Nemesis (17 page)

“Never. I’m a Rotorian, and I intend to stay one. I wouldn’t even be here—if you’ll pardon my saying so—if it weren’t an astronomical necessity. I’ve got to make a number of observations from a base that is more stable than Rotor.”

“So I have been informed by Pitt. I am instructed to give you my full cooperation.”

“Good. I’m sure you will. Incidentally, you mentioned earlier that the Dome would like to keep the prokaryotes out. Do you succeed in doing so? Is the water here safe to drink?”

Genarr said, “Obviously, since we drink it. There are no prokaryotes in the Dome. Any water that comes in—anything at all that comes in—is bathed in blue-violet light that destroys the prokaryotes in a matter of seconds. The short-wave photons in the light are too energetic for the little things and break down key components of the cells. And even if some of them come in, they’re not poisonous, as far as we can tell, or harmful in any way. We’ve tested them on animals.”

“That’s a relief.”

“It works the other way, too. Our own microorganisms can’t compete with Erythro’s prokaryotes under Erythrotic conditions. At least when we seed Erythro’s soil with our own bacteria, they don’t succeed in growing and multiplying.”

“What about multicellular plants?”

“We’ve tried it, but with very poor results. And it must be due to the quality of Nemesis’ light because we can grow plants perfectly well inside the Dome, using Erythro’s soil and water. We report these things back to Rotor, of course, but I doubt that the information gets widely publicized. As I said, Rotor isn’t interested in the Dome. Certainly the fearsome Pitt isn’t interested in us, and he’s really all that counts on Rotor, isn’t he?”

Genarr said that with a smile, but the smile seemed strained. (What would Marlene have said about it? Insigna wondered.)

She said, “Pitt isn’t fearsome. He’s sometimes
tiresome
, but that’s a different thing. You know, Siever, I always thought when we were young that
you
might be Commissioner someday. You were enormously bright, you know.”

“Were?”

“Still are, I’m sure, but in those days you were so politically oriented, had such ideas. I used to listen to you, entranced. In some ways, you would have been a better Commissioner than Janus is. You would have listened to people. You wouldn’t have insisted on getting your own way as much.”

“Which is precisely why I would have made a very poor Commissioner. You see, I don’t have any precise goals in life. I just have the desire to do what seems to me to be the right thing at the moment, in the
hope
that it will end up with something bearable. Now, Pitt knows what he wants and intends to get there by any means.”

“You’re misjudging him, Siever. He’s got strong views, but he’s a very reasonable man.”

“Of course, Eugenia. That’s his great gift, his reasonableness. Whatever course he pursues, he always has a perfectly good, a perfectly logical, a perfectly human reason for it. He can make one up at any given moment, and is so sincere about it, he convinces even himself. I’m sure if you’ve had any dealings with him, you’ve managed
to let him talk you into doing what you at first didn’t want to do, and that he won you over not by orders and threats but by very patient, very rational arguments.”

Insigna said weakly, “Well—”

At that, Genarr added sardonically, “I see you have indeed suffered from his reasonableness. You can see for yourself, then, what a good Commissioner he is. Not a good person, but a good Commissioner.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say he wasn’t a good person, Siever,” said Insigna, shaking her head slightly.

“Well, let’s not argue about it. I want to meet your daughter.” He rose to his feet. “Why don’t I visit your quarters after dinner?”

“That would be delightful,” said Insigna.

Genarr looked after her with a fading smile as she left. Eugenia had wanted to reminisce, and his own first reaction was to mention her husband—and she had frozen.

He sighed inwardly. He still had that extraordinary faculty of ruining his own chances.

Eugenia Insigna said to her daughter, “His name is Siever Genarr, and he is properly addressed as Commander, because he’s the head of the Erythro Dome.”

“Of course, Mother. If that’s his title, I’ll call him that.”

“And I don’t want you to embarrass him—”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“You would do so all too easily, Marlene. You know that. Just accept his statements without correcting them on the ground of body language. Please! He was a good friend of mine at college and for a while afterward. And even though he’s been here in the Dome for ten years and I haven’t seen him in all that time, he’s
still
an old friend.”

“I think he must have been a boyfriend.”

“Now that’s just what I mean,” said Insigna. “I don’t want you watching him and telling him what he really means or thinks or feels. And for your information, he was
not
my boyfriend, exactly, and we were certainly not lovers. We were friends and we liked each other—as friends. But after your father—” She shook her head, and gestured vaguely. “And be careful what you say about
Commissioner Pitt—if that subject comes up. I get the feeling Commander Genarr distrusts Commissioner Pitt—”

Marlene bestowed one of her rare smiles on her mother. “Have you been studying Commander Siever’s subliminal behavior? Because what you have is more than a feeling.”

Insigna shook her head. “You see? You can’t stop for a moment. Very well, it’s not a feeling. He actually
said
he didn’t trust the Commissioner. And you know,” she added, half to herself, “he may have reason—”

She turned to Marlene and said suddenly, “Let me repeat, Marlene. You are perfectly free to watch the Commander and find out all you can, but don’t say anything to him about it. Tell
me!
Do you understand?”

“Do you think there’s danger, Mother?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do,” said Marlene matter-of-factly. “I’ve known there was danger as soon as Commissioner Pitt said we could go to Erythro. I just don’t know what the danger is.”

Seeing Marlene for the first time was a shock to Siever Genarr, one that was made worse by the fact that the girl looked at him with a sullen expression that made it seem that she knew perfectly well that he had received a shock, and just why.

The fact was that there was not a thing about her that seemed to indicate she was Eugenia’s daughter, none of the beauty, none of the grace, none of the charm. Only those large bright eyes that were now boring into him, and they weren’t Eugenia’s either. They were the one respect in which she exceeded her mother, rather than fell short.

Little by little, though, he revised his first impression. He joined them for tea and dessert, and Marlene behaved herself with perfect propriety. Quite the lady, and obviously intelligent. What was it-that Eugenia had said? All the unlovable virtues? Not quite that bad. It seemed to him that she ached for love, as plain people sometimes
do. As he himself did. A sudden flood of fellow feeling swept over him.

And after a while, he said, “Eugenia, I wonder if I might have a chance to speak to Marlene alone.”

Insigna said with an attempt at lightness, “Any particular reason, Siever?”

Genarr said, “Well, it was Marlene who spoke to Commissioner Pitt and it was she who persuaded the Commissioner to allow the two of you to come to the Dome. As Commander of the Dome, I’m pretty much dependent on what Commissioner Pitt says and does, and I would value what Marlene can tell me of the meeting. I think she would speak more freely if it were just the two of us.”

Genarr watched Insigna leave and then turned to Marlene, who was now sitting in a large chair in a corner of the room, almost lost in its soft capaciousness. Her hands were clasped loosely in her lap and her beautiful dark eyes regarded the Commander gravely.

Genarr said with a hint of humor in his voice, “Your mother seemed a little nervous about leaving you here with me. Are you nervous, too?”

“Not at all,” said Marlene. “And if my mother was nervous, it was on your behalf, not on mine.”

“On
my
behalf. Why?”

“She thinks I might say something that would offend you.”

“Would you, Marlene?”

“Not deliberately, Commander. I’ll try not to.”

“And I’m sure you’ll succeed. Do you know why I want to see you alone?”

“You told my mother you want to find out about my interview with Commissioner Pitt. That’s true, but you also want to see what I’m like.”

Genarr’s eyebrows drew together just a trifle. “Naturally, I would want to get to know you better.”

“It’s not that,” said Marlene quickly.

“What is it, then?”

Marlene looked away. “I’m sorry, Commander.”

“Sorry about what?”

Marlene’s face twitched unhappily and she was silent.

Genarr said softly, “Now, Marlene, what is wrong? You must tell me. It is important to me that we talk frankly. If
your mother told you to watch what you say, please forget that. If she implied that I was sensitive and easily offended, please forget that, too. In fact, I command you to speak to me freely and not to worry a bit about offending me, and you must obey my command because I’m the Commander of the Erythro Dome.”

Marlene laughed suddenly. “You’re really anxious to find out about me, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Because you’re wondering how I can look the way I do, when I’m my mother’s daughter.”

Genarr’s eyes opened wide. “I never said anything of the sort.”

“You didn’t have to. You’re an old friend of my mother’s. She told me that much. But you were in love with her, and you haven’t quite gotten over it, and you were expecting me to look the way she did when she was young, so when you saw me, you winced and drew back.”

“I did? It was noticeable?”

“It was a very small gesture because you’re a polite man and you tried to repress it, but it was there. I saw it easily. And then your eyes turned to my mother and back to me. And then there was the tone of your first words to me. It was all very plain. You were thinking I didn’t look at all like my mother and you were disappointed.”

Genarr leaned back in his chair and said, “But this is marvelous.”

And a great gladness lit up Marlene’s face. “You mean it, Commander. You
mean
it. You’re not offended. You’re not uncomfortable. It makes you happy. You’re the first one, the
first
one. Even my mother doesn’t like it.”

“Liking or not liking it doesn’t matter. That is totally irrelevant when it’s a question of coming up against the extraordinary. How long have you been able to read body language in this way, Marlene?”

“Always, but I’ve gotten better at it. I think anyone must be able to do it, if they only watch—and think.”

“Not so, Marlene. It can’t be done. Don’t think it. And you say I love your mother.”

“No doubt about it, Commander. When you’re near her, you give it away with every look, every word, every twitch.”

“Do you suppose she notices?”

“She suspects you do, but she doesn’t want you to.”

Genarr looked away. “She never did.”

“It’s my father.”

“I know.”

Marlene hesitated. “But I think she’s wrong. If she could see you the way I do right now—”

“But she can’t, unfortunately. It makes me so happy that you do, though. You’re beautiful.”

Marlene flushed. Then she said, “You mean that!”

“Of course I do.”

“But—”

“I can’t lie to you, can I? So I won’t try. Your face isn’t beautiful. Your body isn’t beautiful. But
you
are beautiful and that’s what’s important. And you can tell I really believe that.”

“Yes, I do,” said Marlene, smiling with such genuine happiness that even her face had a sudden distant cast of beauty.

Genarr smiled, too, and said, “Shall we now talk about Commissioner Pitt? Now that I know what an uncommonly shrewd young woman you are, it is all the more important I do so. Are you willing?”

Marlene clasped her hands lightly in her lap, smiled demurely, and said, “Yes, Uncle Siever. You don’t mind if I call you that, do you?”

“Not at all. In fact, I’m honored. Now—tell me all about Commissioner Pitt. He has sent me instructions that I’m to give your mother all possible cooperation and that I am to make freely available to her all our astronomical equipment. Why do you suppose that is?”

“My mother wants to make delicate measurements of Nemesis’ motion relative to the stars, and Rotor is too unsteady a base for those measurements. Erythro will do much better.”

“Is this project of hers a recent one?”

“No, Uncle Siever. She’s been trying to get the necessary data for a long time, she told me.”

“Then why didn’t your mother ask to come here a long time ago?”

“She did, but Commissioner Pitt refused.”

“Why did he agree now?”

“Because he wanted to get rid of her.”

“I’m sure of that—if she kept bothering him with her astronomical problems. But he must have been tired of her a long time ago. Why does he send her
now?
”

Marlene’s voice was low. “He wanted to get rid of
me
.”

Five years had now passed since the Leaving. Crile Fisher found that hard to believe since it seemed so much longer than that, infinitely longer. Rotor was not in the past, but in another life altogether, one that he could only view with gathering incredulity. Had he really lived there? Had he had a wife?

He remembered only his daughter clearly, and even that had its element of confusion, for sometimes it seemed to him he remembered her as a teenager.

Of course, the problem was compounded by the fact that his life in the last three years, ever since Earth had discovered the Neighbor Star, had been a hectic one. He had visited seven different Settlements.

All of these were inhabited by Settlers of his own skin shade who spoke more or less his language and shared more or less his cultural orientation. (That was the advantage of Earth’s variety. Earth could supply an agent similar in appearance and culture to the general population of any Settlement.)