smiled and sat up a little straighter.
You naughty thing/ she smiled.
Just as soon as I've finished with this/ Samantha indicated the tray,
I'll come and sit with you. We'll play some klabrias, okay? When
Samantha Silver smiled, her teeth were very straight and white against
the peach of her tanned cheeks and the freckles that powdered her nose
like gold dust. She moved on.
They welcomed her, each of them, men and women, competing for her
attention, for she was one of those rare creatures that radiate such
warmth, a sort of shining innocence, like a kitten or a beautiful child,
and she laughed and chided and teased them in return and left them
grinning and heartened, but jealous of her going so they followed her
with their eyes. Most of them felt she belonged to them personally, and
they wanted all of her time and presence, making up questions or little
stories to detain her for a few extra moments.
There was an albatross following us a little while ago, Sam. 'Yes, I saw
it through the galley window It was a wandering albatross, wasn't it,
Sam! Oh, come on, Mr. Stewart! You know better than that.
It was Diomedea melanophris, the black-browed albatross, but still it's
good luck. All albatrosses are good luck that's a scientifically proved
fact. Samantha had a doctorate in biology and was one of the ship's
specialist guides. She was on sabbatical leave from the University of
Miami where she held a research fellowship in marine ecology.
Passengers thirty years her senior treated her like a favourite daughter
most of the time. However, in even the mildest crisis they became
childlike in their appeal to her and in their reliance on her natural
strength which they recognized and sought instinctively. She was to
them a combination of beloved pet and den-mother.
While a ship's steward refilled her tray with mugs, Samantha paused at
the entrance to the temporary galley they had set up in the cocktail
room and looked back into the densely packed lounge.
The stink of unwashed humanity and tobacco smoke was almost a solid blue
thing, but she felt a rush of affection for them. They were behaving so
very well, she thought, and she was proud of them.
well done, team, she thought, and grinned. It was not often that she
could find affection in herself for a mass of human beings. Often she
had pondered how a creature so fine and noble and worthwhile as the
human individual could, in its massed state, become so unattractive.
She thought briefly of the human multitudes of the crowded cities.
She hated zoos and animals in cages, remembering as a little girl crying
for a bear that danced endlessly against its bars, driven mad by its
confinement.
The concrete cages of the cities drove their captives into similar
strange and bizarre behaviour. All creatures should be free to move and
live and breathe, she believed, and yet man, the super-predator, who had
denied that right to so many other creatures, was now destroying himself
with the same single mindedness, poisoning and imprisoning himself in an
orgy that made the madness of the lemmings seem logical in comparison.
It was only when she saw human beings like these in circumstances like
these that she could be truly proud of them - and afraid for them.
