The scientists, too, were stalling. They fussed at length over storing their pressure suits and gear and wondered aloud who, if anyone, would come to meet them.
A small crowd was gathering at the Port control tower. Dan assessed the setup on the exterior scan monitor. He saw pilots. Well, that figured. Uniformed local personnel. That figured also. And civilians, some wearing twinkling holo-lens pendants. Dan pointed them out, asking Kat, “Reporters?”
“From the scientific vid-pubs,” she said, nodding. “I won’t be surprised if there are a few stringers from the media networks, as well. Normally they wouldn’t cover a conference so remote. But the Saunders are hot copy. I mean, after all, Cameron Saunder manages the Pan Sector channels...”
Dan grunted sourly. “In or out of xenoarch, wealthy Saunder-McKelveys always wield clout.”
“Speak of the devils,” Joe exclaimed. The others looked back at the screens. Feo and Hope Saunder-Nicholaiev were emerging from the shuttleport’s lounge. They led a parade of fellow scientists, reporters, and flunkeys, heading straight for Fiona. It was obvious their staff had tipped them off about the Praedar expedition’s arrival, and the Saunders were here to stage a grand entrance. Reporters, Dan noted, kept their lenses tightly focused on Feo and Hope. Any prayer of impartial media coverage was a lost cause.
“What a farce,” Joe said. “Feo probably ordered that nav robot to assign us a roundabout entry path. That way he and Hope had time to get here and put on this performance.”
Getz growled, “Are they xenoarchs or actors?”
“Both,” Kat said. “They’re also excellent PR manipulators.” Her jaw set in a firm line. “Our job is to steal their spotlight.” “We meet them,” Praedar said, and waved to Dan. He opened the debark ramp. Team members squared their shoulders and held their heads high as they started down to the tarmac. Dan brought up the rear, wanting to observe, for now, and not attract attention.
Feo and Hope moved with long, athletic strides, easily outdistancing most of the reporters, though not their colleagues. All of the xenoarchs, even portly Terrans and aliens, looked fit, like people who walked their own sites and did much of their own digging. Dan could testify that put a humanoid in good condition. Since the landing, he’d touched his grav compensation med patch only once, and his pulse and breathing rate had rarely been this steady after planetfall.
When the two groups met, there was momentary chaos. Lens pendants winked. Praedar huddled with fellow Whimeds on the welcoming committee. Ruieb-An bowed and bobbed with Vahnajes. A Lannon female boomed “Wal-cooms!” to everyone.
Gradually subtle divisions in the seemingly amicable meeting became apparent. There was definite chilliness between Whimeds and Vahnajes. An undercurrent of animosity separated Terrans, too. They fell into two factions—those supporting the Saunders and those who didn’t. Dan made careful mental memos of who was in which category. He was pleasantly surprised that he recognized so many of the scientists, both humans and aliens. Those tri-di illustrations in the expedition’s vid files gave him prior acquaintance with some of the biggest names in the field.
A muscular Terran, Jarrett, told Joe, “Glad you’re here. We heard rumors that you might not make it.”
“We almost didn’t,” Hughes admitted.
A sharp-faced Whimed asked in heavily accented Terran English, “There are difficulties in your travels?”
“Many obstacles,” Praedar said. His starburst gaze impaled the Saunders and the redhead, Tavares, accompanying them.
Feo and Hope reacied with surprise. Dan sought for guilt in their expressions. He couldn’t find it. They appeared to be genuinely upset on Praedar’s behalf. Tavares, though, did have something on his conscience; he was too sympathetic, overdoing it blatantly. Dan resolved to keep a close watch on the Saunders’ fair-haired boy. Tavares was probably the one who did his bosses’ dirty work, and the T-W 593 team had to stay alert to prevent any more of his tricks.
The welcomers listened in consternation to Praedar’s account of delayed machinery shipments and snafued transport connections. The latter, in particular, produced a storm of outrage.
“Why, that’s the ship we arrived on,” Jarrett said. “I’m going to register a complaint with the Council.”
“If it happened once, it could happen again. None of us is safe!”
“They can’t be allowed to get away with that!”
“Somebody arranged it. The only possible explanation...” Dan’s team nodded at that theory, and he noticed that Tavares reddened, confirming Dan’s suspicions that the Saunders’ aide was behind these problems. The Saunders themselves, however, shared Praedar’s anger. That was confusing. Dan had come here prepared to see the Saunders as enemies. Now their seeming innocence muddied the matter.
“Rest assured, Juxury,” Feo promised, “we’ll get to the bottom of this. The perpetrator will be punished.”
Praedar considered the statement, took it at face value, and blinked, releasing his hosts from that unnerving stare. “It would be appreciated,” the Whimed said. “It is difficult to conduct research under such handicaps.”
“Of course! Say no more!”
The crowd was impressed by Feo’s vehement assurances. Dan took them with a kiloton of salt.,Typical razzle-dazzle. Squash the “perpetrator?” Sure—a hapless clerk in the central transport office, most likely. The missing machinery? Another clerk’s fault. And whatever steps the Saunders took to swat their chosen patsies, it wouldn’t make a dent in the dispatchers’ code of silence and blacklistings.
Reminded of that, Dan surveyed the mob warily. Any repossess artists among them? It was tough to judge. Those grabbers didn’t wear badges. He’d have to stay alert on that front, too, to protect the team’s means of getting back home.
Commiseration shifted to an exchange of courtesies all around. Praedar spoke in a warmer tone than he’d used earlier. “We thank you for meeting us, but it was not required. Some of us visited your world several years ago and are familiar with the city and dig. Escort is unnec—”
“Nonsense!’ Hope Saunder interjected. “You must accept our hospitality.”
“Quite right,” Feo agreed. He extolled Saunder City’s amenities, recently refurbished quarters for Assembly guests, and other specially arranged perks. Was that a sales pitch for the attendees or for the onlooking media?
While Feo talked, Dan compared his relatives with his childhood recollections. There wasn’t a lot of change. Both Saunders were darkly tanned. Both wore the just-ordinary-settlers fashion now in vogue with Terra’s elite. Both were of medium height. Feo’s sand-colored hair framed a broad, Slavic face. His eyes were an undistinguished gray, his nose a sunburned lump. The man worked overtime to create an image as an average hardworking xenoarch. Hope, on the other hand, wasn’t playing down her well-bred Belvedere genes. Her iron-gray hair was cropped stylishly close. Skillfully applied cosmetics enhanced good facial bones.and her large brown eyes. She was a horsey woman, heavier than her wiry husband, but carried her weight well. Despite their differences, they resembled one another, proving human folk legends about lifetime partners.
“Kaatje!” Hope gushed. “You’re prettier than ever!” The younger scientist’s smile was weak. Obviously Kat would have preferred a compliment on her xenosocio record.
Joe, Praedar, Getz, Ruieb-An—all came in for a share of the Saunders’ flattery. Then Feo frowned, peering about. “Where’s Chen Zihua? I thought...”
“He is dead. An accident.” Praedar’s firm announcement put a period to any further questions along that line. He was a living warning sign, telling outsiders not to touch. The Whimed turned and beckoned. “You have not met the newest member of our team.”
Taking the cue, Dan stepped forward, holding out his hand. “Hello, cousins. You probably don’t remember me. It’s been a long time since we last met. I’m Dan McKelvey.”
He’d made up his mind in advance how to handle this moment, and the effect was gratifying. Reporters buzzed, s
hifting their focus to Dan’s team. The welcoming committee whispered among themselves excitedly. Feo gawked, speechless.
Hope, somewhat desperately, tried to salvage things. “Of course we remember you, Danny! How you’ve grown! You were just a boy when...” And she gestured waist-high, beaming maternally. She elbowed her husband. “Feo! You know him. Reid’s youngest. Morgan’s grandson. We and Reid and Fiona and their kids were all at Brenna’s picnic, that bash on Mars in ’37. Right, Danny?” Feo’s continuing stunned silence plainly annoyed her.
Dan nodded absently. Hope’s words had triggered a painful flashback.
The picnic was the last big family reunion he had attended. Shortly after that event, the financial roof had fallen in on Reid. Dan remembered his mother standing beside him, guiding him through the social maze of the gathering. He felt her hand on his shoulder as he was introduced to adult relatives, Feo and Hope among them. The pair hadn’t made a strong impression on him then. There had been far more glamorous people at the party: Grande dame Brenna herself; the family’s entertainment legend, Nathan Saunder; Ivan Saunder, terraforming wizard; and Wright McKelvey, hero of Space Fleet, soon to die tragically in action ...
Hope was laughing, saying to no one in particular, “Poor Feo! He’s so wrapped up in Assembly affairs he can’t deal with mere family matters.” She smiled conspiratorially at the reporters, inviting their indulgence of her brilliant husband.
At last waking to his duty, Feo seized Dan’s proffered hand and pumped it, stammering apologies. “Long time indeed, my boy! Far too long! We hadn’t known you were with luxury’s group.” Feo shot a worried, calculating glance at the big Whimed.
Again, Hope covered that heavy undercurrent of rivalry with cheery conversation. “You’re the very image of Fiona, Spirit of Humanity rest her soul.” That was a flat lie, and they all knew it. Dan regarded her with a faintly scornful smile. Hope rushed on, “We’ll have a nice chat later and bring each other up to date, won’t we?”
Feo jerked a thumb. Tavares bellowed orders. Flunkeys hurried to summon trucks and courtesy vehicles from the Port parking area. Porters bustled forward, ready to offload cargo.
“No,” Praedar said loudly. He blocked the porters’ way. “We will handle our specimens and exhibits. We only.”
“No need for that,” Feo said. “They’ll take care of donkey chores...”
“No,” Praedar repeated, more firmly. His crest bristled. Whimeds reacted to that flag, and their own topknots stiffened. Non-Whimeds edged apart from the felinoids, on guard.
Dan understood the boss’s suspicions and desire to protect his property. But he also saw problems a planet-bound person wouldn’t be aware of. “We had help stowing the stuff, Praedar,” he said. “It’ll take the six of us days to unload it all.”
“Out of the question!” Feo snapped. “Registration and opening ceremonies are tonight. Sessions begin in the morning...” Kat said with sarcasm, “Sorry we arrived so late. Couldn’t be helped. The transportation difficulties, you know. I’m sure you can see why all that made us excessively touchy about our displays.”
The Saunders brushed that aside. Feo said, “I fail to see any reason that should...”
Dan stepped into the gap. He shot a searching look at Praedar’s friends among the welcoming committee. “Maybe if we had some extra hands...” He left the rest of it—“that we can trust”—unspoken.
Former co-workers and students eagerly volunteered to help. Praedar made his decision with Whimed abruptness. Within minutes, scientists were trotting in and out of Fiona’s cargo bay, moving luggage and exhibits to the waiting vehicles. The Saunders, their supporters, and flunkeys stood by, obviously miffed. A few of Praedar’s friends traded broad winks, enjoying this opportunity to tweak the Saunders’ noses.
Amid the confusion, Dan cornered a Port staffer and got Praedar’s signature on the forms they’d need later to requisition a refueling package. That wouldn’t guarantee them the top-off, but with luck it would eliminate delaying tactics or excuses by Feo’s staffers when the team was ready to depart.
After the cargo was safely transferred, Dan made a production out of locking the starhopper. An angry red light glowed beside the now-secured hatchways. A reporter asked the obvious question.
“That? Oh, just a bit of burglar protection,” Dan said offhandedly. “After all the trouble we’ve had, it seemed like a good idea. Built it myself. Nasty little gimmick. Special tamper-proof guts. If anybody tries to give us any more problems, they’ll be very sorry.”
Tavares scowled. “This is a Sounder settlement. You don’t need to worry about theft here.”
“Oh, I’m not worried—now,” Dan retorted. He turned to Feo and said with a grin, “It pays to be careful, eh, cousin? We Saunder-McKelveys didn’t get where we are by leaving things to chance, did we?”
The Saunders, their noses in the air and out of joint, stomped past him to the lead car of the courtesy caravan. Dan got into the vehicle carrying his team. As the parade started out of Port, he settled himself amid heaps of baggage, feeling smug. The look Kat and Joe gave him was very sly.
It had been years since he’d stepped into those haughty mannerisms his family could wield to such daunting advantage. Feo and Hope had been thoroughly taken aback. Dan was delighted at how quickly half-forgotten patterns crept into his speech once more. Cool! Buttery! And that verbal knife, slipped artfully between the ribs. Not bad!
He didn’t kid himself that this was a victory. Only a small skirmish, it wouldn’t end the rivalry between the teams. But his oneupmanship had temporarily tipped the scales in favor of Praedar’s expedition, the N’lacs’, and truth’s.
CHAPTER TEN
Sparring Matches
His euphoria didn’t last. The drive through Saunder City’s, single main street rubbed Dan’s nose in the sort of privilege that was only a dim memory for his branch of the family. The Port’s qualifying call letters—F-H S-N—stood for “Feo and Hope Saunder-Nicholaiev,” to distinguish this Settlement from other Saunder Cities scattered throughout the Terran sector. They also branded this frontier village of two thousand as a company town.
Every citizen wore Feo’s insignia. The same mark hung over rooftrees and the Port’s gate. Vendors’ stalls and shops looked tightly controlled, as if a Saunder computer dictated what and when the proprietors would sell and how they’d dress. There were no import-export houses, no major shipping docks, no section where the usual brawler element ran its rougher bars and brothels. The lone, staid amusement area was patrolled by Saunder guards to make sure no one got out of order. The only offworlders on the scene were visiting scientists and off-duty human and alien crews from the shuttles.
The settlement was frozen. It lacked the bustle of a thriving, growing community because the Saunders wanted it that way. Saunder City had one reason for existence—the dig. The Port was there to bring in supplies. Period. No outbound commerce. None of a developing world’s entrepreneurial activity. The citizens were to support the dig and provide light diversion for the local team when their work became tiresome. And that was it.
It was Feo’s private kingdom. FTL and subspace com enabled him to work in this splendid isolation while enjoying contact with the larger interstellar scene and any luxuries he and Hope cared to ship in. The power and wealth on display were ostentatious.
Saunder City had no true outskirts. Offices and residences stopped and agriculture strips began. Farmers tended crops and cut back encroaching weeds from the surrounding forests. Dan envisioned Chuss’s colonist ancestors waging the same war against native foliage.
Beyond the farms, woodland crowded close to the paved road. On the left, tangled masses of yellow thom-shrabs and vines alternated with small patches of prairie. To the right, waves lapped at black stone beaches. Trailing creepers raked at the vehicles’ windows, forcing those seated on the landward side to recoil to avoid being scratched. “How much of that stuff is feral?” Dan wondered.
“Much,�
�� Praedar said. “Analyses by the Saunders indicate the biota are similar to species found on T-W 593. Our conclusion is the stocks were imported. The Saunders believe otherwise.”
Scientists sharing the ride with Praedar’s team laughed, and one of them said, “What do you expect? Selectivity, luxury. Always selectivity. The Saunders select for their theories, you for yours.”
Ignoring the byplay, Kat touched Dan’s sleeve. “You wouldn’t have asked about biota when you first arrived on T-W 593.”
“I wouldn^t have known enough to, then. I told you I was a fast learner.”
A man seated nearby overheard him. “False modesty, McKelvey. Denigrating the head start you had on the rest of us. Th what Feo does—assumes everyone was privately tutored and force-fed knowledge from infancy, because he was.”
Dan didn’t set the man straight. Maybe the misconception that he was on equal terms with Feo would help the team and the N’lacs.
He gazed into the alien forest, imagining N’lac colonists 154
clearing land and planting, establishing a settlement they’d later have to abandon to the elements. They had believed this was their first step into space, the first of many. Other humanoid races had made similar confident beginnings in their starward expansion. But for the N’lacs, everything had ended here. The Evil Old Ones had been waiting in the wings, and the N’lacs were virtually wiped out.
As mankind, the Whimeds, and the Vahnajes might be someday?
Shivering, Dan turned away from the window. Ever since Chen’s death and the nightmares that followed, he couldn’t get rid of these disturbing speculations. They were an itch impossible to scratch.
The road ended at Assembly Complex, a cluster of one-story multiple housing units circling a main hall. The car carrying the Saunders slowed, taking the caravan on a leisurely tour. Dan was reminded of a Terran core world’s institutional think tanks. There were well-engineered lanes, fancy stonework facing on the buildings, and neat beds of flowering shrubs. A park was full of scooters and minibuses, in case guests wanted a run back to town. Elaborate arcades and skyways connected sleeping units with the central structure, and a bigger passage linked the entire Complex with a man-made hill to the south—the Saunders’ fantastic, enclosed dig site.
Juanita Coulson - [Children of the Stars 04] Page 18