Tiamat also contains the headquarters of the Interworld Space Commission, which likewise is not as much in the awareness of the general public as it ought to be. Now that the hyperdrive has abruptly opened a way to far more undertakings than there are ships and personnel to carry out, rivalry for those resources often gets bitter. It can become political, planet versus planet at a time when faster-than-light travel has made peace between them as necessary as peace between nations on Earth had become when humankind was starting its outward venture. Until we have created enough capability to satisfy everyone, we must allocate. Alpha Centauri—Wunderland, parts of the Serpent Swarm—alone among human dwelling places, suffered kzin occupation, almost half a century of it. Alpha Centaurian men and women endured, or waged guerrilla warfare from remote and desolate bases, until the liberation. Who would question their dedication to our species as a whole?
At least, it was an obvious symbolism to make them the host folk of the Commission; and Tiamat, not yet into its postwar decline, was a natural choice for the seat.
“Good evening,” replied Dorcas Glengarry Saxtorph. The headwaiter had immediately identified her as being from the Solar System and greeted her in English. “I was to meet Professor Tregennis. The reservation may be in the name of Laurinda Brozik.” You didn’t just walk into the Star Well; it was small and expensive.
Very briefly, his smoothness failed him and he let his gaze linger. Ten years after the end of the war, when outworlders had become a substantial fraction of the patronage, she was nonetheless a striking sight. A Belter, 185 centimeters in height, slender to the point of leanness, she was not in that respect different from those who had inhabited the Swarm for generations. However, you seldom met features so severely classic, fair-skinned, with large green eyes under arching brows. The molding of her head was emphasized by the Sol-Belter style, scalp depilated except for a crest of mahogany hair that in her case swept halfway down her back. A shimmery gray gown folded and refolded itself around carriage and gestures which, even for a person of spacer ancestry, were extraordinarily precise.
The headwaiter regained professionalism. “Ah, yes, of course, madame.” Dorcas didn’t show her forty Earthyears much, but nobody would take her for a girl. “This way, please.”
The tables were arranged around a sunken transparency, ten meters across, which gave on the surface of Tiamat and thus the sky beyond. Nonreflecting, in the dim interior light it seemed indeed a well of night which the stars crowded, slowly streaming. The table Dorcas reached was on the bottom tier, with a view directly down into infinity. A glowlamp on it cast softness over cloth, silver, ceramic, and the two people already seated. Arthur Tregennis rose, courtly as ever. A Plateaunian of Crew descent, the astrophysicist stood as tall as she did and still more slim, practically skeletal. He had the flared hook nose and high cheekbones of his kindred; the long nail on his left little finger proclaimed him an aristocrat of his planet, never subject to manual labor. Dorcas sometimes wondered why he kept that affectation, when he admitted to having sympathized with the democrats and their revolution, 33 years ago. Habit, perhaps. Otherwise he was an unassuming old fellow.
“Welcome, my lady,” he said. His English was rather flat. Since the advent of hyperdrive and hyperwave, he’d been to so many scientific conferences, or in voice-to-voice contact with colleagues, that native accent seemed to have worn off—except, maybe, when he was with his own folk on top of Mount Lookitthat. “Ah, is Robert detained?”
“I’m afraid so,” Dorcas let the waiter seat her. She’d reacquired a little sophistication since the war. “He had a nasty encounter, and the aftermath is still retro on him. He told me to come alone, give you his regrets, and bring back whatever word you have for us.”
“Oh, dear,” Laurinda Brozik whispered. “He’s all right, isn’t he?” The English of Tregennis’ graduate student was harder for Dorcas to follow than his. It was from We Made It.
The young woman was not a typical Crashlander—is there any such thing as a typical anything?—but she could not have been mistaken for a person from anywhere else. Likewise tall and finely sculptured, she seemed attenuated, arachnodactylic, somehow both awkward and eerily graceful, as if about to go into a contortion such as her race was capable of. She belonged to the large albino minority on the planet, with snowy skin, big red eyes, white hair combed straight down to the shoulders. In contrast to Tregennis’ quiet tunic and trousers, she wore a gown of golden-hued fabric—an expert would have identified it as Terrestrial silk—and an arrowhead pendant of topaz; but somehow she wore them shyly. “Well, he survived, not too upset.” Glancing at the waiter, Dorcas ordered a dry martini, “—and I mean dry.” She turned to the others. “He was on his way to talk with Markham,” she explained. “Late hour, but the commissioner said he was too busy to receive him earlier. In fact, the meeting was to be at an auxiliary office. The equipment at the regular place is all tied up with—I’m not sure what. Well, Bob was passing through a deserted section when a kzin came out of nowhere and attacked him. He kept himself alive, without any serious damage, till the noise drew the police. The kzin fled.”
“Oh, dear!” Laurinda repeated. She looked appalled.
Tregennis had a way of attacking problems from unexpected angles. “Why was Robert on foot?” he asked.
“What?” said Dorcas, surprised. She considered. “The tubeway wasn’t convenient for his destination, and it’s not much of a walk. What of it?”
“There have been ample incidents, I hear. Kzinti with their hair-trigger tempers; and many humans bear an unreasoning hatred of them. I should think Robert would take care.” Tregennis chuckled. “He’s too seasoned a warrior to want any trouble.”
“He had no reason to expect any, I tell you.” Dorcas curbed her irritation. “Never mind. It was doubtless just one of those things. He has a ruined tunic and four superficial cuts, but he gave as good as he got. The point is, the police are in an uproar. They were nervous enough, now they’re afraid of more fights. They’ve kept him at the station, questioning him over and over, showing him stereograms of this or that kzin—you can imagine. When last he called, he didn’t expect to be free for another couple of hours, and then, on top of having nearly gotten killed, he’ll be wrung out. So he told me to meet you on behalf of us both.”
“Horrible,” Laurinda said. “But at least he is safe.”
“We regret his absence, naturally,” Tregennis added, “and twice so when we had invited you two to dinner here in celebration of good news.” Dorcas smiled. “Well, I’ll be your courier. What is the message?”
“It is for you to tell, Laurinda,” the astrophysicist said gently. The girl swallowed, leaned forward, and blurted, “This mornwatch I got the word I’d hoped for. On the hyperwave. My father, he, he’d been away, and afterward I suppose he needed to think about it, because that is a lot of money, but—but if necessary, he’ll give us a grant. We won’t have to depend on the Commission. We can take off on our own!”
“Wow!!”, Dorcas breathed.
Though it made no sense, for a tumbling few seconds her mind was on Stefan Brozik, whom she had never met. He had been among those on We Made It quickest to seize the chance when the Outsiders came by with their offer to sell the hyperdrive technology. For a while he was an officer in one of the fleets that drove the kzin sublight ships back and back into defeat. Returning, he made his fortune in the production of hyperdrives for both government and private use, and Laurinda was his adored only daughter—
“It will take a time,” came Tregennis’ parched voice. “First the draft must clear the banks, then we must order what we need and wait for delivery. The demand exceeds the supply, after all. However, in due course we will be able to go.”
His white head lifted. Dorcas remembered what he had said to Markham, when the commissioner declared: “Professor, this star of yours does appear to be an interesting object. I do not doubt an expedition to it would have scientific value. But space is full of urgent work to do, human work to do. Your project can wait another ten or fifteen years.”
Iron had been in Tregennis’ answer: “I cannot.”
“Wonderful!” exclaimed Dorcas. Her jubilation was moderate merely because she had expected this outcome. The only question had been how long it would take. Stefan Brozik wouldn’t likely deny his little girl a chance to go visit the foreign sun which she, peering from orbit around Plateau, had discovered, and which could make her reputation in her chosen field.
Nonetheless, Dorcas’ gaze left the table and went off down the well of stars. Alpha Centauri B, dazzling bright, had drifted from it. She had a clear view toward the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. In yonder direction lay Beta Hydri, and around it swung Silvereyes, the most remote colony that humankind had yet planted. Beyond Silvereyes-But glory filled vision. Laurinda’s sun was a dim red dwarf, invisible to her. Strange thought, that such a thing might be a key to mysteries.
Anger awoke. “Maybe we won’t need your father’s money,” Dorcas said. “Maybe the prospect will make that
