"I am Irene Norton," the woman said in a musical, young-sounding contralto. Otherwise she was undistinguished, pale face, shoulder-length brown hair. Of average height, she muffled her shape in a slit poncho and wide-bottomed slacks. That wasn't uncommon, but he didn't suppose she intended stylishness.
He half rose. She waved him back. "May I join you?" she asked. When she took a chair, the motion was lithe.
"D-do you care for a drink?" he stammered.
She gave a steady look out of a visage held expressionless. "No, gracias. This is simply a, a convenient place to meet."
"No eavesdroppers?" What an idiotic question.
She shook her head. "And I know the neighborhood and those who live in it, a little. Let's not waste time. We'll have to go somewhere else for serious talking, but first—" She leaned forward. Her arms came out of the poncho to rest on the table. "Has anything unusual, anything at all, happened to you on this expedition?"
"Why, uh, well—" He barked a laugh. "The whole business is unusual, isn't it?"
"I mean, have you noticed something that could suggest, oh, you're being watched?"
It came to him with a start. He should have seen earlier, when she first gestured. The hands and wrists before him were well-formed, strong, and . . . golden-brown. That was a life mask on her head.
She should have been more thorough about her disguise, or more careful in her movements. And she spoke almost as hesitantly as he. No professional, then. Another amateur, maybe just as bewildered and anxious? What was driving her?
The sense of equal responsibility braced him. He saw what a funk he had been in, and how much it was due to feeling like a pawn—he who had taken a boat down through a gravel storm, on his own decision, to rescue five men stranded on a cometary nucleus.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "Let me think." He did, aloud, while he stared into his beer mug or sipped from it. "If Lilisaire is under suspicion and monitored, they could know she called me back from space. Have you been told about that? And of course they'd know I visited her at the castle. I took the regular shuttle from Port Bowen to Kenyatta. Somebody could have ridden with me or called ahead and had somebody else waiting to trail me. But—I'm no expert at this, you understand. However, she and I had discussed my procedure at length. When I rented a volant at Kenyatta, I debited the account of an Earthside agent of hers. I left it in a part of Scotland I know, with instructions to return home next day, and went on foot about thirty kilometers across uninhabited Highland preserve to where another volant was waiting for me. That had been arranged by messenger or quantum-coded transmission, I'm not sure which, but in either case it ought to have been secure. I saw no sign of anyone else, and cloud cover—which had been forecast—hampered satellite surveillance, if they were zealous enough to order that. In Lake Superior Hub I changed vehicles again, and proceeded to a resort community on Vancouver Island, where I made a local call to Guthrie House and arranged an appointment with the Rydberg. I phoned San Francisco from there. The Rydberg told me it was safe, and I do believe it would take a special operation to tap that line. Today, according to the orders I got, I flew here without incident."
He raised his glance. His grin was wry. "I should think," he said, "if they considered making the kind of effort needed to track me through all that, they'd have done better to arrest me on suspicion and interrogate. Simpler and cheaper."
The life mask barely frowned. She wasn't practiced in using one. "I think," she said, "that they may be more clever. Lilisaire's agent warned me a very high-powered agent had come to see her, Lilisaire, in person."
"Yes, she told—"
Urgency cut across his words: "Search your memory. Has anything happened, no matter how trivial it seems, anything you can't quite explain?"
A slight shudder passed through him. He pushed his mind back into time. Nothing, nothing...Wait.
"Not really, but—Well, when I first landed on the Moon and her man met me, our flight was delayed about an hour because of an accident in orbit."
"What happened?” Beneath the poncho, she crouched.
"Nothing. We were taken to the executive lounge and given a drink while we waited. Then we were let go."
"A drink. And you never mentioned this to Lilisaire?"
"I don't remember. Maybe, maybe not. With everything else to talk about—"
"Pele!" She sprang to her feet, "Come on!"
"What?"
"Āwīwī!" She grabbed his hand and tugged. "I could be wrong, b-but I'm afraid I'm not. Come on!"
Numbly, he obeyed. They threaded among the tables, rearward. The waiter loomed in front of them. Norton gave him a few rapid words in a language Kenmuir didn't recognize. His massive countenance turning grim, he stepped aside and waved them to go ahead.
"I picked this place to meet because I know it," Norton said in a voice slurred by haste. "I picked a time after dark because we might need darkness. Now, if we hurry, if we're lucky, we may—Here."
They had passed through a hinged door to a storeroom. She swung another such door aside. A stairway descended into murk. She touched a switchplate, feeble fluorescence glimmered forth, she drew Kenmuir along and shut the door behind them. They started downward.
But he was no criminal, he protested silently, wildly. He had done nothing unlawful, nothing to make him a fugitive. Why was he in flight? Only this morning he'd been conversing with Matthias over breakfast. The lodgemaster had admitted, grudgingly, that Lunarians might after all be the best hope of humans for getting to the stars, or even of humans becoming less than totally dependent on sophotectic intelligences—if that was desirable. . . . It seemed impossibly long ago, another age, well-nigh as lost to him as the lifetime of the first Rydberg.
* * * *
14
The Mother of the Moon
H
omebound from Jupiter, the Caroline Herschel passed within naked-eye range of L-5. Nevertheless the gigantic cylinder gleamed tiny athwart space, half in light, half in darkness, its tapered ends pointed at the stars, jewel-exquisite. Firefly sparks flitted about it, spacecraft, machines. Earth and Luna were crescents to sunward, large and small, opalescent and ashen.
"We should have arrived a few months later," Eva Jannicki said. "We might have inaugurated the dock and drunk liters of free champagne." Though the orbital colony was an East Asian, mainly Japanese project, Fireball was inevitably a full partner and would dominate its commerce.
"I think our people will always gather mostly on Luna, when they do not on Earth," Lars Rydberg replied. "That is where our traditions have struck root."
"Oh, you!" The little full-figured woman gave the tall rawboned man a look of comic despair. Blue eyes returned her glance, from beneath cropped yellow hair and above jutting nose and lantern jaw. "That was a joke. I hoped you might know. Three times in these past four months I saw you smile. Once I distinctly heard you laugh. I thought my efforts were finally bearing fruit."
"You exaggerate, my dear, as usual." Rydberg's tips turned upward, ruefully. "But maybe not much. I fear we Swedes are like the English of legend. If you want to make us happy in our old age, tell us a funny story when we are young."
"There, you see, you can, if you try. Besides, you told me you aren't Swedish by ancestry."
He looked from her, out the port to the sky. His tone harshened. "That was a mistake. I should not have. Could you please forget it?"
Silence fell, making the ventilators sound loud. The two who manned Herschel floated adrift in it, weightless, while the ship moved on trajectory toward the point where final maneuvers were to commence. At this point in its cycle, air renewal had increased the ozone; there was a slight odor as of thunderstorm.
Jannicki reached to touch Rydberg's sleeve. "I'm sorry," she said low. "I didn't mean to offend you. Especially now, of all times."
He faced her anew. "You did not," he replied with some difficulty. "I should apologize for snapping at you. You touched a nerve, but you could not know, it was not y
our fault."
"Well, you've never talked much about yourself," she agreed. "And nerves do wear thin," during fifteen weeks with hardly anything to do but maintain health in the centrifuge, read, watch recorded shows, listen to recorded music, and pursue what other recreations are possible in free fall. "Our sheer uselessness—"
"No. We could have had an emergency, something the ship could not cope with alone. And before then—" Outbound eagerness, study, preparation. Supplies and support borne to Himalia Base. Participation, helping explore and prospect the outer moons, sharing in the telepresence when humans directed robots through the radiation rain upon the Galileans and into the king planet itself. The knowledge that this remoteness and unknownness required humans, were they to find and understand and someday make use of the stark wonders around them. Rydberg pondered. "Again I apologize. Memories ran away with me. It's another bad habit of mine, repeating the obvious."
She smiled. "I forgive you."
"Really?"
"That has perforce become one of my habits."
"Amazing, that you have not cut my throat."
"Oh, I probably lack a perfection or two myself. Were you never tempted to cut mine?"
"Of course not. Quite apart from the mess and the legal consequences, what a terrible waste."
"My feeling exactly." She paused. The lightened mood left her. "When the new ships replace these, when it's a few daycycles at one g to most destinations—"
"And the automation is so advanced that a single person is enough—Yes," he sighed. "I too will often miss the long voyages. But maybe before this comes to pass, we will be retired to planetside duty and living off our memories."
"Memories indeed."
"Indeed."
She fluttered her eyelashes. Her voice went husky. "We can still add to them, you know. Hours yet before we'll be wanted at the controls."
He smiled. "Now it is you speaking the obvious."
Together they kicked the bulkhead and soared aft.
When presently they rested at ease, harnessed against drift, otherwise in one another's arms and warmth and breath, she said, "Yes, the psych staff took a correct compatibility profile of us."
"I trust we will be teamed again, more than once," he replied in his solemn wise.
"I too. And as for our leave—You haven't told me, not really, how you plan to spend yours, aside from visiting your...parents...on Earth."
He stared before him at blank metal. "I am not sure. It depends."
"Nor am I sure. My ties are all Fireball, you know. I'll meet friends, doubtless make new ones, variety—" Her tone grew wistful. "But afterward, we two, a rendezvous?"
"I don't know," he repeated.
* * * *
Being of a size for Luna if not Earth, Herschel was just a short while in parking orbit, then descended to Port Bowen. Since discussions had gone on beforehand by radio and a quick inspection showed everything apparently in order, her crew were soon finished at the office. As customary, they took separate quarters in the Hotel Aldrin—privacy, total privacy, any time they wanted!—but she was hurt when he declined to make straight for the Fuel Tank with her. He didn't notice. "I may join you later," he muttered, and hurried off to his room.
Alone, he put through a call to Geneva. Business hours obtained in Europe, and he got the live contact he wished. "Hold a moment," he said, and debited for quantum coding. "Now, please, what have you learned?"
When the detective told him, he whistled long and low and sat for a span mute, until he commanded, "This is to stay strictly confidential."
The reply after transmission lag came stiff. "Sir, you knew the reputation of our agency when you engaged us."
"Yes, of course." Fireball's were not the only people touchy about the outfits to which they belonged. Because that was where they belonged, far more than in their countries or any other part of an impersonal civilization? "No offense. You did an excellent job. Keep the file encrypted, please, till I can get to Earth and study it in detail." Not that that would likely make any difference. "After which, I suppose, I'll want it wiped and forgotten."
Having switched off, Rydberg jumped to his feet and paced, not Lunar-style paces but short, jerky steps as if to make the room feel larger than it was. Finally he observed the time and swore. Late duskwatch. Aside from police and the like, nobody administrative was at work. He couldn't very well call the Beynac home, could he?
No, wait, this might be for the best. The phone found the office number he wanted and made contact for him. An assistor responded. That wasn't necessarily fortunate. The machine might not be programmed with the flexibility to consider his request and decide. However, this one was. It said the mayor could receive him at 1530 tomorrow. It even scanned the transport database and advised him about schedules.
Well, he'd heard that the incumbent ran things in free and easy fashion. From what he'd also heard, if his business wasn't worth her attention, he wouldn't last but a few minutes.
And if it was—considering what it was—he'd meet that when the hour came, and endure whatever he must.
Meanwhile he had an obligation. Honoring it would be a distraction for his mind, a balm for his heart. The call to Stockholm found both Sten and Linnea Rydberg. The old couple had inquired when he was due and stayed in their place waiting. Their joy made his eyes sting. It was hard to tell them, "Nej, ack, jag vet ej—No, I'm sorry, I don't know when I can come. I must see to something here first. I will come as soon as possible. I promise." He meant it, though he did not know what "possible" was going to mean.
His room had become a cage. He considered the pub. Eva Jannicki was getting an uproarious welcome there. Why not he? No. Ordinarily he was happy among comrades, but tonight he'd have to force it, boosted by alcohol or cannabis or levitane. Experiments in youth had left him with a dislike of intoxication.
He went instead to the public gymnasium. Nobody else was using the springball court. That suited him well. Its robot gave him a game that left him pleasantly tired. After a shower and a light supper in a cafeteria, he slept better than he had expected.
In dawnwatch he boarded the monorail to Tychopolis. The system was newly completed, and in spite of regathering tension he enjoyed this, his first ride. Not simply faster than the semitrain, it was spacious and comfortable, its ports affording a sublime view. By day, when Earth was narrowed to a sickle and stars flooded out of vision, the heavens were not a sight to hold you unmoving for hours, certainly nothing comparable to what he had beheld near Mars, Jupiter, Saturn; yet his glance kept returning. The satellites he had lately betrodden had no real landscapes. They were too small; their stoniness toppled away. Here he looked across plains and up heights, here he spied energy dishes like triumphal monuments.
A fellow passenger struck up a conversation which Rydberg found himself likewise enjoying. The man was a tourist, but intelligent, an ecological engineer fresh from an aquacultural project south of Greenland. Though he worried about the troubles in the Near East and Africa and hoped they wouldn't erupt into full war, mainly he was indignant. Damned fanatics, delaying the reclamation of a continent and a half!
"Did you follow the news, out Jupiter way?" he asked.
"When we could," Rydberg said. "We would cluster around the screen—they still do, I am sure—each time the beam brought a 'cast, if we were on hand. We do have kinfolk and friends on Earth. But mostly we were elsewhere, or too busy. It came to seem distant, half unreal. We felt ashamed of that."
"You needn't have. I'd be a spacer myself if I'd had a chance when I was young. The future is here."
Rydberg wondered. How much of humankind would ever live off Earth? Aside from science and industry, how much would it ever mean?
He reached Tychopolis in ample time to get lodging and lunch. Appetite was lacking, though. He prowled the city. Everywhere he found activity, growth, ongoing improvement. It wasn't all government's or Fireball's. Three arcaded levels of businesses lined Tsiolkovsky Prospect. A doorscreen advertise
d that King Lear would be performed within, live. The ballet had acquired a theater of its own. Apartments in residential sections were being remodeled to suit their tenants, who often held title. Other units had evidently become places of worship, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Gaian. A Cinco de Mayo picnic filled the bamboo grove of Kaifungfu Park with music and merriment.
Among the crowds passed the Lunarians, the new generation, in their late teens or younger, comely, graceful, and apart.
Rydberg's hour drew nigh. He entered city hall.
Those three or four rented rooms in the Fireball Complex hardly rated the name. Municipal government had no more authority than the nations had jointly chosen to allow it, essentially the overseeing of services. That thought raised a brief smile on his lips. What had been delegated was most of what touched the lives of the Moon's inhabitants.
The Stars are also Fire - [Harvest the Stars 02] Page 19
