That wasn't Hilda's worry. She had done everything she was supposed to do on the orbiter-had prevented any of the others from pocketing any odd little bits of alien technology, had kept a sharp eye for dirty tricks. She had done her job, and now all she wanted was a bath and some clean clothes and a fast plane back to Arlington… but Marcus Pell turned out to have other ideas for her.
The deputy director's plane had deposited him and fifteen others on Kourou's landing strip before the LuftBuran touched down. It seemed to Hilda that he had brought enough manpower with him to do everything that still needed to be done, but Pell didn't agree. "You're one of our best agents, Hilda," he told her benignly. "You've had a chance to get to know some of these people. You can talk to them. So talk. Circulate. Find out whatever you can. Leave the bargaining to us. Rest? You can rest later." He paused, his nose wrinkling. "You'd better clean your teeth first, though."
^^o Brigadier Morrisey did clean her
teeth-again; and rinsed her mouth four or five more times, too, until she was certain that her breath no longer showed any trace of her unfortunate spacesickness. Then she bathed the rest of her as well.
That, however, she was not able to do in the little room the base housing officer had assigned her during training, because that was now occupied by a pair of high-ranking diplomats from Sierra Leone. At that point Merla Tepp earned her pay. She had made friends among members of the spaceport's permanent party while her brigadier was away and had been able to borrow a key to their barracks. Which had showers.
Cleaner, "So where do I sleep?" Hilda asked her aide, putting on a little of Tepp's makeup before a mirror in the washroom.
Tepp seemed preoccupied with something. "Sleep?" she repeated. "Oh, sleep. On the deputy directors plane. I've staked out a couch in the lounge for you; I'll have to sleep on the floor right next to it, if you don't mind." No surprise there. Kourou had run out of facilities for the influx. Now the LuftBuran's longest landing strip, having served its main purpose when the spacecraft came down, was packed nose to tail with aircraft that had been kept on as emergency housing. The Argentinians were the best off, Tepp explained. They didn't need an aircraft to sleep in. They had the luxury of a battle cruiser steaming in circles offshore, with their people helicoptering back and forth. Other countries had ships on their way to join the bedroom fleet. Some of the more important newcomers had rooms or even suites in the hotels of the old town of Kourou itself, a few kilometers down the coast. They commuted. Most of the influx were less fortunate. They were doubling and tripling up in rooms that didn't have air-conditioning against the steamy equatorial heat, and might not even have windows, because they hadn't ever been intended for sleeping in the first place.
It was nearly dark now, the Sun gone over the hills to the west with a sliver of a Moon following its descent. Out over the ocean there were quick illuminations of lightning, though too far away for the thunder to be heard. Over the spaceport itself there were patches of stars. They were obscured by the lights beating down on the little mounds of goods removed from the lander, but Hilda made out the familiar outline of Orion, queerly lying on his side because of their latitude. There was a constant bzzt-bzzt of insects frying themselves on the electrified mesh over the lights. Even so, people were slapping at bugs on their necks and arms.
That didn't stop any of them from doing what they were here to do. The bickering was intense and Marcus Pell was in the thick of it, backing up the President's personal representative. Starlab was American property, the President's man was announcing, and so everything on it was American property as well. Nonsense, said everyone else. The goods were treasure trove, belonging to whoever found them and, besides, the United Nations had declared them the common property of all.
Of course, there was no real chance that the lander's cargo was going to be delivered to the UN Building. It would be divided among the world's powers. The bickering here was over how many pieces it would be divided into, and who would get the pieces. Hilda eavesdropped on a group of Germans and Poles arguing about whether the Slavic countries of Europe were entitled to any consideration at all, but really ought to consider themselves part of Eurospace-"We have had enough experience of being part of your space," one of the Poles was saying in German rudimentary enough for Hilda to follow. A few minutes later some Australians and New Zealanders were complaining that the damn Pommies still thought they were a major power, for God's sake. She wandered past the Canadian delegation, speaking urgently among themselves until they caught a glimpse of her uniform. Then they became freezingly silent-still no doubt pissed off because their country hadn't got anything out of letting the U.S. use their landing strip in the first place.
Then she caught a glimpse of Merla Tepp, standing by herself and gazing somberly at something Hilda couldn't quite see. When she got closer she saw that it was the Doc, placidly silent and still wearing his incongruous, metallic old-lady head shawl, with another like it held in one of its lesser arms-stolid and stunned, brother to the ox, some old words came to Hilda's mind. If the Doc was at all aware of the ferocious arguments going on all around, he gave no sign.
Tepp held half a sandwich in one hand, and that reminded Hilda that her recently emptied stomach was ready for refilling. "Where'd you get it, Tepp?" she demanded.
Tepp blinked at her, then came back to alertness. "There's a chow line giving them out, ma'am, but it's only this kind of thing. You're entitled to get a decent meal in the deputy director's aircraft."
"I don't want a decent meal. I want one of those. Where's this chow line?"
"Right outside the general mess. But you've got to queue up."
For a moment Hilda considered requisitioning Tepps's remaining half sandwich away from her, but decided against it-not out of any particular consideration for Tepp, but because a chow line was as good a place as any to listen in on talk.
The trouble with doing that was that some of the people at the end of the line were talking to each other in Japanese, others in what seemed to be Pakistani. Hilda wished for the presence of that ugly, but gifted, little turkey, Dopey, as a translator, then caught sight of Jimmy Lin and his two minders coming along to join the line. "Here!" she called, waving. "I've saved you a place!"
That got them all dirty looks from the Pakistanis just behind her, but they didn't push it any farther than that. The minders paid no attention, since there was an irritated-sounding discussion going on between them-in Chinese. They weren't paying much attention to their charge, either, and, after one searching glance, none at all to Hilda Morrisey.
Low-voiced and with one eye on the minders, Hilda asked Lin cordially, "How's it going?"
Lin looked weary and tired. "How would I know? All I know is I want to go home."
"You'll feel better after you get something to eat."
"Eat this slop? Christ, Morrisey, I used to feed my gardener better than this. We were supposed to have our own meals on a submarine, and sleep there, too, but the damn thing never showed up."
That was interesting. "What submarine are you talking about?" she asked, keeping her voice idly conversational.
But that was more than the minders were willing to put up with.
One of them broke off their discussion to say something sharp to Lin, who hung his head. "He says I shouldn't be talking to you, so leave me alone," he told Hilda; and that was die end of conversation on the chow line.