DeSilva looked up from the telephone and saw Jacob holding the controller. She smiled her thanks. Then she was back on the line shooting terse questions to the person at the other end.
A medical team arrived on the run with a stretcher. Under Dr. Martine’s guidance they laid Kepler in the fabric frame and gently bore him off through the crowd gathered at the door.
Jacob turned back to Culla. Fagin had managed to push a chair up behind the Library Representative and was trying to get him to sit down. The rustling of branches and high pitched flutings subsided when Jacob approached.
“He is, I believe, all right,” the Kanten said in a singsong voice. “He is a highly empathic individual, and I fear that he will grieve excessively over the loss of his friend Jeffrey. It is often the reaction of younger species to the death of another with whom one has become close.”
“Is there anything we should do? Can he hear us?” Culla’s eyes didn’t appear to be focused. But then Culla’s eyes never did tell Jacob anything. The chattering from inside the alien’s mouth went on. “I believe he can hear us,” Fagin answered. Jacob took hold of Culla’s arm. It felt very thin and soft. There didn’t appear to be any bone.
“Come on, Culla,” he said. “There’s a chair right behind you. You’d make us all feel a lot better if you’d sit down now.”
The alien tried to answer. The huge lips parted and suddenly the chattering was very loud. The coloration of his eyes changed slightly and the lips closed again. He nodded shakily and allowed himself to be guided to the chair. Slowly the round head came down into his slender hands.
Empathic or no, there was something eerie about the alien feeling this strongly about the death of a man — a chimpanzee — who would be, down to his fundamental body chemistry, always an alien; a being whose fishlike far ancestors swam in different seas than his, and gaped in anaerobic surprise at the sunshine of a totally different star.
“May I have your attention please!” deSilva stood on the dais.
“For those of you who haven’t yet heard, preliminary reports Indicate that we may have lost Dr. Jeffrey’s ship in active region J-12, near Sunspot Jane. This is only a preliminary report, and further confirmation will have to wait until we can go over the telemetry we received up to the mishap.”
LaRoque waved from the far side of the room to attract the Commandant’s attention. In one hand he held a small steno-camera, a different model from the one taken from him in the Sunship Cavern. Jacob wondered why Kepler hadn’t returned the other one yet.
“Miss deSilva,” LaRoque cut in. “Will it be possible for the press to attend the telemetry review? There should be a public record.” In his excitement, LaRoque’s accent had virtually disappeared. Without it, the anachronistic appelation, “Miss deSilva,” sounded very odd.
She paused without looking directly at the man. The Witness Laws were very clear about denying access to a public record at news events without a “Seal” from the Agency for Secrets Registration. Even the ASR people, responsible for enforcing honesty above the law, were reluctant to allow it. LaRoque obviously had her cornered, but he wasn’t pushing. Yet.
“All right. The observing gallery above the Control Center can hold just about everybody who wants to come… except,” she glared at a cluster of base crewmen who had gathered near the door, “for people who have work to do.” She ended with a raised eyebrow. There was an immediate bustle of motion by the exit.
“We’ll gather in twenty minutes,” she concluded and stepped down.
Members of the Hermes Colony Staff started leaving right away. Those wearing Earth clothing, recent arrivals and visitors, left more slowly.
LaRoque was already gone, no doubt on his way to the maser station to send his story to Earth.
That left Bubbacub. He had been talking to Dr. Mar-tine before the meeting began, but the little bearlike alien hadn’t come in. Jacob wondered where Bubbacub had been during the meeting.
Helene deSilva joined him and Fagin.
“Culla’s quite a little Eatee,” she said to Jacob, softly. “He used to joke that he got along with Jeffrey so well because they were both low men on the status pole, and because they’d both come down so recently from the trees.” She looked at Culla with pity, and put out one hand to the side of the alien’s head.
I’ll bet that’s comforting, Jacob thought.
“Sadness is the primary perquisite of youth.” Fagin rustled his leaves, like a tinkling of sand dollars in a breeze.
DeSilva let her hand fall. “Jacob, Dr. Kepler left written instructions that I was to consult with you and Kant Fagin if anything ever happened to him.”
“Oh?”
“Yessir. Of course the directive has very little legal weight. All I really have to do is let you in on our staff meetings. But it’s obvious anything you’d offer would be useful. I was hoping that the two of you, in particular, wouldn’t miss the telemetry replay.”
Jacob appreciated her position. As Base Commandant she would bear the onus of any decision made today. Yet of those with substantial reputations now on Mercury, LaRoque was hostile, Martine was barely friendly to the project, and Bubbacub was an enigma. If Earth should hear many accounts of what went on here, it would be in her interest to have some friends as well.
“Of course,” Fagin whistled. “We will both be honored to aid your staff.”
DeSilva turned back to Culla and asked softly if the alien would be all right. After a pause, he lifted his head from his hands and nodded slowly. The chattering had stopped, but Culla’s eyes were still dull, with bright pinpoints nickering randomly at the edge. He looked exhausted, as well as miserable.
DeSilva departed to help prepare the telemetry replay. Shortly afterwards Pil Bubbacub puffed importantly into the room, his sleek fur ruffled in a collar around his short fat neck. When he spoke his mouth moved in quick snaps and the Vodor on his chest boomed out the words in audible range.
“I have heard the news. It vital that all be at the Tel-e-me-try Review, so I es-cort you there.”
Bubbacub moved to look behind Jacob. He saw Culla sitting absently oft the flimsy folding chair.
“Culla!” he called. The Pring looked up, hesitated than made a gesture that Jacob didn’t understand. It seemed to imply supplication, negation.
Bubbacub bristled. He emitted a series of clicks and high pitched squeaks at a rapid clip. Culla stumbled to his feet quickly. Immediately Bubbacub turned his back on them all to start in short powerful steps down the hallway…
Behind him, Jacob and Fagin walked with Culla. From somewhere at the top of Fagin’s “head” there came a strange music.
12. GRAVITY
Automation kept the Telemetry Room small. A mere dozen consoles made two rows below a large viewing screen. Behind a railing, on a raised dais, the invited guests watched as the operators carefully rechecked the recorded data.
Occasionally a man, male or female, would lean forward and peer at some detail on a screen, in vain hope for a clue that a Sunship still existed down there.
Helene deSilva stood near the pair of consoles closest to the dais. From there the recording of Jeffrey’s last remarks played on a visual display.
A row of words appeared, representing fingerstrokes on a keyboard forty million kilometers away, hours before.
RIDE IS SMOOTH ON AUTOMATICS… HAD TO DAMP TIME FACTOR OF TEN DURING TURBULENCE… I JUST HAD LUNCH IN TWENTY SECONDS HA HA…
Jacob smiled. He could imagine the little chimpanzee getting a kick out of the tune differential.