Part 6 (2/2)

”Better.”

”I was worried.” She found a pale smile. ”Because you have no symbiotes to help repair such injuries.”

I asked if she had heard from her father and the emigrant s.h.i.+p. She turned silently to look again across the sunlit valley and the memorial. I saw the far plume of steam from an early train crawling over the bridge toward the Sphinx.

”I watched a baby giraffe.” Her voice was slow and faint, almost as if she was speaking to herself. ”I saw it born. I watched it learning to stand, nuzzling its mother, learning to suck. It finally followed her away, wobbling on its legs. It was beautiful-”

Her voice failed. Her hand darted to her lips. She stood trembling, staring at me, her eyes wide and dark with pain.

”My father!” Her voice came suddenly sharp and thin, almost a scream. ”He's going away. I'll never see him again.”

She ran back inside.

When the robots called us to breakfast, we found her sitting between her parents. She had washed her tear-streaked face, but the food on her plate had not been touched. Here out of the Sun, Sandor's face had gone pale and grim. He seemed not to see us till Tling turned to frown at him. He rose then, and came around the table to shake our hands.

”Good morning, Dr. Pen.” Casey gave him a wry smile. ”I see why you didn't want us here, but I can't apologize. We'll never be sorry we came.”

”Sit down.” He spoke shortly. ”Let's eat.”

We sat. The robots brought us plates loaded with foods we had never tasted. Saying no more to us, Sandor signaled a robot to refill his cup of the bitter black tea and bent over a bowl of crimson berries.

Tling sat looking up at him in anguished devotion till Casey spoke.

”Sir, we heard about your problem with the stranded colonists. Can you tell us why their s.h.i.+p came back?”

”Nothing anybody understands.” He shook his head and gave Tling a tender smile before he pushed the berries aside and turned gravely back to us. His voice was quick and crisp. ”The initial survey expedition had found their destination planet quite habitable and seeded it with terran-type life. Expeditions had followed to settle the three major continents. This group was to find room on the third.

”They arrived safe but got no answer when they called the planet from orbit. The atmosphere was hazed with dust that obscured the surface, but a search in the infrared found relics of a very successful occupation. Pavements, bridges, masonry, steel skeletons that had been buildings. All half buried under dunes of red, windblown dust. No green life anywhere. A derelict craft from one of the pioneer expeditions was still in orbit, but dead as the planet.

”They never learned what killed the planet. No news of the disaster seems to have reached any otherworld, which suggests that it struck unexpectedly and spread fast. The medical officers believe the killer may have been some unknown organism that attacks organic life, but the captain refused to allow any attempt to land or investigate. She elected to turn back at once, without contact. A choice that probably saved their lives.”

He picked up his spoon and bent again to his bowl of berries. I tried one of them. It was tart, sweet, with a heady tang I can't describe.

”Sir,” Casey spoke again, ”we saw those people. They're desperate. What will happen to them now?”

”A dilemma.” Sandor looked at Tling, with a sad little shrug. She turned her head to hide a sob.

”Habitable planets are relatively rare. The few we find must be surveyed, terraformed, approved for settlement. As events came out, these people have been fortunate. We were able to get an emergency waiver that will allow them to settle on an open planet, five hundred light-years in toward the core. Fuel and fresh supplies are being loaded now.”

”And my father-” Tling looked up at me, her voice almost a wail. ”He has to go with them. All because of me.”

He put his arm around her and bent his face to hers. Whatever he said was silent. She climbed into his arms. He hugged her, rocking her back and forth like a baby, till her weeping ceased. With a smile that broke my heart, she kissed him and slid out of his arms.

”Excuse us, please.” Her voice quivering, she caught his hand. ”We must say good-bye.”

She led him out of the room.

Lo stared silently after them till Pepe tapped his bowl to signal the robots for a second serving of the crimson berries.

”It's true.” With a long sigh, she turned back to us. ”A painful thing for Tling. For all three of us. This is not what we planned.”

Absently, she took a little brown cake from a tray the robot was pa.s.sing and laid it on her plate, untasted.

”Que tienes?”Pepe gave her a puzzled look.

”We hoped to stay together,” she said. ”Sandor and I have worked here for most of the century, excavating the site and restoring what we could. With that finished, I wanted to see my homeworld again.

We were going back there together, Tling with us. Taking the history we had learned, we were planning to replicate the memorial there.”

Bleakly, she shook her head.

”This changes everything. Sandor feels a duty to help the colonists find a home. Tling begged him to take us with him, but-” She shrugged in resignation, her lips drawn tight. ”He's afraid of whatever killed Enthel Two. And there's something else. His brother-”

She looked away for a moment.

”He has a twin brother. His father had to emigrate when they were born. He took the twin. His motherhad a career in nanorob genetics she couldn't leave. Sandor stayed here with her, longing for his twin. He left when he was grown, searched a dozen worlds, never found him. He did find me. That's the happy side.”

Her brief smile faded.

”A hopeless quest, I've told him. There are too many worlds, too many light-years. Slider flights may seem quick, but they take too long. Yet he can't give up the dream.”

”Can we-” Casey checked himself to look at Pepe and me. We nodded, and he turned anxiously back to Lo. ”If Sandor does go out on the emigrant s.h.i.+p, would he take us with him?”

She shook her head and sat staring at nothing till Pepe asked, ”Por que no?”

”Reasons enough.” Frowning, she picked up the little brown cake, broke it in half, dropped the fragments back on her plate. ”First of all, the danger. Whatever killed that planet could kill another. He got the waiver, in fact, because others were afraid to go. The colonists had no choice, but he doesn't want to kill you.”

”It's our choice.” Casey shrugged. ”When you have to jump across hundreds of years of s.p.a.ce and time, don't you always take a risk?”

”Not like this one.” She shrugged unhappily. ”Enthel Two is toward the galactic core. So is this new one.

If the killer is coming from the core-”

Pale face set, she shook her fair-haired head.

”We'll take the risk.” Casey glanced again at us and gave her a stiff little grin. ”You might remind him that we weren't cloned to live forever. He has more at stake than we do.”

Her body stiffened, fading slowly white.

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