The ramp was down on the far side of the ship, and I could hear noise from outside. People shouting.
“Come along,” Daddy said and we walked across the center area. George was still standing there and I gave him a hostile glance as we passed, but he didn’t seem to notice. He fell in behind us.
We paused for a moment at the top of the ramp, and that seemed to be taken as a signal for a band to start playing and for people to yell even louder.
6
The horses had already been led outside and were being held there by Mr. Tubman. Standing beside him was an officious-looking man in a tall hat in which was placed a great wilted white feather. At another time he might have been funny. There were two children with him, a boy and a girl, both somewhere near my age. We had set down in what must have been the main square of the town, and there were ranks of people yelling and staring up at us from either hand. It made me feel on display. The sky was low and gray above us, the yellow bricks of the square were wet and shining, and there was a warm, damp breeze. The band was directly in front of us, all of the band members dressed in dark green uniforms. They played enthusiastically — loudly, that is — but badly.
I was looking all around at this, but Daddy took my arm and said, “Come on. You can gawk later.”
We started down the ramp and all the people in the square increased the volume of their noise. I didn’t like it and started to feel very nervous. I wouldn’t like being yelled at by large numbers of people in any case, but this was all the more discomfiting because I couldn’t tell from the noise whether they were friendly or not. Whatever tune the band was playing became indistinguishable and simply added a small contribution to the general hubbub.
Daddy and the officious-looking man shook hands. Daddy said, “Mr. Gennaro. It’s good to see you again.”
The man said, “You timed things well, Mr. Havero. The rain stopped here less than an hour ago, though I won’t guarantee that it will stay stopped.”
Daddy nudged me forward. “This is my daughter, Mia. I believe you’ve already met Mr. Tubman and George Fuhonin, my pilot.” As I shook hands, I took a good look at him. He had an eager-to-please manner that I didn’t know how to take, and I couldn’t get any clue from Daddy’s face or tone.
Gennaro indicated the boy and the girl with him. “These are my children, Ralph and Helga. When you said you were bringing your daughter, I thought she might like to meet some children of her own age.” He turned on a smile and then turned it off again.
The boy had dirty-blond hair. He was just a shade taller than I, but much more squarely built. The girl was also squarely built, and about my size. They both said hello, but not in an overwhelmingly friendly way.
I said hello just as cautiously myself.
“That was very thoughtful,” Daddy said to Mr. Gennaro.
The man said, “Glad to do it. Glad to do it. Anything to keep up good will. Ha, ha.”
The people and the band continued to make noise. “Shall we be going?” Daddy said.
“Oh, yes,” Mr. Germaro said. “Children, mind your manners.”
Daddy didn’t say anything to me, but simply gave me a sharp look. Mr. Gennaro mounted his horse, and Daddy and Mr. Tubman swung up on theirs. The band, still playing, backed off enough for them to pass through, and they clattered off and out of the square. The band followed after, still playing loud and tinnily, and a good portion of the crowd trailed them.
I said, “Why is everybody following after Daddy?”
“Your father is a celebrity,” George Fuhonin said in an ironic rumble, standing just behind me.
I hadn’t been speaking to him, just voicing my thoughts, but I was reminded that I had determined not to speak to him, ever again. So I moved away a little.
A section of the remaining crowd pressed forward toward the scoutship, bent on getting a good close look at us. George looked out at them with no particular sign of pleasure, as though he’d like to shoo them away.
“Stay here,” he said to me. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked up the ramp to the place where the three crewmembers were standing. They were lounging in the mouth of the ship and getting a big kick out of the crowd. When George came up, they said something that sounded like a joke, and laughed. George didn’t laugh. He shook his head irritatedly and motioned them to go inside.
“What do we do now?” the boy, Ralph, said to his sister, and I turned back to look at them.
On the Ship we have such long lives and low population that you never see brothers and sisters closer than twenty years apart, never as close together as these two. All the kids I know are singletons. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, but except for build, this brother and sister didn’t look much alike at all. I had thought they would — in books they always do; either that or exactly like their long-lost Uncle Max, the one with all the money. Helga had dark hair, though not as dark as mine, and it was quite long, hanging down to her shoulders and tucked in place with combs. She wore a dress with a yoke front. Her brother wore long pants like those Daddy had put on to wear today, and a plain shirt. They had both obviously done some grooming for this little ceremony, and it made them look as stiff as their manners.
I suppose I looked just as odd to them as they did to me. I was a short, dark little thing with close-cut black hair, and I was wearing what I usually wore, a white blouse with loose sleeves, blue shorts, and high-backed sandals. It was a costume I would have felt comfortable in at almost any sort of gathering within the Ship. I wouldn’t have worn exactly that to play soccer in — something a little less formal, actually, and harder shoes — but I was presentable. My clothes were clean and reasonably neat. However, after the glory of all those dark green uniforms, I could see that these kids might consider what I was wearing just a bit lacking in elegance.
We looked at each other for a long starchy moment. Then the boy unbent a little and said, “How old are you?”
“Twelve,” I said.
“I’m fourteen,” he said. “She’s twelve.”
Helga said, “Daddy told us to show you around.” She said it tentatively.
I took a deep breath and said, “All right.”
“What about him?” she said, pointing to the ramp. George was standing just inside the ship with his back to us. “He told you to stay here.”
“He’s supposed to watch me, but I don’t have to pay any attention to him,” I said. “Let’s leave before he comes back.”
“All right,” Ralph said. “Come on then.”
He ran under the high rim of the scoutship, in exactly the opposite direction from Daddy and his own father. Helga and I followed him. George saw me as I started off, and yelled something, but I just kept on running. I’d be damned if I’d pay any attention to him.
Ralph made a slight detour to tag the lower bulge of the ship — maybe to be brave and have something to tell about afterward, maybe just to do it — and then dashed on. We went all the way under the rim of the ship and out the other side. There were a few people there, but a much smaller crowd than on the side where the ramp was lowered, possibly because there weren’t any Ship people to stare at over here. We charged through them, and I noticed that they were all squarely built, too. We left them looking after us and dashed around the first corner we came to. I was feeling pretty daring in my own way, as though I were cutting loose on a great adventure.
We took a couple of quick turns from one street into another, and if George was following after, he was soon left behind. By that time, I had no idea of where we were. It was a street like the others we’d been in, made of rounded stones and about the width of a large hallway at home, with buildings of stone and wood, and a few of brick, on either side.