Part 3 (2/2)
”In a minute, Nikki!” Annie shouted back.
”Has she seen these pictures?” Ray asked. Jeff nodded.
”Want to come in, young woman, and tell me what you think of them? Mary, see that the beermaster gets help finding his mugs. I don't want the shuttle finding one on takeoff.”
”Yes, sir.” Mary whispered orders into her commlink, but showed no interest in going elsewhere at the moment.
Annie glanced at the pictures. ”One o' the mountains is gone missing.”
Ray fixed Jeff with a ”tough colonel stare.” ”And you want to know why?”
”If you can mine an entire mountain just like that...” the young man started and stopped.
Ray called up the before-and-after topography maps Second Chance had made on its first two orbits. He rested a finger on the hole in the second one. ”You'd pay a lot for that technology.”
Jeff stared wide-eyed at the two maps. ”Yes.”
”But it would tear the hills apart,” Annie broke in. ”That's no way to treat the earth that feeds us.”
From the dark outside the hut came the rustle of a dress. Another pair of eyes watched them. Ray suspected the shouted-at Nikki had come to see what was keeping Annie. If he wasn't careful, he'd have the entire village back here.
”That's not the way we extract minerals,” Mary cut in. ”I can pull all the good stuff out of a mountain without disturbing a blade of gra.s.s.”
”Then...” Jeff pointed at the gap in the mountain range.
”We don't know either,” Ray finished.
”But if you didn't,” Annie said slowly, ”and we can't, who did?” From outside the hut came the sound of running feet. Ray caught a hint of a flying dress.
Annie must have, too. ”I'd better be helping Nikki and Da.”
Jeff collapsed into a camp chair beside Ray. ”That is the question, isn't it.”
”Yes,” Mary agreed. Ray nodded; his job had just gotten a whole lot harder.
”Daga. Daga,” Nikki half-whispered, half-shouted at her girlfriend's window. ”Daga, you can't be asleep.”
”I'm not, and neither is the house with you shouting like a banshee,” Daga said, ma.s.saging her temples. ”What's wrong with you?”
”They know about the mountain. They know it's gone.”
”Who knows?”
”Everyone,” Nikki squeaked. ”Jeff's got pictures from his brother's survey and one he just made, and the people from s.p.a.ce even have a map. Daga, they know!”
”But they don't know what we know. They don't know how it happened. Nikki, you worry too much. There's no way they can tell it was us, or anything.”
”But...but...” Nikki couldn't figure out what to say after that, but she knew there was more to it than Daga wanted.
”No buts, Nikki. Go home, go to bed. Don't say anything, and they won't know anything.”
”But what are you going to do?”
”I haven't made up my mind yet.”
Even in the dark, Nikki could see Daga's grin. It was wide, and like it always was with Daga, it was sure.
Caretaker studied the new ones as they slept. They were like the other new ones; already their bodies rejected this world. Their body temperatures rose as they twisted in sleep, scratching and sneezing. Just as it had three hundred years ago, Caretaker released the viruses to make the necessary adjustments. This time it would go easier on the strangers; this time the Caretaker knew where to touch these strange bodies.
Even as Caretaker worked, its own simple processes tried to extrapolate the significance of these new arrivals. These had landed close to itself; to that central core that Caretaker thought of as its very being. Did they know that? Would they help or hinder Caretaker's work? It was very difficult dealing with a species that resolutely refused to enter into any communication with the Caretaker.
Certainly the Central Font of All Knowledge would know what to do. But apparently it had gotten slow over the years, too. Its slow message had said it was coming, but had to mend many nodes between the center and a distant, minor subsystem such as Caretaker.
Caretaker would wait. In the meantime, it would do what it could. That was what the Caretaker was for.
Ray walked in a garden, his bladder painfully full. The gravel crunched under his feet, but he heard nothing else and smelled nothing at all. He rounded a hedge. An old man in dirty work clothes watered roses. His hose aimed a high, proud arc of water over the flowers. The image left Ray desperately holding back his own need to spray.
The Gardener noticed Ray with a smile. He looked familiar; Ray remembered the old fellow who kept the flowers so tenderly outside the dining hall at the Academy. ”Do what you need, fellow, I won't mind,” the old one said.
Ray reached for his zipper....
And came awake before he wet the bed. Ruefully, Ray reached for his canes. Hot and sweating, he struggled up, cursing the battle wound they didn't fix.
As he did his business, he became aware of a headache. Nothing too bad; his back hurt worse. Ray ignored the pain meds Mary had laid out on the table next to a gla.s.s of water; he didn't want more water in his system. Besides, this was nothing compared to how bad it could get.
Ray gritted his teeth against the pain and waited for sleep to come.
FOUR.
A WEEK LATER, Amba.s.sador Ray Longknife relaxed into his seat, contemplating the night. Stuffed-in far too many ways.
He'd been wined and dined from one circle to another as he moved from village to county to state and finally to Lander's Refuge. Local after local had shaken his hand, kissed his cheeks, and done their d.a.m.nedest to pick his pocket-in the nicest way. Every step of the way he'd been offered undying friends.h.i.+p and kind words. As he got farther up, smiling officials had thrown in huge land grants, personal bribes, beautiful women, and a seat among the powerful with a growing panic that made Ray feel right at home. ”d.a.m.n, humans are all the same.”
”What'd you say, sir?” Mary asked from the front seat. She was driving a mule, a four-wheel, go-anywhere vehicle; its efficient solar cells and storage system made it the envy of everyone here. Mary was his aide, bodyguard, driver...and nurse as much as he let her. Ray was traveling light among the natives. So far, he did not regret it.
”Take us back to the residence,” Ray said automatically, then rethought. ”No. I've got to talk to Matt tonight, and I trust my room is well bugged. Take us somewhere I can have a little privacy.”
”How about that beach we saw yesterday?”
Ray grinned. Their visit to the fis.h.i.+ng fleet and North Beach had been Mary's first encounter with more water than she could drink. Water, free and playing with beach and sand and wind and sky had enthralled her. Ray suspected the woman was in love. ”Do it.”
”I'll head for the north end, sir. This mule can take us where these people only dream of going.”
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