"You presume correctly," I said, shaking his hand. "You look well, but tired."
"We are." He looked around at everybody in the crowded cab. "I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to see new faces. I am Yuri Voloshin." He bowed deeply, "Allow me to present my colleague…"
My jaw dropped as the woman took off her helmet and smiled at me across the suddenly narrowed chasm of thirty-odd years.
"Zoya!" I gasped.
"You remembered so quickly!" Zoya said, throwing her arms about me. "I didn't think you would. I recognized your voice instantly… So many years, Jake, so many. Wonderful to see you!"
I withdrew my face from the curls of her chestnut-brown hair, took hold of her arms and looked at her, my jaw still slack.
"Zoya," was all I could say.
"Remarkable!" Voloshin said. "Two old friends, I see! Remarkable." He turned to the crew. "As I said, I would like to present my colleague―and lifecompanion―Doctor Zoya Mikhailovna Voloshin. And this―"
He bent to help the non-human off with its helmet.
"This is Georgi, our guide."
From the rear of the cab came a squeal from Winnie such as I had never heard from her.
Georgi could have been her twin brother.
Chapter 18
You would have thought that George (as I came to call him) and Winnie were long-separated lovers. I feigned looking around for a crowbar to pry them apart. We learned that they had not known each other back on Hothouse, hadn't even been neighbors. I guess they were just glad to see a fellow species member. Horny too, probably.
I wasn't surprised to learn that George had maps, and that Yuri and Zoya's expedition had been following them. The cartographical knowledge of the native anthropoids of Epsilon Eridani II was one of the Colonial Authority's most closely guarded secrets. Rather, it had been. Leaks had probably caused the flood of roadmap rumors. George's maps were almost identical to Winnie's, but his journey-poem didn't jibe with hers. Each poem charted an alternative route to the same destination: Red Limit Freeway. Neither of them were of any use to us now.
Almost from the moment of its departure, the Voloshin Expedition had been beset by a series of disasters. Two weeks into the journey, a high-speed head-on collision on the Skyway had killed four out of the nine members who had started out, wiping out two vehicles. Nonetheless, the expedition continued. They had no choice; they were on the never-never side of a potluck portal. Following George's tour guide, they made their way along the Orion arm of the galaxy and were just about to hit a junction of the Galactic Beltway when a misreading of the journey-poem caused them to make a right when they should have done the opposite. Thereafter they wandered blindly, shooting potluck after potluck. A fifth companion died of an unknown viral infection fourteen months into the journey. A sixth was lost when a flash flood had swept through a campsite on an uninhabited planet. George and the Voloshins wearily set out in one vehicle to find a way back home. They traversed maze after maze, encountering every sort of planetary environment and inhabitant. Some races were friendly, some indifferent. A few were openly hostile. They managed to find suitable food, though it was scarce. Despite the catastrophes, the expedition had amassed a great deal of scientific data, and Yuri and Zoya carried on the work. They reported discovering vast mazes of Earthlike planets, all uninhabited. These they observed, recorded, and catalogued. Additionally, data on nonEarthlike planets of interest were dutifully compiled. Zoya, a trained astronomer and astrophysicist, made frequent observations of the local galactic neighborhood, canvassing star population for spectral class and other characteristics. Yuri, a theoretical physicist and expert on the phenomenon of the Skyway and its attendant wonders, took readings on cylinders and noted variations in road structures―bridges, causeways, interchanges, and the like. Doggedly, they kept at it, sometimes going for days without food. In a civilized maze, they could buy suitable protein, synthesized to order―awful stuff if sophisticated flavor additives are unavailable, which they were. In the bush they had to forage for what they could, sometimes nearly poisoning themselves in the process. Serious illness struck the Voloshins several times during the journey, but they survived. Scurvy became a constant problem 'When supplements ran out.
"My gums bleed every time I brush them," Zoya complained. "When I brush them," she added sardonically. "Unfortunately the strains of a long journey can induce neglect of personal hygiene."
"Have another apple, Doctor Voloshin," Sean offered, reaching into the barrel. "Good for what ails ye."
"I've had three, thank you. Save them, by all means!"
Yuri looked around the crammed trailer, admiring the stacks of crates filled with victuals. "You seem to have everything here." He turned to his lifecompanion with a look of rue. "We should have taken one of these. A trailer truck! Why didn't we think of it?"
Her expression was a trifle ironic. "Our ties with the working masses have been stretched rather thin, Yuri. We simply wouldn't have thought of a trailer truck."
Yuri gave a sarcastic grunt, then chuckled. "I suppose not."
"By the way, please call me Zoya. With two Dr. Voloshins about I should think there'd be some confusion."
"Very well, Zoya," Sean said.
I was still staring at her, comparing the face I saw now with the image of a seventeen-year-old Zoya I had retrieved from memory. The comparison was favorable. She had held up well. Antigeronic treatments had halted her at around thirty-eight, maybe forty on a bad day. Perhaps the trials of the expedition had added a few years. There were a few strands of gray in her hair, a few lines of character graced her features―otherwise she was as beautiful as I remembered her to be. Hers was a broad Slavic beauty: brown eyes spaced wide apart, firm straight nose, generous mouth with full plum-colored lips, and a well-defined cleft chin that gave her force of character without coarsening her features. Her eyes were keenly intelligent; this was her most distinguishing attribute. Her gaze was, most of the time, incisive and penetrating, probing levels of meaning around her to find the core of what was significant. The rest was not worthy of attention. There was a sense of humor implicit in her face, the kind expressed in throwaway lines delivered deadpan.
Her figure had held up well, too. She still had great bubnovs.
She grew aware of my gaze and turned to look at me. She smiled. "Do I seem like a ghost?"
"A very good-looking one," I said. "You haven't changed one iota."
The smile broadened, though turning a little abashed. "You're very kind. I must look a fright." She passed a hand through her tangled curls. "Yuri sheared me like a sheep, and then he refused to let me cut his hair."
"I saw what the result would be," Yuri explained. "Besides, mine grows out to a certain length and stops." He stroked his untidy whiskers. "The beard grows like cabbage, though."
"Neither of you looks at all frightful," I said. "You seem to have come through your troubles remarkably well."
"You haven't changed either, Jake," Zoya said. "I remember you as one of the most charming men I've ever met, in your own inimitable, rough-hewn way, and I see the memory is accurate."
"Thank you," I said, "though I must warn you that the years haven't smoothed me around the edges. I've even been known to fart at state dinners."
This drew from the Voloshins far more laughter than the joke was worth, the result of fatigue, no doubt.