He turned to Pallis. 'It's Sheen.'
Pallis shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his scars flaring red. 'I should have guessed you'd know her. We — used to be friends.»
Rees imagined the pilot and his shift supervisor together. The picture was a little incongruous — but not as immediately painful as some such couplings he had envisaged in the past. Pallis and Sheen was a concept he could live with.
He returned the photo to its frame and resumed his meal, chewing thoughtfully.
At the turn of the shift they settled for sleep.
Rees's hammock was yielding and he relaxed, feeling somehow at home. The next shift would bring more changes, surprises and confusions; but he would face that when it came. For the next few hours he was safe, cupped in the bowl of the Raft as if in the palm of a hand.
A respectful knock jolted Hollerbach out of his trance-like concentration. 'Eh? Who the hell is that?' His old eyes took a few seconds to focus — and his mind longer to clear of its whirl of food test results. He reached for his spectacles. Of course the ancient artefact didn't really fit his eyes, but the discs of glass did help a little.
A tall, scarred man loomed into semi-focus, advancing hesitantly into the office. 'It's me, Scientist. Pallis.'
'Oh, pilot. I saw your tree return, I think. Good trip?'
Pallis smiled tiredly. 'I'm afraid not, sir. The miners have had a few troubles—'
'Haven't we all?' Hollerbach grumbled. 'I just hope we don't poison the poor buggers with our food pods. Now then, Pallis, what can I do for you — oh, by the Bones, I've remembered. You've brought back that damn boy, haven't you?' He peered beyond Pallis; and there, sure enough, was the skinny, insolent figure of Gover. Hollerbach sighed. 'Well, you'd better see Grye and return to your usual duties, lad. And your studies. Maybe we'll make a Scientist of you yet, eh? Or,' he muttered as Gover departed, 'more likely I'll lob you over the Rim myself. Is that all, Pallis?'
The tree-pilot looked embarrassed; he shifted awkwardly and his scar network flared crimson. 'Not quite, sir. Rees!'
Now another boy approached the office. This one was dark and lean and dressed in the ragged remnants of a coverall — and he stopped in surprise at the doorway, eyes fixed to the floor.
'Come on, lad,' Pallis said, not unkindly. 'It's only carpet; it doesn't bite.'
The strange boy stepped cautiously over the carpet until he stood before Hollerbach's desk. He raised his eyes — and again his mouth dropped with obvious shock.
'Good God, Pallis,' Hollerbach said, running a hand self-consciously over his bald scalp, 'what have you brought me here? Hasn't he ever seen a Scientist before?'
Pallis coughed; he seemed to be trying to hide a laugh. 'I don't think it's that, sir. With all respect, I doubt if the lad's ever seen anyone so old.'
Hollerbach opened his mouth — then closed it again. He inspected the boy more carefully, noting the heavy muscles, the scarred hands and arms. 'Where are you from, Sad?'
He spoke up clearly. 'The Belt.'
'He's a stowaway,' Pallis said apologetically. 'He travelled back with me and—'
'And he's got to be shipped straight home.' Hollerbach sat back and folded his skinny arms. 'I'm sorry, Pallis; we're overpopulated as it is.'
'I know that, sir, and I'm having the forms processed right now. As soon as a tree is loaded he could be gone.»
'Then why bring him here?'
'Because…' Pallis hesitated. 'Hollerbach, he's a bright lad,' he finished in a rush. 'He can — he gets status reports from the buses—'
Hollerbach shrugged. 'So do a good handful of smart kids every shift.' He shook his head, amused. 'Good grief, Pallis, you don't change, do you? Do you remember how, as a kid, you'd bring me broken skitters? And I'd have to fix up little paper splints for the things. A damn lot of good it did them, of course, but it made you feel better.'
Pallis's scars darkened furiously; he avoided Rees's curious gaze.
'And now you bring home this bright young stowaway and — what? — expect me to take him on as my chief apprentice?'
Pallis shrugged. 'I thought, maybe just until the tree was ready…'
'You thought wrong. I'm a busy man, tree-pilot.'
Pallis turned to the boy. 'Tell him why you're here. Tell him what you told me, on the tree.'
Rees was staring at Hollerbach. 'I left the Belt to find out why the Nebula is dying,' he said simply.
The Scientist sat forward, intrigued despite himself. 'Oh, yes? We know why it's dying. Hydrogen depletion. That's obvious. What we don't know is what to do about it.'
Rees studied him, apparently thinking it over. Then he asked: 'What's hydrogen?'
Hollerbach drummed his long fingers on the desk top, on the point of ordering Pallis out of the room… But Rees was waiting for an answer, a look of bright inquiry in his eyes.
'Hmm. That would take more than a sentence to explain, lad.' Another drum of the fingers. 'Well, maybe it wouldn't do any harm — and it might be amusing—'
'Sir?' Pallis asked.
'Are you any good with a broom, lad? The Bones know we could do with someone to back up that useless article Gover. Yes, why not? Pallis, take him to Grye. Get him a few chores to do; and tell Grye from me to start him on a bit of basic education. He may as well be useful while he's eating our damn food, just until the tree flies, mind.'
'Hollerbach, thanks—'
'Oh, get out, Pallis. You've won your battle. Now let me get on with my work. And in future keep your damn lame skitters to yourself!'
4
A handbell shaken somewhere told him that the shift was over. Rees peeled off his protective gloves and with an expert eye surveyed the lab; after his
efforts its floor and walls now gleamed in the light of the globes fixed to the ceiling.
He walked slowly out of the lab. The light from the star above made his exposed skin tingle, and he rested for a few seconds, drinking in gulps of antiseptic-free air. His back and thighs ached and the skin of his upper arms itched in a dozen places: trophies of splashes of powerful cleaning agents.
The few dozen shifts before the next tree departure seemed to be flying past. He drank in the exotic sights and scents of the Raft, anticipating a return to a lifetime in a lonely cabin in the Belt; he would pore over these memories as Pallis must treasure his photograph of Sheen.
But what he'd been shown and taught had been precious little, he admitted to himself — despite Hollerbach's vague promises. The Scientists were an unprepossessing collection — mostly middle-aged, overweight and irritable. Brandishing the bits of braid that denoted their rank they moved about their strange tasks and ignored him. Grye, the assistant who'd been assigned the task of educating him, had done little more than provide Rees with a child's picture book to help him read, together with a pile of quite incomprehensible lab reports,
Although he'd certainly learned enough about cleaning, he reflected ruefully.
But occasionally, just occasionally, his skitter-like imagination would be snagged by something. Like that series of bottles, set out like bar stock in one of the labs, filled with tree sap in various stages of hardening—
'You! What's your name? Oh, damn it, you, boy! Yes, you!'
Rees turned to see a pile of dusty volumes staggering towards him. 'You, the lad from the mine. Come and give me a hand with this stuff…' Over the volumes appeared a round face topped by a bald scalp, and Rees recognized Cipse, the Chief Navigator. Forgetting his aches he hurried towards the puffing Cipse and, with some
