"I wanted Esteemed Ssoriszs to see them, since he gave them to me," Claire said, walking with great concentration on the high heels.
"Esteemed Ssoriszs has been in a generous mood lately," Mahree agreed.
"If it hadn't been for him, we couldn't have gotten Emerald Scales to transport the expedition."
Funding and a transport. The Mizari, led by her old friend, had really come through, and quickly. Everyone was excited by the idea that this time there might be genuine clues as to where the ancient Mizari Lost Colony had gone.
"Let's compromise," Mahree said, returning to their original subject. "You can have the next hour or two to explore the ship, but as soon as we enter metaspace, you finish that assignment. Agreed?"
"I guess." Claire stopped before the door to their suite 37
and touched it open. Mahree followed her in, tossing her duffel on one of the narrow bunks. Emerald Scales was, after all, a freighter, and the ship boasted few luxuries.
"It'll sure be different, going to regular classes at the Academy," Claire said quietly. "After being tutored longdistance from StarBridge for so long."
"I think it will be good for you," Mahree said, speaking with a confidence she didn't entirely feel. "Your father and I have been planning for you to do this for a while. This new assignment just moves up the timetable a little, that's all."
Claire regarded her image in the reflective panel built into the wall. Mahree stared at her doubtfully. How would Claire react to being among so many other young people? Aliens she was used to; she'd grown up among them and spoke seven alien languages as fluently as she did her own tongue. But young people of her own species were as alien to her as a Mizari eggling would be to a child who'd grown up on Earth.
And there was no doubt that Claire was pretty. She'd attract quite a bit of attention at the Academy. Mahree sighed. Was Claire ready for this? Was she? Was Rob?
Boys. Dating. Sex--or, at least the potential for it. Mahree repressed a worried frown. The subject couldn't be avoided forever; sooner or later Claire would have to learn to live with her own species.
The CLS Ambassador-at-Large busied herself hanging up a few items of clothing from her duffel, then she wandered into the other room and sat down in one of the cushiony chairs, feeling it automatically adjust to her body contours. Kicking off her boots, she leaned back and crossed her legs, trying to relax. Claire followed her out of the bedroom and sat down on the small couch opposite her, her expression uneasy. "You're worried about me, aren't you, Mom? Worried that I'll get hurt by those other human kids? Especially the boys, right?"
Mahree fixed her with a stem look. "Have you been--"
"No, I'm not eavesdropping this time," Claire protested, flushing with indignation. "Anyone could tell you're worried;
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it wouldn't take a telepath. All moms worry about sex and stuff. But I'll be okay. At least... I think I will." Her voice, so sure at first, grew hesitant. "Do you... do you think the other kids will like me?"
"Of course they will, honey," Mahree said, smiling at her daughter. "What I'm worrying about is that you and they have come from such different backgrounds, it may be hard for you to adjust in the beginning, that's all. You know what it's like, building cultural bridges between people, right?"
"Yeah," Claire agreed. "It can be hard."
"We'll talk about it during the trip. It'll help if you're prepared. You might also want to study up a bit on Earth and its colonies."
"You mean study them like I would a new alien world we were going to visit?"
"Exactly. In a way, their cultures are just as alien to you, since you've never actually been to Terra, or Jolie, or any of the other colonies. It can't hurt, right?"
"Okay, I will," Claire agreed. "But, Mom... I'm not the one you should be worrying about. You 're the one who might be in danger, right?"
"Danger? Me?" Mahree shrugged. "All alien worlds have their own hazards, but--"
Claire shook her head, her expression grim. "Damn it, Mom, don't be so dense. Bill got killed there. Somebody smashed his head in, right? What makes you think you'll be safe?"
Ahhhh, yes. Blunt Claire. Mahree licked her lips, thought of repeating the
"duty, honor, and CLS" speech she'd given Rob, then refrained as three bell-tones sounded from the ceiling. "We're undocking. On our way at last."
Claire sat back on the couch, nodding slowly, her eyes fixed on Mahree. "I wish you weren't going. Mom ... I'm scared you won't come back."
"Claire ..." Mahree hesitated. She'd been on the verge of offering her daughter automatic words of reassurance, adult words spoken to a scared child, but as she looked at
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her daughter's expression, they died unspoken. Claire was too old for empty promises.
Instead she said, "Claire, there's no reason to believe that what happened to Bill had anything to do with his being the Interrelator on Ancestor's World.
There are lots of other people there, and he might have made an enemy. As a matter of fact, the preliminary police report indicated that he'd been in some kind of argument with one of the Nordlund officials the day before he died."
"But you don't know anything for sure. What if someone just doesn't like having an Interrelator on Ancestor's World?"
"I've been in danger before, Claire," Mahree said, and as she spoke she had a sudden, vivid memory of the time they'd made the First Contact with the Simiu aboard the Desiree, long years ago. Those had been tense days, terrifying hours, especially when it seemed the Simiu would attack the ship, her Uncle Raoul would try to escape from Hurrreeah's space station, and war between the two species would prove inevitable.
But the war had been prevented. She, Rob, and their Simiu ally Dhurrrkk'
had seen to that, escaping from the Simiu space station in a stolen ship and heading out blindly for Shassiszss to seek help from the CLS. They'd succeeded, Earth had joined the CLS, and she'd become the first person to ever be offered an individual membership in the Cooperative League of Systems.
Rob and Esteemed Ssoriszs had founded StarBridge eight years later.
Mahree and Rob had lived together until the Academy was mostly
completed; then their careers took them in opposite directions. If it hadn't been for Claire, born three years after the Desiree's First Contact, when Mahree was twenty, they might have drifted apart. But their daughter had held them together, become the touchstone of their love. Mahree looked at Claire, noting the fear in her daughter's eyes, the concern for her safety, and had to blink back sudden tears.
"Honey, I'm going to be fine. Ancestor's World is pretty civilized. They were well into their Industrial Age when
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discovered, and they've got police. Unlike Bill, who spent part of his time in the Interrelator's Office in the capital city of Spirit, I'm going to be staying full time in the archaeologists' camp. I'll be surrounded by people all the time."
Claire stared at her, unconvinced. Her daughter's lower lip trembled. Mahree sighed tiredly. Being a parent was like trying to communicate with aliens without knowing their language, tricky in the extreme.
Mahree realized that Claire had tapped into some of her own unconscious fears about this assignment she'd chosen to tackle on Ancestor's World.
What if Bill Waterston's murder wasn't the result of a personal grudge? What if it was part of something more sinister, something connected with the nearby Sorrow Sector? Would she indeed be safe in the archaeologists'
camp?
Rumor had it that the head of the dig, Mitchell, was an irascible man with a reputation for drinking hard, working himself and others hard, and not suffering fools gladly. The report she'd requisitioned on him had mentioned a messy divorce and numerous problems in dealing with his peers, especial y in the past couple of years.
On the other hand, rumor was a notoriously unreliable thing. When Mahree considered the wild things she'd heard about herself over the years, she was inclined to give Mitchell t
he benefit of the doubt.
Her daughter's haunted expression brought her back to the moment at hand.
Claire needed reassurance, truthful reassurance, not a sharing of worries.
Mahree took a deep breath and gazed directly into the girl's gray-green eyes.
"Claire, I promise you. I'll be careful--and smart--wherever I go and whatever I do."
Slowly, Claire nodded, but her eyes remained shadowed with uncertainty.
Mahree got up, swayed as the ship's grav fields chose that moment to adjust minutely, and walked over to sit beside Claire. Turning, she put her arms around her daughter's narrow shoulders. "Honey, I love you, and I swear to 41
you on my honor I'll do whatever I must to return to you. Okay?"
Claire nodded, her expression still somber, but Mahree could feel some of the tension go out of her. She rested her head against her mother's shoulder.
"Mom, do you think Dad will be happy that we're all together again, even if it's only for a few days?"
Mahree gave her daughter a startled glance. "Of course he will! Why wouldn't he?"
The girl sighed. "When we're together, Dad wants it to last forever, Mom.
He's sad when he thinks that it will only be for a few days or a few weeks."
Claire's statement hardly constituted a revelation to Mahree. She'd known for years that Rob wanted her to give up her position as CLS Ambassador-at-Large and settle down with him on StarBridge. He felt that Mahree could make an even better contribution as an instructor at the Academy than in her current work troubleshooting for the huge, interstellar confederation. After all, StarBridge was their best hope for a peaceful and prosperous Orion Arm.
Mahree could see Rob's point, and thought that he might even be correct, but the idea of staying permanently in one place was unthinkable. She'd roamed the stars for too long now. Alien contact and the delicate work of interspecies negotiation was in her blood, her greatest personal joy. Much as she loved Claire and Rob, even the prospect of being with them all the time couldn't compare with the sense of accomplishment she gained from her work. When Mahree was a young girl, just setting out aboard the Desiree on her way to Earth to attend college (a voyage that had never yet been completed), she'd wished fervently that she could be special. She didn't want a humdrum, ordinary life.
And, unlike most people, she'd achieved her dream-- she was special. Her skills as a First Contact Specialist were legend; her rapport with aliens was a unique ability that had never been equaled.
But the undeniable fact that she was constantly disappointing those closest to her was painful. Last year, Rob
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had asked her to consider taking a year's sabbatical so they could have another child. He'd even offered to take a leave of absence from StarBridge and move anywhere she wanted for that year. Then, he'd promised, he'd raise the baby himself, on StarBridge, if she didn't want to stay in one place.
Mahree had been on the verge of agreeing to his proposition, but just then they'd gotten word of the Anuran invasion of Trinity. The invasion had had a major ripple effect in the CLS, as delegates argued vehemently over what to do about the new, aggressive amphibian species. And when that fracas had calmed down, there had been the faceoff between the Drina's and the Vardi over the Vardi embargo on Heeyoon fertilizers ... and then there had been the clash between the Simiu and the Mizari over that newly discovered radonium asteroid ... and then ... and then ...
Crisis and minicrisis, one after another. There was always an urgent problem to be solved, a potential problem to be averted. There was never enough time. Time ...
Mahree felt a surge of old, familiar guilt threaten to overwhelm her.
For once, Claire remained unaware of her mother's distress. Mahree jerked back to the here and now, hearing the girl sigh loudly. "I sure hope so. It's been almost a year since I last saw Dad. Mom ... do you think we can all visit the cabin on Shassiszss for a real family vacation after you get back from Ancestor's World?"
Mahree hugged her daughter closer, and settled deeper into the couch.
Claire smiled and hugged her back. "Yes, I promise I'll make time for that family vacation after this is all over."
"Good!"
About them the freighter moved through the dark of space, rushing steadily toward the outskirts of Shassiszss' solar system, where they could enter metaspace without harm to the local star. Soon, Mahree thought, she'd have to go and appear at the Captain's Table, make polite conversation, thank Captain Salzeess for volunteering to help with the mission, meet the female Mizari Ceramicist, and
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then go over the list of archaeological experts to pick up at points between Shassiszss and StarBridge.
Emerald Scales wasn't a fast ship. They'd be nearly a week getting to StarBridge. Then a month's travel to reach distant Ancestor's World. Lying near the outer curve of the Orion Arm, the Na-Dina homeworld lay too close to the dusty gas clouds and veiled star clusters that made up Sorrow Sector.
The notorious sector was the hiding place for criminals, outlaws, privateers, and miscreants from all the Fifteen Known Worlds. Ships were lost forever in its environs. The League Irenics had repeatedly tried to infiltrate the legendary criminal star-den, but none of their investigators had ever returned....
Mahree shivered involuntarily, and Claire pulled back to gaze at her, her now-green eyes huge. "Don't be afraid, Mom. The League Irenics will keep you safe from Sorrow Sector."
Mahree smiled faintly. "Peeking again? Well, I forgive you. Did I ever tell you the story of how, just after you'd been born, we discovered you were telepathic?"
Her daughter blinked, then slowly shook her head, a soft smile escaping.
"No. Never. Will you tell me again?"
Mahree Burroughs laughed, took her daughter's hand and squeezed it.
Claire hadn't asked for her favorite story for nearly two years now. It made her feel close to tell it once more. "When you were very small..."
"How small, Mom?"
"Hardly as big as a minute," Mahree said, settling into the familiar litany.
"How big is a minute, Mom?"
Mahree made a space with her hands. "About this big..."
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CHAPTER 3 A New World
Etsane stood before the viewport in the Stellar Velocity vessel Emerald Scales, watching Ancestor's World revolve beneath her. They would be landing soon, but before she strapped in she wanted to see the planet from orbit.
Ancestor's World was a brown ball covered in reddish- brown traceries that resembled waterless riverbeds. The silvery sparkle of dry saline lakebeds spotted the planet. So where's the water? she wondered, and even as she thought it, they rounded the north pole and overflew the shallow Northern Sea. Instead of an icecap, Ancestor's World had a large sea filling its far north, one about the size of the Indian Ocean. The sea was fed by the muddy-brown waterway called the River of Life, which flowed northward in serpentine curves from the equatorial Mountains of Faith.
Etsane counted off the primary geographical features of the Na-Dina homeworld--one sea-ocean, one giant mountain range-at the equator, and a dead seabed at the south pole. Then she spotted the angry blue-black of continent- wide storms, thunderstorms that flashed with yellow lightning, and recalled the turbulent weather Dr. Mitchell had mentioned. Monster storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes,
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she thought. Nice place to visit, but do I really want to live here for a year or so?
"Etsane, you're the luckiest of us all, I think," called Professor Greyshine. He and his mate, Doctor Strongheart, were curled nearby on Heeyoon cushioned benches.
"Oh? Why's that?" She touched on her voder earcuff, an automatic habit whenever she encountered aliens, even though she read and spoke Heeyoon fairly fluently. A month's practice conversing with Greyshine and Strongheart on the way here had certainly helped. Etsane smiled as she remembered one particular conversation. The elderly couple loved romantic poetry and had begged her to repeat
the apocryphal story of how Solomon and Sheba had made love and founded the Royal House of Ethiopia.
"Professor, this is another piece in the puzzle of the Mizari Lost Colony," she pointed out. "Surely you are the most fortunate of us all?"
Etsane waved a hand, indicating the other members of the team who were also in the lounge. There was the slothlike Shadgui Lithics Analyst, two humanoid Drnians, the Mizari Ceramicist, the Chhhh-kk-tu
Paleoenvironmental specialist, and the Vardi Chronologist.
"He is fortunate," Strongheart agreed, nuzzling her mate fondly. "But, Etsane, he is talking about the painted pictures and bas-relief carvings that cover the walls of all the Na-Dina ruins. Even more than Kal-Syr, this must be a dream world for an Iconographer!"
"Oh, it is! It will be!" Etsane agreed excitedly.
The ever-changing view caught her attention, and she discovered that Emerald Scales had now entered the atmosphere and was descending to land. Below them, she could see the broad delta lands that lay at the mouth of the River of Life. So much like the Nile ...
"Doctor Mitchell's preliminary report reminded me so much of ancient Egypt,"
she said, picking up the conversation where she'd left off. "I'll have to be careful not to let my own heritage influence me as I begin trying to decipher the ideoglyphs in the Royal Tomb of A-Um Rakt. Doctor Mitchell says he hasn't made any headway with
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them at all--they're very different from the hieroglyphs of Classical High Na-Dina."
At that moment the soft "prepare for landing" chime sounded, and all of the passengers quickly strapped themselves into their seats. Etsane watched the freighter's flight upriver, eager to see the great city of Spirit and its new, makeshift spaceport. The capital of the Na-Dina lay a hundred kilometers above the densely populated delta farmlands, and its towering stone buildings soon caught her attention.
Ancestor's World Page 5
