Part 2 (1/2)

Looking out over the ornamental gardens with the Mansionhouse soaring up behind them, Bernice decided she would have financed the entire expedition herself just to be a.s.sured of this visit. She had once stumbled across a holoschematic of ancient Versailles while looking for source doc.u.ments pertaining to Thetalian transport systems. It was well known that Braxiatel had based the Mansionhouse and its grounds on the ancient Terran Palace of Versailles. But if Louis XIV could have seen what Braxiatel had accomplished he would have sacked his architects and landscapers and started again.

They called her name twice before she heard it, retrieved her plasti*disc and walked in a daze to the door which led out to the flyer.

The six*seater Ormand*Seltec flyer sat incongruously on the paved courtyard, a lovingly cared*for antique in an even older setting. The cedar trees towered above it and the dwarf crastions marked out the landing pad in a symmetrical formation of greenery. There were just two of them, excluding the pilot: Bernice and the Heletian man from the shuttle flight. He politely let her step up into the flyer first, ducking to avoid the rotors which drooped lazily over the doorway.

Bernice sat by the port window and her companion sat next to her on the bench seat, close but not embarra.s.singly so. 'You've not been before, I take it.'

She laughed. 'Is it that obvious?'

'Oh yes. It always is, not surprisingly. They almost had to drag me from that window in the reception area when I first came. You get a little blase after a while.' Bernice must have looked surprised, because he went on: 'Yes, I suppose it's a bit sad really. Even this quaint form of transport loses its charm and just becomes noisy after a few flights.'

The pilot swung round in his chair and waved down the aisle at them. 'Two for Archaeology right?'

Bernice and her companion exchanged glances. 'Right,' she called back.

The pilot nodded, and was about to turn back to the controls when the man beside Bernice coughed again, just loud enough for the pilot to hear. 'Could we perhaps take the scenic route? For some of our party this is the first performance.'

The pilot and Bernice both smiled at the formality. 'The scenic route it is, sir.'

The rotors' tips lifted as they began to turn, increasing speed until the flyer eased off the ground the tail section lifting slightly before the nose. Then the flyer turned and rose, nose still angled towards the ground, perhaps for reasons of aerodynamics, perhaps to give a better view, before setting off over the trees and towards the Mansionhouse.

Bernice broke away from the view for a moment and held out her hand to her fellow pa.s.senger. 'Professor Bernice Summerfield, My friends call me Benny.'

With a smile, the man took her hand and squeezed it gently. 'Panactum Gilmanuk also Professor. My friends use whichever they feel most comfortable with.' Bernice laughed. 'Thanks Professor.'

The archaeology section was in the main Mansionhouse rather than one of the outlying buildings. The flyer dropped Benny and Gilmanuk by the huge mock*Versuvial door and lifted off again almost immediately, the cool breeze from its rotors rippling Benny's sweats.h.i.+rt as she s.h.i.+elded her eyes against the sun and surveyed the terraces stretching away into the distance. The curvature of the planetoid was such that they seemed to drop away ever steeper until they disappeared out of sight, the sculptured waterfalls spraying their last cascades out over the edge of the world.

Gilmanuk waited for her inside the door and led the way up the huge marble staircase.

It was one of the biggest rooms that Bernice had ever seen, perhaps a hundred metres long and over ten metres wide. The polished floor seemed to go on forever beneath a ceiling which curved up to a gla.s.s roof. The sunlight shone in bands between the leading and soaked one side of the room in yellow. It was the sides that were the most impressive. They were lined from floor to ceiling with shelves, each shelf meticulously bar*coded and struggling to hold the weight of the doc.u.ments, discs and optical spheres jammed on to it.

At intervals across the width of the room were pillared part.i.tions with wooden desks against them. At several desks sat researchers fortunate to be granted access to the collection. They worked in silence, lost deep in piles of papers and storage media or engrossed in the graphics and read*outs which played across the desktop terminals. As Benny watched, one elderly man stood and, almost reverently carrying an optical disc, opened a door at the back of the part.i.tion and went into the darkened room beyond.

'Holographic simulation,' whispered Gilmanuk. 'Despite the somewhat, er, archaic trappings they have the most modern facilities here.'

Bernice nodded, and followed Gilmanuk down towards the nearest desk. The old man behind it stood as they approached. He looked how Bernice imagined the Ancient Mariner must have been long white beard, face wrinkled and pale with age, and eyes full of experience with perhaps a hint of suffering. She felt that even if she had not met him in this storehouse of knowledge that she would have seen depths of learning and wisdom in him.

The old man nodded to them. 'Professor Gilmanuk, how nice to see you again.' Gilmanuk smiled. 'And this is ?' The old man peered at Bernice. She felt suddenly out of place amongst the academics and researchers. Her jeans felt rough and her sweats.h.i.+rt seemed rather informal in the context of the robed figures around her. Perhaps she should have brought one of her Parisian dresses certainly it would have been less out of place.

'Professor Summerfield.' Gilmanuk answered for her.

The old man was silent for a moment. Then his face sprang into life as if he had found her index entry in the dark corners of his dusty mind. 'Ah yes. Welcome to the Collection.: I am Archivist Elliniko, in charge of the archaeology libraries.' He paused, surveying Bernice again; his keen eyes gave away nothing, but his cracked voice was less tactful. 'What a shame that Rhukk could not bring the findings from Phaester Osiris himself.' He held out his hand across the desk.

Bernice thought at first he wanted to shake hands with her, but she instinctively knew that was not the case. There was an awkward pause. The archivist gestured with his outstretched hand, waggling the wrinkled fingers at her, and Benny realized that he was asking for the data discs She pulled them from her satchel and put them on the desk. The archivist frowned and reached down for them, pulling them into a tidy pile by the unnecessary blotter.

How do I apply for a research ticket?' asked Bernice partly to continue the conversation and have the last word and partly because she really wanted to know.'

The archivist raised an eyebrow. 'You don't,' he said with finality, 'Oh. So much for scientific advancement and the enlightening of the ma.s.ses.'

The archivist blinked. But Gilmanuk smiled kindly. 'They are available by invitation only, I believe.'

'That's correct.' The archivist seemed a little surprised that Gilmanuk had deigned to speak to Bernice but since he had, the exchange had somehow been legitimized. We'll see what is on your discs, and perhaps next time you come we will discuss it again.'

Short discussion, thought Bernice. But she said 'Thanks.' And she meant it.

The archivist nodded. 'If you will excuse us?' He turned back to Gilmanuk who pulled a couple of discs from his tunic and handed them over. The archivist took them carefully.

'Lannic's aborted expedition to Menaxus. What data there is.'

'The archivist looked at Gilmanuk and Bernice could sense a new intensity in his gaze. 'Tell me what happened.' His voice was almost a whisper. 'And when does Lannic go back?'

Gilmanuk took thirty minutes to relate the story, or what he knew of it, and to answer the archivist's questions about the new expedition. Bernice had listened in silence to the whole thing. There were things she wanted to ask, but was afraid that if she spoke the other two would be reminded she was there and become less animated or even order her out.

More than five years ago Camarina Lannic had found the Menaxus files while researching something else entirely at the Braxiatel Collection. From related records and by some brilliant deduction she had pinpointed the position on the planet's surface where the ma.s.sive theatre complex referred to in the doc.u.ments was sited. Obtaining a grant from the Heletian ruler the Exec even at the height of their expensive advance into the Rippearean Territories had not been a problem. Anything to do with theatre had top priority on Heletia.

Bernice knew something of the history of Heletia: a colony originally founded by a troupe of ambitious actors who wanted to set up a permanent playhouse to stage the greatest drama of the universe. They had come a long way since then. An expansionist race, though still centred in one small habitable area of their own barren planet, they were now finally being chased back to their homelands after several years of advance. But they were still heavily influenced by their theatrical background. They fervently believed that only cultures that had a history of sophisticated dramatic production were truly civilized. To find evidence of so similar a culture within the same sector must have been quite a coup for Lannic.

And now, Gilmanuk had said, with the radiation dispersed, Lannic was going back to finish the abandoned expedition. Even in retreat the Heletians were willing to fund and supply such an archaeological venture. So they couldn't be that bad. Certainly Gilmanuk seemed pleasant enough, all trace of his former diffidence gone as he furiously polished his spectacles on a handcloth and came t the end of his story. Lannic was going back, with a small team. And Professor Panactum Gilmanuk was going too. The team was almost ready to leave, all they needed was a week to be sure the rad*count was into the safety level and an expert in pre*Elziran artefacts.

Bernice knew almost nothing about pre*Elziran art facts. But as they descended the marble staircase and she suggested that since they had hours till the next shuttle they could walk back to reception rather than bother with a flyer, she was already mentally preparing herself for the expedition.

'You seem to like it here,' Bernice said as they emerge into the bright sunlight.

Gilmanuk laughed quietly, leading the way across the courtyard. 'Yes, yes I do. Though I was dreading this trip actually. Thank you for livening it up a bit.'

'Pleasure.' They continued in silence for a while leaving the courtyard and starting along the path away from the Mansionhouse. 'What were you dreading?' Benny hoped the interval was sufficient for her not to seem too nosy. Here in the grounds, with the terraces stretching away in front of them, it was hard to believe that anything was other than serene and calm.

'Nothing here. I like Braxiatel it's a break from the war after all.' He paused, as if unsure whether or not to continue. Then he came to a decision. 'It's my wife. I visited her on the way. I do sometimes.'

Benny nodded. 'You're not together any more?' She realized as soon as she asked that this was not the most perspicacious or tactful of questions.

But Gilmanuk seemed to take the question well. 'Er, no. No we're not.'

Benny nodded again, unwilling to press him on the subject, but unable to think of a way of changing the subject without it seeming obvious.

'We had a son. He kept us together for a while.' They turned off the main drive on to a narrow path towards a line of trees. 'If living in the same accommodation means together. He was called up on his eighteenth birthday, finished training before he was eighteen and a half.' Gilmanuk's eyes were moist behind his spectacles in the afternoon sunlight.

Benny knew what was coming next. She said nothing she was not sure Gilmanuk even remembered she was there, as he stared into the middle distance.

'He was dead within a year. Revenwik filed for permission to visit a relative she never had on Panderian Major and left that week.'