He looked through the stores, which were adequate if unexciting. If their return were as accurate as their arrival, Radu would have only a few meals to prepare, and he would be able to use fresh food for all of them.
Only the pilot had registered dislikes and allergies. Vasili Nikolaievich had a long list of things he would not eat. That would restrict meals to blandness, unless Radu fixed two versions of everything.
He put together an ordinary stew that everyone could season as they preferred. Then he poured himself a mug of coffee and returned to the crew lounge to wait for the others to revive.
Stretched out on a chair with his feet propped up, he thought about what he should do next. Earth had lost its luster for him and even travel did not seem nearly as inviting as it had when he joined the crew. As for exploration — Vasili’s experience proved how little chance Radu had of fulfilling that ambition.
He was homesick, but he did not want to go home. Though he loved his world, its ghosts haunted him. The ache of his family’s passing had diminished, but it would never go away. Before the emergency team arrived and synthesized a vaccine, too many people had died while Radu, by chance and luck, had lived. The plague killed those it touched; Radu had never met anyone else who caught it and survived, though he supposed there must be a few. But everyone who avoided infection, through natural immunity or good fortune, and then by vaccination, looked at Radu and wondered why someone they had loved was dead, instead of him.
He rubbed his face, smooth forehead and scarred cheeks, the soft scratchy bristle of his heavy mustache. Perhaps he should let his beard grow. He had, once before, but it came in in different colors and made him look like a jester. The beard hid the scars, but he preferred looking ugly to looking a fool, so he had shaved it off.
He did not have to leave it the color it grew. He could as easily change it to the same dark blond as his mustache. His reasons for leaving it alone seemed absurd even to him. He preferred to present himself to the world as he was, without a façade. Hiding never worked. He had tried hiding for two years, up in the mountains alone on Twilight. Hiding his physical scars behind a beard — or even hiding his mental scars behind regenerated skin — would not help him either.
At a sudden noise he jumped to his feet. He had forgotten about the others. Hurrying into the box room, Radu found Atnaterta pulling himself upright.
“Atna, wait, let me help.”
Radu took him by the shoulder and arm and eased him from his sleep chamber. The navigator was shivering, deeply and steadily. Radu hugged him, rubbing his back, until after a few moments the older man responded with a brief, sleepy embrace. Gradually, his shivering subsided.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m awake now.” He looked tireder and older than before the journey. He picked up his thick sweater and zipped himself into it. He was always cold on the ship.
Radu helped him to the lounge. Instead of stopping when they reached it, the navigator kept on going toward the control room.
“We’re on course,” Radu said. “There’s a pilot on board.”
“Oh.” Atna stopped. “Yes. The pilot. I’d forgot the pilot.” Then his expression brightened. “Come to think of it, I’d even forgot that this trip I’m just a passenger.” He stepped into the control room and gazed up at Ngthummulun. “Vaska did it again, I see. How far out are we? Two hours?”
“Even less,” Radu said.
Atna returned to the lounge and lowered himself stiffly into a chair. Radu fetched him some coffee and sat down across from him.
“What happened?”
Atna wrapped his long fingers around his cup, savoring the warmth. “They flew him out to us. We were nearly at the transit point when the listing came through. Some ship was going to be ordered to take it, so… I volunteered us. I hope you don’t mind.”
Radu shrugged. Anger was pointless; the deed was done.
“Why?” he asked.
“Ngthummulun is my home world, so I suppose I have to say pure selfishness,” Atna said smiling. “We don’t buy many offworld goods, so ships don’t come here often. I haven’t been home for a long time.”
“Why are we going there now?” Radu tried to memorize how the planet’s name was pronounced.
“I can’t be certain,” Atna said. “But as it isn’t an emergency, I think I know. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to show you.”
Radu was curious to hear more, but he heard the sharp click of a sleep chamber lid. Atna moved to get up but Radu put out one hand to restrain him. “I’ll help her. You finish your coffee.”
“All right. Thanks.”
Radu opened Orca’s sleep chamber. She shifted, regaining consciousness. He took her hand gently, afraid he might injure the delicate swimming membranes. But when she closed her fingers the web folded back out of the way. He helped her up. She smiled sleepily and slid her arms around his waist, hugging him tight while he enfolded her in his arms and stroked her back and shoulders, easing away the cramps. Her long sleek swimmer’s muscles tensed and relaxed beneath his hands.
She sighed deeply. “Thanks.” She let him go and rubbed her eyes with her fists, then combed her short, pale hair with her fingers. It fell back into place exactly as it had been, nearly smooth, not quite rumpled.
“You’re welcome,” Radu said.
“How did Atna come through?”
“Fairly well. He seems tired, but I think he’s all right.” He explained about the ship’s being diverted, the pilot, Atna’s home world.
“Every time I see him, transit’s taken a little more out of him.” Orca shook her head, flinging away the worry, and grinned. “I’m glad he’s finally decided to take a vacation.”
Orca tolerated transit sleep as well as anyone Radu had ever met. She stretched luxuriously. “Is that dinner I smell? I’m starved.”
“It’ll be ready soon.”
They returned to the lounge, where Atna sat hunched over his coffee.
Everything about Orca — her prominent canines, her lithe walk, her narrow hips and small breasts and large eyes and hands — all her features were at one end or the other of a normal range, so except for the swimming webs Radu could not tell what about her was inherent and what intentionally changed. He admitted his fascination to himself. Whatever factors had formed Orca, they combined into a being of ethereal grace. She was not by any classical definition beautiful, but she was striking. Somehow it made Radu uncomfortable to find her so attractive, because he felt as if he were betraying Laenea.
He reached up absently to touch his rough, scarred face. He had been with Laenea too short a time to get used to her not caring about the marks. He had been away from Twilight too short a time to find out if hers was the usual reaction, or if most people off his home world as well as on it thought him ugly. He assumed they did.
“Hi, Atna.” Orca kissed the navigator’s cheek. He patted her hand. Radu set another cup of coffee on the table. Orca took it gratefully and sipped it, black.
She was about to sit down when the intercom clicked on. “One hour to pre-orbital check.” The computer’s voice gave no indication of the urgency its message implied. The crew had more than an hour’s work to do. Radu stood up quickly, thinking, A lot of good it does you to know what time it is if you don’t pay attention.
Atna pushed himself to his feet; Orca glanced wistfully at her coffee, shrugged, and left it behind. She vanished into the engines while Radu and Atnaterta carried out the systems checks. Used to having plenty of time between transit and orbital insertion, they had to push hard to perform all their tasks. Vasili Nikolaievich maintained his silence and his seclusion. Radu wondered if he had offended the pilot even more seriously than he had thought. It was too late to do anything about it now. They could certainly have used his help. Radu regretted his own surly behavior as he tried to complete the technical work, assist Atna, and, in the few minutes in between, finish putting together a reasonably edible dinner, which they ate on the run.
o0o
Wa
ter dappled and streaked the surface of Ngthummulun in thousands of rivers and millions of lakes that touched the infinite shades of green with blue and blue gray and silver. Ngthummulun had only primitive landing facilities, so the cargo truck had to be taken down by hand. Atna had turned the controls over to Radu, and Radu was nervous. Vasili had made it clear that he expected the cargo back through the first launch window. That meant no aborted landing approaches, no second tries.
Radu drove the truck closer to the surface, diving in at a steep, fast angle. The paisley patchwork of the land stretched and spread. All the separate shades of green and blue, mottled specks from high overhead, grew into discrete spots, then, as the truck neared the ground and the horizon flattened and receded, the little ship skimmed over a single color at a time and the borders whipped past as blurred uneven lines.
Radu concentrated on controls and signals. The forest swept away beneath him, deep green velvet streaked here and there with sparkling patches as bright as snow. The landing strip appeared suddenly, a violent slash, a dark- rimmed canyon.
“You’re fine,” Atna said. “Quite nice.”
The truck slid between the trees; Radu slowed it and touched down as smoothly as he ever had in the simulator. Easing on reverse power, he braked the ship and it glided to a halt. He hesitated for a moment, leaning tensely over the controls, then sat back and let out his breath.
“Very good,” Atna said. “Couldn’t have done better if we carried gravity.”
“Thanks,” Radu said. Delayed tension took over. Until now, Atna’s easy manner had kept him from noticing how severely his competence was being tested. It had sufficed. He had made no mistakes. If the cargo was ready, the truck could catch the next window back to the ship. Radu was happier to have pleased Atna than he was relieved to have kept, so far, to Vasili’s timetable.
Radu opened the hatch. The hot, humid air rolled in on him. Tropical regions always surprised him with the force of their climates.
He jumped to the runway and glanced back, ready to give Atna a hand. But the older man moved freely and with more animation. He looked around at the rain-dazzled forest and took a deep, slow breath of the air of his home world.
A large ground truck approached them, its wheels spraying sails of water from every puddle. Atna took off his sweater. Radu was tempted to take off his shirt, but he wore nothing under it and he did not know if it would be proper.
When the ground truck stopped, Atna greeted the loading crew fondly in a language Radu had never heard. Atna introduced him to his friends, and they all switched back to speaking Standard.
“What are you shipping?” Atna asked.
“Wyunas,” said the loading crew chief. “The first crop.”
Atna laughed. “So that is what all this is about! Sending a message probe, hiring a pilot, diverting a ship —” He laughed again, an amused low chuckle.
The crew chief laughed too. “I suppose they think they ought to start out with some fanfare.”
“It gave me a start at first, I don’t mind telling you.”
“We had good growing weather, and an early harvest. There’s a major holiday cluster on earth that the first shipment will catch, if the ship makes the deadline.”
“It will make it, with Vaska piloting — but the express charge will eat up the profits,” Atna said drily.
His friend shook her head. “If they sell the wyunas for what they expect to, the cost of the ship and the pilot will be negligible in comparison.”
Atna gave her a quizzical glance.
“Don’t look so skeptical — hope they’re right,” she said. “We need the currency.” She clasped his hand. “It’s good to see you home, Atna. Can I give you a ride to town?”
“Thanks, yes.”
“Good. Till we’re done, then.” She patted his arm, then she and the others opened up the cargo hatch and began transferring small boxes marked FRAGILE from the ground truck to the ship.
“What are wyunas?” Radu asked.
“Come along. Perhaps I can show you.”
Atna led the way through a forest bordering the field. A path crossed marshy ground between huge fern trees. Radu followed up a gentle rise to the far bank of a narrow valley. The path grew drier and the trees shorter, but the fronds still reached well over his head. He brushed against one thick stem and the tree showered him with droplets of water.
Atna peered through branches into a clearing.
“Good,” he said. “This field’s still unharvested.” He pushed the ferns back and stood aside.
It was as if he had broken through into a winter forest after an ice storm. The trees’ bare limbs sparkled like diamonds. Radu followed Atnaterta into the ice forest until they were surrounded by silver and black. Fallen leaves lay mushy and rotting on the ground, but the bark of the trees sprouted thousands of marble-sized transparent spheres, all intricately patterned inside and out in loops and swirls, shaped by the uncertainties of their growth. Each was slightly different, like a snowflake or a fingerprint.
The trees sang, so delicately that their wind-chime whisper was inaudible anywhere but among the shimmering crystals.
Atna stripped several from the end of a branch and handed them to Radu. They fractured the sunlight into a hundred tiny rainbows, sparkling among the arches and prisms.
“Are they seeds?”
Atna laughed. “To tell you the truth they’re more like warts. Tree warts. That’s something we don’t intend to mention too prominently in the advertising. They aren’t infectious, of course — the host organism has to be specially adapted and sensitized or the wyunas won’t grow at all. But ‘tree wart’ isn’t an aesthetically pleasing name.”
“You’re right. ‘Wyuna’ is better. But what are they for?”
“They’re our cash crop. We needed one, so we invented it.”
Radu nodded. Twilight exported the hardwoods that grew in its high forests. But Ngthummulun was terraformed. It had started out a dead world. Everything growing on it had been brought from earth or hand evolved here.
“I mean, what do they do?” He imagined some complicated electronic function that could be attained only by enzymatic manipulation of matter into forms too delicate and precise to be created by mechanical technology.
“Do? They don’t do anything. They’re jewels, if you like. They’re decorative. That’s the sort of thing that succeeds in the earth trade.”
“Oh.” Radu felt vaguely disappointed. Electronic components would all have been the same. He should have thought of that. Each wyuna was unique: Success rewarded uniqueness in the earth trade. Most imported items were merely decorative. The wood Radu’s home world exported was beautiful, but it could be put to useful purposes. Still, for all Radu knew, once it reached earth it was carved into meaningless trinkets.
He held a jewel up to the light, for one last glimpse of its spectral colors. Then he lowered it and extended his hand to Atna, to return the wyunas.
Atna stared at them, his face expressionless. He did not move.
“Atna? Are you all right? What’s the matter?” Radu touched Atna’s arm.
“What?” Atna looked up, stepped back, shook his head, and gazed again at the jewels Radu was trying to return. “No,” he said. “Keep them.” His voice was distant. “Give some to Orca and Vaska, if you like. They’ll be a curiosity when you go back to earth. For a few days, anyway.”
Radu nearly gave them back anyway. He had no use for them. Then he remembered Laenea’s friend Marc, and his “pretty things.” Radu closed his hand around the wyunas. He could give them to Laenea, for Marc.
Do I need an excuse to see her? he wondered. Will we never even be able to speak to each other, if not as lovers, at least as friends?
“Thank you,” he said to Atna. He put the organic jewels in his pocket. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
“Yes.”
It was time to go back to the landing field; Radu felt the minutes flowing gradually toward takeoff. Back in the fo
rest, the pale ferns concealed the iridescent orchard.
Atna led in silence, staring at the ground, his shoulders hunched. Even his footsteps were noiseless. Sunlight passing through foliage dappled his dark skin with gold and green. At the edge of the runway, among uncleared stumps and weeds, he stopped. The truck had been wheeled out to the end of the landing strip again, ready to take off.
“Good-bye, Atna.”
They embraced, as crew members always did when parting. Atna put his head on Radu’s shoulder and hugged him tightly, and Radu rubbed his hands up and down the older man’s back, just as if he were helping him awaken. When Atna drew back, he held Radu by the shoulders as if unwilling to let him go.
“Something is wrong,” Radu said.
“Don’t leave,” Atna said. “Don’t go back to earth. Something’s going to happen.”
Radu frowned, curious, confused.
“You’re in danger.”
“In danger? What —?”
“In the orchard, I saw… I can’t explain to you what happened. You didn’t grow up here, you wouldn’t understand. I dreamed… I had a vision. I’m afraid for you.”
Radu stared at him blankly. “I don’t…”
“Something’s going to happen to the ship and you’re part of it,” Atna said desperately. “You’re in the middle of it. I think perhaps you are it.”
Radu shook his head.
“Don’t dismiss me!”
“But I have to go back to the ship.”
“Of course you have to take the cargo back, but Ngthummulun has a shuttle truck. I can send it for you. And for Orca. Tell her there’s a lovely place to swim, a deepwater mountain lake —”
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