Starfarers (25 page)

“Sir?” asked astonishment. “A passenger? Have we ever carried any?”

“Rarely. Last was before you were born. Nearly always a round trip, of course. Who’d want to spend ten, twenty, fifty years waiting for a return connection? This is a special case.”

“Does the captain wish to explain?”

“I’d better. At ease. Sit down.” Seralpin gestured. Kenri took a chair facing the desk. They were groundside on Maia. The Kith maintained offices in Landfall, the planet’s principal town. Sunlight streamed in through an open window, together with subarctic warmth and a cinnamonlike odor from a stand of native silvercane.

“After I got the word, naturally I searched out everything I could about her,” Seralpin said. “She’s the Freelady Nivala Tersis from Canda. An ancestor of hers acquired large holdings on Morgana in pioneering days. The family still draws a
fair amount of income from the property, though she’s the first of them to visit it since then. Evidently she—or rather, no doubt, an agent of hers—made inquiries at Kith Town and learned what the current arrangements, schedules, were for 61 Virginis.”

“Current” is not exactly the word
, passed through Kenri.
We’re talking about a span of several centuries. But no, that’s by cosmic time. To Kithfolk, not very many years. And “schedule” is pretty vague, too, the more so when fewer ships ply the lanes now than once did.

“You can see how it worked out,” Seralpin went on. “Given the existing agreement on trade circuits, she could take
Eagle
here, knowing
Polaris
and
Fleetwing
would call within about a year of her arrival before proceeding to Sol.
Fleetwing
happened to make port first, and she’s ready to go, so we’ll take her.” Seralpin paused. “I can’t say I’m overjoyed. However, she’ll pay well, and you don’t refuse a person of that status. Not if you want to stay in business at Earth.”

“Why would anybody like that ever come, sir?”

Seralpin shrugged. “Officially, to inspect the holdings and collect data, with a view to possible improvement of operations. Actually, I imagine, for the thrill and glory. How many in her circle have gone beyond the Solar System? She’ll be a glamour figure for a while, till the next fad comes along.”

“Um, uh, maybe she’s serious, sir. At least partly. She’s taking some risk and making some sacrifice. She can’t be sure what things will be like when she returns, except that everybody she knew will be aging or dead.”

“So much the better,” replied Seralpin cynically. “New fashions, new amusements, and new young people. Liberation from boredom. She spent her time on this planet till lately, and only then popped over to Morgana. Now she wants back, though she knows we won’t leave for weeks.”

“Well, sir, Morgana’s not humanly habitable. Those valuable biochemicals can be repulsive-looking, or dangerous, in their native state.”

Seralpin grinned. “That’s why I picked you to fetch her.
You’re an idealist who wants to believe the best about his fellow human beings. You should get along with her and not have to swallow as much rage as most of us would.” He turned solemn. “Make sure you do get along. Be super-respectful and obliging. She’s not ordinary upper class, she’s a Star-Free.”

Thus it came about that Kenri Shaun piloted a boat to the neighbor planet. At the present configuration, a one-gravity boost took four days. He spent some of the time rigging a private section for the guest, though it left scant room for him, and arranging the minor luxuries that his mother had suggested he lay in. Afterward he was largely at the reader screen, continuing his study of Murinn’s
General Cosmology
. He couldn’t win promotions if he didn’t have that material firmly in his head.

But must he accept it as the absolute last word? True, there hadn’t been any fundamental change since Olivares and his colleagues worked out their unified physics. Everything since had been details, empirical discoveries, perhaps surprising but never basic. After all, went the argument, the universe is finite, therefore the scientific horizon must be, too. Where a quantitative explanation of some phenomenon is lacking—biological, sociological, psychological, or whatever—that is merely because the complexity makes it unfeasible to solve the Grand Equation for this particular case.

Kenri had his doubts. Already he had seen too much of the cosmos to keep unqualified faith in man’s ability to understand it. His attitude was not unique among his folk. When they mentioned it to an Earthling, they generally got a blank look or a superior smile. … Well, science was a social enterprise. Maybe someday a new civilization would want to ask new questions. Maybe there would still be some Kith ships.

He set down on Rodan Spacefield and took the slideway into Northport. The hot, greenish rain sluicing over the transparent tube would have poisoned him. Though its machines kept it clean, a subtle shabbiness had crept into the Far Frontier Hotel. Partly that was because of the plantationers
drinking in the lounge. They weren’t rowdy, but lives as lonely as theirs didn’t make for social graces.

Hence Kenri’s surprise approached shock when he entered the suite and found a beautiful young woman. He recovered, bowed with arms crossed on breast, and introduced himself humbly. That was the prescribed way for one of his station to address one of hers, according to the latest information from the laser newsbeams.

“Greeting, Ensign,” she replied. Her language hadn’t changed a great deal since he had learned it. She got his rank wrong; he didn’t venture to correct her. “Let’s be on our way.”

“Immediately, Freelady?” He’d hoped for a day or two in which he could relax, stretch his muscles, go someplace other than the boat.

“I’m weary of this dreary. My baggage is in the next room, packed. You should be able to carry it.”

He managed a smile. At the craft, he managed an apology for her cramped, austere quarters. “That’s all right,” she said. “The ferry out was no better. I called for a ship’s boat for the sake of trying something different.”

After they had lifted, settled into steady boost, and unharnessed, she glanced at her timepiece. “Hu, how late,” she said. “Don’t worry about dinner. I’ve eaten and now want to go to bed. I’ll have breakfast at, um, 0900 hours.”

But then she surprised him anew. Having stood pensive a moment, she looked in his direction and the blue gaze was by no means unfriendly. “I forgot. You must be on quite another cycle. What time is it by your clocks? I should start adapting.”

“We have four days for that,” he replied. “The first breakfast shall be when the Freelady wishes.” It was not convenient for him, but somehow he did not now resent it.

Emerging from his berth after a few hours’ sleep, he was again surprised by finding her already up. Her tunic would have been provocative were they of equal status. As it was, he merely admired the view. She had started his readscreen, evidently curious to know what interested him, and sat pondering Murinn’s text. She nodded at his salutation and said,
“I don’t understand a word of this. Does he ever use one syllable where six will do?”

“He cared for precision, Freelady,” answered Kenri. On impulse: “I would have liked to know him.”

“You people do a lot of reading, don’t you?”

“Plenty of time for that in space, Freelady. Of course, we have other recreations as well. And communal activities, such as educating the children.” He wouldn’t discuss the rituals with an Earthling.

“Children—Do you truly need hundreds in a crew?”

“No, no. Uh, Freelady. When we’re on a planet, though, we often need many hands.”
And all want to travel, to walk on those worlds. It’s in our blood.

She nodded. “M’hm. Also, the only way to keep a family, no? To keep your whole culture alive.”

He stiffened. “Yes, Freelady.” What business was it of hers?

“I like your Town,” she said. “I used to go there. It’s—quaint? Like a bit of the past, not virtual but real.”

Sure. Your sort come to stare. You walk around drunk, and peek into our homes, and when an old man goes by you remark what a funny little geezer he is, without bothering to lower your voices, and when you haggle with a shopkeeper and he tries to get a fair price you tell each other how this proves we think of nothing but money. Sure, we’re happy to have you visit us.
“Yes, Freelady.”

She looked hurt. A while after breakfast she withdrew behind her screen. He heard her playing a portable polymusicon. He didn’t recognize the melody. It must be very old, and yet it was young and tender and trustful, everything that was dear in humankind.

When she stopped he felt an irrational desire to impress her. The Kith had their own tunes, and many were also ancient. Equally archaic was the instrument he took forth, a guitar. He tuned it, strummed a few chords, and left his mind drift. Presently he began to sing.

“When Jerry Clawson was a baby

On his mother’s knee in old Kentuck,

He said, ‘I’m gonna ride those deep-space rockets

Till the bones in my body turn to dust.’—”

He sensed her come out and stand behind him, but pretended not to. Instead he regarded the stars.

“—Jerry’s voice came o’er the speaker:

‘Cut your cable and go free.

On full thrust, she’s blown more shielding.

Radiation’s got to me.

“‘Take the boats in safety Earthward.

Tell the Blue Star Line for me

I was born with deep space calling.

Now in space forevermore I’ll be.’”

He ended with a crash of strings, turned his head, and rose.

“No, sit down,” she said before he could bow. “We’re not on Earth. What was that song?”

“‘Jerry Clawson,’ Freelady,” he replied. “A translation from the original English. It goes back to the days of purely interplanetary flight.”

Star-Frees were supposed to be intellectuals as well as aesthetes. He waited for her to say that somebody ought to collect Kith folk ballads in a database.

“I like it,” she said. “Very much.”

He glanced away. “Thank you, Freelady. May I make bold to ask what you were playing?”

“Oh, … that’s even older. ‘Sheep May Safely Graze.’ By a man named Bach.” A slow smile crossed her lips. “I would have liked to know him.”

He raised his eyes to hers. They did not speak for what seemed a long while.

Hith Town
lay in a bad district. It didn’t always. Kenri remembered a peaceful lower-class neighborhood; his parents
had told him of bourgeoisie; his grandparents—whom he had never met, because they retired from starfaring before he was born and were therefore centuries dead—had spoken of bustling commerce; before the city was, Kith Town stood alone. Forever it remained Kith Town, well-nigh changeless.

No, probably not forever, the way the traffic was dwindling. Nor really changeless. Sometimes war had swept through, pockmarking walls and strewing streets with corpses; sometimes a mob had come looting and beating; often in the last several Earthside lifetimes, officers had swaggered in to enforce some new proclamation. Kenri shivered in the autumn wind and walked fast. He’d learned that nowadays, except for where the monorail from the spaceport stopped, there was no public transport within three kilometers.

Light became harsh as he entered the Earthling neighborhood, glare from side panels and overhead fixtures. He had heard this was decreed less to discourage crime than to keep it in its place, under surveillance. Vehicles were few. Inhabitants slouched, shambled, shuffled along littered walkways between grimy facades. Their garments were sleazy and they stank. Most of them were loose-genes, but he saw the dull, heavy faces of Normal-Ds among them, or the more alert countenance of a Normal-C or B. Twice a Standard thrust them aside as he hastened on his errand, ashine in the livery of the state or a private master. Then Kenri imagined he saw an electric flickering in the eyes around. Though still ignorant of current politics, he had caught mention of ambitious Dominants who were courting the poor and disinherited. Yes, and the Martians were restless, and the Radiant of Jupiter openly insolent. …

But the state should be more or less stable through his and Nivala’s lifetime, and they could make provision for their children.

An elbow jabbed his ribs. “Out o’ the way, tumy!”

He tensed but stepped off the walk. The man strutted on by. As Kenri went back, a woman, leaning fat and frowzy
from a second-floor window, jeered at him and spat. He dodged, but could not dodge the laughter that yelped around him.

Has it gotten this bad?
he thought.
Well maybe they’re taking out on us what they don’t yet dare say to the overlords.

The long view gave thin consolation. He felt shivery and nauseated. And the sadness in his father and mother—Though Nivala awaited him, he needed a drink. A lightsign bottle winked above a doorway ahead.

He entered. Gloom and sour smells closed in on him. A few sullen men slumped at tables. A mural above them jerked through its obscenities. A raddled Standard-D girl smiled at him, saw his features and badge, and turned away with a sniff.

A live bartender presided. He gave the newcomer a glazed stare. “Vodzan,” Kenri said. “Make it a double.”

“We don’t serve no tumies here,” said the bartender.

Kenri sucked in a breath. He started to go. A hand touched his arm. “Just a minute, spaceman,” said a soft voice; and to the attendant: “One double vodzan.”

“I told you—”

“This is for me, Ilm. I can give it to anyone I want. I can pour it on the floor if I so desire. Or over you.”

The bartender went quickly off to his bottles.

Kenri looked into a hairless, dead-white face. The skull behind had a rakish cast. The lean gray-clad form sat hunched at the bar, one hand idly rolling dice from a cup, scooping them up, and rolling again. The fingers had no bones, they were small tentacles, and the eyes were cat yellow, all iris and slit pupil.

“Uh, thank you, sir,” Kenri stammered in bewilderment. “May I pay—”

“No. On me.” The other accepted the goblet and handed it over. He put no money down. “Here.”