"Nothing important."
Simon stared right through Jeff as though his mind was already elsewhere. He pushed on past.
"That's a constellation on the card, isn't it?" Jeff bobbed around again in front of Simon. "The Dragon, as it's seen from the solar system."
"Oh." Simon halted. "You know that, do you?"
"Hooglich told me."
"Well, then." The eyes focused, and Simon's mouth took on a shy smile. "You have everything. You just need to think about it."
"But I don't know—" began Jeff. Simon slipped around him and hurried along the corridor, at a pace that suggested he would not tolerate more delay.
Jeff gave up. Now he had neither understanding nor the card. He headed in the opposite direction from Simon, to the forward observation bubble. The ship had completed its deceleration from Cloud travel speeds and was creeping toward the node. Jeff stared impatiently ahead at the shimmering orb.
When they finally matched position and velocity, he did not dread the disorienting spinning and stretching that would accompany the node entry. He welcomed it, as evidence that eight days of nagging worry were soon to end.
His own top priority was clear. As soon as they emerged into Sol space he headed for the communications center. Trying to send messages to Earth from the Messina Dust Cloud was a waste of time, a signal took twenty-seven years to get there; but now they were in the Kuiper Belt, Sol was visible as a bright beacon in the sky ahead, and a signal would reach Earth in less than half a day.
He had worked hard on the message and cleared it with Connie Cheever. It was going to his mother, but Connie was sure that others would also see it—every word from the ship would be analyzed by the Sol authorities, in preparation for meetings with the Cloud representatives. Even if Jeff swore that he had nothing to do with those meetings and would not be allowed to attend them, no one would believe him.
His brief message said only that he was well, that he hoped Mother had recovered from her operation and was feeling better, and that she was not to worry about him no matter what she might have heard. When she knew the full story she would realize that he had done nothing to bring dishonor to the family name.
He hoped for a reply, but he told himself not to expect one. Earth communications with the arriving ship would surely be tightly censored. It was a shock and a wonderful surprise, three days later, to hear over the ship's general-address system that a message for him had been received from Earth.
He was sitting again in an observation chamber, this one close to the rear of the ship. After they reached a point inside the orbit of Mars, the vessel had turned for its final deceleration and insertion into Earth orbit. Earth and Moon were already visible, a brilliant pair of mismatched sister worlds.
The recorded message carried video as well as audio signal. Jeff asked the communications system to pipe it through to the observation chamber's display, and waited anxiously and impatiently while that was done.
When his mother's face appeared, he felt a double shock.
It was great to see her again, but he remembered her as she had looked when well. With her lung operation over, he had hoped to see her that way again. He was forced to remind himself that although he felt like he had been away for years, only a couple of months had passed. Florence Kopal's scarred face was as pale and drawn as when he saw her last, and now it bore a new nervousness and intensity.
"I am at Kopal Manor." She began abruptly, without a word of greeting. He wondered, Had the message been edited?
"Jeff, I am very, very sick." Her voice sounded weak and full of self-pity. "I don't know how long I have. Please come and see me. Come as soon as you possibly can—or you may be too late."
She opened her mouth to speak again, but the screen went blank.
Jeff ordered the message to be played again, and then a third time. He watched and listened closely, but could draw few conclusions. His mother did not look well, that was true enough. On the other hand, she was clearly much better than when he had seen her last. Earth's surgical procedures could not compete with the nannies of the Messina Dust Cloud, but Florence Kopal was no longer struggling for breath. Her pallor suggested tension and worry more than terminal illness.
He needed a second opinion. He went to the cabin where Connie Cheever and Simon Macafee held their meetings, and sat down cross-legged on the floor in the passageway outside.
He was prepared to wait as long as necessary, but after only a couple of minutes the cabin door slid open.
"What do you think you are doing?" Connie Cheever stood staring down at him.
"Waiting." Jeff scrambled to his feet and noticed for the first time the tiny monitor that sat above the door and scanned the whole passageway. Connie probably had continuous reporting of anything that happened, anywhere in the ship.
"I wasn't trying to listen in on your meeting," he added, and decided as the words came out that only someone who was trying to eavesdrop would say that.
"I don't care if you were or you weren't," Connie said. "I don't like you sitting there, you're a distraction. What do you want?"
"I had a message. From my—from Earth. It seems straightforward, but I don't think it is. Can I show it to you?"
Connie said nothing, but motioned him into the cabin. Simon Macafee was leaning against a bulkhead, eyes closed. With anyone else, Jeff would have assumed that he was asleep. With Simon, it could mean anything.
Still without a word, Connie gestured to the wall display. Jeff called for the message, Simon at last opened his eyes, and the three watched in silence as Florence Kopal's short message was repeated.
"That's all?" Connie said at the end. She was frowning.
"That's the whole thing."
"Again."
Jeff played the message over. At the end Connie said, "Simon?"
Macafee had closed his eyes again and had apparently lost interest. "Obviously edited," he said dreamily. "But I think she did something very clever. My guess is that right after what we heard, she deliberately said something that she knew would never be allowed to get through to this ship. It concentrated the censor's attention on that."
"And they cut out the wrong bit?" Connie said. "In any case, there's no point in puzzling over what isn't there. Let's think about what is." She turned to Jeff. "You know your mother, we don't. But you saw something wrong with her message. What was it?"
"Mother was whining. She never whines, no matter what happens to her or how much she hurts. She said she was very sick and hinted that she is dying. But she looked a lot better than the last time that I saw her."
"Then we'll discard that part of the message. Is your mother smart? Don't be nice to her, be objective about it."
"She's very smart."
"The way she handled the message censors supports that," Simon added.
"So what are we left with? Do you think it might be a trap set by your aunts and uncles, Jeff?"
"I don't think so." Surprisingly, it was Simon who answered. "They know we hold Myron Lazenby, the son of Giles Lazenby, captive on a navy ship in the Cloud."
"True." Connie turned to Jeff. "Let's hear it one more time."
He played the message through again, and she nodded.
"Leaving out the tone of the message, which you say rings emotionally false, we are left with something very simple. It is important that you, Jeff, go to Kopal Manor—and as soon as possible."
"What do you think is happening?"
"I have not the slightest idea. But if you want a guess, I'd say that the news of our arrival in the solar system, with you aboard this ship, might be a key factor."
"Will I be allowed to go to Kopal Manor?"
"I see no reason why not. Your hearing before the navy board won't take place for several days. You can't run away, and if you had wanted to, you would never have left Confluence Center. If anyone asks questions you can wave your mother's message in their face. Ask them if they want to deny a dying mother's last wish to see her only child."
Jeff expected Connie to answer, but to his surprise she turned to Simon. He nodded toward another of the cabin displays. It showed that the ship was closing fast on Earth, the pattern of Africa and Asia already visible as brown smudges on the blue-white globe.
"Four more hours. Then we'll be parked in low Earth orbit and you can take a shuttle down." Simon turned back to face Jeff. "Any objection if I go along with you? When you live out in the Cloud, Earth seems like a kind of fantasyland. I'd like to pay a visit."
Jeff didn't mind at all, though he felt sure that Connie would object. But here was another surprise. She was nodding agreement.
"I only wish I could come with you and wander around," she said. "Everyone in the Cloud is curious to know what Earth is like, and we don't often have a chance to find out. But I'm the formal head of the party. I'll be visiting Earth, and my movements have been orchestrated. Official functions and boring dinners, no fun at all. But Simon ought to take the chance while he has it—everything will turn hot and heavy once the real arguments start."
Jeff was convinced that he was missing something. Connie was agreeing with every one of Simon Macafee's suggestions, when common sense insisted she should veto any proposal that Simon wander around freely on Earth. After all, this was the same man who had been so uncontrollable in the Cloud. He might say and do anything.
Connie's next statement added to the feeling of topsy-turvy logic. "I think," she said, "that it would be a good idea if the two of you stayed together. At least at the beginning."
Which meant, of course, that they would travel together to Kopal Manor.
Jeff regarded Simon and saw him with new eyes. Dress code and grooming in the Cloud were, to put it in the nicest way, of low priority. But even there, amid the grimy jinners, the dusty and disheveled Simon Macafee stood out as an eccentric. How would the long hair, casual clothes, and tangled beard fit into the elegant and polished—and, let's face it, terminally snobbish—ambience of Kopal Manor?
No need to speculate; a few hours from now, Simon and Jeff were going to find out.
Chapter Twenty-Four
HALF a mile from Kopal Manor, Jeff asked the car to stop. He told it that he and Simon Macafee would walk the rest of the way. In principle, that was to allow Simon to sample another aspect of alien Earth. Jeff knew that nothing in the Cloud remotely resembled the long avenue of oak trees leading to the manor, the carefully tended acres of grassland stretching off to the horizon, or the formal flower beds and shrubberies.
In fact, it was Jeff who felt like an alien. He had seen all this as baby and infant and growing boy, so many times that he could not count. Yet today every sight was like the first time. He found himself marveling at the way grass fought a constant battle to invade the flower beds, at wheeling flights of starlings in the fall sky, at the intricate and delicate structure of late roses and chrysanthemum blossoms, and at leaves, red and brown and yellow, fluttering to earth with the touch of frost.
Simon, on the other hand, hardly glanced to right or left. He jerked to attention only once, when a pair of small bushy animals scurried across the road in front of them.
"Squirrels," Jeff explained.
"Yes." But Simon seemed to have no interest in the flora and fauna of Earth. He walked with head bowed, two fingers scratching absently at the chin beneath the long beard. Jeff saw—or imagined—a fine rain of dandruff. Simon had taken no hint from the splendidly dressed and coolly courteous officers who had greeted them and shepherded them down to Earth. He wore a uniform of sorts, but it was faded, patched, and nondescript.
Jeff wondered if it were deliberate, a subtle message to the Earth authorities that said, "You can't impress us, you know. We have your fleet. Who do you think has the stronger position?"
Jeff decided that the casual appearance was not deliberate. Simon was just being Simon.
But Jeff was not, most decidedly, just being Jeff. Before entering the shuttle he had burnished to a fine brilliance everything on his ensign's uniform that would take a polish. His hair, cut short, was as neat as he could make it after weeks of casual care. He could not see his own insides, but from the feel of them they stood to attention and were wound up as tight as they could get. He had a great urge to hurry, and an equal urge to put off their arrival at Kopal Manor for as long as possible.
What did his mother's message meant. There had been nothing more from her, and Connie Cheever had urged Jeff not to send another message.
"You'll see for yourself in a few hours," she said. "You can wait that long. Be patient."
Easy to advise, hard to do. Jeff moved his eyes away from the lawns and gardens to the road in front of him, where Kopal Manor lay less than a hundred yards ahead. Not much to see from the outside, except four air runabouts parked on the circular driveway. Every one was brand new.
Jeff and Simon moved from the paved road onto the circle of the drive, and their boots crunched loud on the gravel. Still no one was visible, but the big double doors silently swung open in front of them.
"Just follow me." For some reason, Jeff felt he had to speak in a whisper. He went inside, from bright afternoon sunlight to the shaded gloom of the paneled entrance hall.
Midgeley stood within, partly shielded by one of the open doors. He nodded to Jeff, as though the arrival of a renegade from the Space Navy was a perfectly normal part of his day.
"Who's here?" Jeff gestured to the parked aircars.
"Your mother, and your uncles and aunts with the exception of Commodore Fairborn Lazenby. He was unexpectedly delayed, and is expected within the hour. Lady Florence Kopal is still in her suite, but her departure for the spaceport is imminent. She is most eager to see you and extended her stay here for that reason. The others are all in the big conference room." Midgeley said nothing more, but he stared at Simon with slightly raised eyebrows that asked their own question: And what is this that you have brought with you?
Most visitors who came through the front entrance of Kopal Manor were highly placed officers of the Space Navy or powerful business executives. Midgeley's expression suggested that Jeff's companion belonged around the rear, at the tradesmen's entrance.
"Thank you, Midgeley," Jeff said as he went inside. "This is Simon Macafee, a visitor to Earth from the Messina Dust Cloud. He will accompany me."
Not his idea, but Connie Cheever's. She had insisted on it. "Another pair of eyes and ears. Where your family is involved, it will be hard for you to evaluate what they say as an impartial witness."
Midgeley's opinions needed no evaluation, since he would never express them verbally. He nodded politely to Simon and said, "Welcome, sir, to Kopal Manor."
"Come on, Simon." Jeff was already running up the broad staircase. "I want Mother to meet you."
Uncle Lory was lounging at the top of the stairs. It was no surprise to Jeff that Midgeley had not thought to mention him. Uncle Lory was always at Kopal Manor, as much a fixture as Midgeley himself. Lory gave Jeff a surprised nod as he ran past, but he stared with a good deal more interest at Simon Macafee.
"Hey!" he said. "You—"Jeff heard nothing more. He was already dashing along the corridor to the east wing, Simon close behind.
The door to Florence Kopal's suite of rooms was ajar. Jeff burst through without knocking. She was sitting in a chair over by the north-facing window, gazing out over the slowly darkening sweep of lawn.
"Mother!"
As he ran to her she spun around and stood up. A good sign—she could not move so fast and easily when he left. But her first words renewed his fear. "Jeff! Oh, Jeff. It's great to see you. But you're too late!"
"What is it?" He put his arms around her. "Are you getting worse again?"
"No. I'm improving. And when I start physical therapy I'll be better yet. I'm scheduled for treatment in the orbital medical facility tomorrow, and I ought to have left for the spaceport hours ago. But I hung on here to the last minute, hoping you would come."
"Why didn't
you just tell me to meet you at the spaceport?"
"Because you had to come here. It's your uncles and aunts; they've found a way of taking over Kopal Transportation. I couldn't stop them, and you're too late. If only—"
She paused. She was staring over Jeff's shoulder. He turned and realized that she had noticed Simon Macafee.
He was certainly something to notice. His arms hung loosely at his sides, his mouth drooped open, and his wrinkled uniform and unkempt hair made him a walking parody of a navy man.
At last he raised one hand to shoulder height, palm outward, and said, "Hi."
"This is Simon Macafee." Jeff was tempted to add, "The leading scientific intellect of the Messina Dust Cloud," but he didn't think his mother was likely to believe him.
It didn't matter, because after a first startled glance she had turned back to Jeff. "You're too late," she said again. "When the Aurora was lost and Captain Dufferin came back, you were charged with dereliction of duty and desertion—"
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