"Right." Rynstadt cleared his throat. "Clear."
The mojos reacted a bit more calmly this time around; and their responses eased even further for York and Joshua. Clearly, they'd picked up rather quickly on the fact that hostilities were not being initiated. Just as clearly, they weren't taking chances, either.
"Thank you," Moff said when all four lasers were in the airlock. He raised both hands over his head, and Cerenkov's peripheral vision caught movement at the edge of the colorful city. A large vehicle was approaching, an open car type of thing with two Qasamans in it. Both figures had bulging left shoulders; Cerenkov didn't have to see any more clearly to know the lumps would turn out to be mojos. "Mayor Kimmeron is waiting to meet you," Moff continued. "We'll be taken to his chambers now."
"Thank you," Cerenkov managed. "We're looking forward to meeting him."
He took a deep breath and tried not to stare at the mojos.
There were cultures in the Dominion of Man, Justin knew from his studies, that went in heavily for artistic expression on their buildings, and his first thought had been that the Qasamans were a branch of such a society. But as the contact team was driven slowly through the streets, he gradually began to question that assumption. There were no murals anywhere that he could see, nor were there any recognizable human or animal drawings, either realistic or stylized. The splashes of color seemed to have been thrown up more or less randomly, though in ways the Cobra found aesthetically pleasing enough. He wondered if Nnamdi would be able to find anything significant in the whole thing.
Cerenkov cleared his throat, and it was quickly obvious the contact leader had other things than the Qasamans' artistry on his mind. "Looks like a lot of your people have mojos with them," he commented. "Mojos and guns. Are conditions in
Sollas that dangerous?"
"The weapons aren't often used, but when they are it's a matter of survival,"
Moff told him.
"I would think the mojos would be enough protection," York put in.
"From some things, yes, but not from everything. Perhaps while you're here you'll have the chance to see a bololin herd or even a hunting krisjaw enter the city."
"Well, if that happens, don't forget we're unarmed," Cerenkov said. "Unless you plan to issue us weapons and mojos later on."
It was clear from his tone he wasn't exactly thrilled by that option, but Moff laid any such fears to rest. "As strangers I don't think the mayor would allow you to carry weapons," he said. "And the mojos seem too uncomfortable in your presence to serve as your protectors."
"Um," Cerenkov said and fell silent. Justin shifted his attention from the buildings to the people walking along the sidewalks. Sure enough, all of them had the ubiquitous mojos on their shoulders. A light breeze came up, ruffling human hair and mojo feathers and whistling gently in his ears. Odd, he thought, to be able to hear the wind but not to feel it.
Somehow, on a gut level, that seemed stranger even than the fact that he was possibly the first man in history to be almost literally walking in his brother's shoes.
From somewhere behind him a new voice spoke up. "Is that just an excuse?" Pyre asked.
"I don't think so," Telek's voice replied. "The nearest mojos do look a bit more nervous than those further away. I'd guess it has to do with the fact that we smell slightly different than the Qasamans."
Pyre grunted. "Genetic drift?"
"More likely dietary differences. Something, Hersh?"
"I think I've got their departure time bracketed," Nnamdi said. "The Agra
Dynasty was the government that ruled Reginine from central Asia on Earth. It began in 2097 and ended when the Dominion of Man formally took over in 2180."
"What about the, uh, the Lords of Rajan Putra?" Telek asked.
"We'll have to check the full history records back on Aventine for that. But I know there was a major migration from Reginine when it was opened to general colonization, and I think the ‚migr‚es founded the world Rajput."
"Hmmm. Ethnic separatists, basically?"
"No idea. My guess, though, is that the Qasamans were either one ship of that group or a separate emigration, in either case overshooting their target rather badly."
"Badly and a half," Telek snorted. "Where were the Trofts while they were wandering through Assemblage territory?"
"Probably never saw them coming," Christopher spoke up. "Really. The Dominion's early stardrives were nasty unstable things, and when they went supercritical they hit about ten times the speed we can get nowadays."
"Sounds rather handy, actually," Pyre said.
"Only if you didn't need to stop," Christopher said dryly. "Coming out of hyperspace in that condition would fry the drive and most other electronics on the ship. There are literally dozens of colony ships-colony ships, mind you, not just probes or scouts-that are listed as simply having disappeared. I guess
Qasama was one of the lucky ones."
"Or else they were the unlucky ones who were kidnapped and brought here," Nnamdi put in. "You'll recall we haven't scrapped that possibility yet."
"We'll keep it in mind if we see any sign of another race," Telek assured him.
"But it's hard to imagine slaves being allowed to carry guns."
Via the direct feed from Joshua's implanted optical sensors to his own, Justin saw that the car carrying the contact team had turned onto one of the broad streets they'd noted from orbit, and he waited for Cerenkov to ask about it. But the contact leader had apparently decided to hold off pumping the Qasamans for more information, at least for the moment. Probably just as well, Justin thought, since the lull enabled him to continue splitting his attention between the cityscape and the conversation in the lounge around him.
"Any indication in the translator program as to what bololins or krisjaws are?"
Pyre asked.
Justin could almost see Telek's shrug. "Local fauna, I gather," she said.
"Obviously pretty nasty-those guns of theirs don't look like target pistols."
"Agreed. So why didn't they put up a wall around the city, like they did around the villages?"
There was a short pause. "No idea. Hersh?"
"Maybe the village walls aren't there to keep the animals out," he suggested, not sounding particularly convinced. "Maybe both species fly or jump too high for walls to be effective."
"So why do the villages have them?" Pyre persisted.
"I don't know," Nnamdi snapped.
"All right, take it easy," Telek put in. "Finding out all of these things is
Yuri's job. Let's just relax and leave it to him, okay?"
There was another pause. Back in Sollas Joshua turned his head to follow the passage of a particularly attractive woman. Justin admired the view himself, wondering whether it was her appearance or the fact that her mojo rode her right shoulder which had caught his brother's attention. He tried to see if her pistol was also strapped to the opposite side, but Joshua turned back to face forward before he could do so. Left-handed? he speculated, making a mental note to watch for others.
From the other reality Christopher spoke up. "Hersh, have you got anything like a population estimate for Qasama yet? Given that they're human, I mean, and that human personal space requirements are pretty well known."
"Oh, I'd guess somewhere between fifty and three hundred million," Nnamdi said.
"That requires them to have bred like hamsters over the past three centuries, but you can get rates that high on new worlds. Why?"
"Would it be likely that you could keep track of that many people on a single-name basis?"
"Like Moff, for instance? Not hardly. Especially since they originally came from a multi-name background."
"Which means Moff wasn't giving his full name," Christopher said. "Which means in turn that the mojos aren't the only ones that are nervous about us."
"Yeah," Nnamdi said heavily. "Well... suspicion toward strangers is part of the heritage of lots of human cultures."