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explain "
"That's all right," the woman assured me, her eyes on Kulasawa. "And you must
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be
Scholar Andrula Kulasawa."
"Yes, I am," Kulasawa said. "May I ask your title?"
Suzenne tilted her head slightly to the side. "What makes you think I have
one?"
"I recognize the presence of authority," Kulasawa said. "Authority always
implies a title."
Suzenne smiled. "Titles aren't nearly as important to us as they obviously are
to you," she said. "But if you insist, I'm a Special Assistant to King Peter."
I felt a stir go through us over that one. The traditional concept of
hereditary royalty had long since vanished from the Expansion's political
scene, though it was often argued that that same role was now being more
unofficially filled by the Ten Families. Still, the idea of a real, working
king sounded strange and anachronistic.
For some of us, though, it apparently went beyond merely strange. "A king, you
say," Kulasawa said, her voice heavy with disapproval.
Suzenne heard it, too. "You disapprove?"
For a moment the two women locked gazes, and I prayed silently that Kulasawa
would have the sense not to launch into a political argument here and now.
Suzenne's two guards looked more than capable of taking exception if they
chose, and getting thrown into the dungeon or whatever they had here was not
the way
I
had hoped to end what had become a long and tiring day.
Fortunately, she did. "I'm just a scholar," she told Suzenne, her voice going
neutral again. "I observe and study. I don't pass judgment."
"Of course." Suzenne smiled around at the rest of us. "But I'm forgetting my
manners, and I'm sure you're all anxious to see our world. This way, please."
She turned and walked back toward the door, the two guards stepping
courteously aside to let our group pass and then closing ranks behind us.
"Incidentally, the study team tells me you have several large crates aboard,"
Suzenne added over her shoulder. "May I ask what's in them?"
"Two of them contain my personal research equipment," Kulasawa said before I
could answer. "The others contain food and some power lifters which we brought
as gifts for you."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rhonda start. "Gifts?" she echoed. "But
that's our cargo."
"Which if you'll recall I purchased from you," Kulasawa said, throwing a sharp
look at her. "They're mine to do with as I choose."
Rhonda turned to me. "Jake?"
"That was part of the deal," I reminded her.
"Yes, but " She broke off, an oddly betrayed look on her face.
"You're most generous," Suzenne said, pulling out a plastic card and holding
it up to a panel beside the doors. "But I'm afraid we can't accept gifts. One
of our techs will evaluate the items and issue you credit slips." The doors
slid
open, and we stepped out onto a wide, railed balcony
And I felt my mouth drop open. Stretching out before us, exactly as Enderly
had said, was an entire world.
It was like looking at a giant diorama designed to show young schoolchildren
all the various types of terrain and landscape one might come across. Far
below us, extending for at least a few kilometers, was what seemed to be a
mixture of farmland and forest, marked by gentle hills of various heights and
dotted with occasional clusters of houses. Numerous ponds were scattered
around, glistening in the sunlight, and there was at least one river wending
its way across the ground. Farther away, I could see what looked like a small
town, then more greenery grassland or more farms, I couldn't tell which then
more trees and buildings and finally the tall spires of an actual city.
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"Look at that," I heard Jimmy murmur. "The edges they turn up."
I looked to the side. In the distance, I could indeed see the edges of the
landscape rising up toward the sky.
And in that moment, at least for me, the illusion abruptly collapsed. I was no
longer gazing out over some nice planetside rural area. I was inside an
asteroid, billions of kilometers from anywhere, driving hard through the
blackness of space.
"I suppose it does take some getting used to," Suzenne said quietly from
beside me. "I grew up with it, of course, so to me it seems perfectly
natural."
"I guess it would," I said, following the curve upward with my eyes. It was
mostly more of the same, though the pattern of farm and forest had been varied
and there was what looked like a large lake visible part way up. I tried to
follow the curve all the way up, but began to lose it in the glare of the sun.
The sun? "I see you have the ultimate light fixture," I commented, pointing.
"I
hope that's not a real fusion generator."
"It's not," Suzenne assured me. "We don't have any problem with generating
heat inside the colony it's dumping the excess we sometimes find troublesome,
particularly during the winter season. No, our sun is just a very bright light
source, running along inside a tunnel through the rotational axis. It fades in
at this end of the chamber in the morning, crosses slowly to the other end
throughout the day, and then is faded out to give us some twilight. Then it's
sent back across during the night and prepped for the new day. It's not the
same as living on a planet, I suppose, but it's the closest arrangement the
designers could come up with and it's probably pretty accurate."
I squinted up at it. The light was bright enough, but not the blinding
intensity of a real G-type sun. "Looks like it's getting toward evening."
"About another hour to sunset," she said. "And yes, we do call it sunset. I'm
afraid that's not going to leave you much time to look around tonight."
"Don't worry about it," I assured her. "We're not very far off your schedule
ourselves, and I for one could do with an early night."
"That will work best for us, too," she said. "I'll arrange for rooms for all [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]