‘I had no idea they came this near cultivated lands,’ Tasmin said as he stared at the retreating gray-green forms. In all his trips he had actually seen viggies only five or six times, though he had heard them almost nightly all his life.
‘See ’em all the time along the coast,’ said the driver. ‘Six, eight at a time. Had engine trouble along here once. Had to stop and spend the night on the road. Heard ’em singing real close by. Must’ve gone on all night. Lots of other critters around here, too. Ones you don’t see very often.’
When they came out of the hills, the sun was behind them, falling slowly into the sea. ‘We’ll spend the night in Barrville,’ the driver advised. ‘There’s a BDL agri-station there. Imagine they’ll put you up.’
Sandy Chivvle, the local manager, did indeed put them up, glad of the company and eager to show someone what was being done with the ubiquitous brou. She insisted that seeds from this batch be tested against seeds from that batch, and by the time supper was put before them, none of them cared if they ate or not. The night passed in a cheerful haze.
Laden with reports to be delivered to Jem Middleton, head of the BDL Agricultural Division, they left early in the morning, somewhat headachey and lower in spirits. The driver dosed them with hot tea from a thermos flask, and they rumbled along endless fields of brou, the pale green-gray of newly planted fields alternating with the dark gray-green of mature crops, passing lines of loaded trucks headed the other way. They came into Northwest City a little after noon.
They unloaded the mules and then inquired at the neighboring BDL center for Jem Middleton. They found him in the bowels of the building in a remote room in which there was a welter game in progress. At least there were cards and stacks of consumer chits on the table, though the open document cases on the side table argued that something else might have been going on. To Tasmin’s surprise, perhaps to his dismay, one of those present was the Grand Master of the Tripsinger Order, Thyle Vowe.
‘Tasmin Ferrence! As I live and sing, if it isn’t the wonder of Deepsoil Five! And your acolytes, too. Well, this is a surprise. I heard you were coming to Splash One, but I didn’t think we’d see you up here. Heard about that Mad Gap thing. Makes me feel like an absolute fool. Should have checked the old files on it someplace besides Splash One, but I never thought of it. Let’s see, you’d be Jamieson, wouldn’t you? Heard a lot about you.’ And the white-haired Master knuckled Jamieson sharply on the upper arm, grinning at him expansively. ‘And you’d be Clarin, the little gal with the astonishin’ bass voice, right? Heard about you, too. Word is that Tasmin Ferrence always gets the mean ones – bright but mean.’
Clarin submitted to the Grand Master’s fatherly caress with what Tasmin regarded as commendable patience. It was almost as though she knew him, or knew of him.
‘Tasmin, come meet some people! You know Gereny Vox, don’t you? Best mule breeder we’ve ever had and I’ve lived through six of ’em.’ The plain faced, gray-haired woman reached a hand across the table, nodding as Tasmin took it and murmured greetings. The Grand Master went on. ‘This here’s Jem Middleton. Jem’s the head of the Agri Division for BDL, heck of a nice guy, good welter player, too. You want to watch him if you ever get into a game, boy. And this other fella is Rheme Gentry. Rheme’s new on the Governor’s staff from off-world and still sufferin’ from Jubal shock. Good lookin’ fella, isn’t he? Lord, if I’d had teeth and hair like that, I’d of cut me a swath through the ladies. Not Rheme. Very serious fella, Rheme.’
The lean and darkly handsome man he referred to shook his head in dismay at this introduction, acknowledging Tasmin’s greetings with a rueful nod.
‘Now, want to sit in on the game? What about somethin’ to eat? What can I get you to drink?’
Tasmin could not keep himself from grinning. The Grand Master had that effect on people. ‘Thank you, no, Sir. I’m only here to deliver some papers to Jem Middleton from his manager out at Barrville.’
‘Damn that girl,’ Middleton growled, drawing great furry brows together in a solid line across his massive and furrowed forehead. ‘Always gettin’ her damn reports in on time. Now I’ll have to get to work.’
‘But since you’re here in Northwest, Sir,’ Tasmin said to the Grand Master, ‘perhaps you could arrange an introduction for me. To an Explorer knight named Don Furz.’
There was a silence in the room, only a brief one, not one of those appalling silences that sometimes occurred during social gatherings following some gaffe, but enough of a pause that Tasmin wondered whether he had put a foot wrong. His prearranged excuse could do no harm. ‘I wanted to express my admiration for the workmanlike way the Enigma notes were prepared. I had the honor of doing the master copy
