"What?" Driscoll stared at them aghast. "I've never talked to cla.s.ses of people. I wouldn't know how to start."

"A good time to start practicing then," Ci suggested. He swallowed hard and shook his head. "I have to stay here. This conversation is enough to get me shot as it is." Ci shrugged but seemed content not to make any more of it. "Are you two, er...teachers here or something like that?" Driscoll asked.

"Sometimes," Shirley answered. "Ci teaches English mainly, but mostly down on the surface. That is, when she's not working with electronics or installing plant wiring underground somewhere. I'm not all that technical. I grow olives and vines out on the Peninsula, and design interiors. That's what brought me up here-Clem wants the crew quarters and mess deck refitted and decorated. But yes, I teach tailoring sometimes, but not a lot."

"I meant as a regular job," Driscoll said. "What do you do basically?"

"All of them." Shirley sounded mildly surprised. "What do you mean by 'basically'?"

"They do the same thing all the time, from when they quit school to when they retire," Ci reminded her mother.

"Oh yes, of course." Shirley nodded. "That sounds pretty awful. Still, it's their business."

"What do you do best?" Ci asked him. "I mean...apart from holding people's walls up for them. That can't be much of a life."

Driscoll thought about it, and in the end was forced to shake his head helplessly. "Not a lot that you'd be interested in, I guess," he confessed.

"Everybody's got something," Shirley insisted. "What do you like doing?"

"You really wanna know?" An intense note had come suddenly into Driscoll's voice.

"Hey, back off, soldier," Ci said suspiciously. "We're still strangers. Later, who knows? Give it time."

"I didn't mean that," Driscoll protested, feeling embarra.s.sed. "If you must know, I like working cards."

"You mean tricks?" Shirley seemed interested. "I can do tricks, sure."

"Are you good?"

"The best. I can make 'em stand up and talk."

"You'd better mean it," Shirley warned. "There's nothing worse than trying to spend money you don't have. It's like stealing from people."

Driscoll didn't follow what she meant, so he ignored it. "I mean it," he told her.

Shirley turned to look at Ci. "Say, wouldn't he be great to have at our next party? I love things like that."

She looked at Driscoll again. "When are you coming down to Chiron?"

"I don't know yet. We haven't heard anything."

"Well, give us a call when you do, and we'll fix something up. I live in Franklin, so there shouldn't be too much of a problem. That's where we usually get together."

"Sounds good," Driscoll said. "I can't make any promises fight now though. Everything depends on how things go. If things work out okay, how would I find the place?"

"Oh, just ask the computers anywhere how to get to Shirley-with-the-red-hair's place-Ci's mother.

They'll take care of you."

"So maybe we'll see you down there sometime," Ci said.

"Well...yeah. Who knows? He was about to say something more when Wellington interrupted.

"Two of your officers are heading this way. I thought you ought to know."

"Who?" Driscoll asked automatically, tossing his cigarette b.u.t.t into the incinerator and s.n.a.t.c.hing up his gun. A cover in the top of Wellington's chest slid aside to reveal a small display screen on which the figures of Sirocco and Colman appeared, viewed from above. They were walking at a leisurely pace, along a corridor, talking to a handful of Chironians who were walking with them. Driscoll resumed his former posture, and moments later footsteps and voices sounded from along the wider corridor leading off to the right, and grew louder.

"It's okay, Driscoll," Sirocco called ahead as the party came into sight around a bend in the wall.

"Forget the pantomime. We're back in the Bomb Factory." Driscoll relaxed his pose and sent a puzzled look along the corridor.

"I might have guessed," Colman said, nodding to himself and taking in the two girls as he drew to a halt.

"Very cosy," Sirocco agreed.

"Er...Shirley and Ci," Driscoll said. "And that's General Wellington."

"Been having a nice chat, have you?" Sirocco asked. "Well, yes, actually, I suppose, sir. How did you know?" Sirocco waved at the corridor behind him. "Because it's happening everywhere else, that's how.

Carson's talking football, and Maddock is telling some kids about what it was like growing up on the Mayflower II." He sighed but didn't sound too ruffled about it. "If you can't beat 'em, then join 'em, eh, Driscoll...for an hour or so, anyway. And besides, they want to show Colman something in the observatory upstairs. I don't understand what the h.e.l.l they're talking about."

"Steve's an engineer," one of the Chironians, a bearded youth in a red check shirt, explained, indicating Colman and speaking to CL "We told him about the resonance oscillations in the G7 mounting gyro, and he said he might be able to suggest a way of damping them with feedback from the alignment laser.

We're taking him up to have a look at it."

"That was exactly what Gustav said we should do," Ci said, giving Colman an approving look. "He was looking at it yesterday."

"I know. Maybe we can get Gustav and Steve working on it together."

"Hey, don't get too excited about this," Colman cautioned. "I only said rd be interested in seeing it. The Army might have different ideas about me getting involved. Don't bet your life savings on it."

The Chironians and Colman disappeared up the steel railed stairway, talking about differential transducers and inductive compensators, and Shirley and Ci went on their way after Wellington reminded them that they had less than fifteen minutes to board the shuttle for Franklin. Driscoll and Sirocco remained with Wellington in the corridor.

"If you don't mind my saying so, isn't this a bit risky, sir?" Driscoll said apprehensively. "I mean...with all this going on? Suppose Colonel Wesserman or somebody shows up."

"No chance with these Chironian robots around. They've got the place staked out." He wrinkled his nose, and his moustache twitched as he sniffed the air. "Take a break while you've got the chance, Private Driscoll," he advised. "And I'll have one of those cigarettes that you've been smoking."

Driscoll grinned and began feeling more confident. "You see, Wellington," he said. "They're not all as bad as you think."

"Amazing," the robot replied in a neutral voice.

A party was thrown in the Bowery that night to celebrate the Mayflower II's safe arrival and the end of the voyage. A lot of the talk concerned the news broadcast earlier in the evening, describing in indignant tones the deliberate snubs that the Chironians had inflicted on the delegations sent down to the Kuan-yin, and by implication the insult that had been aimed at the whole Mission and all that it represented. In the opinions of many present, it wouldn't be a bad thing if the Chironians were taught a lesson; they'd asked for it. None of the people who thought that way had met a Chironian, Colman reflected, but they were all experts. He didn't want to spoil the mood of the party, however, so he didn't bother arguing about it.

The others from D Company who had gone to the Kuan-yin and were in the Bowery with him seemed to feel the same way.

CHAPTER TWELVE HOWARD KALENS WAS not amused.

"A scandalous exhibition!" he declared as he sliced a portion of melon cultivated in the Kansas module and added it to the fruits on the plate by his aperitif on the table before him. "n.o.bodies and Cretins, all of them. Not one of them had any representative powers worth speaking of. Yet ifs clear that a governing organization of some kind must exist, though G.o.d knows what kind of people it's made up of, judging from the state the town's in a total shambles. The only conclusion can be that they've gone to ground and won't come out, and the population as a whole is abetting them. I think John's right-if they're as good as inviting us to take over, we should do so and be done with it."

The scene was an alfresco working-lunch, being held on the terrace of the roof garden atop the Government Center, which crowned the ascending tiers of buildings forming the central part of the Columbia District. High above, the shutters outside the module's transparent roof had been opened to admit the almost forgotten phenomenon of natural sunlight, streaming in from Alpha Centauri, as it held a position low in the sky below the nose of the Spindle while the Mayflower II rotated with its axis kept steady toward it.

Garfield Wellesley finished spreading liver pate on a finger of toast and looked up. "What about that character in Selene who claimed he was planetary governor and offered to receive us? What happened to him?"

Kalens looked disdainfully down his nose. "My staff contacted him through the Chironian communications system. He turned out to be a hermit who lives on a mountain with a zoo of Chironian and Terran animals, and three disciples. They're all quite insane."

"I see..." Wellesley frowned and nibbled off a piece of the toast.

"Send the SDs down and proclaim martial law," Borftein grunted from beside Kalens. "They've had their chance. If they've run away and left it for us, let's take it. Why mess around?"

Marcia Quarrey, the Director of Commerce and Economic Policy, didn't look too happy at the suggestion as she sipped her c.o.c.ktail. "Obviously that would be possible," she said, setting down her gla.s.s. "But would it serve any useful purpose? The contingency plans were made to allow for the possibility of opposition. Well, there hasn't been any opposition. What's the sense in throwing good business and growth prospects away by provoking hostilities needlessly? We can acquire Franklin simply by walking in. We don't have to make a demonstration out of it."

"Exactly what I was thinking," Wellesley commented, nodding. "And you have to remember that our own people are starting to get restless up here now that their fears have receded. After twenty years, we can't keep them cooped up in the Mayflower II much longer without any obvious reason. They've got accommodations prepared by the s.p.a.ce-base at Franklin. I'm inclined to say we should start moving the first batches down. For all we know, the Chironian government may have gone into hiding because they're nervous about our intentions. It might be a good way of enticing them to come out again."

"I agree," Marcia Quarrey said. She looked at Borftein. "If that's the case, then sending in the SD's would only confirm their fears. It would be the worst thing we could do."

Kalens chewed on a slice of orange but made a face as if the fruit was bad. "But we've been publicly insulted," he objected. "What are you saying-that we should simply forget it? That would be unthinkable. What kind of a precedent would we be setting?"

"You can't be soft with people like this," Borftein said bluntly. "Give them a yard, and they'll hate you because they want a mile. Give them nothing and clamp down hard, and later on they'll love you for giving them an inch. I've seen it all before."

Quarrey sighed and shook her head. "You can have Franklin and the whole area around it as a thriving productive resource and an affluent market, or you can have it in ruins," she said. "Given the choice, which would you prefer? Well, it's not as if we didn't have the choice, is it? We have."

"A nice sentiment, I agree," Kalens said. "But they still should be taught some manners."

Wellesley raised a hand a fraction. "Be careful you don't allow this to get too personal, Howard," he cautioned. "I know you had an embarra.s.sing time yesterday, and I'm not condoning their att.i.tude, but all the same we have to-" He broke off as he noticed that Sterm, the Deputy Director, was sitting forward to say something, which was a sufficiently rare event to warrant attention. "Yes, Matt?" The others looked toward Sterm curiously.

Sterm brought his fingers together in front of his face-a n.o.ble face whose proud, Roman-emperor features crowned by laurels of curly hair combed fiat and forward concealed an underlying harshness of line from all but the most discerning-and stared at the center of the table with large, liquid-brown, unfathomable eyes. "It would be foolish to act impulsively merely to appease our shorter term feelings,"

he said. He spoke in a slow, deliberate voice and p.r.o.nounced his consonants crisply. "We should proceed to move down to Franklin and to a.s.sert ourselves quietly but firmly, without melodramatics. By their own actions the Chironians have shown themselves incapable of a.s.suming responsibility and unworthy of anything greater than second-cla.s.s status. Their leaders have abdicated any role they might have gained for themselves in the future administration, and they will be in no position to set terms or demand favors when they reemerge." He paused, and then turned his eyes to Howard Kalens. "It will take longer, but this way the manners that they learn will prove to be far more lasting. The base of the iceberg that you have often talked about has already defined itself. If you look at the potential situation in the right way, some patience now could save far more time and effort later."

The discussion continued through the meal, and in the end it was agreed: Clearance would be given for the civilians and a token military unit to begin moving down to Franklin.

"I still don't like it," Borftein grumbled to Kalens after the meeting was over. "The way I see it, what we're trying to do is provoke an official acknowledgment from these b.l.o.o.d.y Chironians that we exist at all. If I had my way, I'd soon show them whether we exist or not."

"I'm not sure that I agree as much as I thought," Kalens told him. "Sterm may have a point. We should try it his way to begin with at least. We don't have to stick with the plan indefinitely."

"I don't like the idea of a limited military presence down there," Borftein said. "We're trusting the Chironians too much. I still say they could have strength that they're not showing yet. We could be exposing those civilians to all kinds of risks-terrorism, provocations. What if they get hit by surprise?

I've seen it all before."

"Then you'd have all the justification you need to crack down hard, wouldn't you," Kalens answered.

Borftein thought about the remark for a few seconds. "Do you think that could be what Sterm's hoping for?" His tone betrayed that the thought hadn't registered fully until then.

"I'm not sure," Kalens replied distantly. Trying to elucidate Sterm's motives is akin to peeling an onion.

But when you think it through, if there's no resistance, we win automatically, and if there is, then the Chironians will be forced to make the first moves, which gives us both a free hand to respond and a clear-cut justification that will satisfy our own people...which is doubly important with the elections coming up. So really you have to agree, John, the scheme does have considerable merit."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

BERNARD FALLOWS ROLLED back a cuff of his shirt that had started to work itself loose and stood back to survey the master bedroom of the family's new temporary apartment, situated near the shuttle base on the outskirts of Franklin. The unit was one of a hundred or so set in cl.u.s.ters of four amid palm like trees and secluding curtains of foliage which afforded a comfortable measure of privacy without inflicting isolation. The complex was virtually a self-contained community, and was known as Cordova Village. It included a large, clover-shaped, open-air pool and an indoor one by the gymnasium and sports enclosure; a restaurant and bar adjoined a s.p.a.cious public lounge that doubled as a game room; for recreation a laboratory, a workshop, and art studios, all fully equipped; and an a.s.sortment of musical instruments. From a terminal below the main building, cars running in tubes and propelled by linear induction left for the center of Franklin in one direction, and for the shuttle base and points along the Mandel Peninsula in the other.

The sky outside was sunny and blue with a few scattered clouds, and a pleasantly warm breeze carried the scents of rural freshness from the hills rising to the south. Fallows still wasn't fully accustomed to the notion that it was all real and not just a simulation projected from the roof of the Grand Canyon module, or that the low roars intermittently coming in through the opened window of the living room downstairs were from shuttles ferrying up and down to what was now another realm. He allowed his mind to distract itself with the final ch.o.r.es of moving while it completed its process of readjustment.

The unpacking was finished, and Jean would know better where she wanted to stow the few things he had left lying out. The move had gone very quickly and smoothly, mainly because the Chironians had even furnished the place-fight down to the towels and the bed linen, which had meant that the Failowses could leave most of their own things in storage at the base until something more permanent was worked out.

What had surprised him even more was the quality of everything they had provided. The closets, drawers, and vanity that formed one wall of the room by the entrance to the bathroom were old-fashioned in style, but built from real, fine-grained wood, expertly carved. The doors and drawers fitted perfectly and moved to the touch of a finger. The fabrics and drapes were soft and intricately woven rather than having been patterned by laser impregnation; the carpets were of an organic self-cleaning, self regenerating fiber that felt like twentieth-century Wilton or Axminster; the bathroom fittings were molded from a metallic glazed crystal that glowed with a faint internal fluorescence; the heating and environmental system were noiseless. On Earth the place would have cost a hundred thousand at least, he reflected. He wasn't sure if the Chironians still owned the complex and had leased it to the Mission for some period, or what, but the letter from Merrick a.s.signing him to quarters allocated on the surface hadn't mentioned rental payments. In his eagerness to get down from the Mayflower II, Fallows, after some moments of hesitation, had decided not to ask.

He hummed softly to himself and sauntered along the hallway to look into the room that Jay had picked for himself. Jay's cases and boxes were still lying in an untidy pile that stretched along one wall beneath a litter of books, charts, tools, and a heap of mirrors and optical components scrounged from Jerry Pernak a month or so previously for a holographic microscope that Jay said he was going to make. The carca.s.s of a stripped-down industrial process control computer was lying on the floor by the bed, along with more boxes, an Army battle helmet and ammunition belt-both souvenirs of Jay's mandatory cadet, training on the Mayflower II and a.s.sorted junk from a medium-duty fluid clutch a.s.sembly, the intended purpose of which was a complete mystery, Jay himself had disappeared early on to go off exploring.

Bernard shrugged to himself. If Jay wonted to leave the work until the end of the day when he would be tired, that was his business.

"Bernie, this is too much!" Jean's voice came up from the lounge area below. "I'm never going to get used to this." Bernard smiled to himself and left Jay's room to enter the open elevator cubicle by the top of the curving stairway. Seconds later he walked out again and into the lounge. John was standing in the center of the floor between the dining room and the area of sunken floor before the king-size wall screen that formed a comfortable enclave surrounded by a sofa, two large armchairs, and a revolving case of shelves half recessed into the wall; a coffee table of dark-tinted gla.s.s formed its centerpiece. She gestured helplessly. "What are we ever going to do with all this s.p.a.ce? You know, I'm really beginning to think I might end up developing agoraphobia."

Bernard grinned. "It takes some getting used to, doesn't it? I think we've been shut up in a s.p.a.ceship for so long that we've forgotten what on-planet life was like."

"Was it ever like this? I certainly don't remember."

"Perhaps not quite, but that was twenty years ago, remember. Times change, I guess."

Marie, who had been exploring the house, emerged from the elevator. "The bas.e.m.e.nt is huge!" she told them. "There are all kinds of rooms down there, and I don't know what they're for. I could have my own room to draw things in. And did you know there's another door down there that leads out to a tunnel? I think it might go through to where the cab stops because it's got a thing like a conveyer running along next to it. Perhaps we needn't have carried all those things over and in through the front door at all"

"I said you were in too much of a hurry," Jean said to Bernard. "Just think, all that work for nothing. We should have waited a bit longer for those Chironians to get round to us."

Bernard shrugged. "What the h.e.l.l? It's done now. We needed the exercise."

Marie walked across the room end gazed at the large screen. "Does this work?" she asked.

"I don't know. We haven't tried it yet," Bernard answered. He raised his voice a fraction. "Anybody home? What do we have to do to get a computer in this place?" No response.

"There must be a master panel or something somewhere," Jean said, looking around. "How about that?"

She tripped down the two shallow steps into the sunken section of the floor, sat down at one end of the sofa, end lifted a portable flat screen display/touchpanel from a side-pedestal. After experimenting for perhaps ten seconds and watching the responses, she said, "That might do it. Try again."

"Is there a computer in the house?" Bernard called out.

"At your service," a voice replied from the direction of the screen. "I answer to Jeeves, unless you wont to make it something different." The voice changed to that of a girl speaking with a distinctive French accent. "Une pet.i.te francaise, possiblement?" Then it switched to a guttural male-"Karl, ze Bavarian butler, maybe?"-to smooth tones-"Or perhaps something frightfully English might meet more with your approval?"-and finally back to its original American. "All planetary communications and database facilities at your disposal-public, domestic, educational, professional, end personal; information storage, computation, entertainment, instruction, tuition, reference, travel arrangements, accommodations, services, goods, end resources, secretarial a.s.sistance, and consultancy. You name it, I can handle it or put you in touch with the right people."

Bernard raised his eyebrows. "Well, h.e.l.lo, Jeeves. How about all that? I guess you'd better stay who you are for the time being. How about giving us a rundown on this place for a start? For instance, how do you..."

Jean looked away as she heard the front door open. A few seconds later Jay arrived. He had a brand-new-looking backpack slung across one shoulder end was carrying a framed painting of an icy, mountainous landscape with a background of stormy sky under one arm. His expression was vaguely perplexed.