A shuttle was already rising from the planet.
“I told you they’d be eager,” Hans Horeger said happily. “See that” They couldn’t even wait for us to come down in our own shuttle. They had to launch theirs right away.” But then, out of loyalty to the ship, he added, “I’ll bet it’s a piece of junk, though. A place like this hardly sees a ship every fifty years. We don’t want to depend on them.” He peered around the crowded lock room for the engineering officer, pushing stray limbs out of his way. “Dave? Is our own shuttle ready?”
It was, of course, and Horeger had known all along that it was, because he’d been driving the poor engineers crazy for a month, testing every circuit to make sure no part of the shuttle had broken or rotted away since the last time they’d used it.
Horeger’s wife, hanging on to her husband’s shoulder for a better look as the Slowyear shuttle moved closer, said disgustedly, “That’s pretty ancient, Hans.”
He frowned. “It’s bigger than I expected, though.
And they’re really pouring on the power.”
His wife turned her look of disgust to him. “There you go again, worrying,” she scolded. “What does it matter if it’s big? The important thing is it’s old. It’s a fossil. I bet no one’s visited this place in a good long time.”
Old Captain Hawkins cleared his throat. From the wall-hold where he was hanging, he said mildly, “We don’t know that. All we know is that nobody’s come back from it for a long time.” But no one listened.
No one listened because they couldn’t; his deputy had quelled his wife and begun to shout to everyone in general. “All of you,” he cried, “pay attention! Quiet down! Do you all remember what your orders are?
Nobody goes down to the surface without my permission! No one’s allowed into their shuttle unless I order you there. And when Nordvik leaves for its next port of call, no one’s going to stay behind unless I say you can and I won’t. Do you all understand that?”
He raked his crew with his eyes, one by one, craning and twisting to make each eye contact. Satisfied, or as satisfied as Hans Horeger ever got, he finished, “And if any of you forget what I’m saying, I promise you I’ll make you regret it.”
But MacDonald noticed that he didn’t say how.
Nordvik was a hundred times the size of the shuttle, but they could feel the whole vast starship shuddering as the Slowyear shuttle nuzzled in. Then there were long seconds of squeaking and rasping while the shuttle’s portal seals felt the outlines of Nordtrik’s, and slowly adjusted themselves to fit.
Then the lock opened.
Nordtrik’s whole crew moved forward as one as the shuttle people pulled themselves in, hand over hand.
Through the tangled crowd MacDonald could see clearly enough that they were carrying no weapons.
There were only three of them. One was a slim young girl who held a briefcase, the second a tall, lean man who had nothing at all in his hands, the third a squat, good-looking one who held only a flower. The man with the flower peered in, at and around the various faces, in all their angles of presentation, taking his time.
Then he settled on Mercy MacDonald. He grinned at her and handed her the flower. “My name’s Blundy.
Welcome to Slowyear,” he said.
The young girl gave him a quick, angry look, then turned it on MacDonald. “Are you the governor?” she demanded.
Her accent was odd, but MacDonald understood her easily enough. “We don’t have a governor. I guess you mean the captain. That’s him over there on the wall,” she said, pointing to the real captain, of course.
“But I’m his executive, so I’m the one you have to talk to,” Horeger said quickly. And belatedly added, “Uh, welcome to Interstellar Ship Nordvik. “
The girl bent to her briefcase and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers. The man named Blundy still had his eyes appreciatively on Mercy MacDonald. She stared right back. He was, she thought, the smallest person present well, the shortest, anyway (though even that was hard to be sure of, with everyone floating in odd directions). There was nothing small about his body, especially the thick muscles in his bare forearms.
And his eyes did not leave Mercy MacDonald.
He was interested, she thought, liking the fact that he was showing interest, even liking the feelings inside her that came from enjoying it. She was sorry when he turned his gaze to Hans Horeger. “The kind of thing we want ” he began.
“Visas first, Blundy,” the girl interrupted. “I’ve got my orders.”
“Sure, Petoyne,” the man said indulgently, “but they don’t have to have visas until they come down, do they?”
“They’re all probably going to want to, won’t they?
So they have to fill out the forms.” She cleared her throat and addressed the group: “On behalf of the governor general, I welcome you all to Slowyear “
“I already said that, Petoyne,” said Blundy.
“I’m saying it officially. And ask that you fill out these forms and sign them. Then we can get on with the business we’re all really interested in. Each of you take one, please have you all got pencils? Well, get some, will you?”
While someone was hurrying away to find things to write with, MacDonald took her eyes off the squat man long enough to read one of the forms. The people of this backwater planet didn’t seem to have much regular use for such things, she saw, because these were just photocopied printouts, headed “Planet of Slowyear, Department of Trade and Immigration,” with the impromptu look of something somebody had remembered to whomp up at the last minute before Nordvik arrived. There was an awful lot of tiny type.
When she signed that form she would be relinquishing any claim for liability for almost any kind of ill that might befall her on the surface of the planet or on the way to it from mechanical failure of the planet’s ancient shuttles or their own; from navigation errors; from disease or attack by animals… but there weren’t any dangerous animals on Slowyear, Mercy MacDonald knew very well; they must have copied the thing out of an old lawbook. Really, it amused her. She looked up at the girl named Petoyne. “I didn’t know you had lawyers on Slowyear,” she said.
The Slowyear girl gave her an impatient look. “Did you sign it? All right, you’ve got your visa. Next!”
And the man named Blundy was saying, “Who’s in charge of selling stuff?”
MacDonald raised her hand. “I am. Mercy MacDonald. Purser.”
He looked at her again. “That’s nice,” he said, approving. “Then let’s find some place where we can go, Mercy MacDonald, so we can talk business.”
Business was business, and this Blundy man didn’t waste much time getting down to it. He perched companionably next to her at her display screen, one hand lightly holding her shoulder, and frowned at the readout. No seeds, ova or sperm right now, he said; not on this first trip. “We came up light so we could carry a max load back, so there’s no refrigeration on board this time.” No living plants right now, either, not until that other man, whose name was Gowen, finished checking them. “He’s our health officer,” Blundy explained. “He’ll stay on board until he quick-cultures everything so you won’t bring anything nasty down with you, you know.”
“He’s going to check everything? Even us?”
Blundy looked surprised. “Hasn’t he done you yet?
No, of course not; well, give him a drop of blood as soon as you can. You’re coming on the first trip, of course.”
“I am?”
Blundy grinned at her. “Of course you are I’m glad to say. We’ll only take two of you this time to have as much cargo mass as possible, you see and that deputy captain of yours insists on being one of them. So you’re the other.”
MacDonald just smiled at that, not having made her own mind up yet though actually there wasn’t any real doubt about it and he got back to business.