Tal had the feeling there was something he was supposed to do. Then he remembered. “Thank you,” he said.
The landing port was a brown square of muddy field with a single building, about eight kilometers from a small town. “Not very impressive, is it?” asked Spider, as he came down the ramp.
Tal’s eyes were on the three people approaching them in a groundcar. It drew nearer and he made out the figures of three men; a sexual coincidence? He had not had the impression from Keylinn that gender dominance was a Graykey practice.
At least they weren’t soldiers sent out to secure the strangers: One was old, one middle-aged, and one young. The car stopped by the ramp and the old one got out and said companionably, “Hello. I’m Chief Judge O’Malley, of the Cerberus Mining Corporation legal department. This is my colleague, Aaron Akiba, and this is Sean Gilbreth.” The young man nodded. The two older men had beards, one white and one blond. They wore similar clothes, plain and warm, and sat with a straightness of posture that hinted of training. The young one, Gilbreth, was clean-shaven and more flashily dressed in an emerald jacket and white boots that couldn’t possibly be practical in all this dirt.
“I’m Tal Diamond, and this is Stratton Hastings.”
“So you said, or part of it,” said the old man. He smiled. “You seem confused as to this planet’s inhabitants. We’re an Empire mining concern—see those hills? Full of zelignite. And iron ore is plentiful on the other continent. It’ll be centuries before the world is exhausted.”
“And meanwhile, it’s not a bad place to live.” Tal walked him back to the car. Chief Judge O’Malley held the door for them both to enter.
“Very true,” he said, “it’s not. We have schools and libraries and even churches for those who enjoy that sort of thing.”
And they had a lot of taverns, thought Spider, who counted three as they traversed the road to town. He was glad he could understand their use of Standard; he’d spent a lot of time lately talking to Baret Station people, arranging some illegal inventory disposal, and his experience had apparently done him good. Tal said calmly, “Well, we seem to have taken advantage of your hospitality under false pretenses.”
“Not at all, not at all.” Akiba, the middle-aged man, put a hand on O’Malley’s arm, and O’Malley shook his head slightly. He said, “Tell me, you mentioned the Graykey when you asked for landing permission. And someone’s name. What in the world could you want with the Graykey? They’re a legend. And why here, of all places?”
“We have a friend,” said Tal. “She’s working on the Diamond under the name of Keylinn Gray. We followed her maildrop connections—mistakenly, it seems—here. As for what we want with the Graykey … Keylinn is in a great deal of trouble. She could be being tortured or killed at this very moment. I don’t know how the other Graykey would feel about that, but I thought they might want to do something.”
Akiba turned to the old man. “Bram—” he said.
“Wait.” O’Malley said to Tal, “Look at me.” Tal did, turning on him the same blank exterior he presented to every other being in the world. The old man said, “You called her a friend. Is that all?”
Tal hesitated. Then he said, “She’s also my tarethi-din.”
O’Malley nodded. “I thought so. Ever since you landed.” He said to Akiba, “Etcar sab gathrid. ” Akiba gave Tal a measuring glance. O’Malley put an old and weathered hand over Tal’s for a moment. “Don’t worry. Something will be done.”
They were invited to a party. It was a pregraduation party in the great hall at the Nemeter Training School, an elderly and rambling brick structure whose walls echoed and whose wooden floor planks gave slightly when anyone jumped on them. Just now the floor of the great hall was throbbing with the countless stamping feet of dancers whirling madly. They wore crimson, orange, royal blue, forest green. Yellow scarves flew as they twirled.
“This is Sefill,” said Akiba, who turned out to be the Dean of the College. “He’ll take care of you.” And Spider and Tal were left in the hands of a tall, elegant man with gray hair, who bowed his head and said, “Delighted.”
Akiba went off to make (he said) some sort of arrangements. Spider said, “What happened to the other fellow? The young one.”
“Who would that be?” asked Sefill.
Spider described him. “Sean somebody,” he concluded.
“Ah, the mayor.” Sefill grabbed two tall glasses off a passing tray and offered them to his guests. Tal declined. “He wouldn’t be following up with your problem. That’s a Graykey matter.”
“He’s not a Graykey? I thought everybody here was a Graykey.”
Sefill shook his head. “The majority are not. I, in fact, am not. I’m not even native-born; I’m from Glassere, and I teach Outsider literature here at the school.”
Tal entered the conversation for the first time. “They let an Outsider live here and teach?”
Spider was confused by the term “outsider.” He’d only heard it mean someone who wasn’t a Redemptionist.
Sefill laughed. “I’m retired as far as Glassere thinks. But who better to teach Outsider literature than an Outsider-born? I had to take an oath never to leave, but I haven’t regretted it. They treat me very well here.”
“I see.”
“I also have a class in Outsider systems of ethical thought, quite well-attended.”
Tal scanned the room as though waiting for someone. “I should think they would consider that a contradiction in terms.”
“They do.” Sefill looked to the main door, where a man of about fifty was entering with a young girl. “Ah, Keylinn’s father and sister. You’ll want to meet them, no doubt.”
He started to go and get them, but Tal put a hand on his arm. “No,” he said.
“No?”
Tal made himself smile politely. “If you don’t mind.”
“As you wish,” said Sefill, clearly puzzled.
“What’s in these
