Part 31 (1/2)
Lunzie laughed. ”In this case the complaint was easy to diagnose. I'm a sufferer, too.”
Behind the burnished steel door came a hissing, and the booming of metal on metal. Around the edge of the doorway, red lights began flas.h.i.+ng, and a siren whooped. Lunzie and the others automatically jumped back, alarmed.
”It is only the airlock in use,” Tee explained apologetically. ”If there had been an actual emergency, we would be too close to it to be safe anyway.”
With a hiss, the door slid back, and the shuttle pilot appeared inside the hollow chamber, and gestured the pa.s.sengers inside. ”Ten hundred hours. Is everyone ready?”
”Yes!” The pilot dived aside as his cargo rushed past him eagerly.
”Unrecirculated air!” Lunzie stepped out of the s.p.a.ceport in Alpha City and felt the caress of a natural wind for the first time since leaving Astris. She held her face up to the sun and took a deep breath of air. And expelled it immediately in a fit of coughing.
”Wha-what's the matter with the air?” she asked, sniffing cautiously and wrinkling her nose at the odour. It was laden with chemical fumes and the smell of spoiling vegetation. She looked up at the sky and saw the sun ringed with a grayish haze that s.h.i.+mmered over the surrounding city.
”Some good news, and some bad news. Doctor Lunzie,” a Fleet ensign explained. ”The good news is it's natural, and it hasn't been reoxygenated by machines a million times. The bad news is what the humans who live on Alpha have been throwing into it for thousands of years. Airborne garbage.”
”Ough! How could they do this to themselves? The very air they breathe!” Lunzie moaned, dabbing her streaming eyes with a handkerchief.
Tee picked up her bags and hailed a groundcar. ”It shouldn't be as bad further from the s.p.a.ceport. Come on.” He hurried her down the concrete ramp and into the sealed car.
”Where are you going?” Lunzie demanded when she could speak. She blew her nose loudly into the handkerchief.
”With you. I would not miss your family reunion for the world. I have an invitation from Melanie.”
”What is your destination?” the robotic voice of the groundcar demanded. ”With or without travel guide?” Tee reeled off an address. ”What do you think, Lunzie? Do you want it to tell you about the sights we pa.s.s?”
Lunzie peered through the windows at the unending panorama of gray buildings, gray streets, and gray air. The only colour was the clothing of the few pedestrians they pa.s.sed. ”I don't think so. It all looks the same, for kilometers in every direction, and it's so gloomy. I just want to get there and meet them. I wonder how they've all changed in ten years. Do you suppose there are new babies?”
”Why not? No travel guide,” Tee ordered.
”Acknowledged.”
Tee chatted brightly with her as they sailed along the superhighways toward Melanie's. Once they had disembarked from the Ban Sidhe Ban Sidhe, he was his old self, expansive and affectionate. Lunzie decided that it must be the military atmosphere of the Fleet s.h.i.+p which squashed his usually sunny nature. She was relieved that he was feeling better.
It was twilight when they finally arrived. The groundcar disgorged them in suburban Shaygo, only two hundred kilometers from Alpha City. Lunzie couldn't tell by watching when one city left off and the second one began. They had obviously grown together over the years. There was no open s.p.a.ce, no parks, no havens for vegetation, just intertwining thoroughfares with thousands of similar podlike groundcars hurtling along them. The trail of air transports penned on the gray sky in white between the tall buildings. Lunzie found the sight depressing.
The house, one of an attached row, sat at the top of a small yard with trees on either side of the walk leading to the door. A twinkling bunch of tiny lights next to the door read ”Ingrich.” Except for the gardens, every house was identical. Melanie's was a riot of colourful flowers and tall herbs spilling out of their beds on the trim lawn, a burst of individuality on a street of bland repet.i.tion.
”Muhlah, I'd hate to come home drunk,” Lunzie said, looking up and down the endless row. The other side of the street was the same. Three floors of curtained windows stared blankly down on them.
”The robot taxi would get you safely home,” Tee a.s.sured her.
She heard noises coming from inside the house as they approached, and the door irised open suddenly. A plump woman with soft brown hair bustled out and seized each of them by the hand. Lunzie recognized her instantly. It was her granddaughter.
”You are Lunzie, aren't you?” The woman beamed. ”I'm Melanie. Welcome, welcome, at last! And Citizen Janos. I'm so glad to see you at last.”
”Tee,” Tee insisted, accepting a hug in his turn.
”How wonderful to meet you at last,” Lunzie exclaimed. ”I'm grateful you wanted to extend the invitation to me, after I stood you up last time.”
”Oh, of course. We wanted to meet you. Come in. Everyone has been waiting for you.” Melanie wrapped an arm warmly around Lunzie's waist and led her inside. Tee trailed behind, looking amused. ”Mother was so disappointed that you didn't come to our last reunion. But when we heard about the accident, we were devastated that she had left with the wrong impression. I sent a message to Eridani to let her know what happened and that you're all right, but it's so far away she may still be on her way there. I just have no idea! Only the G.o.ds of chaos know when the message will reach her. There's been a lot of service interruptions lately. And no explanation from the company!”
She led them into a well-lit room with white walls and carpets, decorated with colourful wall hangings in good artistic taste, and set about with cus.h.i.+ony furniture. In the middle of one wall was an electronic hearth, and in the middle of the other was a Tri-D viewing platform, surrounded by teenaged children watching a sports event. Lunzie noticed that the holographic image was purer and sharper than anything she'd ever seen before. There had obviously been strides made in image projection since she went into cold sleep.
Two slightly built men with dark, curly hair, identical twins, and two women, all of early middle age, who had been chatting when Lunzie entered, rose from their seats and came forward.
”Oh, what a lovely home you have,” Lunzie said, looking around approvingly. ”Is this your mate?”
The tall man sprawled on a couch set aside his personal reader and stood up to offer them a hand. ”Now and forever. Dalton is my name. How do you do, ancestress?”
”Very well, thank you,” she said, shaking hands. Dalton had a firm, smooth grip, but not at all bonecrus.h.i.+ng, as she feared it might be after noticing the prominent tendons on his wrists. ”But please, call me Lunzie.”
”I'll tell everyone your wishes, but Lars might not comply. He can be very stuffy and proper.”
”I communicated with them as soon as you let us know you were here. They'll arrive in a little while,” Melanie said busily, urging them into the middle of the common room. ”Now, may I get you anything before I show you where you're going to stay? Something to drink?”
”Juice would be welcome. The air is ... rather thick if you're not used to it,” Lunzie said, diplomatically.
”Mmm. There was a smog alert today. I should have said something when you communicated with us. But we're all used to it.” Melanie hurried away.
”Just like her to forget the rest of the introductions,” Dalton said indulgently as his mate left the room. He embraced Lunzie, and waved a hand at the others in the room. ”Everyone! This is Lunzie, here at last!” The children watching the Tri-D stood up to greet her. Lunzie smiled at them in turn, trying to identify them from the ten-year-old holos. She could account for all but two. Dalton explained, ”Not all of this crowd is ours, but we get the grandchildren a lot because our house is the largest. Lunzie, please meet my sons Jai and Thad, and their mates, lonia and Chirli.” The women, one with short red tresses and one with s.h.i.+ning pale blond hair, smiled at her. ”Drew is still at work, but he'll be joining us for dinner.”
The twins shook hands gravely. ”You look more like a sister to us than what? A great-grandmother?” one of them said.
”You'll have to forgive us if we occasionally slip up and don't show the respect due your age,” the other said playfully.
”I'll understand,” Lunzie said, hugging them, and pulling the two women closer to include them in the embrace. The children pressed in to take their turns. There were nine of them, four girls and five boys. Lunzie could see resemblances to herself or Fiona in all of them. She was so overwhelmed with joy, she was nearly bursting inside.
”How old are you?” asked the youngest child, a boy who seemed to be eleven or twelve Standard years of age.
”Pedder, that's not a polite question,” Jai's red-headed wife said sternly, ”Drew's youngest,” Dalton explained in his deep voice over the heads of the throng cl.u.s.tered around her.
”Sorry, Aunt lonia. I 'pologize,” the boy muttered in a sulky voice.
”I'm not offended,” Lunzie insisted, winning the boy's admiration immediately. ”I was born in 2755, if that's what you mean.” ”Wo-ow,” Pedder said, impressed. ”That's old. I mean, you don't look like it.”
”Brend and Corrin,” Dalton pointed, ”are Pedder's older brothers, and possessed, I hope, of more tact, or at least less curiosity. The eldest, Evan, isn't here. He's at work. Dierdre's youngest, Anthea, is at school.”
”Oh, I'm delighted to meet you all,” Lunzie said happily. ”I've been replaying the holos over and over again.” She squeezed Brend's hand and ruffled Corrin's hair. The boys blushed red, and drew back to let the other cousins through.
”I'm Capella,” said an attractive girl with black hair styled in fantastic waves and loops all over her head. In Lunzie's opinion, the girl wore too much makeup, and the LED-studded earrings on her ear-lobes were almost blinding.
”You've changed since the last picture I saw of you,” Lunzie said diplomatically.
”Oh, really,” Capella giggled. ”It has to be ten years, right? I was just a microsquirt then.” Tee, standing behind Capella, smiled widely and raised his eyes heavenward. Lunzie returned his grin.
Pedder became distracted by the Tri-D program, where it appeared that one team was about to drive a bright scarlet ball into a net past the other team's defense. ”Give it to 'em good, Centauri! Plasmic!”
A slim young woman with long hair in a ribbon-bound plait rose from the other side of the viewing field and made her way awkwardly over to Lunzie, holding out a hand. She was several months pregnant. ”How do you do, Lunzie? I'm Rudi.”