Starfarers (38 page)

The injuries were actually rather few, on shins, elbows, knees, hips, arms. He was soon done. “Ah, thanks. It’s like little hotpads.” She took his hands in hers. “Now wipe the rest of the stuff off, so it doesn’t get where it’s not wanted.” She rubbed his palms over her sides.

“Jean, Jean,” he croaked. “I don’t—”

“What I told Colin,” she said, “was to be a good fellow and bunk in the boat this nightwatch. You might have felt embarrassed.” She led his hands to her breasts. The nipples stood straight. Her arms went around his neck. “This brushing by death, it wakes up quite a wish for life.”

“I—Jean, I … I’m filthy, I stink—”

“You smell of man. Come along, now.”

Much later, when they had told the lighting to turn off and lay on the pallets they had dragged together, she murmured in his ear, “You do understand, don’t you, Tim, dear? I’m fond of you, but this is only something that happened.” His even breath replied; he did not stir in his sleep. “I suppose it should keep on happening while we go around this star,” she sighed into the dark. “You are such a sweet lad.”

After an
inspection tour of operations at the giant planet, Ruszek wanted some outdoor recreation. The woods around Terralina were too familiar, too peaceful. His Tahirian guide, whom he called Attila—a perfectly respectable Hungarian name—felt likewise, and suggested a subtropical island en knew. It “sounded” like Hawaii, surf and forest and mountains together. Ruszek happily agreed.

The number of visitors at any given time was restricted, so as not to overstress the environment. “Typical of this race,” he grumbled to himself. However, Attila made some kind of deal with somebody who had a reservation, or what corresponded to it, and soon they could flit there.

Accommodations were at the seaside, modest structures overgrown with colorful vines, scattered among trees and shrubs. Occupants prepared their own food. No shops, restaurants, or anything of the kind were on hand, merely a sort of ramada where parties could gather if they chose. A boathouse by a jetty offered watercraft, diving gear, and the like, rent-free. “(The purpose is to experience the nature,)” Attila said.

“(A pretty solemn holiday,)” Ruszek remarked.

He had learned that a certain ripple pattern in the mane was like a chuckle. “(One makes liveliness for oneself, especially if one is young.)”

Given the equipment and rations the human had to deploy, they did nothing on their day of arrival but settle into their cabin and go for a stroll at evening. Air lay warm, perfumed, stirred by the
hush-hush-hush
of waves. Where purple in the west shaded to sable in the east, the first stars blinked. They did not seem like furious great suns strewn through a waste
of space; they were little and friendly, almost close enough to touch.

Ruszek woke at sunrise. Breakfast could wait on a swim. Unclad, he and Attila took a footpath to the beach. Dunes stretched in a huge white arc. The water tumbled and rumbled, green, streaked and maned with foam, darkening horizonward to blue and indigo. It was cool, salt, sensuously aflow. The pair frolicked for the better part of an hour.

As they waded back ashore, Ruszek laughed, “Grand! Just one thing wrong,
barátom
. You’re not a beautiful’ woman.” He must needs jape when he let himself think about that.
Well, once we get back to Earth—or maybe, even, when
Envoy
returns
—Attila wouldn’t have understood without a parleur, and probably couldn’t have anyway.

A number of Tahirians had meanwhile come down to the beach. They seemed to be largely clan groups, two or three adults with several children ranging from half-grown to infants borne on the back. Clearly, the human took them by surprise. They stared. Manes shivered, arms gestured, legs pranced, noises and odors blew about on the sea breeze.

Ruszek stopped halfway up the strand. Some of the Tahirians were now moving slowly toward him and Attila. “Let’s get acquainted with our neighbors,” he proposed, though his stomach clamored. Everybody must know about the visitors from beyond, but few had actually seen a live one. These people didn’t crowd in the monkey fashion of his.

Emboldened, a couple of youths galloped his way. Smaller siblings merrily followed their example: They encircled Ruszek, manes and antennae dithering, hands held out. They buzzed, trilled, and gusted scents. Fingers touched him and retreated. He spread his arms wide. “Go ahead,” he invited. “It’s safe, seeing that you are
not
beautiful women.”

Elders hastened to the cluster. Voices snapped, manes erected, smells grew sharp. Attila exchanged a few “sentences” with them. Ruszek scowled, aware of the sudden tension. After a minute, obviously reluctant, the youngsters trudged off. Their parents followed. The backward glances were—wary?

“What the flaming hell?” Ruszek exclaimed. “Come on, let’s go where we can talk.”

In their cabin he grabbed his parleur and demanded an explanation. Attila hesitated before replying.

“(They are not hostile to you personally.)” Or so Ruszek interpreted it; Cambiante was still riddled with ambiguities, and doubtless always would be. “(They wish to protect their children from your influence. Best we avoid contact during our stay.)”

The man spat an oath. Then he composed a civil question. “(What harm in our company? Most humans would be overjoyed to meet anyone from a different world.)”

“(As I was, and those who think like me. Many do not. They fear unrest, the impact upon this stability our ancestors painfully achieved. Your arrival dismayed them.)”

“(I see.)” Ruszek’s head nodded lead-heavily. Preoccupied with investigation, and sometimes his personal difficulties, he had not thought much about the subtleties that Sundaram, Nansen, and others said they had encountered he had supposed vaguely that a privileged class didn’t want changes that could threaten its status. But if Tahir had no privileged classes—“(If your race got seriously interested again in starfaring, new information and new ideas would pour in, and what might become of your planetary preserve?)” For the last word, he wished he had a way to render “paradise.”

“(The conservatives do not want to maintain things as they are merely for the sake of maintaining them,)” Attila answered. “(Life is a rare and fleeting accident in this cosmos, civilization as fragile as blown glass. Think of what you met in the star cluster you entered. Think of the horror that starfaring brought on that other race we found. Our ancestors deemed their own gains not worth the costs and risks. Indeed, lately there go rumors of some infinitely great peril—)” En stopped. Presently: “(They determined to end the spreading thin of effort and resources. Instead, they would fortify this home of ours against time. That meant creating a society which would endure, adaptable when necessary but always true to itself.)”

“(Humans couldn’t)”
I think. Might they try?

“(So some, among you have told some among us, I ‘hear.’ Forgive(?) my saying it, but certain Tahirians wonder if your race is basically sane.)”

“(Maybe we aren’t. By your standards, at least)” Ruszek’s mustache bristled. “(We are what we are, whatever it may be, and I’ll stand by that.)”

“(It is not a simple either-or matter.)” Did Attila’s posture, tone, earthy odor, signify earnestness? “(Individuals vary within both our species. You know how your coming has caused persons like me to look back to the stars and sense in them a future more dangerous but more rich than anything our careful planners ever imagined. Naturally, it is us with whom you have had most to do. But we are a minority.)” Again en paused. “(Our opponents may be right. For the time being, I and those like me will continue to assume they are the ones mistaken.)”

“(They don’t want us touching off dreams in others. Very well, you and I will keep to ourselves here,)” Ruszek said. “(Now let’s make some breakfast,)” he added, although his appetite was not what it had been.

An hour
before midnight the common room lay quiet, lighting subdued, mobile adornments in stasis, air cool; but Brent had started some music, very softly, a piece that most of his fellows would not have recognized but that would speak to the same emotions in all, “
Là, mi darem la mano
.” He stood clad in a blue uniform-like tunic and trousers, hands clasped behind his back, looking out a viewscreen at the stars.

Dayan entered. He turned about and touched his brow, a quasi-salute. She stopped more than a meter from him and stood as if watchful. Her garb was plain to the point of drabness, which was not usual for her, but even in the dusk her hair tumbled vivid to the shoulders.

“Good evenwatch,” she said tonelessly.

“Thank you,” he replied. “For coming here. This late.”

“Well, you asked me to. I can sleep a bit extra in mornwatch.”
Her slight smile faded as her glance drifted to the stars. “What do our clocks matter, here?”

“I need to say something to you, Hanny, in private.”

She looked back at him. “Why not my office?” Another forced smile. “I am supposed to act like a captain.”

“You might have … misunderstood … in that setting.”

She waited.

“Though you’ve probably guessed,” he said. Fast: “I love you, Hanny.”

She nodded. “Yes,” she answered gravely, “I did expect this.”

“And—”

The hazel eyes locked with his brown. “Al, be honest. Is it love or lust?”

He reddened. “Both. Sure. You’re a—a marvelous woman.”

“The only one available within a light-year.”

“All right!” he burst out. His hands lifted, though he kept them close in. “And I’m the only available man. Why not? What harm? We’ll both feel better. We’ll function better.”

Her voice stayed level. “Will we really? And what when we return to Tahir?”

“We’ll worry about that then.” He cleared his throat. “But you don’t believe Selim’s spending these two and a half years alone, do you? It was plain already before we left, him and Mam hot for each other.”

She frowned. “Please—”

“And now, here aboard ship, Tim and Jean making like minks.” Seeing her reaction, he lowered his hands and stood nearly at attention. “Oh, I’ve learned self-control. I’ve had to, my whole life. But if you would—” He wrestled his pride to the deck. “If you would be kind—”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Al,” she said, most gently. “I truly am. But no.”

“It wouldn’t commit you,” he argued. “I won’t pester you afterward if you don’t want. I’d do my best to make you want, but it’s your choice. We’re shipmates, Hanny, a long ways from a home that’s a long time gone.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “No.”

His lips writhed. “You don’t like me. Is that it?”

“Wrong. I’m simply not casual.”

“I’m not, either. I said I love you. That doesn’t count, huh? Not when it’s me.”

“Al, stop that. You’re brave and able. You’re charming when you care to be. I don’t agree with some of your ideas, but as an Israeli and a soldier’s daughter I understand them better than most of our crew, and I share many of your feelings.”

“But I’m not worth a few hours in bed,” he rasped. “Not like Selim Zeyd. Or Ricardo Nansen, if you get a chance at him.”

Her countenance froze. “That will do.”

“All right,” he said dully. “Sorry. No offense intended.”

“None taken.” She failed to conceal that that was not quite true. However, once more she spoke mildly. “I regret this meeting wasn’t more … cordial.”

“Me, too.”

“We’d better end it on that note. It won’t make any difference between us if we leave it here.”

He jerked a nod.

“Good night, Al.” Dayan went out.

He stood motionless till she was gone. “Yeah,” he muttered. “A really, really good night.”

Through the hollow passageways he sought his cabin. Standing amidst portraits of conquerors, he called the Tahirian quarters on the intercom. “Leo,” he said. “Brent. Can you come to me?” The others had learned a few English phrases. For his part, he recognized the sibilance that meant “Yes.” He paced until the door chimed and he let the being in.

“(Thank you for coming,)” he said with his parleur. The irony impaled him. “(I trust I have not disturbed your rest.)”

“(No,)” Leo replied on ens own instrument. “(We have not attempted to adjust to the twenty-four-hour cycle you
keep aboard ship. Moreover, I, personally, welcome any distraction.)”

“(Of course.)” Leo was not along to participate in the science or the adventure but to observe it and report back to ens faction on Tahir. Brent had been tempted to think of en as a political officer or secret police agent, but realized that was nonsense. “(I wish I could give you refreshment.)”

“(You can give me discourse. You must have a purpose,)”

Brent gestured en to lie down and took a facing chair. His fingers marched and countermarched across the touchpanel. “(What do you make of our activities here thus far?)”

“(They disturb me profoundly.)”

“(Too dangerous?)”

“(Too successful. Colin and Fernando tell me that knowledge is being gathered which is new to our race as well as yours.)”

“(And you fear it will stimulate Tahirian starfaring.)”

“(By itself, scarcely,)” said Leo in the methodical, academic fashion that Cambiante tended to impose. Ens tone, mane, muscles, and pungencies belied it. “(The information is interesting, and not in itself revolutionary. Indeed, an improved database in stellar dynamics and evolution may prove useful to our long-term planning. What I fear is that the success will cause your people to abide among us longer than you had intended.)”

“(And we’d continue endangering your social order.)” Brett tensed. “(Why don’t you command us to go? Why haven’t you already?)”

“(Why do you ask? You must know that no organization exists to make or enforce such a policy. The need was not foreseen.)”

“Uh-huh,” Brent murmured. “You’ve never thought in term’s of sovereignty or military strength, have you?”

“(Our race has always possessed establishments like that,)” he said.

“(It appears to be in your nature.)” The smell turned rank.

“(If some of you told us to leave against our will, others
would reply that we should stay. This could be disruptive. Your people are not accustomed to strong disputes.)”