Anna’s eyes blazed at him. “Doubt isn’t good enough. We are booked out on the Vulpetti next week and have a place on tomorrow’s shuttle. As the local servop, your job is to help me find her so we don’t delay the starship!”
She had him there. Unlike most humans here, he was not a researcher—at least not officially. That would have put his subjects on guard, and since human Ph.D’s tend to resent anything that smelled of surveillance every bit as much as Uthers, he kept his activities very quiet. But to maintain this cover, he had to provide the services his tide promised.
“Very well, Anna. I’ll go find her and talk to her.”
“I want that on record.”
Now, Greg thought, we really roll the die. “Reactivate 45832. Penelope?”
A section of milky white chitinous wall suddenly appeared to become transparent, revealing a nook decorated in a classical Greek mode, with a vase, a rack of scrolls, a simple but elegant painted table and a chair fit more for a queen than a receptionist. A classical beauty with auburn hair piled high and held by jeweled combs, walked into this frame wearing an authentic-looking Mycenaean era gown and sat down at a brightly painted wooden desk. “Yes, master?” a prim female voice answered.
“I’ll be out this afternoon, at the Geecee roost on the mainland, looking for Kanti Wolf at the request of her mother. Mind the office.”
“Of course. Your wings are ready on the balcony, sir.”
Anna took one look at “Penelope,” gave Greg a tight-lipped smile that was not exactly one of approval, and headed out of the office for the balcony and the elevator. “I don’t think I’m going to keep your hologram company. Call me when and if you locate Kanti, Mr. Konstantis,” she said. “My final performance on Tir fo Thuinn is tonight, and I would like to give it with some peace of mind.”
Greg smiled. “No doubt. Penelope, Ms. Wolf will need a lift up to the heliport.”
“The elevator is waiting. Have a good journey, ma’am.” The humans had been permitted to place elevators outside their floor that took them up through the two balconies remaining between their level and the roof. Otherwise, the only way out of these old towers was to fly from a balcony.
“Good-bye, Anna,” Greg said to the closing elevator door.
When Anna was gone, the woman at the desk sprang up and pulled off her wig to reveal a short utilitarian mop of jet black. She set it on the desk, walked around the now-trans-parent divider into the office proper and laughed. “Whew! She never suspected!”
Greg shook his head with a bemused grin. “Not for a moment, Kanti. People see what they expect to see.” He felt a twinge of guilt at the charade, but a cybernetic “servant” could not participate in the deliberate deception of Anna Wolf, and she was the last human on Epona who could be told anything confidential. Fortunately, the computer “off” switch was an inviolable human right, as much as any were truly inviolable, and Anna would now spread the cover story as if it were the truth.
“Is Bach waiting?” Another smile—the Uther’s name was the first example of a human-Uther pun that Greg could think of; its parent had chosen the name to recall the composer.
“It’s B A C G#’s idea.” Kanti sang the H at the end of the Eponan’s name as G#—the old German would have used “H” for B-natural, and B-flat for B, but nowadays “B” as B was too ingrained. So, in their effort to transliterate Uther names, Epona’s humans assigned H to the note between G and A.
“Let’s go!” Kanti said. She dashed for the balcony, all queenly reserve vanished.
“Wait!” Greg almost shouted.
She spun around and looked confused.
“First, that Penelope get-up isn’t for flying through the jungle. Second, your mother is still on the heliport. So just hold it a minute, OK?” Greg opened the panel covering the field equipment shelves, handed Kanti her bag and took out his own equipment.
“Yeah, thanks.” She peeled a couple of cheek patches from her face and wiped off her make up, revealing a thinner, tan face that spoke of many hours in the air.
The girl was impulsive, even by Uther standards. But for now, she was the key to Bach and Bach was the key to understanding what the Uther were planning. “Nose around the Uther,” Knute had told him. “Something more than the usual demands seems to be going down.”
Easier said than done—but a Fay Feedyflat-gee recruiter had been to Fingal’s cave. Bach was at the age when adolescent Uthers left their nesting grounds “on fugue” for such adventures. But Bach had told his human friend, who had told her flying instructor, who happened to be Greg.
He hadn’t known Kanti that well, but the opportunity had been too good to pass up. Would she mind taking some risks? Would Bach cooperate? She’d jumped at the chance to do something exciting—if anything, she’d been too eager.
She was aesthetically beautiful, but Greg had long ago decided that his reproductive drive was a nuisance and opted for some minor genetic retro-engineering. Kanti s occasional attempts to flirt were amusing, but, unlike Anna’s heavy-handed come-ons, not an irritation. Still, he told himself, he should have a talk with her before feelings got hurt. But the last few days had been very busy.
A whir of helicopter wings came on the hour, which told Greg the copter was human and Al-controlled. Human copters whirred—they used superconducting electric motors powered by nanomolecular spin batteries, while the Uther copters screeched; they used rotor tip jets—peroxide-hydrocarbon versions of the ancient Hero steam engine. Lower gravity and plentiful hydrogen peroxide content allowed them to do things that had taken humanity much longer.
“OK, her helicopter’s here. Get your wings on while I leave a message for Knute.”
Security was paramount. Spying on people was bad enough, but spying on Uther could get them kicked off the planet. They were guests here, not gods. Greg wrote his note long-hand, took a digital picture of it, then put the bits through a scramble routine that pseudo-randomized them and hid them as sidebands in an audio recording. The recordings were of Uthers singing Bach—somewhat off pitch by human standards because of how the Uthers’ vocal apparatus worked, but still quite recognizable. Greg stored the doctored audio on a data wand and stuck it in a reader.
Kanti changed while he did this and the next time he looked at her, she’d donned a loose green jumpsuit with an airy weave of near-indestructible fibers.
Greg grabbed a three-day kit from the shelf for himself and tossed one to her.
She snatched the half-meter long sausage-shaped bag in midair and wrapped it around her waist.
Greg did likewise. His tropical office shirt and dark trousers were actually a fully field-capable one-piece coverall—being ready to go quickly was part of his job. He exchanged his sandals for field boots, activating the tongue seal just as they heard the helicopter depart.
“She’s off. You’ll need to leave first, then I’ll turn the real Penelope on again, send the recording to Knute, and follow you.”
“Got it. See you at Fingal’s cave.” Kanti gave Greg a quick peck on the cheek and scampered out on the balcony to strap on her gear.
With Greg watching for mistakes, still the instructor, she opened the wing closet—a tall compartment on the balcony between the elevator tube and the outer office wall. Her folded wings were two meters long, half a meter wide, and formed a package about two centimeters thick. Deployed, they would measure almost nine meters, tip to tip. They weighed less than two kilograms and shimmered like dragonfly wings in the noon sun. She plugged their stubby cylindrical roots into the back unit, in five-centimeter holes a half meter below her shoulders. As soon as she did so, they rotated to a vertical folded position. Then she climbed onto the balcony rail.