Ross nodded. "He’s a nuller now—lives in null grav up near the Spin Axis. He can go down into the low grav of the Kanddoyds for a certain amount of time a day, to work. If you can adjust to that kind of life, you can extend your years almost indefinitely, I understand." He glanced at the communications status light, and then looked up, his dark eyes expressionless. "It probably isn’t going to work, trying to supercede the system, but it was worth a try—"
A blinking light suddenly went green, and a message flashed across his console.
Ross looked slightly surprised. "You are in luck. The administrator will see you right now, himself, if you care to go along to his office in the Trade Administration building."
Rael and Jellico got to their feet. "Thank you," the captain said.
"Do make certain that all your data is correct, though," Ross cautioned. "Flindyk is known to all three races as being scrupulously careful, a by-the-book administrator, favoring no one or no race over strict adherence to the Concord."
"Which probably explains why he has been successful for so long," Rael said with a smile. "Thank you, sir."
Rael led the way out, and they found the maglev that led to the Trade Administration building.
This building made the most of its lack of weather; it was open to the habitat, with spectacularly elaborate gardens on complicated terracing. The offices were mostly hidden behind flowering shrubs with exotic, delicate fronds that had never known lashing wind or punishing temperature changes.
Rael had been here before, had been happy to wander about as Teague executed his business. Now they were met by a Kanddoyd functionary who spoke Trade perfectly, and who complimented them each several times before finally asking their business.
Rael answered as best she could, inwardly hiding her growing
amusement at Jellico’s impatience. Not that he showed it, but she was sensitive to his moods, and felt him watching the time as the Kanddoyd led them along this garden path and that one—only to be introduced not to Flindyk but to yet another functionary, this one even more elaborate in carapace decoration (and wordage) than the last.
Finally, though, they were taken to a larger building at the back which had mosaic-lined corridors and offices at intervals along them. Flindyk’s suite was an exceptionally large one, as would be expected for an executive.
The official took them directly to a door cleverly hidden in a fabulous mosaic. Inside was a room that looked more like a garden than an office. Many of the appurtenances were gold, and everything was screened by delicate ferns that had been nurtured in null grav and grew in fabulous patterns.
Rael gained a hasty impression of all this artistic beauty, but what drew her attention and kept it was the large holofract of Terra spinning slowly in the middle of the room. All the plants and furnishings were planned around the vast fractal image, evolving slowly to a logic of its own in mimicry of a distant planet that Flindyk would never see again.
Rael moved closer, admiring the loving detail that highlighted each familiar mountain range and body of water. There were even white spirals moving gently across each hemisphere, realistic weather patterns that made Rael feel a sudden, intense longing to go home.
"Beautiful, is it not?" a mellow voice said.
Rael turned, feeling heat burn up her neck.
Behind a truly splendid console-desk was the biggest Kanddoyd she had ever seen in her life. For a moment she stared at the elaborately beautiful carapace of fine amber-colored wood, gilded and jeweled, covering a body of gigantic proportions. Her gaze traveled up to a round, smiling face and she felt unsettled for a moment, as if her eyes couldn’t decide if this was a Kanddoyd wearing a disturbingly real human face mask, or a human encased in a Kanddoyd carapace. This, then, was Flindyk, the human who was several hundred years old.
"We appreciate your seeing us right away," Captain Jellico was saying.
"He probably told you we are on a tight schedule and want to expedite this business as fast as we can."
"Ah yes," Flindyk said, his hands touching the fine console inset into his desk. The keytabs were extremely costly porcelain, gold-painted. From the faceting on the status lights, Rael strongly suspected that these latter were jewels.
"You are captain of the Solar Queen, and you seem to have attached a derelict? The. Starvenger!
"Snapped out of hyper and sucked her into our wake," Jellico said.
"Well, if you provide proper data, including your visual records and copies of your log, we will compare this with the records from Trade Central, and see if we can get your business moving along briskly," Flindyk said. His hands tapped lightly at his keys, then he sat back and waited. A moment later a spool extruded from a slot. "Here you go," he said, smiling. "Just have your communications officer append the data requested on here, bring it back to the prime facilitator, Koytatik, whose function this comes under, and you’ll soon be on your way."
"Thanks," Jellico said. "We really appreciate the help."
"For my fellow humans it is a pleasure to extend the extra effort," Flindyk said genially. One hand waved gracefully at the holo of Terra spinning in the center of the office. "Though I have been happy enough here, I do miss the old world, and I envy you who can go back."
Rael felt a pang of sympathy for the man; she realized that at his age, and size, he could never risk being in normal gravity again. A visit to Terra would kill him.
"If there’s anything else I can do for you, anything at all, you know the way to my office," Flindyk said cheerily.
They both thanked him and departed, Jellico tucking the spool into his tunic pocket.
"I think our luck has finally turned," he said, smiling.
6
Dane Thorson drew a deep breath, and fought the urge to grip the table with both hands. Most of the time he was fine—kept his visual orientation balanced with his inner ear—but if he turned too quickly, or got absorbed in watching the gyrations of the Kanddoyds, without warning he’d lose his sense of down and up, and see himself floating upside down in a revolving canister.
One breath, two. He looked up, saw an expression of sympathy on his chief’s face. "Drink," Van Ryke said.
Obediently Thorson sipped at the straw that had extruded from the bubble of nilak, the Kanddoyd version of coffee. He tightened his stomach muscles, determined to conquer what he derided as physical weakness. A Free Trader—particularly a cargo master—ought to be able to adjust to any environment, he told himself.
As if reading his mind, Van Ryke said, "I have lost count of the number of planets I’ve visited, but of them very few rate as repellent to natural human instinct as one of these cylomes."
"It’s inside out," Dane muttered. "I tell myself this is the best design for a habitat, but my guts know that down is out, with vacuum underfoot, and the horizon doesn’t curve out of sight, as it decently should—instead it curves up and over. Then." He glanced at a quartet of Kanddoyds passing nearby, and clamped his jaw shut.
He would not speak a criticism of the indigenous population, even in Terran, which apparently few of the other races understood. It wasn’t the way of a Trader. But still, it made a person dizzy to watch the way the beings zigzagged back and forth across each other’s path, constantly buzzing and humming and chirping and clicking. The tapes hadn’t even remotely made him ready for that; he’d stupidly gotten the idea that they would speak Trade, and augment what they said with one discrete noise of emotional amplification at a time. The reality was, they never stopped making noises, so many it was difficult to distinguish what kind of noise, much less the patterns. He thought grumpily, And this is only what they do in my sonic range.