Then she found out what it was that the director of the observatory was bringing her.
Castor did not mind being left to loaf in the sun. After all, he was inside the grounds of the observatory, where for so long he had so longed to be. Where he had, almost, a right to be, he thought with a sudden thrill of joyful realization and pulled out his university student ID. He showed it to the guards and wheedled nicely in the high tongue. "As I am a student of space science," he pleaded, "I have a natural right to be received at space installations."
The guards looked at each other, then the NCO grinned. "Not inside the building, Yankee student," he instructed. "However, you may walk around the parking lot if you wish."
"That's fine," cried Castor, beaming. He construed "parking lot" to mean the planted area that surrounded it—everything up to the chain link fence that cut off the nearest of the great pale radio-telescope dishes. Altogether well over a hectare. Plenty to explore! He made a beeline for the marching line of RT dishes, almost pressing his nose against the fence. How huge and handsome the telescope was! He could see the parabolic shell that caught the radio waves, the little helium-cooled nut in the middle that trapped them and converted them into signals that could be read. It was magnificent!
Then he returned to the observatory building itself, skulking along its walls, peering into windows. Most were disappointing because blocked—instruments, drapes, stored cartons, whatever. But now and then a glimpse of a shadowy room, even of a couple of Han observatory workers running up data on a bank of screens. Some day, he promised himself, he would be in one of those rooms! They would have to let him in if he completed the university courses—into the observatory, at least. Into the actual space program—if ever there really was an actual space program again—well, not so likely. It was true that the all-China space authorities seemed to be picking up a little speed under the spur of the unknown spacecraft, but if ever there were manned crews again, the Sinonauts would not be Yankee Americans. They would be Sino...
"Castor! Pettyman Castor!"
The voice was Delilah's, but the tone was one he had never heard from her before. Castor turned quickly. He was astonished that Delilah had come back out so soon. Not only soon, but rapidly; she was hurrying, almost trotting, to the car. Not only hurrying, but carrying a flat black metal box. And, in spite of what she had said, she did not let Castor carry it. When the boy reached for it she jerked it furiously out of his hand. "In the car, Pettyman," she snapped. "Move! We must get back to New Orleans at once!"
At once meant at once—not merely quickly, but as near to instantaneously as the car could be made to move. Speed was her only concern. Safety did not seem to matter at all. All the way down the coastal highway she drove at top speed, the blinking Renmin lights atop the car ordering people out of the way, the wheet-wheep of the siren commanding compliance.
All the way back, Delilah did not speak a word.
When they got into the heart of the old city Delilah slowed. Not much. Just enough to let civilians scurry out of her path. She spoke briefly into the car radio, and in a minute two other Renmin police vehicles appeared, leading the way for their inspector. But the way was not to her own apartment building. Castor was astonished to see her take the turnings that would bring her to Many-face's home and even more astonished when they reached the block the house was on. It was filled with cars. The curbs were crammed with limousines with official license plates—and with other vehicles so big and new that they didn't need to display official plates to show that they belonged to people of power. Half the power of New Orleans seemed to have parked its cars outside Many-face's home that night. Police. Renmin officials. University leaders.
"What is going on?" he demanded, staring around.
"It should not tax your intelligence, student, to deduce that for yourself," Delilah said as she pulled in to park. But though the words were her hard-edged standard, the tone was not. Castor was astonished to see that she looked upset. No, it had not taxed his intelligence to figure out that something worrisome had come in that box from the observatory; nor to realize, from the assemblage of cars, that the high party official Fung Bohsien was entertaining a leadership and cadre group summoned to discuss it. All that had been quite obvious all along. But to see that Delilah's face was drawn and her Up was being nibbled by her teeth—Tsoong Delilah, the tough-minded police inspector!—that was a surprise!
And she went on surprising him. Castor started to get out of the car. Before he had his feet on the ground he heard the door on her side slam. Before he had closed his door behind him, she was already up the steps of the walk, thumping impatiently on the knocker of Manyface's door. The box was clutched firmly under an arm, and as Castor hurried to catch up with her she gave him a frosty glare. "You will go to your room," she ordered. "There is to be a private meeting, which you may not attend. Do you understand?"
He said, "Yes, Delilah, I understand quite well. Delilah? As I am not inside to answer the door and Manyface never does, there is no use standing here. Push it open and we'll go inside."
It was a petty victory. There was no joy in it, either, because Delilah had not responded with that faint pulse of indignation that greeted most of his jokes at her expense. She was past that point, Castor realized. Which meant that whatever it was that had upset her, it was not likely to be trivial.
Castor followed instructions at least up to a point. He did go to his room. There he turned on his screen, hunted for news of something from space, found none. When he interrogated the data files they informed him only that electromagnetic emissions had been detected. What the emissions were was not stated—they could have been radar, they could have been automatic IFF pulses, or leakage from some telemetering systems—or a message. The news channels said no more. Even the interactive ones, where it was possible to search for key terms in the headlines and then to summon up uncut reports on any aspect of the story—even they had nothing to say that clarified Castor's mind. He left the screen set to continue the search, sat on the edge of his bed, gazed out the window at the chimney-pot skyline of the French Quarter, and pondered.
The Han Chinese did not bother to keep secrets, as a general rule.
If there was a secret, it had to be in some way political.
What could be political about a spacecraft in orbit?
Castor stepped to the door of his room and opened it. Manyface's house was nearly two hundred years old, built on the lavish scale of Louisiana gentry at the beginning of the twentieth century; the corridors were wide, the stairway broad, the ceilings high. Unfortunately the doors were also solid. Castor could hear a confusion of voices from the drawing room where Manyface and his guests were discussing—whatever it was they were discussing. But to pick out any individual words at this distance was hopeless. He drew back into his room as a pair of grim-faced young men, later arrivals to the meeting, pushed in the front door and entered the sitting room.
If he was to go down the stairs and listen at the door, he realized, some other latecomer might catch him at it.
Well, why not? What harm could that do? He lived in the house; it was his right to move about it!
Having convinced himself, he slipped silently down the stairs and pressed close to the regrettably thick door. It wasn't soundproof, quite. Voices came through. They were all talking in the high tongue, which was not a problem; the problem was that they seemed all to be talking at once. Most of the voices were strangers to him, but he recognized Manyface's treble and Delilah's deferential, but agitated, contralto.
He could not make out a single word of what they said. He pressed his ear to the crack—and heard, a moment too late, the opening of the unlocked front door. He straightened up quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid criticism. "Yankee!" shrilled a female voice—it belonged to a wrinkled old woman in Home blue. "What are you doing there? Go away at once!"