They entered a limo almost big enough to call a bus through a short boarding tube at the private rear entry lock at the Holiday Inn. The trip wasn't that long. It just seemed to take forever when frozen in fear. Starships went fast when they didn't displace instantaneously. But they didn't pass between outcroppings of rock that looked to come within centimeters of the road.
Ships didn't dive through tunnels that looked like a black target on the mountainside. They didn't suit up either, trusting this vehicle to maintain pressure. Something she was pretty sure it wouldn't do if it smacked any of those rocks. The road looked narrow, and when they passed a vehicle going the other way it was a streak that passed before the eye could even focus on it. Their limo had wheels.
Lee remembered riding a hotel bus on Earth. It had seemed to go maybe ten meters a second, and stopped a lot. When she asked Gabriel how fast the limo went he said somewhere around five hundred kilometers an hour. She tapped it in her pad because she couldn't think straight looking out the front viewports and got a little under a hundred forty meters a second. That was the same as the Earth bus for any reasonable discussion. It felt like a different order of magnitude.
When they arrived they left through a short walkway that sealed right to their limo, just like they'd boarded. Inside it looked more like the lobby of their hotel she remembered from her previous visit. They'd never seen it this trip, but Gabriel assured her it was public spaces. There was quite a bit of greenery and the most surprising a delicate fountain that changed constantly with indirect lighting.
There were groups of public elevators clustered. Lee saw people consulting a screen beside some and sitting at a bench to await its arrival. Other elevators opened and she saw they were furnished nicely as their limo or better. One elevator opened and was big enough to carry vehicles. There was s line of cargo carts waiting to board it.
Gabriel, however, took them to a corridor instead of directly to an elevator. The corridor had a guard shack, that's what Lee was pretty sure its function was. A kiosk sitting square in the center of the corridor entry with a lip around it that had about a meter of thickness to it, before a thick transparent cylinder continued to the overhead. There didn't seem to be any hatch, so they must enter from a lower level. When Lee looked up there was a concentric circle in the overhead around the clear tube.
Gabriel was acknowledged by one of the two guards inside before they were very close. They obviously knew him by sight. He still made a gesture that displayed the ring, but it seemed a formality. They walked right past in a group without a pause.
Lee became aware Gabriel was watching her inspection. "Does the overhead come down and seal off against the ledge to seal them off in an emergency like a sleeve?" she asked him, with hand gestures to try to illustrate what she meant.
"Good guess, but the whole assembly drops down to the next level if things go really bad. The part you pictured as a sleeve follows it down and plugs the hole for about ten meters deep."
"Ten meters? What are you expecting? A nuke attack?" Lee wondered.
"That would handle a small one," Gabriel allowed. "The last time they bombed us here the crater was over two hundred meters deep, and I doubt being four or five hundred deep would have saved anybody. Any excavation would have collapsed. But if they can get just a few minutes warning there are slide tunnels they can dive into and get far enough down to be safe."
"Here?" Lee asked to be certain, pointing at the deck, er, floor.
"Yes, the Chinese were sending a punitive force to Home, and Heather objected to them being in her sky. They'd breached the L1 limit," Gabriel stopped and asked, "You are apprised there is an L1 limit?"
Gabriel stopped and put his hand on a plate. It was ceramic, so it wasn't a print reader. A DNA taster, very high security. They didn't have to wait; the doors opened right up.
"Yes, we were told that by a Fargoer captain," Lee admitted, "but the more I find out the more it seems I don't know. I wish I'd had more time to research it before I sound like an idiot to your Lady."
"Most of it can be found with a diligent search of public sources, but not of course from China or North America. They got their hands slapped and they censor and feed their public... nonsense."
Lee was pretty sure he avoided using a stronger expression.
There was an actual couch and a bar with drinks and snacks. Pads for the Derf and Human seats that served the aliens well enough. A small comconsole and a big screen with an environmental feed on it. This time it definitely was Earth, not a window to fool her. Gabriel took the couch and she joined him. She could tell from the cant of his ears Gordon was listening.
"So they bombed the snot outta you here," Lee backtracked. "What happened to the 'punitive' force?"
"There were four ships, three died. One decided to defect and sought asylum at Home. A very good thing for me, because I lived on Home then," Gabriel said.
Lee remembered the list of ships lost. There was a cluster of Chinese losses, four, or was it three? Destroyed in lunar orbit. But that was way too early for Gabriel to be living on Home, unless she remembered wrong, or the data was bad, or he lied... She didn't have her pad set to run veracity, and she didn't want to stop and check dates or change the settings. Gabriel might be any number of things, but she could tell he wasn't stupid. Somehow she was pretty sure he wasn't lying. He had no reason to, and she didn't have the experience of Gordon, but she could already pick up on the facial hints and body language when somebody was lying. Unfortunately her short stay on Earth gave her a lot of intense instruction. But how could it be?
Her own face must have been telling on her, because Gabriel was watching her long silence.
"I suspect you will want to have April explain about life extension therapy, and how it has affected our relationship with Earth," Gabriel suggested.
"Thank you. I've been doing massive data searches the last couple days, and life extension therapy is one of the secondary searches my AI initiated today from yesterday's results." Surely that didn't mean what he was implying...
"Don't be shy to ask April to explain everything to you. She can tell you the straight stuff in a half hour it'll take you a month to suck out of the data. She won't talk down to you like some would."
"You say April instead of My Lady when you get informal," Lee noted.
"If I were speaking with her voice I'd be formal," Gabriel assured her. "That was just Gabriel speaking to you expressing my own opinion."
"Thank you for your help," Lee said sweetly.
"You're welcome, but you're not sure you believe me yet," was his appraisal.
"I believe you enough not to have set my pad to listen and verify," Lee said to soften it.
"All that tells you is if I believe it, not whether it is true," Gabriel pointed out.
What could she say? That was a fact. Lee realized they'd been dropping a long time.
"How far down are we going?" Lee asked.
"A few kilometers," Gabriel answered vaguely.
"In case they bomb you again?" Lee said, a little flip, and then regretted it.
"Our people survived before, much shallower, though offset a bit. It took a lot of effort to fill the crater back in and rebuild the road system. Jeff was thinking about building a beanstalk here; the crater and the attack made him rethink that. He decided we were too close to Earth to offer them such an easy target. I think they now know that if they, China or any other Earth powers, attack us on that scale again we'll destroy them. China came within a hair's breadth of provoking that back then. They've exhausted our patience."
He looked at Lee directly again. "You know, Home used to be in Low Earth Orbit. That's why we moved out around L2, because they couldn't refrain from sniping at us."
"I don't seem to remember that, but I'm building up a picture of events," Lee said.
Gabriel just gave a curt nod.
Gordon spoke up from his seating pad. "How old are you, Gabriel?" The directness shocked Lee.
"One hu
ndred thirty three years, next month. Standard Earth years," Gabriel said.
"That makes sense then," Gordon said with a little nod of his own.
"Why does it make sense?" Lee had to ask him. It certainly didn't make sense to her.
"He looks thirty. Maybe I'm not as good judging age with Humans as Derf, but I don't think I'd be off more than five years at the most, either way. You're smart Lee, and getting more insight and wisdom at a scary rate. Of course you are having more opportunity to learn than most. But I see your limitations all the time. I don't say anything. Not unless I can actually benefit you with it. Some things I know you're just not ready to absorb. But, Gabriel... He's just too damn smart – deep down experienced smart – it isn't just native intelligence, it's... too poised, for thirty."
"He believes," Gabriel told Lee.
"I'm not sure I do yet," Lee admitted. "Then, April is the same April we saw in the video? Not her granddaughter?"
"Indeed, April has granddaughters, but she wouldn't want them to live here, next to the slumball."
"Then why does she?" Lee asked.
"I'll let you ask her yourself if you have the nerve. I've always been afraid she'd answer by agreeing it was time to move on. Not that she doesn't go out system. But the three rotate somebody in to watch their interests on a regular basis. I don't want to encourage them to abandon the system," Gabriel said.
"There must be a definable reason," Lee insisted.
"If you think you see one after meeting her, run it past me. We'll see if you are as perceptive as Gordon credits you," Gabriel offered.
Gabriel stood up and Lee realized she had been so engrossed in the exchange she hadn't felt them stop.
Chapter 27
When the doors opened, They're trying too hard to impress me, was Lee's first thought. Then her native skepticism failed, and she had to admit they'd succeeded.
The room was circular and domed up high. Carved of native stone. Not fitted blocks, rather cut from a monolith. It was about sixty meters across, not huge, but entirely empty. The floor was paved in patterned polished stone. Contrasting colors making a compass rose. Four high peaked arches marked doorways on the cardinal points that would have done a medieval cathedral proud.
The lighting was indirect. Spread somehow on the curved dome surface. Probably from behind the heavy framing shapes around the doors. The four quadrants of the dome up above the door tops had murals painted, showing scenes from both Central and its predecessor Home.
"It's a whispering gallery," Gabriel told Lee. Then seeing her incomprehension explained. "If you stand at exact opposite points, the intercardinal points work best, you can speak in the softest voice and the dome focuses the sound to the other person. Our engineer read about them researching what to build and had to try it."
They started across the polished stone floor. Lee's friends were lagging behind a little, staring. By the time they reached the middle she realized the swish, swish, swish noise was from Gabriel. She stopped and looked down at his feet. He was grinning.
"My footies have a special sole. If you lean forward the front part grips when you pull back and slides forward easily. I can make better time on our floors than most people can ice skating." He demonstrated by taking a couple hard steps, making a sweeping circle with overlapping steps, and coming to an abrupt stop on his heels hands thrown out, showing off.
"You're pretty frisky for a hundred and thirty year old guy," Lee allowed, rounding it off.
"The life extension is not just cosmetic. I'm quite able," Gabriel said, wagging his eyebrows and giving her his best grin.
She hadn't meant it like that, and felt her face burn. "I'm too young... " Lee said, and had every intention to add, 'for you', but failed to finish it. "I grew up away from society, and when I finally visited Earth they didn't leave me trusting others of my kind very much. Gordon tells me I still need a great deal of socialization." That was as much explanation as she was going to offer.
"Ah, My Lady had a similar vacation to Earth about the same age as you. She found their hospitality rather wanting too," Gabriel said, grimly.
Lee found her palms sweaty and wiped them down the sides of her shirt, regretting the display of nervousness as soon as she did it, unthinking. She jammed her thumbs under her belt as if that's what she intended to do all along, elbows out. Standing aggressively.
Gabriel started, struck for some reason. He did the oddest thing, turning to her and stepping to look at her straight on.
"I'll try to remember to compare notes with her on that," Lee promised, and stepped around him, forcing him to turn to keep up.
They passed straight ahead through the north portal. It proved to lead to a series of buttresses, each set of which met at the top like the first doorway. There were alcoves to each side between them, some dark, some occupied with furnishings and office equipment and a very few people working at something. One was a library of old fashioned paper books. In another a gentleman was sitting practicing violin. When they got to the end it was a throne room, but a very strange one. April sat at a desk with a computer station on a platform. She could turn and accept someone approaching without the desk between them. A band of carpet ran from in front of the steps up right to the chair.
The large adjustable leather chair looked much more comfortable than any storybook throne Lee had seen. It made sense and was functional. But Gabriel stopped before the steps and checked over his shoulder to make sure he hadn't lost anyone.
When April turned to regard them it was apparent the chair was powered like a pilot's seat. It struck Lee to the core when she saw April face on. She was the same woman in the video, not a descendant. Her face was fuller now, more mature, but the same nose and freckles, the same reddish color of hair. It was longer than the boyish short cut in the video. Rather than flipped up on the front edge it was layered and swept back, like a wavy lion’s mane. It flowed over the tops of her ears a bit, but still showed the same sort of gold hoops she'd favored before. She was really starting to believe this story.
April made a little come here gesture with her cupped hand and Gabriel climbed the stairs and approached her. So, that's how it works, Lee thought. Gabriel was speaking too low for her to eavesdrop. He however made a gesture back towards her and touched his spex. They both turned and looked at the computer screen. It wasn't turned so Lee could see it, and April looked back at her and smiled. Was she now an object of humor? Had she misinterpreted Gabriel's facial antics and he wasn't flirting? Serious or not, maybe now he thought it funny she imagined he could find her attractive. Lee started getting irritated the longer they smiled at the screen.
"Do I amuse you?" Lee finally asked, in a tone that should have left them coated in hoary frost.
They both looked surprised. Unaware how she was taking it. April did the same come here gesture with her. "You astonish us because you look just like me in the capture Gabriel did with his spex. Come see. We're not disrespecting you, it's a wonder."
The screen showed April standing in hatch. Not an airlock, maybe a much older elevator. She wasn't in a pressure suit like in the BBC video, but dressed in the same black beaded outfit as the still Lee had. That other pic was obviously a cropped single frame from the same time or cut from video. It showed the whole outfit down to below the knees. She had things hung on her belt and a huge freaking knife with a handle like the one over her shoulder jammed under the belt.
Nobody would ever mistake them for sisters, but April was glaring at the lens, thumbs hooked in a wide belt with an elaborate closure, elbows and shoulders thrown back with attitude. Lee on the split screen looked old fashioned, like she was dressed for something like safari, but her body language and killer gaze was a perfect mirror. She looked like a stranger to herself.
"Back when that picture was freshly available the kids on Earth copied the style and drove the authorities nuts," April remembered. "Drove me nuts that they copied me too. The kids were banned from malls and such. Your pic would probably d
o the same. It's been long enough it would be fresh to the kids again, but now all public cosplay is banned. They'd all end up in juvenile detention."
"Oh my. I wasn't actually trying to uh, project like that," Lee said.
"Neither was I," April agreed, flicking her hand at her old image.
"Well there is something there in common that is... leaking, ladies," Gabriel said skeptically.
They both looked at him until he took a step back and showed his palms.
"He has been useful," Lee admitted.
"That's as much as one can expect," April agreed.
Gabriel hurried to introduce the rest of the party, uncomfortable when he became the subject. Lee noticed April didn't invite the whole mob up on her platform. Then April surprised her all by making sure the Badgers and Bills knew Lee and Gordon were newly met to her, just like them.
"Have you been treated well?" Was nothing they expected to be asked. It was obvious they were neither prepared nor comfortable with the question. They looked at each other, trying to decide if it was worse to speak first or let the other have that turn.
April looked suspicious at their reticence. "They don't report to me," she told the aliens. "I don't know a great deal about their character, and I'm always concerned about people's ethics foremost when I meet them and consider doing business or associating. If they issue a report or publish their voyage log it still doesn't speak to who they are and what was said and done in private. Have you complaints? Because I can see you home safe if you've been under any duress."
That was quite the claim right there. Lee had already decided she was misinformed about the balance of powers in the Solar System. For April to say she could take charge of them and return them home to the deep unknown, was either arrogance or confidence in a shocking level of power.
Talker looked at the floor. "I'm embarrassed to say Gordon has treated us better than we treated each other. When we squabbled like children I was afraid he was going to put us out to walk home. Lee informs me the proper idiom is that he 'knocked heads together until we saw some sense'. It's a marvelous language for horribly blunt statements. One of the crew said that when you damn someone to hell in English they can feel the flames on their toes. It was getting a bit warm."
Secrets in the Stars (Family Law) Page 33