She would talk to Myles, she decided. If he was in charge of things now, he should be able to make it a priority to get the rest of her things sent down. They still had all afternoon, and a shuttle could make it in twenty minutes. Leaving the clothes in a heap on the floor, she went through to the bedroom, where Betty held out some pants and a top from a closet she was partly through filling. While Gloria pulled them on, Betty indicated a full-length dress of orange lamé with taffeta and ribbon ornaments at the neck and sleeves, that she had smoothed out on the bed.
“If I may say so, ma’am, that mightn’t be too bad at all. I did make sure there was one trunk with some more dressy things — in case there was a dinner at the base or something like that. The sheen could be quite appropriate.”
Gloria lifted the hem, looked at it disdainfully for a moment or two, and then let it drop. She turned to sit on the edge of the bed and stretched out a foot for Betty to put on the shoe. “What about jewelry to go with it? This is a diplomatic occasion.”
“We have your Italian emerald set,” Betty replied as she tied the lace. She tightened the knot and reached for the other shoe.
“Oh, I’m tired of those. This is the first time after two months of being shut up inside that frisbee that I’m actually going out where people can see me. I want something I can wear with the Cartiers. A full, swirling gown in white — how about the backless one with puffed sleeves and the sequined waist? I was told it looks regal. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.”
Betty stood up and turned to take a hanger from the closet. “They haven’t been sent down yet, I’m afraid,” she said. “And I’m sure the ship has a busy schedule today. I’m not sure there’s a lot we can do.”
Gloria rose to her feet and took the proffered wind breaker. “We’ll see about that,” she said as she turned toward the door.
As she emerged from the chalet, the armed Milicorp corporal posted outside the door straightened up. Gloria hesitated for a second, intending to tell him to raise Myles on the phone, but then she changed her mind. “Do you know where the acting Director is right now?” she asked instead.
“I’m pretty sure he’s in the Administration Building, ma’am. In the Director’s office.”
Gloria nodded. “We’ll go there, then.”
They passed through the security gate giving admittance to the roadway running alongside the residential huts and turned in the direction of the Administration Building. A number of people were about, some of whom turned to look at her curiously. One or two sent her a cautious nod or half raised a hand. A man in military fatigues took off his hat. Gloria ignored them. Two months of the ship had been bad enough, but this kind of proximity and familiarity was too much.
She noted as they walked how stark and utilitarian the surroundings were inside the base. Perhaps a more suitable residence outside could be arranged, she thought to herself — there were lots of big houses around the outskirts of the city. Maybe that was something she could bring up with the Cyreneans tonight. They might even be able to furnish her with a proper staff of domestics and keepers for the grounds, ones who knew their place and had never heard of Terran unions or labor laws. She could picture it featured in the news documentaries back home: “Gloria Bufort’s ambassadorial mansion on Cyrene.” Now wouldn’t that be something! And Henry could play with his stock options and communications electronic whatsits for as long as it kept him contented.
They entered the Administration Building and took the elevator up to the top floor, where the executive offices were. A corridor brought them to a door bearing the sign director. Gloria told the guard to wait and let herself through. A young man in shirtsleeves at a desk flanked by a computer station looked up inquiringly. “Is Myles in?” Gloria asked, motioning with her eyes at the door leading to the inner office.
“Who wants to...” The clerk recognized who she was suddenly and straightened up. “Yes ma’am! He sure is.” The clerk got up from the chair and went ahead of her to the door, raising his hand to knock, but she restrained him with a wave.
“It’s all right. He won’t mind.”
The clerk deferred, inclining his head, and stood aside. Gloria eased the door open, stepped inside, and closed it softly behind her. Callen was at the desk with a panel of screens to one side, pen in hand, poring over some papers that he was holding. His expression didn’t change when he looked up, catching the movement. Gloria thought she could have expected at least a sign of welcome. She felt piqued.
“Well, don’t bother saying hello or anything, Myles,” she cooed after a few seconds.
“Hello,” Callen obliged.
“You might at least look pleased.”
Callen’s brow knitted for an instant. He made a short waving motion with the papers and compressed his mouth into a forced smile. “I’m sorry.... You caught me right in the middle of something.”
“So what’s it like to be the Director and have the entire base at your command?”
“Just the acting Director. It was necessary. Today has been hectic. What can I do for you?”
Gloria moved to the desk, kissed him on the forehead, ran a hand down the side of his face and along his shoulder, and then sank down onto one of the chairs on the far side. “This thing that Vattorix has sprung on us for tonight....”
“It was at my request,” Callen reminded her.
“Not a full formal banquet. You just wanted to talk business. A handful of you could have taken care of that. The other stuff could have been left until later.”
Callen conceded the point by spreading his hands. “I would have thought you’d welcome the opportunity to display your person and form after so long,” he said.
“Yes, well, that’s the whole point. My stuff is all up in the ship. I can’t go there looking like a woman who sells insurance or someone on her first graduation date.”
“What do you mean, ‘stuff’?”
Gloria motioned down at herself with both hands. “To wear. You know, like clothes? And the things that go with them. I’m the ambassador to this planet now, remember?”
“But you had a consignment brought down as a first priority yesterday. It should have arrived last night.”
“None of it’s suitable. That was casual stuff for the first few days. Nobody expected anything like this. The real stuff I need for something like this is still up there.”
Callen opened his hands again. This time he was unable to suppress a hint of irritation. His eyes glanced involuntarily at the screens next to him, displaying items waiting for attention. “Well, I’m sorry. If we’d known sooner that Vattorix would respond in the way he did, we could have made arrangements accordingly. But this isn’t exactly Buckingham Palace or the Presidential House in Beijing. I’m sure you’ll be able to put something acceptable together from what you have. Now, it’s lovely to see you, but I really am —”
“But that’s not good enough, Myles! I’ve been shut up in the Tacoma for two months! This is the first time I’ll be around new people. I want my best stuff. You’re the new Director around here...” Gloria waved a hand....” or acting, or whatever. What you say goes. You’ve got shuttles coming down all the time. All you have to do is tell someone up there to get it loaded, and the have it picked up at the other end.”
Callen shook his head. “I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. There’s a complex unloading schedule in operation after a voyage like this, not to mention all kinds of system rundown procedures and checks to attend to. Everyone is stretched to the limit, and half the people who were supposed to be here to help have disappeared. I really do have other things that must take priority right now.”
“What’s the matter?” Gloria shot back. “Don’t you want your dinner date tonight to look her best for the king of Yocala and all his court? I mean, I am the ambassadress, and the least I’d expect...” She caught the pained look on his face and stared at him probingly. “We are going together, I assume, aren’t we?”
Callen looked away,
bunched his mouth for several seconds; then he seemed to make his mind up about something and turned his face back. “We both have new responsibilities now,” he said. “There are certain protocols and behaviors that don’t mix. In view of our earlier... relationship, I don’t think it would be appropriate.”
Gloria’s face whitened. “What are you telling me? That I’m okay as a screw to pass the time on the trip? Do I have to remind you who I am, Myles? Just who the hell do you think you are?”
Callen rubbed his brow tiredly in a way that said he’d known this was going to happen. “I’m just saying that these things have a way of telegraphing themselves. If the news found its way back, it wouldn’t be in the best interests of either of us. Surely I don’t have to spell it out. It’s best that it were ended now, before anything like that happens, before any damage is done.” His face softened a fraction. “Yes, and if it’s any consolation, I’ll miss it too. Okay?”
But Gloria was no longer listening. She uncoiled from the chair and was barely able to stop herself lashing out. “I don’t need you to worry about my interests back home,” she hissed. “What do you even know about them? We own the ship, and we own the base, and we own you. I could squash you and not get a hair out of place.” She marched to the door and threw back before opening it, “Come to think of it, I might just enjoy that. There. That’s something else on your schedule for you to sweat about.”
She was unable to prevent herself from closing the door with a bang. The clerk in the outer office kept his eyes on the screen that he was working at and said nothing.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Cyreneans had proposed sending barges over to ferry the guests across the lake as a relaxing prelude to the evening and to give the newcomers some advance practice in getting to know them better. But impressing the natives with the wonders that Earth had to offer was higher on the mission’s priority list, and the Directorate decided that the Terran delegation would arrive in style by air.
Nobody that Shearer talked to knew if it had been the intention all along, since nothing had been said during the voyage, but Gloria Bufort, who was apparently down at the base but quartered privately somewhere, would head the delegation as Earth’s official representative to Vattorix. She showed herself briefly to be driven from the Administration Building to the open area inside the perimeter fence on the east side that served as a flight operating zone, where she embarked with a retinue of the more senior people and their staffs into a sleek, shiny VTOL personnel transporter from the base’s complement of aircraft. Shearer, Jerri, and the remaining other ranks packed into two boxy sambot constructions configured into flyers. The accommodation was bare and simple by comparison — but, they had to admit, ingenious. Uberg traveled with his scientific group, although somebody said he had been offered a place in the VIP aircraft.
The flight across the lake took a matter of minutes. A good number of boats were visible below, some idling or maybe fishing, others making their way between Revo to the west and points farther inland. With their bright, multicolored sails, they looked like flowers floating on a pond. A biologist just in with the Tacoma thought that the effect could be deliberate. She had read that Cyreneans attached a lot of importance to flowers, and used floral designs and motifs extensively in their decorations and art.
Details of the opposite shore unfolded as the flyer drew nearer. It was hilly inland like the southern side, but with a generally neater and more cultivated appearance. The wilder, more open terrain of the south shore had no doubt been a factor in selecting the site for the base. The field boundaries cut a patchwork of irregular sizes and shapes among blotches of green and purple forest interspersed with outcrops of rock. There was a view of houses strung loosely along a roadway following the water’s edge, some with barns and outbuildings forming small farms, and then the flyer began descending. It crossed the shoreline above the mouth of a small river with moored boats and houses clustered around the banks. Figures were standing and staring, while others came out of doors to watch the flight pass overhead.
A larger house became visible, standing alone some distance to the left among trees inside walled grounds. The flyer’s nose began to swing around, and the house disappeared from view ahead. Moments later, the boundary wall was passing by underneath. A stretch of parkland followed, and then lawns and gardens laid out between terraced ponds. The engine nose rose to bring the flyer to a halt with a wing of the house visible on one side; it hovered for a few seconds, and then completed its descent vertically to touch down in a paved court. The view through a window opposite showed the VIP VTOL that had preceded them already on the ground. Moments later, the second sambot flyer came into view from above and landed on the far side of it.
Although there had been a briefing after assembly at the base, a woman called Marion Hersie, who had come with the first mission and knew enough of the language to be assigned as the party’s interpreter, stood up at the front to repeat some of the salient points over the cabin speakers.
“I want everybody to remember that we’re here thanks to Interworld Restructuring Consolidated. They’ve brought us here as part of the program of facilitating Cyrene’s economic and political development. This will be for their own benefit as well as that of the corporation and its backers, and eventually all of Earth itself. It’s important to present every aspect of our technologies, methods, and institutions in a positive light. This evening, whatever your nominal profession, you are firstly salespeople for Earth. The Cyreneans you meet will have heard various things from different sources, not all of them true. Take a tip from what your insurance companies tell you: Don’t admit wrongs or failures; your information might not be as accurate as you think. Don’t apologize. We want Earth’s image to be one of confidence and strength that the rulers here on Cyrene will want to emulate. Let them see you using your communicators to talk to someone back at base, or better, up in the ship. Showing things like a shot of the city from orbit is good. Impress on them that all the stars are suns, and how far the ship has come. When their leaders start to think of that kind of capability in terms of weaponry and what it could do for them, that’s when we get their attention.” Whines and clunks sounded as the door behind her and another at the rear of the cabin hinged outward to transform into steps. “Enjoy your dinner. All items on the menu have been passed as Terran-friendly. We’ll be assembling back here at the aircraft at twenty-one hours local time for departure. You’ll get a reminder beep fifteen minutes in advance. Thank you.”
Hersie signed off with a click. The cabin’s occupants got up in ones and twos and merged into lines shuffling fore and aft toward the exits. Nim, who had lain by Jerri’s feet through the flight, was all eyes, ears, and alertness. She gave his head a reassuring ruffle. “We’re gonna meet some new people,” she told him.
“Maybe they’ll have some juicy bones,” Shearer put in from just behind her. Nim thumped his tail against one of the seats trustingly. Uberg had told them to leave their things in a baggage compartment and tell the crew simply that they might be wanted later.
They climbed down into the yard, which lay to one side of the house. A reception committee of colorfully dressed Cyreneans was already before the doorway of the VIP craft, where the lead group of Terrans had emerged. Gloria Bufort, wearing a glittery white coat with silver fur trim over a dark business dress, was making a show with grandiose arm motions and postures of starring in the center. A smaller group of Cyreneans was moving forward toward the sambot flyer.
While the groups from the two exit doors merged back together and Hersie made her way through them to the front, Shearer took a look at the surroundings. A wall continued from the wing of the house bordering one side of the yard. Halfway along it was a wide, railed gate opening down to what looked like a flower garden, but with tiers of seats overlooking a sunken area in the middle. The wall ended at steps going up to a terrace enclosing a pond, beyond which were treetops of what could have been some kind of orchard. Behind the flyer,
paths and sets of stone stairs ornamented with sculptures led down among more flower beds and screens of shrubbery to the lawns. In front and on the far side of the flyer stood the main body of the house itself.
It was elegant and reasonably spacious, but a somewhat modest affair for a head of state, Shearer thought, falling distinctly short of what most people would have visualized as “palatial.” Perhaps the Terran habit of referring to Vattorix as “king” had raised his expectations unduly. His first impression was of mix of Gothic and Arabian styles. It had a projecting central section supporting a balcony over the main entrance, with parapets and staggered cornices above. The basic construction was thick-walled and robust, but like the architecture setting the tone of the city, echoing a theme of narrow, arched windows, pillars, and rising flutings that emphasized verticality and height. The central part boasted a steep, sloping roof ending in a square tower, while the wings made do with onionlike domes capped by cupolas. The stonework was embellished with colored inlays and foliar designs. Flowers stood in sprays of color in beds along the bases of the walls and planters beneath the windows, while more provided an edging to the roofline. The domes above the two wings carried branching ornamentations spiraling up the sides, making their profiles asymmetrical. Shearer couldn’t decide if the intention was to impart a floral character to them too.
His attention came back to the mixed group of half-dozen-or-so Cyreneans who had drawn up before the arrivals. Their styles of dress varied from brightly embroidered frock coats that might almost have come from eighteenth-century Europe, worn with baggy Cossack-like pants gathered at the ankles, similar to those that Korsofal had worn the day before, to loose, ankle-length robes. Three were Cyrenean women, wearing gowns fastened with belts and draped from one shoulder in the manner of togas, with long cloaks — quite stately and becoming, Shearer thought. They wore their hair high, held by bands and clasps decorated with flowers. One of them holding a posy, which she carried forward, smiling, and presented to Marion Hersie. The Cyreneans raised their voices in an odd ringing sound that was part way between a cheer and a murmur but obviously signified approval. Unsure how to respond, a few of the Terrans started clapping, and the rest followed. This seemed to delight the Cyreneans, who promptly began imitating them.
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