Green, Sharon - Mind Guest.htm Page 3

  breath of it, knowing how lucky I was to be able to breath air like

  that again, then looked around.

  The green sky was early-afternoon light, lacking the too-bright glare

  of morning. The yellow sunshine covered everything, and in some strange

  way made the ten foot, carved wood balcony a very dark brown. The wood

  gleamed as though it were polished, intricate designs following themselves around the entire area of it. Commander who-sis was busy at

  the tray, so I walked to the thigh-high balcony rail, leaned one hand

  on it, and looked over.

  Below the balcony was miles of unoccupied air, falling away dizzily to

  medium-sized foothills a long way down. If there was anything on the

  ground far below I couldn't see it, but there didn't seem to be

  anything anywhere - just miles and miles of emptiness. That first

  little man had said we were in an outpost, and I wondered briefly what

  sort of an outpost it could be.

  I turned away from the balcony rail to see that the Commander had

  transferred a number of thin, oblong dishes to a wide block of pure

  white stone that was obviously going to be our table, so I left the

  rail and joined him. There were matching white stone benches to sit on,

  so I lowered myself and rested an elbow on the table.

  "Question number one which requires a detailed response," I announced,

  watching the big man as he paused over uncovering a dish to glance at

  me. "What do I call you when I get tired of 'Commander'?"

  The question was obviously an acceptable one, and the wary look faded

  from his eyes as he bowed.

  "I am Commander Arlent Selarn Delrah Garmar Rantal Queltes Dameron," he

  answered, pronouncing the names slowly and distinctly. "Please call me

  Dameron."

  "That's what I get for asking for detail," I sighed, shaking my head.

  "If you hadn't added that last, I might have gotten discouraged."

  "I somehow doubt that," he laughed, seating himself on his own white

  bench. "And what would you like to be called?"

  "Now, why should you have to ask my name?" I mused, keeping my eyes on

  him. "What about all that sleep talking I did?"

  He smiled gently.

  "I know that your name is," and suddenly his pronunciation became

  foreign, " 'Special Agent of the Federation Council Diana Santee,' but

  which of those names do you prefer being addressed by? We usually

  choose the one we like best, no matter what position it holds in the

  full tide."

  "Our familiar names are usually chosen for us," I answered with an air

  of faint disappointment. "My chosen name is Diana, and Diana had

  thought she'd caught you in a little bit of fast foot-shuffling. I'll

  just have to drown my sorrow at the mistake in some of that food which

  smells so delicious."

  "Best idea I've heard yet," he agreed with what was becoming a usual

  grin, then started digging in. I went at it a little more cautiously,

  but didn't find any hidden caches of camouflaged ptomaine. Everything

  tasted as good as it smelled, which let me shift my eating to automatic

  while my mind paid attention to thinking.

  For some reason, it appeared I had given my name and rank in Basic

  rather than in whatever I was speaking then. I didn't know enough about

  the situation to even begin to guess why, but could only hope I also

  hadn't gone into detail about my job. No matter what my position there

  turned out to be, they would watch a non-combatant a lot less carefully

  than they'd watch an experienced professional. And as large as I was,

  the man who had named himself Dameron was larger still, and obviously a

  fighting man. No matter what he had learned about me, it probably would

  not be enough to make him call that bodyguard he'd joked about earlierand

  therein lay another advantage for me. His eyes came to me as I

  watched him chew, and I smiled in response to his smile, but we weren't

  -smiling at the same thing.

  After I'd eaten most of what had been put in front of me, I decided to get on with the question and answer game. I picked up the hexagonal

  glass of what had turned out to be a light, sparkling silver wine,

  sipped at it, then cleared my throat. When Dameron's dark eyes were on

  me, I put the glass down again.

  "If you've regained part of your strength, I'd like to get on with our

  information exchange," I said, gesturing at all the empty dishes. "So

  far, all we've exchanged is our names, and that's not my idea of making

  headway."

  "You do have a point," he sighed, looking regretfully at the leftovers

  but pushing his plate away anyway. "Go ahead and ask your questions."

  "I've got the next one all ready," I said, leaning forward a little. "I

  was told that this is an outpost, but no one's said what sort of an

  outpost. Does your Confederacy have a colony here?"

  Dameron poured himself more of the wine, then leaned to one side of his

  bench with a sigh.

  "We have no colony here, but there are people who we protect - in a

  way," he said, sipping from his glass before waving a finger at me.

  "No, don't start looking at me like that, I'm trying to explain!"

  He was annoyed at the expression on my face, but if that was his idea

  of explaining, he was bound to get even more annoyed. I kept my

  skepticism voiceless and leaned my forearm down to my own bench, and he

  continued with a vague gesture of his wine glass.

  "We of the Absari Confederacy like to think of ourselves as civilized,"

  he groped. "Being civilized, we feel it our duty to help those people

  in our area of space who haven't gotten as far as we have. We watch

  over them and lend an anonymous hand, easing them more quickly through

  certain standard steps of advancement. For instance, we supply various

  rulers with advisors who put a premium on intelligence and a gift for

  invention. When our assisted kingdoms begin to prosper, their neighbors

  copy the methods used to catch up, thereby spreading the idea

  painlessly. We also encourage force of arms-no sense helping a kingdom

  to prosperity just to see them lose it to the nearest strong man-but we

  don't supply any clues which will lead to the more advanced sorts of

  weaponry. They don't know about us, won't know about us unless a

  catastrophe happens, and we maintain a strict hands-off policy with

  anything that's really new. We won't try to change something we've

  never seen before; after all, how can we evaluate it?"

  He paused at that point to swallow at his wine, and I sipped at my own,

  finally understanding why he'd had such a problem with his explanation.

  His Confederacy mixed into the affairs of non-member planets, and it's

  easy to misinterpret something like that, no matter what the motive

  behind it is. I took another sip of wine and smiled at him.

  "I can understand why you're careful about something new. Have you come

  across many really new things?"

  "Not many," he smiled back, relaxing a little. "But a few. As a matter

  of fact, this planet has a beauty of a poser that we've been trying to

  get to the bottom of since we got here. We try not to have our agents

  commit their full lives to a backward plane
t like this one, and we

  certainly don't allow families to settle here, but we may have to make

  an exception. The mystery is handed down in certain families only, and

  outsiders don't have a chance of getting anywhere near it. Something

  will have to be done, but I hope it's done after my time. It's bound to

  be involved and risky."

  He stopped again, as though he'd already said whatever there was to

  say, and I shifted on the bench, my curiosity really aroused.

  "Well?" I prompted, wondering if he'd ever remember to include details.

  "What is this fantastic mystery? Don't tell me the secret is a secret?" He looked down into his glass as he gently swirled the light, silvery

  wine, and he seemed to be fascinated with whatever he saw there.

  "I'm sorry to say that the secret is just exactly that," be murmured.

  "I don't think you should be too overburdened with knowledge when you

  go back to your home sector."

  He was so off-hand and casual about it that I nearly missed it. My arm,

  which was stretched out to put my glass back on the table, froze to

  complete motionlessness, and my jaw dropped down to where I was

  sitting.

  "Do you mean to sit there and say that you're sending me home?" I

  gasped, staring at him. "Why?"

  The grin he'd been hiding came all the way out, and he laughed aloud.

  "Because, as I told you, we hope to make peaceful contact with your

  people some day," he chuckled. "The more friends we have there when the

  day comes, the better off we'll be. I'm also personally convinced

  you'll say nothing about us when you do get back."

  I finished putting my glass on the table, then added my forearms right

  in front of it.

  "Oh, yes," I nodded with a grumble. "I'd almost forgotten that

  unconscious conversation we had. Maybe if you tell me what I said, I'll

  find it easier to believe what you're saying."

  "You'll believe it when you get there," he grinned, then finished off

  his wine. "I found out that much about you. You said you'd been sent

  away from your people by someone who wanted to get rid of you before

  you put him out of business. I gathered that the business was illegal,

  and you're some sort of law enforcement agent for your Federation."

  His eyes were on me in a casual, mildly curious way, so I made sure to

  squirm uncomfortably and blush enough to be noticed.

  "I'd already gotten the proof I needed, but I got careless," I

  confessed in an embarrassed voice. "Radman's a slaver, and that's too

  lucrative a business not to watch closely. My department would have

  known he was responsible for my disappearance, but the way he worked

  it, be would have come out as innocent as an infant if he were put to

  the Question. he would have been asked about my present physical

  whereabouts and condition, and he would have been able to answer in all

  honesty, 'I don't know'!"

  The thought of it made me furious all over again, but I was careful not

  to show the feeling. Radman had seen to it that I would have been able

  to stay alive and healthy for years, and hadn't given a damn that

  during those years I most likely would have become a raving lunatic.

  The thought had been with me constantly during those two months aboard

  the ship, but now I was able to think about coming face to face with

  him again, now there was more than just the dream of it. The

  fingernails of my right hand scraped along the white stone of the table

  top, and I barely felt it.

  I was brought back to my surroundings when Dameron rose from his bench

  and put his hand out to me.

  "If you feel up to a short guided tour, we can check on your

  transportation home on the way," he smiled. "My second and I've been

  working on your ship in our free time, getting it back together, and

  the only thing we haven't done yet is reprogram your course computer.

  You know, you really did a job on that ship. I don't know how we

  managed to get you out of it alive."

  "Personally," I said, getting to my feet, "I attribute it to my great

  mechanical ability, my unbelievable strength for survival and more luck

  than any ten people see in a lifetime."

  He chuckled his agreement and we left the terrace, but going back was an experience in itself. The terrace seemed to grow out of the

  mountainside, sheer gray rock stretching almost as far up as the ground

  below was down, and right in the center of the gray rock was a hazy

  golden doorway, through which the plain bed-room could be seen. When we

  were both back through the tingling haze, Dameron touched the side of

  the doorway again, and in a matter of moments the doorway was once

  again a square. I chewed at the inside of my lip as I stared, knowing

  that you give away how much you know by the questions you ask, but the

  terrace question was one I couldn't let slide. When Dameron began

  leading the way toward the sliding exit of the room, I made up my mind.

  "The view from the terrace was magnificent," I said as normally as I

  could as I followed him to the door. "If that's what's outside these

  rooms, I'm surprised you can keep anyone indoors."

  "I might have had a problem if that was what was there," he agreed,

  slowing as he left the room to let me catch up. "But it happens that

  those terraces are nowhere near this base - or this volume of space."

  I tried not to frown. "That's not what I would call an informative

  answer," I protested, looking up at him as we walked. he chuckled at

  the irritation in my tone.

  "I don't have many details to give you," be answered, sounding almost

  embarrassed. "The splinter terraces are something we use, but not

  because we understand them." he sighed a little and shook his head.

  "They were looking for a transportation breakthrough and found the

  Skytops instead. That's what we call those mountains, and I'm sure you

  saw why. We built a terrace and anchored it in the rock, then used it

  as a base for exploration. None of the exploration teams or subsequent

  searchers were ever heard from again."

  His face was serious and his voice was quiet, the sort of quiet some

  people use when they speak of the uselessly dead. He'd stopped in the

  middle of the corridor and was staring down at the carpeting.

  "Wherever that place is," he continued heavily, "all we know about it

  is that the constellations are totally unfamiliar-when we finally get

  to see them. The days are very long-some fifty standard hours' worth -

  and the nights correspond. Our people had survival equipment and

  communication equipment, but we still lost them - suddenly and without

  explanation. The searchers who went after them were lost to - at a

  different point. And there's the last thing to consider." His eyes came

  back up to me, holding mine as if daring me to dispute him. "Each time

  a new doorway is put into use, a new terrace has to be built. The

  terrace is always there after that, but a new doorway means a new

  terrace, and the view always seems to be the same. I don't know how

  many doorways are in use, but no one has ever seen more than the

  terrace he stood on. You're welcome to the information I have on the

&
nbsp; terraces, because they're something I would personally like to see

  explained. I had a friend on the first ex-team that was lost."

  I nodded my head, understanding how he felt, and smiled faintly. "So

  they're called splinter terraces because someone feels they're parallel

  universes or some such. Do you put much stock in that?"

  "Who knows?" he shrugged, starting t9 walk again. "It's always a

  possibility, no matter how odd it sounds. We use the terraces in bases

  like these to keep the personnel from developing claustrophobia, but

  that's all they're good for."

  "You still haven't said what's outside," I reminded him, pacing him

  down the salmon-colored corridor on dark green carpeting. There were

  doorways on both sides of the corridor, and up ahead, about twenty-five

  feet in front of us, was an airtight door that looked dependable.

  "Outside is nothing but airless moonscape," he answered. "This base is underground on Tildor's nearer moon. When the Tildorani achieve

  spaceflight we'll welcome them to the group, but we don't want to be

  discovered by them before then."

  "Don't blame you a bit," I commented, looking around as I walked. The

  doors along the corridor were unmarked, but there were small, metal

  plates to the right and left of each door, each pair of plates having a

  symbol of some sort, the symbols on each door being different.

  "This is our residential area," Dameron supplied in true tour-guide

  fashion. "We have to pass through the work area to reach the docking

  facilities, so you'll get to see most of the base. It's a typical base

  in most respects, but we find it comfortable."

  I nodded again without commenting, and continued to look around. We

  passed through the airtight door into another corridor, making sure the

  door was properly sealed behind us, then paced the length of the

  corridor. The walls were a brisk electric blue here with bright rust

  carpeting on the floor - a combination which seemed to encourage

  bustle. People bustled out of one doorway and into another, not really

  rushing but certainly not taking their time, and through the open

  doorways I could see other people sitting at odd-looking cubes or

  standing near what must have been computer terminals. Everyone was

  busy, and Dameron gestured toward them.

  "This is our work area, where everything gets done," he explained.

  "Detailed information about areas and people are constantly updated,