Disappearing Act

by Margaret Ball

  "And in conclusion . . ." he began, and was irritated yet again to see a flicker of joy on the faces in the front row. Just for that, he extended his "conclusion" by a good five minutes, repeating already-expressed hopes for a joyful visit and a fruitful collaboration between the Barents Trading Society and the Federation of which their home planet had the honor to be a member, reiterating the honor they felt upon being visited by a Diplomat from Rezerval and the deep desire of every member of the Barents Trading Society to serve the visitor in any way possible.

  Maris didn't mind how long the old geezer talked; as long as he was speechifying, she didn't have to figure out what to do next. Not that she'd had a lot of options yet. She'd meant to be out of the shuttle seconds after it docked. Hadn't ever ridden a shuttle before; didn't realize how long it took to complete docking, how everybody lined up and shuffled forward a step at a time, how she'd be stuck in the line of travelers. You'd think a Diplo would get special treatment, first one off—not that it would have done her much good; the reception committee was waiting right there in the docking bay. Uniforms, lots of blue uniforms, and so much gold braid it made her eyes hurt. A sea of tall young men with hair as yellow as their gold braid and tall old men going grey, or losing their hair altogether, like nobody here ever heard of implants. Tall blond people closing in around her, no way to slip away on the short walk to the single exit door—which was guarded, anyway, by more of the tall guys in the blue and gold uniforms. On both sides. And outside, a blaze of heat and light and white dust that half stunned her, even before that godawful blare they called the Barents National Anthem started up and they lifted her into some kind of box on wheels with large animals tied to it.

  Of course she knew what a sun looked like, she wasn't ignorant. Johnivans treated his crew to the best entertainment holos even before they were released for public distribution. She just hadn't realized how big and bright the thing was, and how it released waves of heat that settled down on your head like a smothering blanket—and how come, if the Barents Trading Society was so rich, they couldn't afford a nice climate-controlled city? Nobody in the holos had to experience this kind of raw dirtside life, not unless they were brave pioneers colonizing a new world or something.

  At least the hall was climate-controlled. From the outside it looked like all the other primitive buildings they'd passed, built from some kind of creamy white stuff that dripped and crumbled, topped with hard round red tiles; but inside it was a reasonably normal kind of place, with smooth walls and gentle lighting and, thank goodness, cool air.

  And it, too, was guarded inside and outside by uniformed men. Maris felt as though she'd been swimming through a sea of tall blondes ever since she came off the shuttle. The women were as bad as the men, big and buxom, with yellow braids wrapped around their heads to make them look even taller. And their clothes weren't anything like Calandra Vissi's up-to-the-minute stretch bodysuit and woven wrap. Instead they wore loose floating panels of some flimsy organic-looking cloth, topped with falls of fine white lace that set off their pink-and-white complexions. No way Maris would be able to slip away and blend in with this crowd, even if they hadn't had six people watching her every minute since she stepped off the shuttle.

  The old geezer had finally shut up; a discreet pattering of palms filled the hall, and suddenly they were all looking at Maris: hundreds, thousands it seemed, of bright blue eyes watching her.

  Expecting her to stand up and act like a Diplo.

  Make a speech, probably.

  She couldn't make a speech. She hadn't had any practice. She didn't know the words. She talked like a Tasman scumsucker.

  This was where they discovered her imposture and—what? Shipped her back to Tasman on the departing shuttle, most likely.

  Not a good idea. Somehow she'd have to drag it out a bit longer, at least until the shuttle was gone; she didn't mind if they threw her out on a ship going somewhere else, just not back to Tasman.

  Stand up. You can do that much, can't you?

  The folds of her fashionably draped overwrap were damp with sweat from the brief ride outside, and the bodysuit was sticking to her in places she had never expected anything to cling. But yes, she could stand up. She could even find a few words of thanks to what was his name, oh yes Haar Stoffelsen don't forget the others and all the members of the Honorable Society who had found time to welcome her today. She apologized for being too tired from the trip to respond properly. "Maybe later," she said, and sat down more quickly than she'd planned, dizzy with fear and certain that her last words had come out in the Tasman twang as "Mybe lyt'r."

  It seemed that whatever she said marked the end of the welcoming ceremony; the Society members all stood and came crowding round her, a sea of bright blue eyes and broad smiles that seemed somehow pasted onto their faces. The band crashed into action again. Maris winced and leaned back against her padded chair, then stood again as people started coming up to shake her hand. She dropped her eyes and murmured syllables that might have been polite greeting formulas. Weren't they ever going to finish saying hello—so that she could say good-bye and get out of here?

  Her sway was not feigned at all, but it brought one of the matrons sitting on the stage behind her to her elbow. "Dwendle, you fool, the young lady's not used to our climate, nor dressed for it. Go on, all of you!" She shooed the elders of the Society, now all on their feet, away with quick impatient gestures. "Do you let me take her home now for a nice rest, heavens know the poor girl will need it before the banquet and ball tonight. Saara—drat that child, she's never here when I want her!"

  "You told her to stay home, Mama," murmured a young woman even taller than Fru Stoffelsen, bending her head meekly even as she spoke.

  "So I did, Faundaree! Well, heavens know somebody has to see to those dratted servants or they'd take a half-day holiday with all of us cooped up in here listening to Dwendle. Come along with me, m'dear."

  "Ivonna, my love," Haar Stoffelsen protested weakly, "we'd planned a tour of orientation for Diplomat Vissi after the welcoming ceremony."

  Maris belatedly remembered that she was Diplomat Vissi, and tried to look interested in the horrible prospect of being toured and oriented, but there seemed to be no need; Ivonna Stoffelsen ignored Dwendle's objections as if she hadn't even heard them. Quite possibly she hadn't; the lady had not stopped talking since she took charge of Maris, ordering the tall girl—Fawn, was that her name?—to see that the carriage was ready, telling a young man on the fringes of the crowd not to lounge like a Kalapriyan servant, but to get on to the Stoffelsen house and see that Saara had the young lady's rooms properly prepared and a light repast ready to send up.

  "Yes, yes, Fru Stoffelsen," another of the interchangeably tall, fair young men interrupted, "but we must have Diplomat Vissi for the tour of the culture caves first. The tide, you understand."

  Ivonna Stoffelsen puffed disapproval. "Well, I call it cruel, Benteen Teunis, dragging the poor young lady off to be seasick and lecturing her about bugs before she's even had time to find her land feet!"

  "We don't want to waste the Diplomat's time, do we now?" Teunis took Maris's elbow and deftly steered her out of the crowd. "I'll return her to Jetty Six," he promised Fru Stoffelsen. "Tell your driver to wait there with a carriage and a pair of turagai."

  Turagai, turagai, turagai, the big animals that pulled the boxes were called turagai, that was the kind of thing a Diplo with a language download would be expected to know. Maris repeated the word like a charm to keep her safe while Ivonna Stoffelsen indignantly proclaimed her intention of meeting the young lady personally at Jetty Six—"and you'd best not take too long with your bugs and slime, Benteen Teunis!"

  "Microbes," Teunis said in a tired voice that somehow told Maris he'd heard this from Ivonna before. "Microbes, Fru Stoffelsen, and biofilms. And the reason we are all here."

  "Diplomat Vissi," Dwendle Stoffelsen managed to interject before Teunis carried Maris away, "we will look forward to seeing you at the welco
ming banquet tonight. My fellow Society officials and I will be prepared for an in-depth discussion of your mission so that we may learn how best to serve you."

  Serve her up on a platter, he thought privately, with an apple stuffed in her mouth. Wasn't it bad enough that she'd come here, with all the implications of meddling and interference and undesirable questions that the visit of a Diplomat meant, but she also had to show how superior she felt to them all? Not even bothering to respond to his speech! Dwendle straightened his shoulders, feeling taller and stronger now that his horrible wife was out of the building. It was unthinkable that all he had worked to achieve should be called into question by this—this insolent child. Tonight they'd get the details of her orders out of her, and then he could consult privately with Torston and Kaspar as to how to arrange matters. Surely they could whirl her through Kalapriya, bury her under uninteresting details, send her away with the impression they'd told her everything about the 'mat trade while leaving her with very little real information. Have her tour the breeding caves, then send her on state visits to the native nobility of the Plains States until the heat and humidity exhausted her. They'd done it to other important visitors. Diplomats couldn't really be possessed of the superhuman powers rumor credited them with. Could they?

  * * *

  Maris decided she had no real choice but to follow wherever this Benteen Teunis wanted to take her. She didn't know enough about what a Diplomat really did to plan her own schedule; presumably these guys did, so if she just went along with whatever they had planned they'd likely accept her for what she pretended to be. And sooner or later there'd be a chance to slip away. They couldn't very well keep her in meetings and on tours for every watch of the cycle.

  Could they?

  Anyway, all she had to do now was follow Benteen Teunis from the cool meeting hall, along a dusty white path inadequately paved with big flat rocks. Sweat dripped off Maris's forehead and dampened her curls into slick, wet locks. But after they had walked a good two corridor sections' distance, she felt the warm air moving gently against her face. Something smelled different, too. Aha! They might talk about living under the planet's low-tech restrictions, but she could tell now. Somebody, somewhere, had turned the temp down and set a ventilator fan in motion. The air fresh out of the ventilators always smelled different . . .

  "Ah, the sea breeze," Teunis said. He gave a deep sigh of satisfaction. "I am grateful my work keeps me on the water or in the caves most of the time; tell you the truth, Diplomat Vissi, I don't know how my colleagues in the Society can stand living in the heat of Kalapriya.

  Sea? Maris mentally riffled through her memories of old vids and found a number of quite unlikely images: scantily dressed people standing on stages that rocked up and down, waving shiny sharp things and yelling at each other. Oh, yes—that had been in Sea Pirates of the Iraveen.

  The sea pirates had been quite unpleasant people until Captain Quirk of the Federation landed and reformed them.

  With tanglenets and dazers.

  "Ah—there aren't any pirates where we're going, are there?"

  Teunis laughed a bit harder than Maris thought the question warranted. "No, the Kalapriyans are a peaceful people. At least within the Trading Society's sphere of influence. Piracy would interfere with our business, you see, so we—ah—discourage it."

  Probably with tanglenets and dazers.

  "Only simple fishermen use the coastal waters," Benteen Teunis reassured her. "And—ah—the Society, of course."

  The cool, sharp-smelling air was all around them now, and Maris could see a line of blue-green between the white-walled buildings that lined the road. As they drew closer, the line got larger. Wider. Not really a line at all. Fields? Some sort of crop, waving in the ventilator breeze?

  Water.

  A lot of water.

  And things bobbing up and down on top of the water like those stages in Sea Pirates of the Iraveen, only Maris didn't think there were any machines making the things sway up and down like that. She thought—

  A particularly long, rolling, heaving sway felt like it was trying to carry her stomach with it, and she concentrated so hard on not noticing the movement of the wooden things that she barely noticed anything else: not the short, dark men around them coiling ropes and folding nets and talking in a strange birdlike chatter, not Benteen Teunis's hand on her elbow again urging her to step down into one of the little wooden things, not—

  She would have told him, not on your life, I ain't going on one of them things, but she was afraid that if she unclenched her jaws long enough to say anything she would lose the entire contents of her stomach, just like some new dirtsider in zero-g for the first time, and pride kept her silent.

  Two young men, as fair-haired as Benteen Teunis but with redder skin and younger faces, did things with ropes and pieces of cloth around them and Maris, teeth clenched firmly against the heaving swell of the water and its echoes in her stomach, barely noticed that the little box she was sitting in was moving away from the land, out into the unimaginable expanse of blue-green water. The Kalapriyan fishermen watched them, unmoving on the dock.

  * * *

  "Why do they not awaken the demon in the box?" Sunan asked.

  His friend Ladhu shook his head. "They never awaken it until they are out of sight of the harbor. Perhaps the sea-demons cannot be called up near land, lest they leap ashore and escape from the outlanders' control."

  "Or perhaps they think if they are careful enough, we will not notice that they use demons to push their boats?"

  Ladhu laughed. "Even outlanders cannot be that stupid."

  * * *

  Benteen Teunis sighed with relief as they rounded a rocky crag that blocked the small harbor of Valentin from view. "All right, boys, you can start the motor now."

  There was a rumbling noise like a small—a very small—shuttlecraft taking off, and the box suddenly tilted, pointy end up, leveled off just above the water level and began to move forward smoothly and much more quickly than before. Maris gave an involuntary sigh of relief. This felt so much more natural than all that sloshing and swaying and pulling pieces of cloth around against the wind.

  Benteen Teunis gave her a friendly smile. "My apologies if the motion of the boat under sail bothered you, Diplomat Vissi, but we are under strict orders not to use the hover engines within sight of the natives. Can't risk cultural contamination, you know."

  Maris nodded. She couldn't think of a properly toppie-class reply; he'd just have to think her a snob.

  "It'll only take a few minutes now to reach the sea caves," Benteen went on without even waiting for a reply. "I'd better give you some background on how we harvest the 'mats—or no, I suppose you've already been briefed on all that?" His face fell as he realized that there was probably very little he could tell a fully trained and briefed Diplo.

  Fortunately, there was plenty he could tell Maris.

  "Nobody understands the local situation like a—um—local," Maris said brightly. "Tell you what, why don't you just pretend I dunno nothin' about yer mats an' give me the usual spiel?"

  Idiot! She was slipping back into the sloppy Tasman way of speaking Galactic. But Benteen didn't seem to have noticed; he was too happy to tell her all about his beloved bugs. He talked microbes and biofilms and bacterial communities even when they reached the protruding tongue of slick, black stones leading into the first cave, even during all the business of docking and handing her over the side and mentioning that she just might want to watch out for the algae that made the cave entrance so slippery and oops, I forgot to mention that little bump just inside. Maris would have thought a rock hanging low enough to bang her head would have been considered a serious health hazard by the tall, solid Barents colonist.

  "I'm s'prised you haven't removed that," she said, rubbing her forehead and glaring at the rather ugly mud-colored lump of rock that had been hiding in the overhead shadows just behind the cave entrance, now illuminated in Benteen's handlight.

&n
bsp; "Oh, we couldn't do that," Benteen said, sounding shocked. "We haven't yet tested it for microbial life."

  "I thought you knew what grows in here."

  "The 'mat colonies, yes. But who knows what else might be here, might also prove of incalculable benefit to mankind?" Benteen gestured largely at the craggy rock formations surrounding them, turning the handlight as he did so to point out each type of microbial colony in turn. The pools of salty water on the cave floor held fuzzy blobs that looked to Maris like bits of somebody's lunch bar that had been left in a warm place for much too long; one of the walls was dotted with circles of pinkish-beige stuff; misty white nets trailed down from the top here and there. Personally, Maris would have described the place as seriously icky, not as a source of incalculable benefit to mankind. But then, what did she know? Apparently bacteriomats also came from this dank hole in the ground. And those had certainly been of major benefit to her, and Keito, and Ice Eyes, and . . . Johnivans.

  Who had been father and brother and friend to her.

  Who had been casually willing to throw her life away.

  Waves of pain swept over Maris and she missed a good part of Benteen Teunis's explanation of the incredible biodiversity concealed in the fuzzy blobs and other odd things growing on the cave rocks. When she could pay attention again, he was earnestly explaining the difficulties of culturing the bacteriomats outside the cave environment.