Part 34 (1/2)

What was inside was totally unexpected, however, and she nearly let out a yell. Her surprise was due to the apparent absence of floor. Then she saw the re- flections in the comers. Gingerly she stepped out onto the transparency.

Her uncertainty rapidly gave way to delight. The floor of the surprisingly s.p.a.cious room was completely transparent. Six meters below she could see wonder- fully bizarre, multihued creatures swimming back and forth, lit by lights someone had thoughtfully turned on for her prior to her arrival. Meters farther lay a sandy bottom spotted with hexalate formations.

On the clear floor sat a lounge and bed woven from some dried blue sea plant, an exquisite chunk of polish hexalate containing the tridee unit, and scat- tered mats of spiral design and exquisite workman- s.h.i.+p.

Cora knelt and ran her hands over the smooth floor. The gla.s.salloy was perhaps half a meter thick.

The room-wide shaft that continued deeper on all sides was part of the polymer raft on which Vai'oire rested.

It was the lack of motion which had deceived her into thinking she was stepping out into nothingness.

Further investigation revealed a hatch in the far corner. It was part of the same transparent material.

144.

CACHALOT.

Steps cut into the white wall of the raft structure led down to a bench resting just above the water. There a guest could sit beneath the floor of her room and bathe in complete privacy in the warm sea.

The guest building was located on the edge of the town, so the water beneath would be relatively warm.

Rising, Cora found the one-way window which looked out over the ocean and the small docks holding pleas- ure craft. Outside, people walked past clad in the familiar pareus, occasionally in a diving gelsuit. Small children often went naked.

Such casual imagination expended on behalf of the rare guest hinted at an industry only marginally ex- ploited on Cachalot: tourism. She envisioned floating hotels anch.o.r.ed above or near the seamount reefs and atolls-and chided herself. Tourism and science rarely mixed. No doubt the resident cetaceans would vigor- ously oppose any such form of permanent floating de- velopment. She should be devoting all her thoughts to the serious mission at hand.

Though perhaps not too serious any more. Her thoughts were not on enigmatic sources of death and destruction, but on a cave filled with living stars. She glanced around the empty room again and for the first time in a long while felt the key word in the description to be ”empty.” Maybe Sam would enjoy sharing a dive. There was a new reef to explore.

She checked the other rooms a.s.signed their party.

Merced was luxuriating in the shaft of his. Rachael, he told her, should be on her way back to the boat, in whose lower cabin she would practice frantically for the demanded concert. As to the whereabouts of Mataroreva, he had no idea.

She thanked Merced, cut off, and left her room.

Vai'oire was not so enormous that she wouldn't be able to locate him. In the air of a muggy afternoon she asked questions of the townsfolk.

For a while the answers were identical. ”No,

145.

haven't seen him; yes, know who you mean, but I've been out fis.h.i.+ng all day; no, sorry...”

As she wandered around the town she came to feel progressively more isolated. The differences hadn't been so obvious back on Mou'anui. Many technicians from off-planet worked at the Administration Center and its processing facilities. Here on Vai'oire the ma- jority of the population was of traceable Polynesian ancestry. Their ma.s.sive bodies and cafe au lait color, encased only in pareus or skimpy diving gear, made her feel like an awkward splinter of jet set among twenty-karat topazes. She felt smothered by sweaty, heaving flesh, pressing in on all sides.

Eventually she ran into someone who had seen Sam. ”The peaceforcer captain?”

She nodded energetically.

”He was headed over that way.” The young man pointed, added good-naturedly, ”Two buildings down, you turn to the left. Town Communications. I'll bet he was going there.”

Communications-yes, that made sense. She thanked the youth, followed his directions carefully.

She needn't have been so intense. One could not be- come very lost on Vai'oire, since all steps led eventu- ally to the sea.

The structure was clearly marked, with curved cor- ners. Its walls, like all on Vai'oire, were formed of a light but extremely durable honeycomb plastic that was impervious to salt corrosion and placed little bur- den on the supporting polymer base; Several small domes protruded from its upper sides and roof, along with a broad dish antenna. An impressive array of electronic webwork connected antennaes and domes and other projections, spun of t.i.tanium and magensoy and gla.s.s instead of silk.

Inside she found not a single worker. She was not surprised. Automation and robotic sensors could han- dle the prosaic, monotonous ch.o.r.es of aligning anten-