Fledgling (40 page)

"Also," Professor Crowley interposed smoothly, "if a message might be sent to Professor Dochayn, who is our sponsor to the collection, that would be most welcome as well, Director. The team had been under the impression that she was planning to meet us and conduct us personally to the archives."

"Ah, but that is why you see me here, Scholars! You must accept my apologies, Professor Dochayn was granted a fellowship at the premier archival center on our sister planet of Ibenvue."

"Really?" Crowley murmured. "She said nothing of this in our correspondence."

"Indeed, indeed! The honor came upon her unaware, the announcement so late that she thought another had been chosen. Just between us, sir, I would say that another had been chosen, who had then been obliged to turn it down. These things happen, of course, and in this case it was to Dochayn's benefit. Off she went to Ibenvue, with scarcely a day to pack and see to her affairs here. The department is still a little hectic, as support staff scramble to divide her work between them. If you know her, sir, you know that she was always in the midst, sleeves rolled up, notebook in hand."

"Indeed," Crowley said politely.

"I'd hardly think the Museum would let her go on such short notice," Professor Able said, "with such a workload and no second to take up the work in her absence."

"The Treasure House would scarcely put itself between one of our most valued scholars and so noteworthy an honor. What she will learn on Ibenvue, she will bring back to us here, while teaching Ibenvue in her turn. When she returns, the Treasure House will benefit from this synergy. Truly, we would be shortsighted with regard to our own greater good, did we refuse to allow such migrations. Temporary interruptions can be dealt with. But come!" She turned her smile and her attention to Chair Hafley.

"I apologize for the inconvenience to which we have subjected you this morning. It will be my pleasure to provide a place to rest and a meal. Please, follow me."

Hafley turned to walk with the Director, leaving the other three to follow. Kamele glanced to Crowley and to Able, and raised her hand, as if to make sure that her badge was securely affixed, and touched her finger to her collar in the exact location where Director Pikelmin wore her dainty blue knot.

Crowley inclined his head, and Able, advertent scholars, both.

Kamele inclined her head and followed Hafley down a short hallway to a conference room, where four chairs had been set around a square table.

"Please, be seated," Director Pikelmin said. "Catering will be here momentarily.

"Excellent," said Hafley, taking a chair. "Kamele, sit here, at my right."

Stomach tight, Kamele took the seat at Hafley's right.

"Delicious!" Hafley proclaimed. "Better than anything
Vashtara
served, even at the captain's own table!"

"I will tell the catering manager that you approve of his efforts," Director Pikelmin said, bowing slightly.

It was, Kamele admitted, very good coffee, the foodstuffs certainly equal to that served in the atrium cafe aboard
Vashtara
.

"Sit with us," Able invited, "and have a cup of your excellent coffee."

"Thank you," the director said, "but I lunched earlier."

She straightened, suddenly appearing several inches taller. Kamele observed this with interest, having seen Jen Sar perform the same illusion innumerable times. Its success depended almost entirely upon attitude, as Jen Sar, at least, was always upright in his posture. Director Pikelmin seemed to have been slumping just a bit, and only now allowed her full height to be seen. Which was, in Kamele's opinion, cheating.

"Now that we have perhaps made some small amends for your inconvenience of the morning, Scholars, I think we must talk of your reason for visiting our delightful planet. I believe that I learn from Dochayn's files that your purpose is to compare copies of the Beltaire papers held by Delgado University's library with the originals, held in our archives. Is this correct?"

"That is most wonderfully correct," Crowley answered. "I carry, in addition, not supposing that it should be needed, a letter from Professor Beltaire, granting us unlimited access to her family's archive."

"Certainly, it is wise to be prepared for all possible unpleasantness, so that one may be agreeably surprised when the way is smoother than anticipated," the director said with a smile. "Professor Beltaire's foresight—and your own, sir!—are appreciated, but the letter is not necessary."

"What I wish to offer is an . . . option which our own Professor Dochayn appears not to have mentioned to your team. Since the archives are our own and we are very familiar with their contents and the system under which they are filed, why not spend an hour or two with Dochayn's research assistants, outlining precisely what it is that you want, and leave all in our hands? You may take a well-deserved vacation, tour our splendid city, make the trip to Tampere Falls—spend a night, or two, in the lodge behind the falls. When you return, rested and content, your information will be waiting for you."

"That's a very . . . interesting offer," Crowley said, looking 'round the table.

"No!" Hafley said, astonishingly. She glared at Crowley. "It's not
interesting
, Emeritus Professor, it's—generous to a fault! This is what it means, to be part of the community of scholars! We may live on different worlds, abide by different cultures, but we all inhabit the universe of the mind." She smiled at Director Pikelmin. "We can do nothing else but accept. Isn't that correct, Sub-Chair?"

This,
Kamele thought,
this is what I agreed to, when I said that I would stand her ally.
The other members of the team were looking to her, waiting for her response. She swallowed, finished what was left of her coffee, and put the cup carefully into its saucer.

"Actually," she said, pleased to hear that her voice was perfectly composed, "though the offer is generous in the extreme, we cannot accept. It is our duty, as Scholars of Delgado, to do our own research. We cannot ask our sisters in scholarship to prove our point for us. The request we made of Professor Dochayn was for access to the archives. Professor Beltaire's letter of permission also grants us this—access to the archives." She met Director Pikelmin's cool eyes.

"Your offer is well-meant," she said, "but we must pursue our own course in this."

"I think so, as well," said Crowley.

Able nodded. "Let's finish what we came here to do."

"Scholars!" Hafley cried. "We have all been teachers. Surely we can give Professor Dochayn's trained assistants instructions regarding our needs. There's no reason to weary ourselves, to learn the filing system in use, to risk muddling the archive's records . . ."

"I have been a scholar for seventy Standard Years," Crowley interrupted. "I have pursued source documents into hovels, where the texts were left exposed to humidity, radiation, and other damaging elements; where the notion of a filing system was to simply stack all those with matching covers in a certain corner of the room. I take offense at the statement that I would be unable to decipher the civilized and sophisticated archival system in use at this facility. The insinuation that I would somehow, in my base male ignorance,
muddle the files
I consider beneath reply."

"Professor Crowley—"

"I agree with Professor Waitley," Able interrupted the Chair. "Delgado didn't become the watchword for careful scholarship because Delgadan scholars let others do their research. We hold ourselves to scholarly rigor; it is our pride and our duty. Students come to us from the far reaches of the galaxy because we do not stint ourselves, nor take the easy path. We have our task before us; let us continue."

Not a consensus,
Kamele thought,
but a majority. So be it.
Hafley, however, was opening her mouth, apparently to argue or cajole further.

"The scholars perhaps are not entirely informed on the conditions of research in the archives," Director Pikelmin said smoothly. "Dochayn would hardly have thought to mention it; she was here at all hours, herself. As you can see, we have an immense facility to maintain and protect here. What this means in terms of visiting scholars and research teams is that they may, at the invitation of a resident archivist—which your team has of course obtained—visit the relevant archive. However, checking large groups of foreign scholars in and out puts an unacceptable burden on our security personnel. That is why all visiting researchers are required to stay within the archives until they have either completed their work, or they have overstayed their welcome."

Theo
, Kamele thought, calm inside the suddenly cool room.

"How long," she asked, "are visiting researchers welcome?"

Director Pikelmin smiled. "One local week, Professor."

"I see." Kamele glanced around the table, seeing agreement on two faces. "Since time is so short, I suggest that we begin immediately, if the director can find someone able to lead us
directly
to the archives."

"I will myself lead you, Professor Waitley, if you must go. I should mention that conditions are perhaps not what you are accustomed to. The apartments are very small, and the food provided—alas!—not by our most excellent catering department but by a cafeteria vending service."

Kamele did not laugh, though she did glance down at her empty coffee cup.

"Those conditions are acceptable," she said, and looked 'round the table. "Scholars?"

"Acceptable," Able said.

"More than acceptable," Crowley said. "I wonder, however, if someone—perhaps our excellent Chaperon, Gidis Arkov—could be dispatched to bring our cases to us. We came, you understand, prepared to do our research, not to take up residence."

Jeyanzi Pikelmin pressed her lips together.

"If it's against the rules," Able said, dryly, "then think nothing of it. We'll manage. I assume that there is a sink?"

The director looked to Hafley, who threw up her hands.

"We have a consensus, or so it would appear! I thank you for your attempt to make our work easier."

"Then you will also be staying in the archives, Chair Hafley?" the director asked.

"It would seem that I have no choice."

"Of course." She bowed slightly to the room at large. "Licensed Chaperon Gidis Arkov will fetch the scholars' cases to the archive. You will understand that this may take some amount of time, it being an extra burden upon him. Melchiza is, however, famous for its hospitality. We would not wish to leave a guest in discomfort."

Kamele nodded.

"That's settled, then," she said briskly, and rose, smiling brightly at the woman in her red coat and blue knot. "Director Pikelmin, let me thank you again for a most delicious meal! It's time for this research team to embrace its purpose, dreary as that might seem to some. I believe you said that you would be able to guide us . . . ?"

"Yes, Professor Waitley," the director said gently. "I will myself escort you."

* * *

Movement was freeform; you were supposed to stretch and move around, so Ave-Su said, to get the blood back up to your brain. Theo staked out a piece of floor toward the back of the big room and danced a few phrases of
menfri'at
. The voices and heavy steps of her teammates fell out of her awareness before she completed the first phrase. Closing her eyes, she imagined Win Ton moving with her, which was easy since he danced so quiet—like there was a cushion of air between the soles of his boots and whatever mundane surface the rest of the population had to deal with. Captain Cho moved like that, too, and sometimes Father . . . 

She stopped in mid-phrase, her eyes springing open to behold her classmates, standing quite still, watching
her,
like they'd never seen anybody dance before. And coming forward was Instructor Tathery, eyes wide in a face that seemed a little paler than it had been.

"Everybody awake?" she called out to the room in general, and the rest of the class turned toward her. "Good! We're due at the media center!"

* * *

"All communication devices must be checked at this station," Jeyanzi Pikelmin said. "They will be returned to you when you depart our facility."

Kamele considered the woman. "My minor daughter is enrolled at the Transit School. The custom upon Delgado is that a mother must always have available to her the means to supervise and interact with her child."

Director Pikelmin inclined her head gently. "Delgado's customs are well-known to me, Professor Waitley, and I honor them, on those occasions when I am on Delgado. This discussion is taking place upon Melchiza, however, and here we have our own customs. Your child is under the supervision of the instructor of her class; you may rest easy." She looked up, eyes gleaming.

"If Delgadan custom must overrule Melchizan, then I suggest to you that it is not too late to allow experienced Treasure House staff to take the burden of your task out of your hands."

Kamele took a breath. To be . . . incarcerated, incommunicado, for the length of a thorough search—which Able had calculated at no less than four Delgadan days, and possibly as long as seven—with her child among strangers. It was—what if something happened?

I should have,
she thought,
closed my eyes and ignored the signs, stopped myself from adding up the inconsistencies. Remained in Jen Sar's house, where everything was comfortable and my daughter was protected
.

Yet—Was that how a Scholar of Delgado comported herself? Could she have lived with herself, had she turned her head? And Theo—what lesson would her daughter have taken from such an act of cowardice?

"Professor Waitley?"

She looked around to her colleagues, to Hafley, smirking at the director's side, and bowed slightly. It seemed to her that she heard Jen Sar murmur quietly in her ear,
Necessity
.

"The Treasure House," she said composedly, "is to be commended for the care it lavishes upon those valuables that come into its keeping." She stepped to the desk and slipped her mumu from her pocket. The guard slapped a pressure-seal on it, and used her chin to point. "Fingerprints, please, Scholar."