"Good timing," she said. "Everything is ready. Help yourself, and I'll take my shower."
"But what about you eating?"
"Don't worry about me. I can get something later." Still she did not meet his eye. As she hurried out, turned into the bedroom, and closed its door firmly, Jeff finally realized what should have been obvious ten minutes ago. Lilah didn't want to talk to him. From the way she was behaving, she didn't want him here at all.
He sat down at the little table, helped himself to generous amounts of food, and began to eat steadily. Lilah had chosen the dishes carefully, and everything was well prepared. He hardly noticed the taste. He had to add Lilah's behavior to his list of mysteries and concerns. Presumably it was something he had done, something new since his last unkept promise. But without a hint from her, he would never guess what. Something he had said? He struggled to remember their conversations. It seemed to him they had not said much to each other at all; most of the talk had been with Billy or with Simon Macafee.
Lilah returned as he was examining what was left in the dishes. His absentminded eating hadn't left very much for her.
"Listen," she said, before he could apologize. She slid into the seat opposite. She was pink and well scrubbed, wearing a long green robe with her golden hair bound up in a pale blue towel. "This is probably going to make you really angry. But I can't do it."
Jeff stared at her. Her face was earnest, and she presumably thought she was telling him something. He had no idea what.
"You can't? "he said.
"No. It isn't your fault, and it's not my fault. It's just the difference between the way things are on Earth and here in the Cloud. You can't stay."
She stood up. Jeff followed her lead and did the same. "You want me to leave?"
It was her turn for confusion. "Well, I didn't mean right this minute. Not if you don't want to. I just assumed you would want to, as soon as I told you." She turned pinker yet. "You don't have to leave at once. I'm just telling you that you can't stay with me all night. Like on Earth."
"All night," Jeff repeated blankly. "Like on Earth." He collapsed back onto his chair. It was suddenly obvious what had been going on.
"I didn't mean to give you a bad time." Lilah was still standing, rigid and awkward. "I didn't even realize what you meant, until you said you'd come to my rooms after we were all done with Billy. And I'm not saying that everything we do in the Cloud is right, and the way things are done on Earth is wrong. Any place with ten billion people has to be obsessed with mating and breeding. You and your cousin have probably been with a hundred different girls. But for me—and here . . . ."
The strange thing was, when she put it that way Lilah could well be right. Ever since they were teenagers, Jeff had watched Myron at dinners and parties and dances and meets. His cousin had an easy way with girls. He never seemed awkward or embarrassed or less than totally sure of himself. While Jeff fumbled and blundered and wondered what to say next, Myron moved. Before the event finished he would be exchanging numbers or notes—or wandering off with someone, well before the end.
Jeff stood up again. If you want to know the truth, I have never spent a night with any girl, here, or on Earth, or anywhere else. That's not a boast, it's a confession. I'm probably no more moral than you think any Earth person is moral. That's what he wanted to say. What came out was, "You don't have to worry that I'll make a pass at you, or try to talk you into sleeping with me or letting me stay the night. Because I'm going."
It made a fine exit line. Jeff spoiled it a bit by turning at the door and adding, "Oh, and yeah, thanks for the dinner."
Lilah said not a word. She clutched her robe, up near the neck, with one hand, and stared at him with astonished blue eyes.
Once outside her rooms, Jeff didn't know where he was—physically or emotionally. But after what had just happened he couldn't face going back in and asking Lilah for directions. He wandered aimlessly from corridor to corridor, until at last he found a place that he recognized. As he was heading from there toward his own rooms, he passed Hooglich going the other way.
She grinned at him. "Hey, Brother Kopal. Didn't take you long this morning to get fed up with work. You look tired. What you been doin', tail-chasing?"
Jeff shook his head and kept going. He was sure of one thing: he might look tired, but he couldn't possibly look as worn out and weary as he felt.
When he dropped into bed, he puzzled over something else that Hooglich had said. This morning. Was it really this morning, when he and Hooglich and Russo and Billy left the heart of Confluence Center to seek the rings of the Anadem field?
It was, he decided as he drifted off.
Cloudland days must be at least a hundred hours long.
Chapter Fourteen
JEFF awoke late, lethargic and confused. For a while he stared up at the ceiling, not sure where he was. Maybe it was the effect of the monster meal he had eaten in Lilah's rooms, but his sleep had been uneasy and filled with dreams.
Dreams of Earth. It was hard to believe that he was not there, in the house where he had lived all his life. And strange dreams, too. For the first time in months, Jeff's mind had been occupied by thoughts of his father. They were sitting in the sunlit breakfast room at the end of the east wing of Kopal Manor, and Jeff was explaining that he didn't want a career as a navy officer or a business tycoon. He would rather be a scientist or a jinner. Nelson Kopal listened carefully. Instead of objecting, and repeating the inflexible rules laid down by Rollo Kopal, he seemed sympathetic as he had never been before.
Except that Nelson Kopal was dead. Jeff had known that, even in his dreams. The father talking to him across the breakfast table at Kopal Manor had Nelson Kopals voice; but he had Simon Macafee's eyes and beard and slow, gentle speech. His words echoed the idea that Florence Kopal had urged on Jeff since infancy, a thought so different from the standard Kopal litany: "You are responsible for your own actions, Jeff. You are not responsible for the deeds of your ancestors."
Had Simon Macafee actually said that to Jeff, during their meeting yesterday? Jeff didn't think so. He had thought them, himself, when Simon asked about Rollo Kopal; that was all.
The moral was this: Do what you want with your life, and don't let other people force you into something different.
That was easy, for most people; but if you were a Kopal, with a family name to protect and a century of tradition ordering your behavior . . . .
Jeff eased out of bed and stood swaying and rubbing his eyes. He realized there was another reason for the odd dreams. While he stood unmoving, his weight increased and a few seconds later decreased. Now it felt exactly the same as Earth gravity. He suspected that he had been subconsciously aware of changes like this during the night, of the local field rising and falling. He had simply folded them into his dreams, making Kopal Manor, along with its buildings, stables, flower beds, pastures, and all, rise from the surface of Earth and soar away into space.
Hooglich and her fellow jinners were at it again, fiddling with the Anadem field. Or maybe it was Simon Macafee this time, emerging as he had promised from his long solitude. That idea propelled Jeff from his rooms and toward the main operations room of Confluence Center.
Macafee was not there. Lilah was. So, fortunately, was Connie Cheever, sitting across from her daughter at the round table, because Jeff was not sure what he would have offered Lilah as a greeting.
"He's been here, and he's out on the perimeter," Connie said, as Jeff skidded to a halt and she saw the expectant look on his face. "He'll be back. You really had fun yesterday, didn't you? Lilah told me the whole story."
Jeff nodded. Not quite the whole story, he hoped. Lilah was paler than usual, and the dark smudges under her eyes suggested that she hadn't slept much.
"We've been discussing your trip off Center with Macafee," Connie went on. "It's not as simple as you might think, because of what else is going on. Your navy ship will be here in two or three days, depending what route they take."
/> Jeff had been doing his best not to think about that. It was not his ship. Quite the contrary. When the Dreadnought arrived, everyone told him to be careful. But careful how'? The situation was beyond his control—unless he could manage to be far away from Confluence Center, somewhere in limbo with Simon Macafee. A lot more might hang on Connie Cheever's decision than she realized.
"We can be back before the ship gets here," Lilah said, damning Jeff's hopes. "Simon Macafee says he can show us everything that he wants us to see in one day."
"Yes, I heard him. But if you knew Simon a bit better, you'd realize he has less sense of time than anyone in the Cloud. He's quite likely to say he's going somewhere for a day—and show up a month later."
"We can keep an eye on him. We'll make sure he doesn't stay away for a long time, and we can't go very far in one day. There's nothing dangerous one day's ride from here. Oh, please, Muv, please let us go. If we don't, Billy Jexter will be so disappointed."
"I see. Now it's all for the sake of little Billee, is it? You have a heart of gold, Lilah. But you don't have to give me a sob story, because I've made up my mind."
"Oh, Mother, we would only—"
"I said, I've made up my mind. Don't make me change it. You see, I've decided to let you go." Connie Cheever was smiling, but she did not look amused. "It's not because of Billy Jexter, and it's not because I don't like to disappoint the two of you. I have a better reason. The Sol government is trying to push us around. We can't allow that. If they want to send a ship to visit us, that's fine."
Simon Macafee came drifting in as she was speaking. She gave him a nod and went on, "But for us, Dreadnought or no Dreadnought, it's going to be business as usual. We're not going to start doing something, or stop doing something, just because we're having visitors from Sol-side."
"Which is just as well." Macafee joined them at the table. "I've been with the jinners. I could increase the Anadem field, to two G or ten G or anything you like. And they tell me they could add Omnivore drives to Confluence Center. But if we do that, and try to run away, there'll be a ton of damage. The extension corridors were added after the Anadem rings were installed. They are not within the influence of the field, and at high acceleration they'll bend and crumple like straws. You'd be throwing five years of work down the drain. I agree with you, Madam Administrator, running away is no answer."
"So what is, Simon?"
"I'm thinking on that." He rubbed at his sandy beard. It grew full on the cheeks, and his eyes seemed to gleam out from a thicket of whiskers. Today his curly hair fell unrestrained over his forehead. "I have ideas, Connie. They need a bit of work, but meanwhile you shouldn't change anything."
"I won't. Unless I have to. I rely on you, Simon."
"Not even the plans for Confluence?" asked Lilah.
Her question meant nothing to Jeff, but clearly it did to Connie Cheever. She hesitated, unsure of herself for the first time.
"Not even Confluence," she said at last. "I've not been thinking much about that, but we won't cancel. Everything goes ahead as planned. In fact, I'm inclined to say we should start a day or two early, so by the time they arrive we'll be in full swing. That way, the crew of the Dreadnought can be invited as our guests. They can participate in Confluence as much or as little as they choose. But we'll go on as usual, exactly as if they weren't here. We can't let them control our lives."
She waved a hand at Lilah. "On your way, child; go get Billy Jexter before I change my mind. I have to think about Confluence, and get ready for it."
Jeff assumed that the dismissal applied to him, too. He followed Lilah and Simon Macafee out. "But what is Confluence?" he asked, as soon as they were far enough from Connie that he would not be overheard. "I thought it was a place—this place. But Connie Cheever says she has to get ready for it."
"A failure of human language." Simon dropped back to keep pace with Jeff, while Lilah hurried on ahead to pick up Billy. She said he'd be waiting in the next corridor with his fingers crossed. As soon as she was out of sight Jeff slowed down a bit. He liked having Simon Macafee all to himself, even if it was only for a few seconds.
"What do you mean, a failure of human language? What else is there?"
"There's Logan language—the way the smart machines communicate among themselves. They do it in a purely logical and symbolic form. The Logans are too polite to mention it, but they must be disgusted by the ambiguity and sloppiness of our languages. They will have several words for Confluence, depending on the meaning they want. We don't bother. We just use the same word and rely on the hearer to sort it out. For instance, if I'm talking about the Messina Dust Cloud, and I say 'confluence,' I expect you to understand that I mean the place where all the big dust rivers meet. That location wanders around—just as the magnetic poles wander around on the surface of the Earth."
Jeff was pleased with himself because he knew that last fact. The surprise was that Simon Macafee, with no direct ties to Earth, knew it also. It seemed he knew everything.
"But if I say 'Confluence Center,' " Simon went on, as Billy Jexter came skipping up to them with Lilah close behind, "then I mean not a place but a particular structure, the one we are in now. It usually stays near the confluence of the Cloud rivers, but it doesn't have to. It can wander wherever we choose to take it. Finally, there's the Confluence that starts a few days from now. It isn't a place. It is an event and a time, when all the inhabitants of Confluence Center—"
"Event, time, them's for noogies," Billy broke in. "You mean Confluence is a big hootenanny. Parties round the clock, and all kinds of games. I can't wait."
Even Connie Cheever became respectful when Simon Macafee was around. She regarded him as someone special, a genius unlike anyone else in the Cloud. Not so Billy Jexter. Jeff could tell that Billy thought Macafee was just some weird old guy.
"That is the way the Confluence is viewed today," Simon said mildly. He didn't act upset with Billy at all. "Nowadays it's a party. In the first days of Cloud exploration, things were different. Confluence had a real purpose then. The Cloud people out here were collecting stable transuranics, in little ships called harvesters, and they all competed with each other. But they also had a lot in common, more than they did with the stay-at-home people back on Earth. Harvester people who married each other made good matches.
"The trouble was, their children had no way to meet possible partners. But there was one time and place where all the harvesters congregated. That was where the dust rivers met, at the side of the Cloud away from the node, and they all used to rendezvous there to swap supplies and gossip before they started back for the second half of their season. So that's where they built Confluence Center. It was small and primitive at first. For the past century it has grown and grown to what we have today. But it all started out as a time and place where young people, or unattached older people, could meet and dance and court each other."
"I didn't know that!" Billy said. "Who are 'unattached older people'? Are you one of them?"
"You might say that."
"So you'll be at Confluence, and you're going to meet and dance with and court people?"
"I rather doubt it." Something in Macafee's voice suggested that meeting, dancing, and courting were his idea of a personal hell. But he went on, still quietly, "Those two will, though."
He could only be talking about Jeff and Lilah. Neither he nor Billy seemed to notice the moments of dead air that hung around the group until Billy pointed off to one side and said, "There's an exit dock that way, you know. Why don't we use it?"
"No." Macafee kept moving. "We'll be taking my own ship, the Galileo. It's smaller than the standard models, and it would be crowded for four people on a long trip. But this won't be a long trip, and I've made a few . . . modifications."
He offered no explanation of what that meant. Neither Lilah nor Billy asked questions. Jeff wanted to, and he might have if he and Simon Macafee had been alone. But he didn't want to look like an idiot again in front of the other
s. There was so much he just didn't know in the Cloud, he was forced to ask about everything. Even Billy was way ahead of him.
He studied the ship closely when they came to it. The Galileo didn't seem any different from a miniature Space Navy vessel. The profile matched a scaled-down version of the Aurora, and he searched in vain for any sign of Simon Macafee's modifications. Whatever they were, they couldn't be substantial.
They went aboard in silence and settled onto the acceleration couches. Even Billy was quiet as electromagnetic handlers eased the ship out of the dock and pushed it gently into open space. There were a few queasy moments as their weight decreased steadily from normal to nothing. Jeff realized that they were moving beyond the influence of the Anadem field, into the free fall of open space. Staring out of the side observation port, he saw the great mass of Confluence Center bulking alongside. The ship turned to face along the axis of the cylindrical disk, at the same time drifting out to a distance where it would be safe to turn on the drive.
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