22
Eugenia Insigna greeted her daughter's statement with a half-laugh of disbelief. How does one go about doubting a young daughter's sanity as an alternative to doubting one's own hearing capacity?
'What did you say, Marlene? What do you mean I'm going to Erythro?'
'I asked Commissioner Pitt, and he said he would arrange it.'
Insigna looked blank. 'But why?'
Betraying a bit of irritation, Marlene answered, 'Because you say you want to make delicate astronomical measurements and you can't do it delicately enough from Rotor. You can do it from Erythro. But I see I'm not answering your real question.'
'You're right. What I meant was why should Commissioner Pitt have said he would arrange it? I've asked several times before this, and he has always refused. He's unwilling to let anyone go to Erythro - except for some specialists.'
'I just put it to him in a different way, Mother.' Marlene hesitated a moment. 'I told him that I knew he was anxious to get rid of you and this was his chance.'
Insigna drew in her breath so sharply that she choked slightly and had to cough. Then, eyes watering, she said, 'How could you say that?'
'Because it's true, Mother. I wouldn't have said it if it weren't true. I've heard him speak to you, and I've heard you speak about him, and it's just so clear that I know you see it, too. He's annoyed with you, and wishes you'd stop bothering him about - about whatever you bother him about. You know that.'
Insigna pressed her lips together and said, 'You know, darling, I'm going to have to take you into my confidence from now on. It really embarrasses me to have you worm these things out.'
'I know, Mother.' Marlene's eyes dropped. 'I'm sorry.'
'But I still don't understand. You didn't have to explain to him that he's annoyed with me. He must know he is. Why, then, didn't he send me to Erythro when I asked him to do so in the past?'
'Because he hates having anything to do with Erythro, and just getting rid of you wasn't enough to overcome his dislike of the world. Only this time it's not just you going. It's you and I. Both of us.'
Insigna leaned forward, placing her hands flat on the table between them. 'No, Molly - Marlene. Erythro is not the place for you. I won't be there for ever. I'll take my measurements and come back and you'll stay right here and wait for me.'
'I'm afraid not, Mother. It's clear that he's only willing to let you go because that's the only way he can get rid of me. That's why he agreed to send you when I asked that we both go, and wouldn't agree when you asked that just you go. Do you see?'
Insigna frowned. 'No, I don't. I really don't. What do you have to do with it?'
'When we were talking, and I explained that I knew he would like to get rid of both of us, his face froze - you know, so he could wipe out all expression. He knew I could understand expressions and little things like that, and he didn't me want to guess what he was feeling, I suppose. But that's also a giveaway, you see, and tells me a lot. Besides, you can't suppress everything. Your eyes flicker, and I guess you don't even know it.'
'So you knew he wanted to get rid of you, too.'
'Worse than that. He's scared of me.'
'Why should he be scared of you?'
'I suppose because he hates having me know what he doesn't want me to know.' She added with a dour sigh, 'Lots of people get upset with me for that.'
Insigna nodded. 'I can understand that. You make people feel naked - mentally naked, I mean, like a cold wind is blowing across their minds.'
Her eyes focused on her daughter. 'Sometimes I feel that way myself. Looking back, I think you've disturbed me since you were a small child. I told myself often enough that you were simply unusually intelli-'
'I think I am,' said Marlene quickly.
'That, too, yes, but it was clearly something more than that, though I didn't see it very clearly. Tell me - do you mind talking about this?'
'Not to you, Mother,' said Marlene, but there was a note of caution in her voice.
'Well then, when you were younger and found out that you could do this and other children couldn't - and even other grown-ups couldn't - why didn't you come and tell me about it?'
'I tried once, actually, but you were impatient. I mean, you didn't say anything, but I could tell you were busy and couldn't be bothered with childish nonsense.'
Insigna's eyes widened. 'Did I say it was childish nonsense?'
'You didn't say it, but the way you looked at me and the way you were holding your hands said it.'
'You should have insisted on telling me.'
'I was just a little kid. And you were unhappy most of the time - about Commissioner Pitt, and about Father.'
'Never mind about that. Is there anything else you can tell me now?'
There's only one thing,' said Marlene. 'When Commissioner Pitt said we could go, there was something about the way he said it that made me think he left out something - that there was something he didn't say.'
'And what was it, Marlene?'
'That's just it, Mother. I can't read minds, so I don't know. I can only go by outside things and that leaves things hazy, sometimes. Still-'
'Yes?'
'I have the feeling that whatever it was he didn't say was rather unpleasant - maybe even evil.'
23
Getting ready for Erythro took Insigna quite a while, of course. There were matters on Rotor that could not be left at midpoint. There had to be arrangements in the astronomy department, instructions to others, appointment of her chief associate to the position of Chief Astronomer pro-tem, and some final consultations with Pitt, who was oddly non-communicative on the matter.
Insigna finally put it to him during her last report before leaving.
'I'm going to Erythro tomorrow, you know,' she said.
'Pardon me?' He looked up from the final report she had handed him, and which he had been staring at, though she was convinced he wasn't reading it. (Was she picking up some of Marlene's tricks and not knowing how to handle it? She mustn't begin to believe that she was penetrating below the surface when, in fact, she was not.)
She said patiently, 'I'm going to Erythro tomorrow, you know.'
'Is it tomorrow? Well, you'll be coming back eventually, so this is not goodbye. Take care of yourself. Look upon it as a vacation.'
'I intend to be working on Nemesis' motion through space.'
'That? Well-' He made a gesture with both hands as though pushing something unimportant away. 'As you wish. A change of surroundings is a vacation even if you continue working.'
'I want to thank you for allowing this, Janus.'
'Your daughter asked me to. Did you know she asked me to?'
'I know. She told me the same day. I told her she had no right to bother you. You were very tolerant of her.'
Pitt grunted. 'She's a very unusual girl. I didn't mind obliging her. It's only temporary. Finish your calculations and return.'
She thought: That's twice he mentioned my return. What would Marlene make out of that if she were here? Something evil, as she says? But what?
She said evenly, 'We'll come back.'
He said, 'With the news, I hope, that Nemesis will prove harmless - five thousand years from now.'
'That's for the facts to decide,' she said grimly, then left.
24
It was strange, Eugenia Insigna thought. She was over two light-years from the spot in space where she was born and yet she had only been on a spaceship twice and then for the shortest possible journeys - from Rotor to Earth and then back to Rotor again.
She still had no great urge to travel in space. It was Marlene who was the driving force behind this trip. It was she who, independently, had seen Pitt and persuaded him to succumb to her strange form of blackmail. And it was she who was truly excited, with this odd compulsion of hers to visit Erythro. Insigna could not understand that compulsion and viewed it as another part of her daughter's unique mental and emotional complexity. Still, whenever Insigna quailed at the thought of leaving safe, small, comfortable Rotor for the vast empty world of Erythro, so strange and menacing, and fully six hundred and fifty thousand kilometers away (nearly twice as far away as Rotor had been from Earth), it was Marlene's excitement that reinvigorated her.
The ship that would take them to Erythro was neither graceful nor beautiful. It was serviceable. It was one of a small fleet of rockets that acted as ferries, blasting up from the stodgy gravitational pull of Erythro, or coming down without daring to give in to it by even a trifle, and, either way, working one's way through the cushiony, windy unpredictability of an untamed atmosphere.
Insigna didn't think the trip would be pleasurable. Through most of it they would be weightless and two solid days of weightlessness would, no doubt, be tedious.
Marlene's voice broke into her reverie. 'Come on, Mother, they're waiting for us. The baggage is all checked and everything.'
Insigna moved forward. Her last uneasy thought as she passed through the airlock was - predictably - But why was Janus Pitt so willing to let us go?
25
Siever Genarr ruled a world as large as Earth. Or, to be more accurate perhaps, he ruled, directly, a domed region that covered nearly three square kilometers and was slowly growing. The rest of the world, however, nearly five hundred million square kilometers of land and sea, was unoccupied by human beings. It was also occupied by no other living things above the microscopic scale. So if a world is considered as being ruled by the multicellular life-forms that occupied it, the hundreds who lived and worked in the domed region were the rulers, and Siever Genarr ruled over them.
Genarr was not a large man, but his strong features gave him an impressive look. When he was young, this had made him look older than his age - but that had evened itself out now that he was nearly fifty. His nose was long and his eyes somewhat pouchy. His hair was in the first stages of grizzle. His voice, however, was a musical and resonant baritone. (He had once thought of the stage as a career, but his appearance doomed him to occasional character roles, and his talents as an administrator took precedence.)
It was those talents - partly - that had kept him in the Erythro Dome for ten years, watching it grow from an uncertain three-room structure to the expansive mining and research station it had now become.
The Dome had its disadvantages. Few people remained long. There were shifts, since almost all those who came there considered themselves in exile and wished, more or less constantly, to return to Rotor. And most found the pinkish light of Nemesis either threatening or gloomy, even though the light inside the Dome was every bit as bright and homelike as that on Rotor.
It had its advantages, too. Genarr was removed from the hurly-burly of Rotorian politics, which seemed more ingrown and meaningless each year. Even more important, he was removed from Janus Pitt, whose views he generally - and uselessly - opposed.
Pitt had been strenuously opposed to any settlement on Erythro from the start - even to Rotor orbiting around Erythro. Here, at least, Pitt had been defeated by overwhelming public opinion, but he saw to it that the Dome was generally starved for funds and that its growth was slowed. If Genarr had not successfully developed the Dome as a source of water for Rotor - far cheaper than it could be obtained from the asteroids - Pitt might have crushed it.
In general, though, Pitt's principle of ignoring the Dome's existence as far as possible meant that he rarely attempted to interfere with Genarr's administrative procedures - which suited Genarr right down to Erythro's damp soil.
It came as a surprise to him, then, that Pitt should have bothered to inform him personally of the arrival of a pair of newcomers, instead of allowing the information to show up in the routine paperwork. Pitt had, indeed, discussed the matter in detail, in his usual clipped and arbitrary manner that invited no discussion, or even comment, and the conversation had been shielded, too.
It came as an even greater surprise that one of the people coming to Erythro was Eugenia Insigna.
Once, years before the Leaving, they had been friends, but then, after their happy college days (Genarr remembered them wistfully as rather romantic), Eugenia had gone to Earth for her graduate studies and had returned to Rotor with an Earthman. Genarr had scarcely seen her - except once or twice, at a distance - since she had married Crile Fisher. And when she and Fisher had separated, just before the Leaving, Genarr had had work of his own and so had she - and it never occurred to either to renew old ties.
Genarr had, perhaps, thought of it occasionally, but Eugenia was quite apparently sunk in sorrow, with an infant daughter to raise, and he was reluctant to intrude. Then he was sent to Erythro and that ended even the possibility of renewal. He had periodic vacation time on Rotor, but he was never at ease there any longer. Some old Rotorian friendships remained, but only in lukewarm fashion.
Now Eugenia was coming with her daughter. Genarr, at the moment, didn't remember the girl's name - if he had ever known it. Certainly, he had never seen her. The daughter should be fifteen by now, and he wondered, with a queer little interior tremble, if she was beginning to look anything like the young Eugenia had.
Genarr looked out his office window with an almost surreptitious air. He had grown so used to Erythro Dome that he no longer saw it with a critical eye. It was the home of working people of both sexes - adults, no children.
Shift workers, signed up for a period of weeks or possibly months, sometimes returning eventually for another shift, sometimes not. Except for himself and four others who, for one reason or another, had learned to prefer the Dome, there were no permanents.
There was no-one to take pride in it as an ordinary abode. It was kept clean and orderly as a matter of necessity, but there was also an air of artificiality about it. It was too much a matter of lines and arcs, planes and circles. It lacked irregularity, lacked the chaos of permanent life, where a room, or even just a desk, had adjusted itself to the hollows and waverings of a particular personality.
There was himself, of course. His desk and his room reflected his own angular and planar person. That, perhaps, might be another reason he was at home in the Erythro Dome. The shape of his inner spirit matched its spare geometry.
But what would Eugenia Insigna think of it? (He was rather pleased she had resumed her maiden name.) If she were as he remembered her, she would revel in irregularity, in the unexpected touch of frippery, for all she was an astronomer.
Or had she changed? Did people ever change, essentially? Had Crile Fisher's desertion embittered her, twisted her-
Genarr scratched the hair at his temple where it had gone distinctly gray and thought that these speculations were useless and time-wasting. He would see Eugenia soon enough, for he had left word that she was to be brought to him as soon as she had arrived.
Or should he have gone to greet her in person?
No! He had argued that with himself half a dozen times already. He couldn't look too anxious; it wouldn't suit the dignity of his position.
But then Genarr thought that that wasn't the reason at all. He didn't want to make her uneasy; he didn't want her to think he was still the same uncomfortable and incompetent admirer who had retreated in so shambling a manner before the tall and brooding good looks of the Earthman. And Eugenia had never looked at him again after she had seen Crile - never seriously looked at him.
Genarr's eyes scanned the message from Janus Pitt - dry, condensed, as his messages always were, and with that indefinable feel of authority behind it, as though the possibility of disagreement were not merely unheard of - but actually unthought of.
And he now noted that Pitt spoke more forcefully of the young daughter than of the mother. There was especially Pitt's statement that the daughter had expressed a deep interest in Erythro, and if she wished to explore its surface, she was to be allowed to.
Now why was that?
26
And there she was. Fourteen years older than at the time of the Leaving. Twenty years older than she was in her pre-Crile youth, the day they had gone into Farming Area C and climbed the levels into low gravity, and she had laughed when he tried a slow somersault and had turned too far and had come down on his belly. (Actually, he could easily have hurt himself, for though the sensation of weight decreased, mass and inertia did not, and damage could follow. Fortunately, he had not suffered that humiliation.)
Eugenia looked older, too, but she had not thickened very much, and her hair - shorter now, and straight - was more matter-of-fact somehow, but was still a lively dark brown.
And when she advanced toward him, smiling, he could feel his traitor heart speed a bit. She held out both hands and he took them.
'Siever,' she said, 'I have betrayed you, and I'm so ashamed.'
'Betrayed me, Eugenia? What are you talking about?' What was she talking about? Surely not her marriage to Crile.
She said, 'I should have thought of you every day. I should have sent you messages, given you the news, insisted on coming to visit you.'
'Instead, you never thought of me at all!'
'Oh, I'm not that bad. I thought of you every once in a while. I never really forgot you. Don't think that for a moment. It's just that my thoughts never really prompted me to do anything.'
Genarr nodded. What was there to say? He said, 'I know you've been busy. And I've been here - out of sight and, therefore, out of mind.'
'Not out of mind. You've scarcely changed at all, Siever.'
'That's the advantage of looking old and craggy when you're twenty. After that, you never change, Eugenia. Time passes and you just look a trifle older and a trifle craggier. Not enough to matter.'
'Come now, you make a profession of being cruel to yourself so that soft-hearted women will leap to your defense. That hasn't changed at all.'
'Where's your daughter, Eugenia? I was told she would be coming with you.'
'She came. You can be sure of that. Erythro is her idea of Paradise, for no reason I can possibly think of. She went to our quarters to straighten them out and unpack for the two of us. She's that kind of young woman. Serious. Responsible. Practical. Dutiful. She possesses what someone once described to me as all the unlovable virtues.'
Genarr laughed. 'I'm quite at home with them. If you only knew how hard I've tried, in my time, to cultivate at least one charming vice. I've always failed.'
'Oh well, as one grows older, I suspect one needs more unlovable virtues and fewer charming vices. But why did you retreat permanently to Erythro, Siever? I understand that Erythro Dome has to be administered, but surely you're not the only one on Rotor who can do the job.'
Genarr said, 'Actually, I like to think I am. In a way, though, I enjoy it here and I do get to Rotor on occasion for a short vacation.'
'And never come to see me?'
'Just because I have a vacation doesn't mean you do. I suspect you're far busier than I am, and have been ever since you discovered Nemesis. But I'm disappointed. I wanted to meet your daughter.'
'You will. Her name's Marlene. Actually, it's Molly in my heart, but she won't allow that. At the age of fifteen, she has become remarkably intolerant and insists on being called Marlene. But you'll meet her, never fear. Actually, I didn't want her here the first time. How could we reminisce freely with her present?'
'Do you want to reminisce, Eugenia?'
'About some things.'
Genarr hesitated. 'I'm sorry Crile didn't join the Leaving.'
Insigna's smile became fixed. 'About some things, Siever.' She turned away and walked to the window, staring out. 'This is an elaborate place you have here, by the way. Just the little I've seen of it is impressive. Bright lights. Actual streets. Sizable buildings. And yet the Dome is hardly ever spoken of or referred to back on Rotor. How many people live and work here?'
'It varies. We have our slow and busy times. We've had as many as nearly nine hundred people here. At the moment, the number is five hundred and sixteen. We know every individual present. It's not easy. Each day sees some come, some go.'
'Except you.'
'And a few others.'
'But why the Dome, Siever? After all, Erythro's atmosphere is breathable.'
Genarr pushed out his lower lip and, for the first time, he did not meet her eyes. 'Breathable, but not really comfortable. The light level is wrong. When you get outside the Dome, you're bathed in a pinkish light, tending to orange when Nemesis is high in the sky. It's bright enough. You can read. Still, it doesn't seem natural. Then, too, Nemesis itself doesn't look natural. It looks too large, and most people think it looks threatening and that its reddish light makes it seem angry - and they get depressed. Nemesis is dangerous in actual fact, too, at least in a way. Because it isn't blindingly bright, there is a tendency to gaze at it and watch for sunspots. The infrared can easily harm the retina. People who must go out in the open wear a special helmet for that reason - among other things.'
'Then the Dome is more of a device to keep normal light in, so to speak, rather than to keep anything out.'
'We don't even keep air out. The air and water that circulates in the Dome is drawn from Erythro's planetary supply. Naturally, though, we're careful to keep something out,' said Genarr. 'We keep out the prokaryotes. You know, the little blue-green cells.'
Insigna nodded thoughtfully. That had turned out to be the explanation for the oxygen content in the air. There was life on Erythro, even all-pervasive life, but it was microscopic in nature, only equivalent to the simplest forms of cellular life in the Solar System.
She said, 'Are they really prokaryotes? I know that's what they're called, but that's what our bacteria are also called. Are they bacteria?'
'If they're equivalent to anything in the history of Solar System life, it is to the cyanobacteria, those that photo-synthesize. You're right to ask the question, though. No, they're not our cyanobacteria. They possess nucleoprotein, but with a structure fundamentally different from that which prevails in our form of life. They also have a kind of chlorophyll that lacks magnesium and works on infrared so that the cells tend to be colorless rather than green. Different enzymes, trace minerals in different proportions. Still, they resemble Earth cells sufficiently in outer appearance to be called prokaryotes. I understand that biologists are pushing for the word "erythryotes" but for nonbiologists like ourselves, prokaryotes is good enough.'
'And they're efficient enough in their workings to account for the oxygen in Erythro's atmosphere?'
'Absolutely. Nothing else could possibly explain its existence there. By the way, Eugenia, you're the astronomer, so what's the latest thinking on how old Nemesis might be?'
Insigna shrugged. 'Red dwarfs are next to being immortal. Nemesis can be as old as the Universe and still go on for another hundred billion years or so without visible change. The best we can do is judge by the contents of the minor elements making up its structure. Supposing that it's a first-generation star and didn't begin with anything beyond hydrogen and helium, it is a bit over ten billion years old - a little more than twice the age of the Sun of the Solar System.'
'Then Erythro is ten billion years old, too.'
'Absolutely. A stellar system is formed all at once and not piecemeal. Why are you asking?'
'It just strikes me as odd that in ten billion years, life hasn't got past the prokaryote stage.'
'I don't think that's surprising, Siever. On Earth, for somewhere between two and three billion years after life first appeared, it remained strictly prokaryote, and here on Erythro the energy concentration in sunlight is far less than it is on Earth. It takes energy to form more complicated life-forms. This sort of thing has been pretty well discussed among the Rotorians.'
'I'm sure of it,' said Genarr, 'but it doesn't seem to reach us here at the Dome. Our minds are too fixed, I suppose, on our local duties and problems - though you'd think anything to do with the prokaryotes would come under that heading.'
'For that matter,' said Insigna, 'we don't hear much about the Dome on Rotor.'
'Yes, things tend to compartmentalize. But then, of course, there's nothing glamorous about the Dome, Eugenia. It's just a workshop, so I'm not surprised it gets lost in the press of events on Rotor. It's the new Settlements that are being built that get all the attention. Are you going to move to one of them?'
'Never. I'm a Rotorian, and I intend to stay one. I wouldn't even be here - if you'll pardon my saying so - if it weren't an astronomical necessity. I've got to make a number of observations from a base that is more stable than Rotor.'
'So I have been informed by Pitt. I am instructed to give you my full cooperation.'
'Good. I'm sure you will. Incidentally, you mentioned earlier that the Dome would like to keep the prokaryotes out. Do you succeed in doing so? Is the water here safe to drink?'
Genarr said, 'Obviously, since we drink it. There are no prokaryotes in the Dome. Any water that comes in - anything at all that comes in - is bathed in blue-violet light that destroys the prokaryotes in a matter of seconds. The short-wave photons in the light are too energetic for the little things and break down key components of the cells. And even if some of them come in, they're not poisonous, as far as we can tell, or harmful in any way. We've tested them on animals.'
'That's a relief.'
'It works the other way, too. Our own microorganisms can't compete with Erythro's prokaryotes under Erythrotic conditions. At least when we seed Erythro's soil with our own bacteria, they don't succeed in growing and multiplying.'
'What about multicellular plants?'
'We've tried it, but with very poor results. And it must be due to the quality of Nemesis' light because we can grow plants perfectly well inside the Dome, using Erythro's soil and water. We report these things back to Rotor, of course, but I doubt that the information gets widely publicized. As I said, Rotor isn't interested in the Dome. Certainly the fearsome Pitt isn't interested in us, and he's really all that counts on Rotor, isn't he?'
Genarr said that with a smile, but the smile seemed strained. (What would Marlene have said about it, Insigna wondered.)
She said, 'Pitt isn't fearsome. He's sometimes tiresome, but that's a different thing. You know, Siever, I always thought when we were young that you might be Commissioner someday. You were enormously bright, you know.'
'Were?'
'Still are, I'm sure, but in those days you were so politically oriented, had such ideas. I used to listen to you, entranced. In some ways, you would have been a better Commissioner than Janus is. You would have listened to people. You wouldn't have insisted on getting your own way as much.'
'Which is precisely why I would have made a very poor Commissioner. You see, I don't have any precise goals in life. I just have the desire to do what seems to me to be the right thing at the moment, in the hope that it will end up with something bearable. Now, Pitt knows what he wants and intends to get there by any means.'
'You're misjudging him, Siever. He's got strong views, but he's a very reasonable man.'
'Of course, Eugenia. That's his great gift, his reasonableness. Whatever course he pursues, he always has a perfectly good, a perfectly logical, a perfectly human reason for it. He can make one up at any given moment, and is so sincere about it, he convinces even himself. I'm sure if you've had any dealings with him, you've managed to let him talk you into doing what you at first didn't want to do, and that he won you over not by orders and threats but by very patient, very rational arguments.'
Insigna said weakly, 'Well-'
At that, Genarr added sardonically, 'I see you have indeed suffered from his reasonableness. You can see for yourself, then, what a good Commissioner he is. Not a good person, but a good Commissioner.'
'I wouldn't go so far as to say he wasn't a good person, Siever,' said Insigna, shaking her head slightly.
'Well, let's not argue about it. I want to meet your daughter.' He rose to his feet. 'Why don't I visit your quarters after dinner?'
'That would be delightful,' said Insigna.
Genarr looked after her with a fading smile as she left. Eugenia had wanted to reminisce, and his own first reaction was to mention her husband - and she had frozen.
He sighed inwardly. He still had that extraordinary faculty of ruining his own chances.
27
Eugenia Insigna said to her daughter, 'His name is Siever Genarr, and he is properly addressed as Commander, because he's the head of the Erythro Dome.'
'Of course, Mother. If that's his title, I'll call him that.'
'And I don't want you to embarrass him-'
'I wouldn't do that.'
'You would do so all too easily, Marlene. You know that. Just accept his statements without correcting them on the ground of body language. Please! He was a good friend of mine at college and for a while afterward. And even though he's been here in the Dome for ten years and I haven't seen him in all that time, he's still an old friend.'
'I think he must have been a boyfriend.'
'Now that's just what I mean,' said Insigna. 'I don't want you watching him and telling him what he really means or thinks or feels. And for your information, he was not my boyfriend, exactly, and we were certainly not lovers. We were friends and we liked each other - as friends. But after your father-' She shook her head, and gestured vaguely. 'And be careful what you say about Commissioner Pitt - if that subject comes up. I get the feeling Commander Genarr distrusts Commissioner Pitt-'
Marlene bestowed one of her rare smiles on her mother. 'Have you been studying Commander Siever's subliminal behavior? Because what you have is more than a feeling.'
Insigna shook her head. 'You see? You can't stop for a moment. Very well, it's not a feeling. He actually said he didn't trust the Commissioner. And you know,' she added, half to herself, 'he may have reason-'
She turned to Marlene and said suddenly, 'Let me repeat, Marlene. You are perfectly free to watch the Commander and find out all you can, but don't say anything to him about it. Tell me! Do you understand?'
'Do you think there's danger, Mother?'
'I don't know.'
'I do,' said Marlene matter-of-factly. 'I've known there was danger as soon as Commissioner Pitt said we could go to Erythro. I just don't know what the danger is.'
28
Seeing Marlene for the first time was a shock to Siever Genarr, one that was made worse by the fact that the girl looked at him with a sullen expression that made it seem that she knew perfectly well that he had received a shock, and just why.
The fact was that there was not a thing about her that seemed to indicate she was Eugenia's daughter, none of the beauty, none of the grace, none of the charm. Only those large bright eyes that were now boring into him, and they weren't Eugenia's either. They were the one respect in which she exceeded her mother, rather than fell short.
Little by little, though, he revised his first impression. He joined them for tea and dessert, and Marlene behaved herself with perfect propriety. Quite the lady, and obviously intelligent. What was it that Eugenia had said? All the unlovable virtues? Not quite that bad. It seemed to him that she ached for love, as plain people sometimes do. As he himself did. A sudden flood of fellow feeling swept over him.
And after a while, he said, 'Eugenia, I wonder if I might have a chance to speak to Marlene alone.'
Insigna said with an attempt at lightness, 'Any particular reason, Siever?'
Genarr said, 'Well, it was Marlene who spoke to Commissioner Pitt and it was she who persuaded the Commissioner to allow the two of you to come to the Dome. As Commander of the Dome, I'm pretty much dependent on what Commissioner Pitt says and does, and I would value what Marlene can tell me of the meeting. I think she would speak more freely if it were just the two of us.'
Genarr watched Insigna leave and then turned to Marlene, who was now sitting in a large chair in a corner of the room, almost lost in its soft capaciousness. Her hands were clasped loosely in her lap and her beautiful dark eyes regarded the Commander gravely.
Genarr said with a hint of humor in his voice, 'Your mother seemed a little nervous about leaving you here with me. Are you nervous, too?'
'Not at all,' said Marlene. 'And if my mother was nervous, it was on your behalf, not on mine.'
'On my behalf. Why?'
'She thinks I might say something that would offend you.'
'Would you, Marlene?'
'Not deliberately, Commander. I'll try not to.'
'And I'm sure you'll succeed. Do you know why I want to see you alone?'
'You told my mother you want to find out about my interview with Commissioner Pitt. That's true, but you also want to see what I'm like.'
Genarr's eyebrows drew together just a trifle. 'Naturally, I would want to get to know you better.'
'It's not that,' said Marlene quickly.
'What is it, then?'
Marlene looked away. 'I'm sorry, Commander.'
'Sorry about what?'
Marlene's face twitched unhappily and she was silent.
Genarr said softly, 'Now, Marlene, what is wrong? You must tell me. It is important to me that we talk frankly. If your mother told you to watch what you say, please forget that. If she implied that I was sensitive and easily offended, please forget that, too. In fact, I command you to speak to me freely and not to worry a bit about offending me, and you must obey my command because I'm the Commander of the Erythro Dome.'
Marlene laughed suddenly. 'You're really anxious to find out about me, aren't you?'
'Of course.'
'Because you're wondering how I can look the way I do, when I'm my mother's daughter.'
Genarr's eyes opened wide. 'I never said anything of the sort.'
'You didn't have to. You're an old friend of my mother's. She told me that much. But you were in love with her, and you haven't quite gotten over it, and you were expecting me to look the way she did when she was young, so when you saw me, you winced and drew back.'
'I did? It was noticeable?'
'It was a very small gesture because you're a polite man and you tried to repress it, but it was there. I saw it easily. And then your eyes turned to my mother and back to me. And then there was the tone of your first words to me. It was all very plain. You were thinking I didn't look at all like my mother and you were disappointed.'
Genarr leaned back in his chair and said, 'But this is marvelous.'
And a great gladness lit up Marlene's face. 'You mean it, Commander. You mean it. You're not offended. You're not uncomfortable. It makes you happy. You're the first one, the first one. Even my mother doesn't like it.'
'Liking or not liking it doesn't matter. That is totally irrelevant when it's a question of coming up against the extraordinary. How long have you been able to read body language in this way, Marlene?'
'Always, but I've gotten better at it. I think anyone must be able to do it, if they only watch - and think.'
'Not so, Marlene. It can't be done. Don't think it. And you say I love your mother.'
'No doubt about it, Commander. When you're near her, you give it away with every look, every word, every twitch.'
'Do you suppose she notices?'
'She suspects you do, but she doesn't want you to.'
Genarr looked away. 'She never did.'
'It's my father.'
'I know.'
Marlene hesitated. 'But I think she's wrong. If she could see you the way I do right now-'
'But she can't, unfortunately. It makes me so happy that you do, though. You're beautiful.'
Marlene flushed. Then she said, 'You mean that!'
'Of course I do.'
'But-'
'I can't lie to you, can I? So I won't try. Your face isn't beautiful. Your body isn't beautiful. But you are beautiful and that's what's important. And you can tell I really believe that.'
'Yes, I do,' said Marlene, smiling with such genuine happiness that even her face had a sudden distant cast of beauty.
Genarr smiled, too, and said, 'Shall we now talk about Commissioner Pitt? Now that I know what an uncommonly shrewd young woman you are, it is all the more important I do so. Are you willing?'
Marlene clasped her hands lightly in her lap, smiled demurely, and said, 'Yes, Uncle Siever. You don't mind if I call you that, do you?'
'Not at all. In fact, I'm honored. Now - tell me all about Commissioner Pitt. He has sent me instructions that I'm to give your mother all possible cooperation and that I am to make freely available to her all our astronomical equipment. Why do you suppose that is?'
'My mother wants to make delicate measurements of Nemesis' motion relative to the stars, and Rotor is too unsteady a base for those measurements. Erythro will do much better.'
'Is this project of hers a recent one?'
'No, Uncle Siever. She's been trying to get the necessary data for a long time, she told me.'
'Then why didn't your mother ask to come here a long time ago?'
'She did, but Commissioner Pitt refused.'
'Why did he agree now?'
'Because he wanted to get rid of her.'
'I'm sure of that - if she kept bothering him with her astronomical problems. But he must have been tired of her a long time ago. Why does he send her now?'
Marlene's voice was low. 'He wanted to get rid of me.'