Sarah Pipelini—“Is this anybody real?” she had asked.
“Well, several real persons have found it convenient to be her for a while,” he replied. “She’s got the standard entries, in official records, birth, education, residence, employment, et cetera, plus occasional changes to stay plausible. I’ve a number of identities available. Sarah’s is the easiest to suit you to. Besides, creating her was fun.”
“I’m no good at playacting,” Banner said nervously. “It’s too short notice even to learn what her past life is supposed to have been.”
“No need. Simply memorize what’s in the passport. Stay close to me and don’t speak unless spoken to. No harm if you register excitement; that’s natural, when you’re off on a trip to far-off, exotic Hermes. It’ll also be natural for you to clutch my arm and give me intermittent adoring glances, if you can bring yourself to that.”
“You mean—?”
“Why, I thought it was obvious. We have to get you aboard. Besides the regular Naval clearance procedures, Cairncross will doubtless have agents unobtrusively watching. No surprise if I bring a lady along to help pass the time of voyage. In fact, that will reinforce the impression—together with just Chives coming otherwise—that I am indeed going where I’m supposed to. If I brought any of my staff, then his Grace might well demand that men of his be included. As is, I’ve already filed our list, the three of us, you described as a ‘friend.’ Cairncross may snigger when he reads it, but he should believe.” Flandry’s tone grew serious. “Of course, this is strictly a ruse. Have no fears.”
When he applied the deceptive materials, her face had burned beneath his fingers.
Now she showered the sweat of tension off her. For a moment she regarded her rangy form in the mirror and considered putting the glamorous gown on again. But once more she flushed, and chose the plainest coverall she had packed. She did brush her hair till it shone and let it flow free under a headband of lovely weave.
Emerging, she found the saloon where Flandry had said they would meet, and drew a quick breath. She had often seen open space, through a faceplate as well as a viewscreen. Yet somehow, at this instant, those star-fires crowding yonder clear blackness, that icy sweep of the galaxy, and Terra already a blue jewel falling away into depths beyond depths—reached in and seized her.
Music drew her back. A lilt of horns, flutes, violins … Mozart? Flandry entered. He too had changed clothes, his uniform for an open-necked bouffalon shirt, bell-bottomed slacks, curly-toed slippers. Is he being casual on my account? she wondered. If so, he still can’t help being elegant. The way he bears his head, and the light makes its gray come alive—
“How’re you doing?” he greeted. “Relaxed, I trust? You may as well be. We’ve a good two weeks’ travel before us.” He grinned. “At least, I hope we can make them good.”
“Won’t we have work to do?” she inquired hastily.
“Oh, the ship conns herself en route, and handles other routine like housekeeping. Chives handles the meals, which, believe me, will not be routine. He promises lunch in an hour.” Flandry gestured at a table of dark-red wood—actual mahogany? Banner had seen literary references to mahogany. “Let’s have an aperitif meanwhile.”
“But, but you admitted you know almost nothing about Ramnu. I’m sure you’ve loaded the data banks with information on it, but won’t you need a lot of that in your mind, also?”
He guided her by the elbow to a padded bench that curved around three sides of the table. Above it, on a bulkhead that shimmered slightly iridescent, was screened a picture she recognized: snowscape, three trudging peasants, a row of primitive houses, winter-bare trees, a mountain, all matching the grace of the music. Hiroshige had wrought it, twelve hundred years ago.
“Please sit,” he urged. They did. “My dear,” he continued, “of course I’ll have to work. We both will. But I’m a quick study; and what’s the use of laying elaborate plans when most of the facts are unknown? We’ll do best to enjoy yourselves while we can. For openers, you need a day off to learn, down in your bones, that for the nonce you’re safe.” Chives appeared. “What will you drink? Since I understand a seafood salad is in preparation, I’d recommend a dry white wine.”
“Specifically, sir, the Chateau Huon ’58,” said the Shalmuan.
Flandry raised his brows. “A pinot noir blanc?”
“The salad will be based upon Unan Besarian skimmerfish, sir.”
Flandry stroked his mustache. “I see. Then when we eat, we’ll probably want—oh, never mind, you’ll pick the bottle anyway. Very good, Chives.”
The servant left, waving his tail. Banner sighed. “Where can you possibly find time for gourmandizing, Admiral?” she asked.
“Why, isn’t that the purpose of self-abnegation, to gain the means of self-indulgence?” Flandry chuckled. “I’d prefer to be a decadent aristocrat, but wasn’t born to it; I’ve had to earn my decadence.”
“I can’t believe that,” she challenged.
“Well, at any rate, frankly, you strike me as being too earnest. Your father knew how to savor the cosmos, in his gusty fashion. So did your mother, in her quieter way, and I daresay she does yet. Why not you?”
“Oh, I do. It’s simply that—” Banner stared past him, into brilliance and darkness. She wasn’t given to revealing herself, especially on acquaintance as brief as this. However, Flandry was an old family friend, and they’d be together in running between the claws of death, and—and—
“I never had a chance to learn much about conventional pleasures,” she explained with difficulty. “Navy brat, you know, shunted from planet to planet, educated mostly by machines. Then the Academy; I had an idea of enlisting in Dad’s corps—yours—and a xenological background would help. But I got into the science entirely, instead, and left for Ramnu, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.” She met his eyes. They were kindly. “I wouldn’t want it any different, either,” she said. “I have the great good fortune to love what I do … and those I do it with, the Ramnuans themselves.”
He nodded. “I can see how it would make you its own. Nothing less than total dedication will serve, will it? On a world so strange.” His vision likewise sought the deeps outside. “Gods of mystery,” he whispered, “it wasn’t supposed to be possible, was it? A planet like that. Yes, I do have a brain-scorching lot of homework ahead of me. To start off, I don’t even know how Ramnu is supposed to have happened.”
Originally a dwarf sun had a superjovian attendant, a globe of some 3000 Terrestrial masses. Such a monster was, inevitably, of starlike composition, mainly hydrogen, with a small percentage of helium, other elements a mere dash of impurities.
Indeed, it must have been more nearly comparable to a star than to, say, Jupiter. The latter is primarily liquid, beneath a vast atmosphere; a slag of light metal compounds does float about in continent-sized pieces, but most solid material is at the core (if it can be called solid, under that pressure). The slow downdrift of matter, drawn by the gravity of the stupendous mass, releases energy; Jupiter radiates about twice what it receives from Sol, making the surface warm.
Increase the size by a factor of 10, and everything changes. The body glows red; it is liquid, or fiercely compressed gas, throughout, save that the heavy elements which have sunken to the center are squeezed into quantum degeneracy, rigid beyond any stuff we will ever hold in our hands. At the same time, because its gravitational grip upon itself is immense, a globe like this can form, and can survive, rather close to an ordinary sun. Energy input from light and solar wind is insufficient to blow molecules away from it.