“We-e-ll.” Brewster stared at his assistant, seeking a reason to say no but not finding one. “Are you sure of that? You won’t interfere with me?”
“Absolutely not, sir. And this won’t interfere with my work day, either, because I’ll do the preparation tonight. Just tell me what time you want it ready”
Brewster finally produced a grudging nod. “Very well. There will be more field work tomorrow, so we should plan to eat at sundown. Understood?”
There were nods all round, but Amethyst said, “Sir? I’m really glad we’ll be having a party, and I’m looking forward to it. But can you tell us just what we found? I have no idea, and I don’t think I’m the only one.”
Brewster frowned again, but at last he shrugged. “I don’t see why not. This information is Foodlines proprietary, but I don’t see how you could give away any secrets on Solferino—particularly since Carlson assures me that our off-planet message capability is still crippled.
“A full analysis will have to be performed later with better equipment, but what was discovered today is a new variety of alkaloid. All alkaloids are crystalline solids, related to pyridine and found in a large number of plants on Earth. Some of them are poisonous, but they are often valuable. What was found on Solferino today is a whole new class of them. It’s the first such discovery ever made on this planet. All right?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” But Amethyst didn’t look enlightened—she seemed puzzled.
“Very good. Now I have my own work to do.” Brewster glanced around, nodded to Winnie Carlson, and added, “And I’ll need the use of the kitchen an hour from now, to get ready for tomorrow. Make sure that everyone has eaten by then, and the place is clean.”
He swept out without waiting for her to agree. After a couple of minutes, Winnie followed. As she was leaving she said over her shoulder, almost as an afterthought, “Eat what you like, and be sure to clean up. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
The group of trainees was left to stare at each other. “I hate him,” Ruby complained. “And I don’t want to be at any party that he gives. What’s happening?”
“The question of the hour,” Sig said. “Would anybody like to answer it?”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Amethyst. “Like Alice in Wonderland, only worse. I’m as puzzled as Ruby.”
After another few seconds of uneasy standing, the seven of them settled down on the little chairs that folded out from the wall of the kitchen.
“We’re all confused,” Sig said at last. “But it sounds like it’s over different things. Maybe we can find answers if we put our heads together. Who wants to ask their question first?”
Amethyst raised her hand. “I don’t know about a question, but I’d like to make a statement. Sol Brewster said that alkaloids are crystalline solids—all of them. That’s not true, some of them are liquids, or gums. And he said they are related to pyridine, when only some of them are.”
“So what’s your point, Amy?” asked Sig. “Or are you just showing off?”
“No. I’m telling you that either Brewster is lying to us on purpose, or else he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“You haven’t proposed a question,” Rick objected. “You’ve just made a statement.”
Amethyst turned her nose up at him. “I’ll bet you didn’t understand it. So you give us a question, if you don’t like what I say.”
Rick nodded. “I will. Brewster is interested in plants, he says. So why when we left him was he digging in the ground?”
“And if it’s plants he wants,” Hag added, “why did he pick a place to explore where there’s less plants than bare rock?”
That would have been Josh’s question, too, but he had plenty of others. “I want to know,” he said, “what’s a Unimine ship doing close to Solferino? Why wasn’t it on Cauldron, where it’s supposed to be? I really did see a ship, you know, even though Brewster doesn’t believe me. And Dawn saw one, too.”
“We believe you,” Sig said. “Sapphire? It’s your turn. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”
He spoke gently. Sapphire had been unusually silent, letting Amethyst speak on her behalf. Everyone knew that she had a bad case of the shakes. She had struggled to hide it in front of Sol Brewster and Winnie Carlson, but now, in front of friends, she was quietly unraveling. The long day outside must have been hell for her.
“I do have something.” Sapphire spoke slowly, with her head bent forward. She would not meet anyone’s eye. “What I’d like to know, right at this moment, is where Topaz and Dawn are. But I guess that’s not the sort of question you mean. So I’m wondering, why does Brewster move us around so? He took us off to camp, then left us so he could fly back to the compound. Why did he do that? He said he’d had a message from the medical center, but when we returned to the compound the equipment to talk to the medical center wasn’t working.”
“And where is the medical center?” Amethyst added. “None of us ever heard of it in our briefings back on Earth.”
“And we won’t find out,” Josh said, “as long as most of the data banks are out of action.”
“Any more?” asked Sig. He looked around the group. “If not, I’d like to have my turn. I’ll tell you what’s been on my mind more than anything. Do you remember the first night, when we heard from Brewster that Solferino has all these miraculous powers to heal people? Allergies disappear, scars fade, teeth grow back.”
The others nodded, and Sig crooked his forefinger into the left side of his mouth. He pulled sideways, to show a space in the top molars.
“I’m missing a tooth, right here. I got it knocked out when we were on the streets. No sign of that growing back. As for allergies disappearing, go and ask Winnie Carlson. She’s sneezing and sniffling all the time. And scars. Hag, show us your calf.”
Hag, reluctantly at first, bent down and rolled up his left pants leg. A long scar ran up the outside from ankle to knee.
“Street fight, too, months ago,” Sig said. “Do you see any sign of it fading?”
Hag shook his head, and ran his finger lovingly along the white line of the scar. “Not a bit. As beautiful as ever.”
“Yeah. Some people would be proud if they had their brain knocked out.” Sig turned to the others. “So we’re seeing no sign of anything magic on Solferino, to cure anything. I really didn’t believe it when I heard it, so I don’t feel I lost much.”
“But maybe Brewster believes it,” Amethyst said, “even if you don’t.”
“Quite true. Which finally gets me to my own question. Brewster told us, on our first night here, that there might be something on Solferino to let us live forever. Let’s accept that Brewster believes it, exactly as he stated. Then he must be a candidate to live forever, too, because he has spent a lot of time on Solferino. So why isn’t that the most important thing in the world to him?” Sig surveyed the little group, person by person. “So why, after that first night, has he never mentioned it to any of us ever again?”
Chapter Seventeen
Morning brought a dull, oppressive heat unlike anything since the trainees’ first arrival on Solferino. It had rained again in the night, and a veil of steam and yellow smoke stood above the Avernus Fissure. Josh dreaded the thought of going near it. Even within the camp, air drifting from the fissure was like a breath from the mouth of a furnace. The sound of dripping water meeting red-hot rock could be heard hundreds of yards away.
In spite of the weather, Sol Brewster remained in an unusually good mood. The sight of a weary and hunched Winnie Carlson only seemed to add to his satisfaction. She was the last to rise, trailing miserably into the dining area yawning and rubbing her eyes as though it were the middle of the night.