Moon Flower (16 page)

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 Behind it were workshops and laboratory spaces in prefabricated temporary huts, which should have been replaced by something more permanent by now.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 for 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.

“Stay,” Jerri commanded in a low voice. Nim, who had been tensing like a spring being slowly wound, relaxed back on his haunches but without letting his eyes flicker.

The mounted Cyrenean who was by the carriage turned in his saddle to stare curiously, as did the occupants. One of the children started to say something and was hushed by the younger-looking of the two women. The other Cyrenean, who had been sitting contemplating the base, wheeled his horse around and guided it at a slow walk toward where Shearer and Jerri were standing. Nim came up of his haunches, body straining and quivering. “Stay,” Jerri murmured again. Shearer eased his phone surreptitiously from his pocket and held it in his hand at readiness.

The Cyrenaen was olive-skinned with high cheeks and narrow eyes like an Asiatic, but a nose that was longer and thinner than the typical snub and rounded Oriental shape. He had a short, pointed beard, lending a Cavalier effect, which was enhanced by dark hair curling to the shoulders and a purple hat with a broad, floppy brim turned up at the sides and a flap at the back, covering the neck. A dark red flower attached jauntily at the front like a cockade added an element of dash. He wore a black cloak that draped over his mount behind, and under it a green coat with trim of yellow cord, and wide button-down lapels turned back to reveal a knotted, embroidered kerchief at the open neck. A curved sword in a scabbard was slung from the saddle behind him. With the eighteenth-century-looking carriage behind him, and the metal spires of the Terran surface shuttles standing above the pad area in the far distance, the sight was incongruous.

Shearer and Jerri watched, keeping still and saying nothing, while the Cyrenean drew to a halt and sat regarding them curiously for several seconds and casting an uncertain eye over Nim. Then he swung himself down in an easy, effortless movement, turned to face them, holding the reins in one hand, and bowed graciously, doffing his hat. When he straightened up, his eyes were glittering in a way that seemed good-humored. He was tall, at least six feet, with a lean, long-limbed frame that stood loosely. A broad belt carrying a pouch sat beneath the coat, supporting baggy brown pants that ballooned Cossack-style before being gathered into short boots.

“Peoples from Earth. Let it be a good day to you.” Evidently — and thankfully — he was one of the Cyreneans they’d been told about who had taken up the challenge of learning English. His voice was deep and resonant, articulating the words carefully, perhaps attuned to a slightly lower pitch,. “My name is Korsofal. I live in this...” he made a vague gesture at the surroundings, “near country.”

“Yocala?” Shearer guessed. That was what the Cyreneans called the surrounding region.

“Yes, Yocala. Very good.”

Shearer indicated himself. “Marc....” followed by “Jerri,” and then as an afterthought, pointing, “Nimrod.”

Korsofal grinned, showing strong white teeth inside his beard, and extended an arm to indicate the carriage. The other rider had moved a few paces toward them. “My family peoples. And he is the good friend. You come, and I tell the names.”

Shearer and Jerri exchanged glances. “This is working out faster than anything I ever expected,” Shearer murmured. And then, in a louder voice, turning to Korsofal, “Sure.”

Korsofal replaced his hat and began walking with them, leading his horse by its reins. “I have began, as you hear, speaking English. But much is still to learn. I must ask patience.”

“It’s a lot better than our Yocalan,” Shearer said. Jerri tried repeating it using some of the Yocalan words they had learned on the ship. Korsofal understood her and seemed delighted.

“The most useful thing I find to know how to say is ‘What is the English for?’” Korsofal informed them. He indicated Nim with a wave. “For the example, Nim... rod is the name, yes? Just this one. The special.”

“Right,” Shearer confirmed.

“So what is the English for... the animal that Nimrod is one of? In the way that, I already know, this one here that I have is the horse.”

“Dog,” Shearer said.

“So Nimrod is the dog?”

“Nimrod is a dog.”

“Still, I have trouble with the ‘the’ and the ‘a.’ But this is not the time. Or should it be ‘a’ time? You see — a joke.” They both smiled. This was going to be okay. They were drawing near the carriage. The other rider dismounted to await them. He looked some years older than Korsofal, fuller in build, clean-shaven, with a cap like a peaked beret, a long, coarse, brown riding cloak, and a loose two-piece tunic of some dark gray quilted material. The group in the carriage were peering out expectantly. Like Korsofal, they were all of brown to olive complexion.

Korsofal was looking curiously at Shearer as they walked. “My feeling was that maybe I was brought here to meet a Terran,” he said. “I think that it must be you.”

Shearer shook his head. “Sorry. I’m not meeting anyone. We only just arrived.... here,” he pointed at the ground, “from Earth.” He pointed upward.

Korsofal seemed to understand. He reached inside a pocket of his coat and pulled out a regular Terran, machine-made, business-size envelope. “Your name, you said, is Marc, yes?” He handed the envelope over. Written on it in a hand that Shearer recognized with a start as Evan Wade’s were the words,
Marc Shearer
. Bemused, he opened it and unfolded the sheet of paper that it contained. A dried, pressed, pink flower was sandwiched inside. Shearer was no botanist, but as far as he could tell, it was indistinguishable from a regular Terran rose. Unable to make anything of it, he turned his attention to the accompanying note. It read: