Part 61 (1/2)
”You're surprised.” It was not a question. She apologized with her expression as the music began again. He leaned closer. ”Don't worry. I thought you'd be surprised. And there's more.”
”More” included a display of gymnastics representing s.h.i.+fting alliances in the commercial consortium that had (according to the script) dumped ill-prepared heavy-
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worlder colonists on a planet that suffered predictable, but infrequent, ”triple winters.” Complex gong music apparently intimated the heartless weighing of profit and loss (a balance loaded with ”gold” bars on one side and limp heavyworlder bodies on the other) while the corporate factions pushed on the balance and each other, and leapt about in oddly graceful contortions.
Diplo's gravity prevented any of the soaring leaps of cla.s.sical ballet but quick flips were possible and used to great effect. A scene showing the luxurious life of lightweights in s.p.a.ce was simply ludicrous. Lunzie had never seen anyone aboard a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p lounging in a scented fountain while a heavyworlder servant knelt with a tray of fruit. But overall she remained amazed with the lush, melodic sound and the quality of the voices.
Those segments in which, as Zebara promised, ”everyone gets affectionate” depicted the colonists fighting off the depression of that long winter with song and love. Or l.u.s.t. Lunzie wasn't sure. Perhaps the colonists hadn't been sure, either. But they had been determined to survive and have descendants.
Duet followed duet, combined into a quartet praising ”love of life that warms the heart.” Then a soprano aria from a singer whose deep, dark, resonant voice throbbed with despair before rising slowly, impossibly, through three octaves to end in a crystalline flourish which the singer emphasized by a ma.s.sive fist, shaking at the wicked lightweights in their distant s.h.i.+ps.
Finally the male chorus of colonists, who had chosen to starve voluntarily so that children and pregnant women might have a chance to survive, made their final vows, led by a tenor whose voice soared to nearly the same dynamic height as the soprano.
”To you, the children of our dreams, we leave the bread of life!” Lunzie felt tears stinging her eyes. ”We ask but this! That you remember . . .”
The voices faded, slowly dropping to a complex chant. The music and the rich incense flowing from the censers onstage were enough to get anyone's hormones moving. She let her head sag toward Zebara's shoulder.
”Good girl,” he murmured.
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Around them, rustling indicated that others, too, were changing their positions. Suddenly Lunzie felt something b.u.mp her legs, and realized that the seats in this section reclined completely. The armrest between hers and Zebara's retracted. Onstage, the music swelled as the lights dimmed. Clearly, an invitation to Zilmach's epic meant more than just listening to the music.
At the same moment that she wondered how she was going to get out of what was clearly intended, she remembered her pressure garment, and sn.i.g.g.e.red.
”What?” he asked. His arm lay heavily on her shoulders; his broad hand stroked her back.
”An element of lightweight weakness your producers forgot to show,” Lunzie said, trying to control her laughter. ”This thing we have to wear. Very inefficient at moments like this.”
Zebara chuckled. ”Dear Lunzie, I have no intention of forcing you. You might get pregnant. You're young enough. You don't want my child, and I don't want the responsibility. But we are expected to whisper sweet nothings in each others' ears. If the sweets are not nothings, who's to know?”
This was no time to ask if Diplo External Security had the same kinds of electronics Fleet used, which could have picked up the rumbles from dinner in her stomach, let alone anything she and Zebara might whisper. If they didn't, they didn't need to know about it. If they did, she had to hope Zebara had only one double-cross in mind.
”So, how long does this last?”
”Several hoong minutes. Don't worry. Well have plenty of warning before it's over. There's the funeral scene coming up and the decision whether or not to eat the bodies. So let's use this interval to find out the tilings I must know. Who sent you here and what are you trying to find?”
Lunzie could not answer at once. She had not thought that even a heavyworlder could mention cannibalism so calmly. Another blow to her wish to trust him. His tongue flicked her ear, gaining all her attention easily.
”Lunzie, you cannot expect me to believe you came
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here just to get over your fear of heavyworlders. Ireta would have left you even worse. You could not care that much how we experience coldsleep or what it does to us. You are here for a purpose. Either your own, or someone else's, and I must know that if I am to keep you safe.”
”You've told me your government wants you to use our old relations.h.i.+p. How can you ask me to confide in you first?” That was lame, but the best she could do with cannibalism still on her mind.
”I want my grandchildren to live! Really live. I want them to have enough food, freedom to travel, to get education, to work where they want. You want that for your descendants. In that we agree. If war breaks out between our peoples, none of our descendants will have the lives we want for them. Can't you see that?”
Lunzie nodded slowly. ”Yes, but unless your people quit working with planet pirates I don't see what's to stop it.”
”Which they won't do, unless they see a better future. Lunzie, I want you to be our advocate, our spokeswoman to the Council. You have suffered from us but you have also seen, perhaps understood, what we are, what we could be. I want you to say 'Give the heavyworlders hope! Give them access to normal-G worlds they can live on, worlds like Ireta. Then they won't have reason to steal them.' But as long as you are here to collect evidence proving how bad we are.”
”Not all of you.”
Lunzie caught a flicker of movement near them, above them, and curled into Zebara's embrace. Perhaps someone needed the restrooms, sidling along between the seat sections. Or perhaps someone wanted to know what they were saying.
”You're different. The patients I've met here are not like those who hurt me.” She felt under her hands his slight tension. He, too, had noticed that shadowy form edging past them.
”Dear Lunzie.” That ended in a kiss, a curiously grandfatherly kiss of dry lips. Then he sighed, moved as if slightly cramped, and laid his hand back on her hair.
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”Who? Please tell me!”
She decided to give him a little, what he might have tapped from Fleet communications if his people were good enough.
”Sa.s.sinak. She wanted to know if the Governor were officially involved in Ireta. Captain Cruss, the heavy-worlder on that colony s.h.i.+p, thought so. The Theks got it out of him. With Tanegli's trial coming up, she wanted to know whether to suggest that the Fleet subpoena the Governor.”
”Ahhh. About what we thought. But how were you, a physician, supposed to find out such things?”
”I'd told her about you. She said I should come.” That wasn't quite accurate, but if he believed she had been pushed into it, he might be sympathetic.
”I see. Your descendant, being a professional, does not consider your feelings, your natural reluctance. Not very sensitive, your Sa.s.sinak.”
”Oh, she is,” Lunzie said quickly. ”She is sensitive, she just . . . She just thinks of duty first.”
”Commendable in a Fleet officer, no doubt, but not in a great-great-great-granddaughter. She should have more respect.”
”It's a problem,” Lunzie admitted. ”But she's actually older than I am-real time, at least-and she has trouble seeing me as her elder. We both do.” She squirmed a little getting a stiff wrinkle out from under her hip. ”But that's why I came . . . really.”
”And I am to offer you just the information you seek, and ask you to smuggle out more. But you will be found to have instead information of great commercial value. You will be discredited as a commercial spy, detained long enough that you cannot testify against Tanegli. Your taped evidence will not be nearly as effective, and if Kai and Varian are not there ...” ”Why shouldn't they be?”