Scrimshaw? Sure. A lot of people would like that sort of stuff, he conceded, though only heaven knew why.
Books? Certainly; and music and dramas and dance recitals, too, why not?
But the big thing, he told her, was datastores.
“Science, history, medicine especially medicine; we’ll buy copies of everything you’ve got about medicine or biochemistry. Diagnosis, therapies, pharmaceuticals, surgical procedures you name it, we’ll buy it. Can you get all that in the first load? I assume all this stuff is electronic, so it won’t mass much Fine!
Now, what are these Hades artifacts I see on the list?”
He kept her jumping, but it wasn’t all business. She could see that. She didn’t miss the way he was looking at her, even when what he was talking about was merchandise. It was exciting.
It gave her pleasure. The excitement was good for her. She could feel it in her groin, an almost sexual tingling no, she corrected herself fairly, not “almost”
at all. It was definitely sexual, all right. And Blundy’s interest in her was not just for generic sex, as it always was with dirty Hans Horeger, because when she took the stranger to see Betsy arap Dee she observed carefully that, although he gave Betsy a thoroughly assessing look, his eyes returned to MacDonald herself.
Betsy, of course, assessed him right back. It didn’t seem to be serious though because the other stranger, Gowen, had obviously already taken a lien on Betsy’s interest when he took her blood sample. The four of them went over Betsy’s datastores rapidly, and before they were halfway through MacDonald made a surprising discovery.
The surprise was that Betsy wasn’t moping. More than that, for the first time since the death of her baby, Betsy looked not only alert but actually happy. There was no other word for it. Her face flushed and her eyes sparkled; she smiled; she even laughed out loud.
Then MacDonald made the even more surprising discovery that she was quite happy too. She was eager to board the shuttle and find out what this forbidding, but also intriguing, new planet had to offer her.
Of course, that was the point at which Hans Horeger came bustling into the datastore room, radiating officious authority and orders. MacDonald didn’t let even that puncture her mood. She let him strut for a few minutes. Then, “Come on, Hans,” she said, pulling him by the sleeve as she invented an errand to get him away from Betsy and the new man realizing with astonishment that it was the first time in a good while that she had deliberately invited Horeger to do anything with her “come on, help me pick out the first load of scrimshaw and start loading the shuttle.”
That kept them both busy for half an hour. Then, with the selections made, she left Horeger to round up a loading crew, shouting more orders that no one either heeded or needed, and she went looking for the “health officer.”
He wasn’t in the datastore room, wasn’t even with Betsy arap Dee, who was back in her own room dreamily changing into more interesting clothes.
MacDonald finally found all three of the Slowyear people together, hanging onto wall holds and talking quietly together. For a moment she thought they might not want to be interrupted, but as soon as Blundy caught sight of her he beckoned her over.
“I thought you could take my blood sample now,” she explained to Gowen, holding out her wrist. The girl, Petoyne, sniffed at that, but Gowen immediately dug into his pouch and pulled out a tiny syringe. It didn’t hurt. It only took a second long enough to pull a thin streak of red into an ampoule - but also long enough for Petoyne to turn away in a marked manner and leave.
“Gowen’ll put your sample in a culture box,”
Blundy explained. “By the time we land we’ll know for sure if you have to go into quarantine or anything.
But you look pretty healthy to me.”
She smiled back at him, but said, “Are you sure I should go on the first trip? That girl didn’t look as though she wanted me to.”
“Oh,” he said dismissively, “Petoyne. Don’t worry about Petoyne. Pack a bag, and don’t be too long, please you don’t want to miss the flight!”
She didn’t, though. Didn’t pack just one bag; at least, did pack one, and then bit her thumb for a moment, and went on to pack a second, and a third, until everything she really wanted to preserve of all her life to date was packed.
It took up more space in the shuttle than she had planned, but Blundy only grinned and, although Hans Horeger certainly saw it and was not pleased at all, his wife, who was complaining about being left on the ship, was a more immediate problem for him. And then they were inside, and the hatches were closed, and they were on their way.
Chapter Six
Not even Murra stayed home on the day the first shuttle came back from the ship. She dressed herself in her prettiest robes and perfumed herself with an extra bit of her special (if no longer unique) essence, since she would be outdoors. Before leaving the house she studied herself in the mirror for several minutes. Then, regretfully, she took off the pretty bugsilk slippers that became her feet so well and replaced them with sheepskin half-boots. The boots were beautifully ornamented of course, but so rugged.
She didn’t have any choice about that. Practicality had to triumph over looks because, even though warmspring had begun to dry out the landscape, there would surely be mud and puddles near the landing strip.
There were. She was lucky enough to get a ride up the slope on a flatbed. Although it was packed she wasn’t refused, since everyone was kind enough to make room for Blundy’s Murra. The landing strip was on the far side of the pass, five kilometers of meadow bulldozed flat, and at least five thousand other people had already gathered there. Scores of armbanded marshals were herding them behind a roped line away from the strip itself, but even the marshals were looking up half the time in the hope of catching a glimpse of a shuttle through the clouds. Heaven knew how many thousand others were up in the hills, watching with binoculars or simply their unaided eyes.
Everybody was bouncing with anticipation. Children ran and shouted. Vendors were all through the crowd, selling cold drinks and sandwiches.
There was a scream from the sky. Five thousand heads jerked back, and voices began to shout: “I see it. There it is! It’s coming!”
Then, squinting, Murra saw it too first the thread-thin snowy plume that followed the shuttle, then the glint of the spacecraft itself. It was high overhead, passing beyond them to the east, then banking sharply and turning back.
When at last it landed Murra thought she had never seen anything moving so fast as indeed she hadn’t; it was going a good hundred and fifty kilometers an hour, even with its flaps and airbrakes extended. But it settled on the strip cleverly enough, though sudden spurts of smoke and dust puffed up as its tires touched.
It rolled away, long away far down the strip, until it was only a toylike thing.
Then the marshals gave up trying to keep order.
The crowds burst through, running toward the shuttle.
At the end of the strip a waiting tractor backed itself into position to snag the towring in the shuttle’s nose and begin to drag it back toward the sheds.
Murra spared herself that silly scramble. She knew perfectly well that it would be nearly half an hour before the shuttle was in position and had cooled off enough for the hatches to be opened. She waited. She planted herself where the movable stairs were ready to be rolled into position, bought an ice from a vendor who almost forgot to take her money, she was so intent on staring down the runway and allowed the whole procession to come to her. When everybody had come drifting back, pacing the slowly dragged shuttle itself, Murra was in the front row, neatly finishing the last of her ice.