A
A
A
'Not tonight, though.' C
'No. Not tonight. Satoshi! Stephen Thomas'' ~
Victoria's partners, twenty meters ahead, stopped and waited for Victoria and J.D. to catch up.
The path brought them to the foot of a circular slope, grass-covered, shaped like an ancient crater. Trails led up its sides to tunnel openings, where a couple of dozen people milled around on the hillside.
'What are they doing?' J.D. asked.
'Beats me,' Satoshi said. 'I thought it was the custom to go inside and then mill around.'
About half the people already there wore either standard-issue jumpsuits or t-shirts and reg pants. J.D. wished she had taken Thanthavong's advice and found some regulation clothing to put on, but the whole subject had vanished from her mind while she searched for Zev.
Neither Victoria nor Satoshi had changed: Victoria wore a tank top and shorts that had started out as reg pants but were no longer recognizable; Satoshi had on baggy cammies with all the pockets, and another, or the same, sleeveless black t-shirt. Stephen Thomas wore his formerly regulation clothes as an insult to the orders. Though he had turned the t-shirt right side out, he had obliterated 'EarthSpace,' and he had painted designs on the legs of his trousers as well.
STARFARERS 2 09
They joined the group outside the entrance to the amphitheater.
'What's the matter?' Victoria asked Crimson Ng.
'Look.' The artist nodded toward the opening of the entry tunnel.
A piece of string blocked the amphitheater.
'All the entrances are like that.'
Whoever had put up the stnng had chosen a symbol far
more powerful than any gate or lock, a symbol for the fragile
rule of law.
Victoria pulled down the string. One part of her tried to justify her actions, but another knew she had passed a boundary she had never wanted to cross. She felt neither anger nor triumph, only sadness.
She walked into the amphitheater. Satoshi and Stephen Thomas and the others followed.
Victoria had never been the first person inside the amphitheater. It felt bigger than usual. The sound of her sandals scraping the ramp echoed in the silence.
The amphitheater, completely circular with rising ranks of stone benches all around, contained only a small platform in its center. All the plays presented here had a limited number of cast members.
Victoria headed toward the left entrance and Stephen Thomas went to the right. Satoshi loped down the ramp, across the stage, and up the other side to the opposite entrance.
On a hillside facing the amphitheater, Griffith watched Sa-toshi Lono of the alien contact team pull the string barricade away from one of the entrances.
Griffith had decided not to attend the meeting. Though he could not listen in, in real-time, since there would be no voice link for a meeting that was not supposed to exist, he would be able to watch the recording. He would do nothing to interfere with the meeting or to alter its course. He would not inject the presence of a stranger.
Then he saw Nikolai Cherenkov climbing the hill.
Griffith bolted to his feet and stood poised between duty and desire. For one of the few times in his life, the desire won out.
210 vonda N. Mclntyre
When Griffith reached the amphitheater, he could not find Cherenkov in the crowd. Disappointed, he stood in the shadows and watched.
Victoria hurried through the far tunnel. Outside the fourth entrance, her colleagues watched as she pulled down the barrier and wrapped the string around her wrist.
'Is the prohibition off?'
'No.' She went back inside.
Ordinarily she and Satoshi and Stephen Thomas remained apart at meetings, preferring to speak and act as individuals. Tonight they made an exception, sitting together as the alien contact team. She rejoined her partners and J.D. Stephen Thomas lounged on the wide seat, stretching his long legs.
'I didn't think there were this many of us left on campus,' Victoria said as the seats began to fill.
People gathered in clusters to argue and talk.
'Why isn't anyone standing on the platform?' J.D. asked Victoria.
Victoria glanced down the slope. 'Nobody ever stands on the platform.'
'Isn't it for whoever's speaking? Whoever runs the meeting?'
'No. We don't work that way, with one person trying to direct the rest, or only one person allowed to talk at a time.' She smiled. 'Though you have to be willing to face disapproval if you interrupt someone who's interesting, and somebody eventually talks to anybody who interrupts a lot.''
The amphitheater filled quickly, infinity Mendez. passing the team, did a double take.
'What's that?' he said to Stephen Thomas, with a gesture of the chin toward the decorations on his pants. 'War paint?'
'In a manner of speaking,' Stephen Thomas said. 'Any suggestions?''
'Wrong tribe,' Infinity said, and found himself a seat.
'Did he mean he's from the wrong tribe to ask, or I picked the wrong tribe to use symbols from?' Stephen Thomas said, bemused.
'You're the cultural expert in this family, my dear,' Satoshi said.
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Stephen Thomas grinned. 'Maybe I should look up some samurai symbols.'
'Maybe I should gel you an ostrich feather headdress,'
Victoria said.
'From Africa?'
'Of course not. I wouldn't know which band to choose. I meant from the Queen's Guards.'
'Hey,' he said, 'if you're really going to go ethnic on me, get me—' Without any signal, the amphitheater fell silent around him. Stephen Thomas lowered his voice to a whisper. 'Get me a red Mountie jacket.'
The lower third of the amphitheater had filled; another hundred or so people sat scattered around the remaining two-thirds of the terraces. It was a less colorful group than usual: people of all shapes and colors would ordinarily have been wearing clothes of all designs and colors. Victoria felt comforted and strengthened by the number of her colleagues who complied with the trivial rule, but broke the important one.
By a couple of minutes after the scheduled beginning of
the original meeting, all the participants sat together silently
in the dusk.
Suddenly a wide patch of bright sunlight illuminated the meeting. The sun tubes spotlighted the amphitheater and left the rest of the campus dark.
Victoria took a deep breath and ignored the warning of the light.
'Victoria Fraser MacKenzie,' she said. She remained sitting; though she projected her voice, she spoke in a normal tone. After a pause of a few seconds, she continued. 'Today's changes, particularly the impoundment of funds, affect my family and my work just as they affect everyone on the expedition, whether or not they're citizens of the United States. I'm angry, and I'm frightened by what the actions imply. I think we're expected to panic. I think we must not.
I think we must continue as if nothing had happened. And I think it would be polite to send a message to the United States, expressing our regret that they are no longer financially able to participate in the expedition.'
Victoria kept her tone serious and solemn, and did not react to the murmur of appreciative laughter.
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Other members of the expedition said their names and aired their frustration and anger.
Some of the Americans defended their government and some apologized for it; some of the non-Americans
