Starfarers (23 page)

They walked to the rim of the mesa and stared outward. The hair stirred on Cleland’s and Kilbirnie’s arms. Below them a valley widened off into distance. Through the leafage down there they glimpsed bright hues and sharp edges, walls. Farther off, several scattered towers reared twenty or thirty meters above the forest, iridescent and lacily graceful where ivylike growth had not overrun them. The wilderness was reclaiming what dwellers had forsaken—when, why?

Sonoptics on shoulders whirred, swung to and fro, recording, recording.

“The Cold Lairs,” Kilbirnie whispered.

“What?” asked Cleland.

“From an old book the skipper screened for me. Come.” She took the lead. He bit his lip and followed. Mokoena brought up the rear, alert for whatever might strike from that direction.

Nothing did. The descent was easy and the woods below free of underbrush; apparently a dense buff turf prevented its growth. Footfalls muffled, the band went on through sun-flecked shade, welcome after the heat in the open, among convoluted trunks that divided into overarching withes. The flyers dazzled about. Sometimes something croaked or trilled somewhere in the depths.

Mokoena’s voice rang startlingly loud. “Hold! Wait!”

Her companions turned. She pointed. Her hand trembled. “Look,” she said.

A cluster of shrubs(?) filled a glade. They grew about a meter tall, branching and rebranching, sprouting three-pointed leaves that might have fluttered in the winds of Earth except for the rich red-brown hue. White petals graced many twigs.

“Odd, aye,” Kilbirnie said. “But isn’t everything, to us?”

“Not like this.” The biologist stepped over and fingered a blade. “Nothing like what we have seen.”

“Well, a planet, a whole world,” Cleland reminded.
“You’d expect variety. On Earth you can find, oh, a palm, a cactus, and a mesquite on the same plot.”

“Plot. … I have a feeling this isn’t natural. We must take samples back for Selim, of course, but I suspect he’ll discover it isn’t native life. Introduced. From the home of the Yonderfolk?”

“Like us planting grass and roses on new planets. … Did they?”

“Come along, come along,” Kilbirnie urged. “This is very interesting, but what we want is artifacts, pictures, any clues to the builders we can get.”

“Life here—a whole evolution, billions of years, and then invasion—” With a wrenching effort, Mokoena set off again after her team.

Cleland stopped next. “One moment,” he begged, and scuttled aside. The women watched him peer at a porous grayish boulder of his own height, run fingers across it, strike off a piece with the geologist’s hammer at his belt, and turn it over and over beneath his eyes.

“What’s the matter?” Kilbirnie demanded.

He sighed and returned. “That rock,” he said. “Looks volcanic, though extraordinarily large for its type, but it’s isolated and I’d swear there’s been no volcanism in this area for an era at least. I’d dearly love to know how it got here. Some peculiar geological process? This globe’s dynamics must be similar to Earth’s, but can hardly be identical. Maybe, even, it hasn’t had what we could rightly call eras and periods and epochs. … Or was this a biological product, like chalk formations at home?”

“I doubt you will ever know,” said Mokoena.

He nodded. “Our time here is so pathetically short.”

Kilbirnie tossed her head. “Aye, but ’tis a way station for the treasure we do seek. Come along, noo.”

Aboard Ship
they gathered in assembly.

Dayan stood and related, “It seems clear. We have the data, better astronomy than before for this vicinity, indisputable
identification of the neutrino flux associated with fusion power plants, and preliminary triangulation. The Yonderfolk, or at any rate
a
high-tech civilization, are in that direction”—her forefinger jabbed at a point on a bulkhead—“about a hundred light-years off. As we get closer, we should be able to pinpoint the location.”

Breathless silence, until Sundaram inquired, “Isn’t that well off from what was formerly the center of interstellar activity?”

“Yes, rather,” Dayan agreed.

“We assumed the civilization would expand outward more or less radially,” Yu added. “That was merely an assumption.”

“The astronomy we’ve been doing may well explain the facts,” Dayan said. “Late G and early K stars happen to be more concentrated there than elsewhere. That strongly supports the idea of the original sun being of that type, and should narrow our search down considerably. I venture to guess that we’ll find it in another month or two, less if we’re lucky.”

“Hurrah!” Zeyd cheered.

Down in the empty settlement, where a receiver was tuned in, Kilbirnie whooped, “Hallelujah!” and danced on a terrace in front of strange images.

Before
Envoy
left orbit, her crew festooned the gymnasium with ribbons and ornaments, set up the equipment they would want, and held a celebration. A table stood crowded with potables and canapés; the nanos could replace everything consumed. Folk mingled, drank, talked, laughed. Presently some offered performances on an erected stage. Yu shyly recited a few translations of poetry she had done. Dayan rendered a couple of rousing soldier songs. Cleland and Ruszek joined to give rowdier ones.

Music pulsed and wailed. Clad in archaic costumes which a couturier program had made according to his orders,
Nansen and Kilbirnie did a tango. As he watched the sensuous steps and gestures, Cleland’s merriment left him.

The rest applauded. Nansen smiled and bowed. Kilbirnie blew a kiss. They rejoined the audience.

The room darkened. The stage alone was lighted, a flickering red and yellow light like flames. Projected on the rear bulkhead, shadowy figures swayed and stamped, ghost spears shook above phantom shields. Mokoena trod forth, plumes on her head, a grass skirt around her waist, lightning-jagged lines of paint white across her skin. The sound of whistles, drums, and deep-voiced chanting came with her. She raised-her arms and began to dance as her people had danced long ago. She was the lion, the elephant, the fire loose on a dry veldt, the onrushing horde of lean warriors, the death, and the triumphant scorning of it.

When she was done and illumination returned, her shipmates stood mute for a span before they clapped and shouted. Most then sought the table, much wanting a drink.

Mokoena returned to the deck. Sweat glistened on her face and over her breasts. Brent intercepted her. “Mam, that was superb,” he declared.

She stopped. “Thank you.”

“The power and the—yes, a lot of subtlety, too—That was a strong culture.”

Her expression changed. “You admire strength above all else, don’t you?”

“You must yourself, the show you gave.”

“It was history. Or romance.” Her mood brightened. “I gather you think well of your own ancestors, but would you really like to run through the swamps, dyed blue?”

“No, of course not. But they, and yours, had something our countries have lost—had lost—and sorely needed.”

“Strength? Is it, by itself, that important?”

“When you get down to the basics, what else do we survive by?”

“Honor. Kindness”

“They aren’t easy. They take strength.”

“You have always felt you had to be strong, haven’t you?” she murmured. “Strong to stand against disappointment, hostility, loneliness. To go on this ship in a forlorn hope of bringing a destiny back to Earth.”

“I’m not convinced the hope is forlorn. Besides, that phrase properly means, meant, a military detachment. South African, in fact.”

“You and your military!” Mokoena laughed. “We’re in serious danger of getting serious.”

He smiled stiffly. “Sorry. Bad habit of mine.”

“Let’s suppress it.” She gave him her arm. They went to the table, poured champagne, and touched goblets.

Later, having changed back to conventional party garb, she led him through several ballroom dances and foolish, funny games. Ruszek joined in, once with her; they exchanged a few friendly words. He seemed cheerful enough and drank, if not quite in moderation, not to excess. The other women found themselves once more enjoying his slightly raffish company. He twirled his mustache at them, paid compliments, told anecdotes that might or might not be true, cracked jokes, all without either person pretending it could lead to anything.

The celebration began to ebb. Sundaram was first to leave, then Zeyd and Dayan went out together. Brent and Mokoena lingered near the door, talking. They had shared more of their lives in the past several hours—nothing very intimate, but more—than ever before.

“This has been a great evening, Mam,” he said at the end. “For me anyway.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “good for everybody.” Her lips formed the words, not in English: “Almost everybody.”

“Would you, uh, would you like to continue?”

She looked to the corner where Ruszek was in conversation with Nansen and Kilbirnie. Cleland stood aside, unspeaking. Ruszek’s glance strayed her way for a second. She brought hers back to Brent.

“No, thank you, Al,” she said gently.

His fists doubled. His features tightened. “On his account? You and he’ve broken up.”

To mention something so personal, uninvited, was a bad breach of the tacit code aboard. Mokoena overlooked it. “That is too hard a word. We agreed we’d do best to separate until … circumstances change, if ever. For one thing, the relationship was complicating my role as physician. Work goes easier when I am free. Life does.” Perhaps she would have been less frank if she had emptied fewer glasses, or perhaps she carefully decided to tell him what she did. He didn’t stop to think which.

“Free!” he exclaimed. “Then why not—tonight, anyway?”

“No, Al. I could not do that.”

The hope died behind his eyes. “To him?”

“To you,” she answered. “Good night.” She went away, out into the corridor.

Envoy
departed.
The weeks of confinement under boost did not seem overly long to most of her crew.

Still, occasionally the mood sobered. Sundaram and Ruszek played a game of chess in the saloon. They were often together these days. The linguist’s quiet, unofficious counsel, a few techniques of meditation he explained, or simply his presence had helped the mate back to emotional balance. Ruszek won the game. “I didn’t expect that,” he confessed.

“You underestimate yourself, my friend,” Sundaram said.

“No, I don’t. If this had been poker I’d have cleaned you down to your naked bones, but here I just meant to pass the time and maybe sharpen my skill a little. You weren’t paying attention.”

“Forgive me. My mind does wander. The Yonderfolk—how we shall communicate with them—what happened to their starfaring.”

“I wonder more what has been happening at home,” Ruszek said.

The monorail
set Kenri Shaun and his fellows off at the edge of Kith Town. There the buildings were low and peak-roofed, mostly houses. Clustered together, they seemed dark beneath the towers and lights that surrounded them; it was as if they sheltered night and quietness from the city.

For a minute the group stood silent. They all knew Kenri’s intention, but they didn’t know what to say.

He took an initiative of sorts. “Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

“Oh, sure,” replied Graf Kishna. “We’ll be here for months.”

After another pause he said, “We’ll miss you when we do go. I, uh, I wish you’d change your mind.”

“No,” replied Kenri. “I’m staying. But thanks.”

“Let’s get together again soon. For a game of comet’s tail, maybe.”

“Good idea. Let’s.”

Graf’s hand briefly cupped Kenri’s elbow, one of the Kith gestures that said more than speech ever could. “Well, good night.”

“Good night.”

The rest mumbled likewise. They stood a few seconds more, half a dozen young men in the loose blue doublets, baggy trousers, and soft shoes current among the local lower class. Folk costume was inadvisable in public. They themselves bore a certain similarity, too, short and slender build, olive complexion, features tending to high cheekbones and curving nose. Stance and gait marked them out even more, nowadays on Earth.

Abruptly their group dissolved and they went their separate ways. Kenri started down Aldebaran Street. A cold gust
hit him; the northern hemisphere was spinning into autumn. He hunched his shoulders and jammed hands in pockets.

Kith Town thoroughfares were narrow strips of indurite, lighted by obsolete glowglobes. You wanted to come home to a place as familiar as possible, never mind how outmoded. Houses sat well back, lawns around them, often a tree or two close by. Not many people were out. An elderly officer walked grave in mantle and hood; a boy and girl went hand in hand; several children, not yet ready for bed, rollicked, their laughter chiming through the stillness, above the background rumble of the city. Some of those children were born a hundred or more years ago and had looked upon worlds whose suns were faint stars in this sky. Generally, though, buildings lay vacant, tended by machines. Except for a few permanent residents, the owner families were gone decades on end, only present here between voyages. A few houses would never know another return. Those families, those ships, no longer fared.

Passing the Errifrans residence, he wondered when he’d see Jong. They’d had fun together at such times as their vessels met. The
Golden Flyer
had last set course for Aerie, and should be well on her way Earthward by now. Since the next trip that Kenri’s
Fleetwing
made would just be to Aurora, there was a fair chance that the two would take Solar orbit within the same period—
No, wait, I’m staying on Earth. I’ll be old when Jong Errifrans arrives, still young, still with a guitar on his knee and jollity on his lips. I won’t be Kith anymore.

It happened that three starcraft besides
Fleetwing
were currently in,
Flying Cloud, High Barbaree
, and
Princess Karen
. That was uncommon. Kith Town would see one supernova of a Fair. Kenri wished he could take part. Oh, he could, when he wasn’t engaged elsewhere, but he wouldn’t feel right about it. Nor would it be wise. The polite among the Freeborn would raise their brows; the uninhibited would say, maybe to his face, that this showed he was and would always be a—tumy, was that the latest word for a Kithperson?