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 Interwor
ld’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.
Regular accommodation was assigned as two persons to a room. They came to B Block, and on the way to his room, Shearer saw that the names of the occupants were posted by the doors. He found he was sharing B6 with Jeff. It could have been worse, he supposed — Roy, for example. After depositing the bag and briefcase that he had carried with him, he left again to accompany Jerri in taking Nim for his first outside walk for a long time. At the same time, it would be a chance to explore more of the base and see something of its surroundings.
A building they had passed on the way from Administration turned out to be the Recreation and Social Center, which contained the main cafeteria, a gym, and a pool, although the extension at the rear where the pool was located was still overshadowed by a construction crane and lacked a roof. Behind it were workshops and laboratory spaces in prefabricated temporary huts, which should have been replaced by something more permanent by now. Bordering the fence were the service buildings, housing a small fission plant providing power, a water treatment plant fed from a creek running down to the lake, and sundry other installations. The fission plant was a modular system developed for bases and other facilities on the new worlds being opened up, and consisted of sealed units roughly the size of garbage cans that presented just output connections for delivering power. They ran for years, and when spent could be either opened up for recovery and reprocessing of the by-products, or left to be their own disposal container, inside which the radioactive content would gradually decay away.
Jerri let Nim off the leash to embark on a romp of sniffing, poking, and exploring this new and strange domain. Sometimes he would stand suddenly motionless for maybe ten or more seconds at a time, his head cocked at an odd angle. Evidently Cyrene was a world of new sound experiences too.
They reached the fence and began following it — a double line of chain-link topped by razor wire, running between alloy posts studded with sensors and surveillance cameras. In many places, plants had started twining their way up the mesh. From what he had heard and read of Cyrene, Shearer was unable to fathom why the base needed such formidable protection. Simply because the minds whose business it was to decide these things were incapable of conceiving otherwise, he supposed. They moved out to the perimeter path running just inside the fence and stopped to stare out at their first real view of the world they had come to.
They were on the north side of the base, looking down toward the lake, maybe a half-mile to a mile away, that extended inland from Revo city, which lay hidden behind wooded hills away to the west on their left. The base stood above a ridge of low, rounded slopes descending to become a rocky promontory jutting out from the shore immediately below. To the right, the ground broke up into folds of bluffs and stream beds on either side of a deeper rivulet feeding the lake. The far side of the lake seemed to be similarly hilly, but the details were lost in a low haze. Above, the day was fair. The visible patches of sky seemed to be about the same shade of blue as midday summer on Earth, but somehow with a more iridescent tone — an effect, possibly, of the presence of two suns at this time in the day. The clouds varied from white into mixtures of yellow and orange rather than presenting just a uniform gray scale, the montage of reflected colors giving the lake a quality of intensity and vividness seldom captured in bodies of water on Earth.
The impression of richer color contrast was reinforced by the vegetation covering the slopes below and growing among the mounds and gullies to the sides. The landscape was mostly green, with grasses of various lengths and textures giving at least a superficial reassurance of familiarity, but in places taking on shades that ranged from an eerie blue-violet to red russet brown. There were clumps of mixed bush and scrub, some of fairly normal appearance, others distinctly odd, and clustered around some hollows forming what looked like a tributary valley head to the right, a stand of peculiar trees with massively wide, multiple trunks, reminiscent of swamp cypress, but with broad leathery leaves more like palms. Everywhere, there were flowers.... And peculiar birds that perched and jumped in the peculiar trees, or sailed in long, lazy tours that took them far out over the lake. One descended to settle on the top of a fence post, from where it inspected the newcomers more closely and chattered down at them. Nim ran to the base but could only stand panting and looking up, powerless, tail beating a frenzy. Then he gave up and came loping back to where Shearer and Jerri were standing. They resumed walking slowly.
Around a corner formed by an angle in the fence, they came to a gate with a guard post on one side. A dirt track led away on the far side, disappearing around a hump of grass and scrub. The gate was closed, but a smaller pedestrian passage in front of the window was open to the outside. They looked at each other, each reading the same question. “Only one way to find out,” Shearer said. Behind the window, a trooper in a Milicorp uniform straightened as they came over. “Any reason why we can’t go out?” Shearer asked him. “We’ve just arrived here.”
“ID.” The guard went though the ritual of scanning their badges and thumbprints, and consulting unseen oracles on a screen inside the box. He acted as if being agreeable was something to be looked on as weakness, and seemed disgruntled at not finding anything to object to.
“So is it okay?” Shearer asked as the guard passed the badges back wordlessly.
“If it wasn’t, I would have said so.”
“Gee, thanks. Enjoy your day.”
They came out onto a track of yellow gravelly soil bordered by knee-deep grass and speckles of variously colored flowers. The vista below and across the lake seemed suddenly more immediate and accessible without the fence intervening. Nim darted forward at something beneath a shrub, which shot away into the grass before they could see what it was. From behind them, the bird came down off the post and alighted on a protruding rock to eye them curiously.
After a short silence Jerri said, “All ripe for development. I can’t wait to see it.”
“If I didn’t know you better, I’d almost think you were being sarcastic,” Shearer answered.
“Do you think the Cyreneans have any idea?”
“If the past examples are anything to go by, I don’t think it matters much.”
Jerri sighed disconsolately. “It’s all so... wrong. It was never supposed to be like this. Before star travel became real, people had dreams of it bringing exploration and discovery, learning and enrichment. How did it come to this?”
“The usual reason. The wrong people always end up running everything, I guess.”
“I know. But why is it like that?”
Shearer had asked the same question himself many times, but still he found he had to search fo
r an answer. “Because people are dumb enough to believe them,” he replied.
They were heading more-or-less west, intending to circle around to the main access gate from the pad area, which lay south of the base. Another angle in the fence brought them around so that the lake was now behind them. The ground on this side was flatter and more open, extending away from the ridge on which the base stood. A roadway, little more than a cart track, wound up from below and disappeared amid grassy folds and hillocks studded with fronded plants that looked like overgrown ferns. From the general direction, Shearer guessed that the track from the gate they had come out through joined the roadway not far below.
Nim stopped dead, ears pricked, one forepaw raised, snout leveled like a pointer’s. Shearer and Jerri came to a halt, staring in surprise. Ahead of them, standing fifty yards away or less, was a carriage with a party of Cyreneans.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The carriage was cheerfully painted in elaborate colored designs, of lightweight construction, sprung, with high wheels, and open in the style of a chaise. It was drawn by a pair of Cyrenean animals square-built and sturdy in the manner of oxen, but longer in the legs and less squat, both with a black woolly covering and faces that were longer and narrower, more deerlike than bovine. Woolly moose minus the antlers, perhaps. In it were two Cyrenean women in sunbonnets, with two children and a man who looked to be elderly, wearing a gray hat with a cocked brim and high crown like a busby. Two other men were mounted on Cyrenean “horses,” one alongside the carriage, the other a few yards away. The first horse was white, the other gray with black markings. In size and general contours they did indeed resemble horses, but their faces were shorter and more rounded than Terran horses’, and their tails were furry. Shearer’s first impression was of a family group who had brought the children on an outing to see the camp of the aliens.
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