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from the moment they had made orbit out of Sahara Spaceport some thirty hours earlier.
 I ll live, came the weak reply.
Mark waited until the white-haired Russian s back was turned before winking at Lisa. He wondered if
Vasloff s inherent bias against space travel was simply the result of his weak stomach.
There were several more sounds typical of the routine of spacecraft docking. Mostly they were the quiet
hissing noises caused by flowing air. Eventually, the inner lock opened and they found themselves looking
down a narrow well that held Hancock Mueller s smiling, bald countenance at the bottom.
 After you, Mr. Vasloff, Lisa said.
Vasloff pulled himself forward while the two of them held his feet to steady him. Once he had
disappeared into the tunnel, Lisa lunged forward to follow him. She moved with considerably more
dexterity than she had a dozen weeks earlier. Mark brought up the rear. When he popped out into the
airlock vestibule, he found Dieter Pavel waiting beside the station commander.
 Gospodin Mikhail Sergeivich Vasloff, may I introduce Hancock Mueller, Station Commander, and
Dieter Pavel, Project Officer, Mark said formally. Both men nodded to Vasloff, who nodded back
weakly as he clung to one of the hand lines.
 Mr. Vasloff, it is an honor, sir, Pavel said without a trace of irony in his tone.  I trust you had a pleasant
flight.
 Not as pleasant as I had hoped, Vasloff said.
 Don t worry, sir, Mueller boomed with his usual hearty laugh.  No one has yet died from
weightlessness, although innumerable people have wished they would. You should gain your space legs in
another day or so.
 I hope you are right, Station Commander.
 You look as though you need rest, sir, Pavel went on smoothly.  Commander Mueller will show you to
your quarters. After you have had a light meal and perhaps some sleep, we can begin your briefings.
Director Bartok has forwarded instructions that you are to be given full access to our data and to our
guest.
 Thank you, Mr. Pavel. I would appreciate that, Vasloff said weakly.  And yes, I suppose I could use
some rest before you brief me as to what you people have been up to-- If he d meant that last statement
as a complaint, the way his voice had trailed off at the end had ruined the effect.
When Mueller had taken Vasloff in tow and disappeared through the hatch, Pavel turned to Mark and
Lisa. If he noted the proprietary way Mark s arm encircled Lisa s waist, or the way she fitted herself to
him as the two of them hung in the middle of the compartment, Pavel showed no sign.
 Come along, people. We have some things to talk about.
#
Sar-Say was engaged in his favorite pastime. He hung in midair in front of the viewport in his cabin and
gazed at the half-light/half-dark globe of the Earth. The planet filled the port, indicating that the PoleStar
Habitat was nearing the lowest point of its highly elongated orbit. The habitat was sweeping across the
glacier-covered southern continent, approaching the line of the terminator. The name of the continent,
Sar-Say had learned, was Antarctica. Why they called it that, he had no idea.
That part of the ice-locked land still in sunlight was bright enough to hurt his eyes. Ahead, the glare
quickly gave way to an expanse of darkness bereft of city lights. The glaciers of the Antarctic night were
lit only by the flickering, electric glow of a yellow-green aurora that danced above the dark line of the
planetary limb. It was one of Sar-Say s favorite sights.
Auroras were nothing new to Sar-Say, who had once made the long journey to Sselt, the eighth planet of
a blue-white giant of a star. Such stars were too short lived for life to evolve naturally on any of their
attendant worlds. Sselt had been lifeless when Broan explorers first opened a stargate into the system to
search for heavy metals on the raw worlds that had so recently coalesced out of the primordial dust
cloud. Sselt had proven to be rich in transuranics, so much so that the Broa had decided to seed the
sterile world with their own kind of life. The project had been an expensive one, but ultimately successful.
Ten thousand cycles after the first seed ships dumped their loads of bacteria into the upper atmosphere,
the planet hosted a thriving ecology and a native population of hard working quadrupeds.
Being eighth from the star, Sselt orbited out where gas giants are to be found in normal systems. Even at
that distance, however, the pinpoint star was sufficiently energetic that liquid water covered much of the
planetary surface. A side effect of the prodigious energy output of the star was a permanent auroral
display that danced continuously over the darkened half of the planet. The night sky of Sselt was
renowned as one of the most beautiful sights in all the Sovereignty.
Sar-Say had never regretted the long, arduous journey that had taken him to that far distant world. It had
been a journey reminiscent of the one that had brought him to his current predicament. Despite their
strange attitudes and untamed ideas, human beings reminded Sar-Say of his own people. That was hardly
surprising since the world that had produced them was the near twin of Home, as was the star that
illuminated it. That Earth was beautiful to his eyes was a fact that would prove of inestimable value to him
and his sept should he ever make it home.
The subject of going home was the one that had set him on this particular mental orbit. Lisa had gone [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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