. All proceedings will be shown by live holocast."

The message was repeated as they got off at the next landing and switched to a car going in the right direction.

"Why the South Polar dock?" Dierdre wondered. "I don't think it's been used since the big jump."

"It still gets used, from time to time. It's mainly for bulk freight. The locks are much larger. Maybe they want to make a grand entrance."

The landing at the port was thronged, as crowded cars disgorged everyone at once. There was much cursing and muttering as pages tried to sort people out and direct them to appropriate positions. Sieglinde saw a man in Sálamid dress uniform: a matte-black coverall emblazoned with the red Greek helmet design. The crowd parted for her almost unconsciously as she crossed the landing to stand before him.

"General Moore? You must be. I knew your father. You favor him."

The Sálamid saluted her informally. "He always spoke most highly of you, Dr. Kornfeld."

"I trust you will act with utmost restraint in the next few hours, General."

"We are not warmongers, despite what civilians think."

"But I suppose you have ships out there somewhere, on alert status?"

"We're not fools, either."

"Good, and I . . ." she broke off as Wyeth came up to them, sweating and understandably agitated.

"General, Dr. Kornfeld, you had better come inside now."

Neither seemed inclined to do so. Moore glanced up momentarily, seemingly looking over Wyeth's shoulder but actually checking an eye-implant scanner. "It's not urgent yet. Still twenty minutes to docking time. Let's let things get sorted out in there, then we can make a suitably dignified entrance."

"That sounds fine to me," Sieglinde said, then, to Wyeth: "Do they really intend a docking maneuver with that enormous ship?" She seemed amused rather than alarmed.

"So it seems, if we're interpreting their latest communication correctly. It only came in minutes ago. And we had the
Althing
chamber all set for a formal reception. We expected some sort of shuttle to deliver them to the North Polar dock." He shrugged. "Well, if they won't send a delegate ahead to arrange protocol, they'll just have to put up with what we can throw together. We've never had much experience at that sort of thing anyway. But the media people are going frantic in there, trying to set up their equipment in time."

A page stopped them by the entrance to the docking area. He stood guard over a rack draped with pistols and knives, even a sword on an ornate baldric. Some Island Worlders went armed as a religious tenet or just from a sense of personal style. "Check your weapons, please. None allowed inside."

Moore removed his pistol belt and handed it over. "I suppose it wouldn't do to terrify these planet-builders with these deadly things." Dierdre followed suit.

The interior of the dock was in an uproar. There weren't all that many people, considering the size of the place, but its acoustics were terrible. The holographic technicians were putting the finishing touches on their equipment, and everywhere Dierdre could see phantom objects appear and flicker out as units were tested: tiny ships, tigers, a Lunar mountain, even one of her favorite dinosaurs, a brilliant-faced triceratops. Then they all winked out and a voice sounded over the intercom: "Media net now complete."

Wyeth undipped his belt unit and spoke into it. "Please evacuate all media people except those who are authorized delegates or the cage crew."

Dierdre glanced up toward the cage: a glassed-in box overlooking the dock, ordinarily used for directing dock operations but now swarming with technicians and commentators.

"Be careful of your expression," Sieglinde warned. "They'll be doing closeups of you."

The docking area was a vast, flat expanse, large enough to handle a dozen standard freight pods at once. There was a double hatch large enough to admit a small spaceship, although the whole dock would have to be evacuated for such an event. More often, pods were admitted through the outer hatch; the lock was pressurized and they were towed in through the inner hatch. Above the hatch a thick, curved window twenty meters high and a hundred meters wide gave a magnificent view: a section of the planet and a broad starscape. Had they been turned toward the sun, the window would have opaqued automatically.

"There it is!" someone almost shouted. The ellipsoid ship came into view, gradually blotting out the starscape. It was no more than a hundred meters away. There was a mass inhaling of breath, tightly-held. Ordinarily, ships of such size were never allowed to approach so closely. Collisions were always catastrophic in the unforgiving environment of space.

Small holographic displays winked on around the assembly. Some showed the alien vessel alone, others showed the ship and Avalon together in smaller scale. Sieglinde and Dierdre stood in the midst of the scientific delegation and everyone wanted to talk at once.

"No speculations yet," Sieglinde said, quietly. "Just stay quiet and observe. We'll all have plenty to talk about later." Obediently, the hubbub died down.

"It still looks old," Dierdre said. "Older than any man-made object I've ever seen. I don't know how, but I don't think I'm imagining it."

"Nor do I," Sieglinde said. The huge ship began to project a wide, telescoping umbilicus. Its rectangular mouth was surrounded with winking, colored lights. "In fact, this reminds me of something I saw when I was a child."

"What might that be?" Moore asked. He stood at ease, hands lightly clasped behind his back.

"On the holos from Earth, I once saw the King of England meet some foreign head of state. The visitor arrived in a space-plane of the latest design, but the king, William the Fifth, I think it was, arrived in a horse-drawn carriage. And I remember seeing holos of the Pope being carried on a palanquin by twenty or thirty men."

"A deliberate archaism for diplomatic purposes?" said Moore, who seemed to pick up on such things far more quickly than Wyeth, whose supposed job it was. "That would make sense. It's always been popular with the military; trooping of the guard, old-fashioned dress uniforms and such."

"They might also be trying to spare us culture shock," Dierdre said. "Maybe they don't want to shock the natives with something our poor, primitive little brains can't comprehend."

"That could well be," Sieglinde said, "and they could be right. More than one Earth culture simply disintegrated upon contact with one more advanced, more powerful. When you think your nation is at the center of the universe and your god-king its most powerful being, it's a shock to find that you're a tiny, backward country in an obscure corner of the world."

"Umbilicus contact established," said a voice from the cage.

The
Althing
Speaker, a man named Kimathi, spoke. "Docking Authority, can you tell us how they did that?" He had a directional mike on him and did not need to use a manual unit.

"Either they built the thing for the occasion, or it's adjustable. The mouth is of the remora type, lined with a flexible material that conforms to the irregularities of our outer lock surface, where it seems to form some sort of molecular bond. It's quite sophisticated."

"Sophisticated," Wyeth agreed in a low voice, "but not quite what we might have expected from people who have mastered matter transmission."

There were groans and mechanical noises from the lock. Apparently the aliens' umbilicus-tunnel was pressurizing. Dierdre felt excited, tingling all over in a way she hadn't in too many years. The fear, the sick dread she had been feeling was gone. Whatever was coming, she was ready.

A voice echoed through the dock. It did not come over the intercom, but seemed to have no point of origin. It was a rolling, mellifluous, gorgeous voice. Dierdre found herself smiling broadly, and she hoped that nobody was watching her on holo, and wondering why she smiled. It was not the same voice, but she knew the type.