Moon Flower (15 page)

“Darwin before breakfast?” he grunted. Gloria held out her glass. He took it and crossed over to the cocktail cabinet and bar. There was still ice in the bucket. He refilled Gloria’s glass and mixed a Manhattan for himself.

“There was a thing on a few minutes ago about some kind of epidemic or something breaking out at another colony world, Amanthea?... Amanth?...”

“Amaranth?” Callen brought her glass over, then moved to stand staring at the vista of jungle waterfall and mountains in the simview window while he tasted his own.

“That’s it. The river’s turned red, and it’s wiping out a whole area. There were pictures of aliens falling down in the streets and stacks of bodies, all blotchy and bloated. There won’t be any chance of something like that happening at Cyrene, will there?”

“No one can ever rule out anything a hundred percent,” Callen said. “But you don’t have to worry. The medical scans and profiles for Cyrene are pretty complete. You’ll be properly protected.”

“No, I know
we
wouldn’t catch it. But who’d want to walk around with that kind of thing all around? And the smell would be
ghastly
.”

“Cyrene seems to have a healthier climate than Amaranth all-round,” Callen said. “Some of the biologists think it has something to do with the cycling between extremes. But they haven’t figured out quite how yet.”

“Oh, Myles, you’re not going to start getting technical on me, are you? I don’t have a head for it. That’s the kind of thing you hire people to know.”

And they hired people like him to protect them, Callen thought to himself. And without people like him, what would their importance and influence be? Nothing. Without guns and people with the mettle to use them, they wouldn’t hang on to their wealth and their properties for a week. The utter dependency behind their arrogance and airs of superiority made him contemptuous. And that made screwing their wives and roughing them around all the more gratifying. Just how easy it could be never ceased to amaze him. Spoiled children looking for entertainment. He sensed that she was watching him.

“What are you standing there, looking so serious about?” her voice asked. He turned from the simview and looked at her. She shook her head, causing long blond tresses to fall loose over the orange silk, and stared at him pointedly over her glass as she drank.

“Just things I have to do today,” he said.

“Why now? There’s still weeks before we get to Cyrene.”

Callen moved back to stand beside the bed and looked down at her. His eyes were mocking. “So show me what you do have a head for,” he said.

Her mouth pouted, then curled into a wicked smile. “You really can be a bastard.” She drained her glass and set it down, then reached for the belt of his robe. “But I like bastards.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The
Tacoma
transferred back into normal space inside the planetary system of Ra Alpha a little under two million miles from the point computed by dead reckoning, which was considered not bad by the standards currently being attained. The remainder of voyage to Cyrene, under conventional nuclear propulsion, took two days.

During that time, the occupants who had crossed interstellar space for the first time gradually became accustomed to the wonder of viewing a sky unlike any that had ever been seen from Earth, and watched with fascination and a steadily increasing restless anticipation as Cyrene grew larger and resolved more unfolding detail on the ship’s screens. The images themselves were not unfamiliar, of course, having been reproduced in countless shots sent back from the original probes and the two manned missions that had followed since. But this time the images were not retrievals from an archive of data sent back from afar. They were live, of a world that was really out there beyond the walls of the ship. For many of those aboard, it brought home for the first time the immensity of the distance that now separated them from Earth.

Interstellar mission ships like the
Tacoma
were expensive and in high demand, with highly specialized crews, so the previous two had long since departed. The only evidence of Terran presence above the surface were a robot freighter that had arrived a couple of weeks earlier to deliver supplies, currently being loaded with marketable cargo for Earth and biological, botanical, mineral, and other samples of scientific interest, and a network of satellites put up for communications and surface navigation. Under normal circumstances, bases and settlements on newly discovered worlds were left to their own devices between ship calls, maintaining contact with Earth via H-links. But no time had been announced for the length of the
Tacoma
’s intended stay at Cyrene, which fitted with the notion of the rumor that Karen had started, of disappearances among the earlier arrivals. Not that Shearer and his companions saw the situation as necessarily something to be apprehensive about. After all, they reasoned, if something was attracting previous arrivals away, it couldn’t be all that bad. The question that concerned him more was what those in command of the Terran presence on Cyrene proposed doing about it.

The planet itself was larger than Earth but with a lower core density, resulting in a surface gravity that was marginally less than Earth’s — one of the Terrans there described it in a report that Shearer had watched as “invigorating.” On average, about two-thirds of the surface was ocean, but since both polar regions contained large areas of seas that were relatively shallow, the amount of open water varied widely with Cyrene’s position along its peculiar orbit. At lower latitudes the oceans were smaller with landmasses more evenly distributed than on Earth, between eight and a dozen of them sprawled over the surface amid variously shaped bodies of water to a sufficient extent to earn a classification of “continent” from one or another of the geographical authorities that had pondered the subject, but as yet no official pronouncement had been agreed. The candidate continents, and the assortments of lesser mainlands, islands, and archipelagos clustered around and scattered between them, extended through regions of jungle, desert, mountain, forest, and plain, each experiencing greater extremes of conditions than any of their counterpart zones on Earth. In fact, the nature of many of these regions was not fixed, but transformed from one kind into another as the climate progressed through its complex cycle. Comments had come back consistently from the few areas so far explored in any detail on the richness and diversity of every form of life.

The city of Revo occupied a neck of land connecting two parts of the deeply indented western coastline of one of the larger landmasses in the mid-northern latitudes, with a long lake extending away into forested mountain country on its inland side, and an arm of sea widening to open ocean on the other. The Terran base was situated ten miles east of the city on a line of low hills sloping down to the south shore of the lake. A stretch of river spanned by several bridges connected the lake to the sea, its mouth forming a harbor always filled with vessels sporting riots of colorful sails and looking almost like bird plumage. The buildings of the town were mostly of red, brown, orange, and gray brick and stone, solid and tall, with accentuated perpendicularity and steep roofs, packed densely along narrow streets and alleyways in the center and by the waterfront, but giving way to more open layouts with courtyards and gardens farther out. Domes and towers were evidently popular, gracing the skyline in all shapes and sizes.

The main means of land transport was by animal power. One of the principal types employed — in that area of the planet, anyway — took the form of a four-legged creature used both for riding and drawing in the manner of a horse, which did bear a strong resemblance to a horse, and which earlier Terran arrivals had christened, not too surprisingly, a “horse.” There were also a variety of sturdier, more bovine-like and other ungulate-like types, more suited to slower, heavier work, and some without recognizable similarities to any Terran forms at all.

Shearer was with a group that shuttled down from the
Tacoma
four hours after it took up a parking orbit fifteen hundred miles above Cyrene. Jeff and most of the others that he tended to mix with were there too, but Jerri had gone on the previous shuttle. After all the talk and preparation through the two-month voyage, and then the buildup of suspense that had affected everybody in the final few days, finally they had arrived. Yet the descent found them all strangely quiet as they sat staring at the succession of progressively enlarging views on the cabin wall screen, each for the most part absorbed in their own private thoughts.

Three sambot-constructed personnel carriers took them from the pad area to the base compound. They were the first examples that Shearer had seen of working sambots in operation; the classroom examples shown during the voyage had been small-scale affairs to demonstrate the principle. The system out of which the carriers were assembled had been developed to build shell structures, and consisted of two basic types of platelike module: one square, the other triangular, each measuring three to four feet along a side. Actuators and latches located on the edges enabled a newly added module to “flip” its way end over end across the surface of the growing structure to lock into its target location. Special-purpose modules included mobility units, containing wheels that pivoted out on supporting struts and inflated, each with an independent motor, and a variety of service units and operating tools.

Bases established on new worlds were considered to be shopwindows of the Terran culture, hinting at all the wonders and riches to come if the native rulers agreed to be sensible and went along with Earth’s policies. The documentaries and news clips showed them as bustling centers of activity, with new constructions constantly being added, machines in motion, vehicles coming and going, and glittering light shows and floodlight displays at night. But as they approached the perimeter, it became evident that Revo base hadn’t made it to that league. Unopened containers brought down from orbit lay in lines outside the fence, while construction inside hadn’t proceeded much beyond the basic layout of administration building, workshop and storage units, and accommodation blocks that would be expected in the early phases. A clutter of vehicles was parked around the Admin Building, no doubt in connection with the arrivals from the
Tacoma
that had shuttled down earlier, but otherwise the activity going on around seemed scattered and indifferent. The others in the bus were exchanging worried looks. If this was an indication of the defection rate the place had been experiencing, it would mean there was a real problem.

“I’m thinking maybe you were right all along after all,” Greg told Karen. She just shrugged and shook her head in a way that said she would rather not have been.

“We’ll find out soon enough now, anyway,” somebody else said.

Shearer looked out again at the quiet walkways between the huts, and the skeletal upper stories still awaiting completion. He registered in a distant, almost unconscious kind of way that Jeff was the only one who wasn’t showing surprise.

They had been told to check with the General Office in the main Administration Building. Personal baggage from the ship would be delivered to the base later. The lobby area was crowded and noisy when Shearer and the others entered, with people jostling around a service desk on one side, and others clustered about several offices opening from corridors leading away left and right. He stopped inside the door and looked around, trying to get some bearings, while others detached from the group to go in search of directions. Then Jerri emerged from the throng ahead and came over, with Nim beside her on a short leash. “Hey, you made it,” she greeted. “It’s bedlam city if you’re not a VIP.”

Shearer stooped to ruffle Nim’s ears and was rewarded with a head being rubbed solidly against his palm. “Have you got the system figured yet?” he asked Jerri.

“The first thing is to get your accommodation assignment.”

“I take it there’s plenty available.”

“Oh, you noticed.”

“It’s not exactly Times Square out there. So what do I do?”

“I’ve already done it.” Jerri handed him a plastic wallet that she had been holding. “You’re in Block B — Room B6. I’m in D. As far as I’ve been able to find out, it looks as if you were right about Wade. He doesn’t seem to be around. I’m not sure who would be the best person to talk to. There’s a guy called Innes, who’s listed as the Assistant Scientific Administration Director. His office is along that way, but he seems to be a bit snowed under. Maybe you should try him tomorrow, when things have settled down.”

Shearer looked at the people milling around in the corridor that she had indicated. “What about the Director?”

“I’m not sure there is one.”

Jeff appeared from somewhere. “You need to find your accommodation slot,” he told Shearer. “Hi, Jerri. Hi, dog.” Nim flattened his ears and looked wooden.

“Already done. Jerri took care of it.” Shearer showed the wallet.

“Some people get all the breaks. Oh-oh, Zoe’s waving about something over there. Catch you later.” Jeff disappeared again.

“So how about you?” Shearer asked Jerri. “Have you managed to track down this Lemwitz person yet?” Martha Lemwitz was Interworld’s Social Sciences Coordinator on Cyrene. The slot for an anthropologist that Jerri had been sent to fill reported to her.

Jerri shook her head. “Not listed on the current contact list, just like Wade. I think I might have become an orphan already.”

Shearer released an exasperated sigh. “What a way to run a planet. Do you think the Cyreneans are taking notes?”

“Come on, let’s get you fixed up across the way, anyhow,” Jerri said. “Be ready for the hit when you walk outside, though. After two months in the ship, it goes to your head like a shot of moonshine.”

They left the building and followed a short roadway to the rows of chalet blocks that formed the residential sector of the base. The first minutes of outside air were fresh and mildly scenty, and indeed with a distinctly intoxicating rush; but whether caused by something in the air or simply a reaction after their long confinement, the effect quickly passed. The day was warm and bright, with Ra Alpha high in the sky, and Ra Beta visible as a lesser, secondary sun lower down toward the horizon. As they had learned aboard ship, Cyrene was in the mid portion of its ellipse, moving away from perigee, with the two stars in an intermediate position between those associated with climatic extremes in their nine-year cycle. For the moment conditions at the latitude of Revo were in a subtropical-temperate phase close to ideal, and ship’s fatigue clothing was comfortable.