Stopping at Slowyear Page 8

  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 for 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.

  Even then, even there, nearly everybody recognized Murra. While they waited for the shuttle to finish its cooling process, crackling and pinging alarmingly as it did, people took time to smile at her, and nod. She accepted their attention as graciously as always. It didn't particularly please her; it simply would have puzzled her if it had been withheld.

  When at last the handlers pushed the rolling stairs to the hatch and it opened Murra did not join in the cheering. She was there, though. She was right there to see Blundy and Petoyne appear in the doorway with a couple of strangers, strutty little man and dark, middle-aged woman; and she only had to see the woman once to see what she saw. As soon as they came down she was right at the foot of the stairs, gracefully moving up between the woman and Blundy to kiss him. "I'm so glad to have you back, my very dearest," she said, marking out her claim, "and I hope you've remembered to invite your friends to dine with us tomorrow night.

  Her too," she said, gazing benignly at Petoyne.

  * * *

  Murra saw rather little of her husband that day, or at least not at close range. He was frequently on the news screen, of course: taking the visitors to see the governor, showing the visitors around the summer city, standing with the visitors as they were welcomed, and welcomed, and welcomed. No, actually she saw quite a lot of Blundy that day, and it pleased her that she saw him as she did because so did everyone else on Slowyear.

  It was less pleasing, though, because it was never Blundy alone she saw on the screen but always Blundy plus that foolish little Petoyne, and Blundy with that rather unattractive starship woman who would, Murra was resignedly certain, be the next Petoyne in Blundy's life . . . for a time.

  By the time Blundy got home that night he was too tired to talk, or said he was. She had expected as much. Anyway, as she certainly had expected, he slept that night where he belonged, next to her side. He didn't talk in the morning, either, because as soon as he was awake he was out, muttering excuses, no time, so much to do; but that was all right, too, because the dinner was a fixture for that night.

  In a whole marriage's worth of arranging pleasing dinners for Blundy she was determined this would be the grandest and best. Everything would have to be perfect; so to beging with Murra called in the cleaners as soon as he was out of the house, and informed her cooker that he would be needed by noon at the latest to start preparing the meal. Then, content that that much was well in hand, she allowed herself to go shopping.

  The shopping was for food, she told herself. But although there were plenty of food stores nearer than the central marketplace, that was where she went. That was where everyone else went, too, because the second shuttle, this one the starship's own, had landed at daybreak, and the people from the ship were already setting up their displays.

  Of course, there weren't any actual goods there; those were already in the sheds by the landing strip. What the ship people had were a dozen or so video displays to show the catalogue of their wares. One screen was showing a succession of industrial-looking machines, another household appliances, a third plants of many kinds, from tiny baby's-breath blossoms to giant redwoods, a fourth animals. It was hard to see individuals in the press around the displays, but a short, sallow man stranger at one of the booths came forward to greet her. "Mrs., ah, Blundy, isn't it?" he asked, and she recognized the man she had invited to dinner.

  "Actually my name is Murra. I'm afraid I didn't catch yours?"

  "Hans Horeger," the man said promptly, holding out his hand. "I'm executive officer and deputy captain-acting captain, really," he said, with a deprecating shrug, "because old Hawkins is really pretty much past it."

  "I'm honored," Murra said gravely. "And please do be sure to come tonight, and bring your charming friend-"

  "You mean Mercy Macdonald, I suppose," Horeger said. Murra was aware of his eyes on her, missing nothing. His study of her was discreet, which she appreciated, but also quite admiring, which she appreciated even more. "Oh, would you call her charming? I guess so, in her way-but of course next to someone like you-"

  She gave him her prettiest smile. "I don't see her here," she remarked, looking around.

  The man looked around too. "No, I guess she's not back yet. She and your husband had to go to the sheds to look at some samples."

  She nodded. "Yes," she said, "I rather thought they would."

  * * *

  Blundy and herself, the two from the starship, Petoyne-there had to be one more, a male, to make an even number. Since the extra male would be more or less Petoyne's escort, he needn't be particularly attractive. Murra thought for a moment, then smiled and picked up the phone. It was answered at once. "Vorian? I know how much you wanted to meet the people from the starship. Well, if you're free for dinner this evening-"

  Of course he was. That settled, Murra gave orders and watched until she was sure the cleaner and the cooker were well started on them. Normally Murra didn't care for hired servers. But they were absolutely necessary this night, for there would be no spending time in the kitchen for the hostess. When she was convinced they were properly doing the gruntwork they were hired for, Murra began doing the things she alone could do. She arranged the flowers she had bought prettily around the room. Then music: She selected tapes of unobtrusive strings and flutes to play in the background. Then she programmed the big wall screen with suitable background images, mostly a series of still shots from Winter Wife and other productions she and Blundy had done together, with of course the most flattering shots of herself featured. She worked as hard as the hired help, because it all had to be perfect. . . .

  It was perfect, too. She was sure of that before the first guest arrived.

  Yet when Mercy Macdonald showed up Murra had a quick moment of doubt. The woman had managed to get herself rested and cleaned up, and she did not look quite so middle-aged any more. Indeed, Murra thought justly, she looked no older than herself. She greeted the woman with a hands-on-the-shoulder almost hug, and gave the air by her ear an almost kiss. "We're so grateful you took the time to come, my dear," she said, sweetly and intimately, as though they had been long-lost sisters, tragically separated somehow but still, somehow, bonded for life. "Oh, what's this? You shouldn't have." For the woman was handing her something soft wrapped in an even softer fabric. Was it bugsilk? No, Murra realized, it had to be real silk! From old Earth! It was a pity that it was patterned with those quite hideous flowers, but still. One day, Murra thought-but not a very near day, not until the woma
n who had given it to her was no longer around-that wrapping could become a pretty scarf, or something attractively unusual to throw over the back of a chair.

  When she unwrapped it and saw what the wrapping contained she said warmly, "Why, it's really beautiful," trying not to laugh, but all the same making sure Blundy saw with what effort she was politely not laughing.

  The gift inside was-imagine!-a stiff piece of some coarse fabric sewn with wool lettering. Greetings from space, it said, in strident green, blue and purple.

  "It's a sampler. People on Earth used to make them to hang up in their living rooms," Mercy Macdonald explained. "I didn't know if you'd like it-we call this sort of thing scrimshaw. People on other planets like to have these things, for souvenirs of our visit."

  "It's stunning," Murra said, knowing that Blundy would understand she thought it hideous; and just because she thought it so hideous she insisted that Blundy put it up at once on the wall over the couch in the living room.

  "Can't I help?" the man from the ship asked politely.

  "Of course not, Captain Horeger," Murra said warmly, consciously flattering him by upgrading his title. "You're a guest."

  "Oh, please, call me Hans," he said, looking at her with admiration, and not bothering to mention the fact that Mercy Macdonald, who was also a guest, was already standing to help Blundy with the hanging.

  "Hans, then," she said, saying it in a way that conveyed appreciation of the name, and also of the man who owned it. "Please, just sit down and make yourself comfortable. Let me get you some wine? It's summer wine from last year. That's when the grapes are best, just when everything starts to get too hot to grow." And smiled at him while she was pouring, but did not fail to see, out of the corner of her eye, Mercy Macdonald handing the sampler up to Blundy, and their hands touching.

  * * *

  Although there were only six at dinner it wasn't quite as intimate as Murra had intended. Though only the six of them sat down to eat, Rosha, the cleaner, had stayed on to serve and Grannis, the cooker, insisted on carrying some of the dishes in himself, thrilled to be so close to the visitors; and both of them felt quite free to take part in the conversation.

  Murra made sure there was plenty of conversation, careful to guide it to new areas whenever it showed signs of slowing (after all, Murra's dinners were not about food, they were about talk). But it didn't need much guiding. There was plenty to talk about. The visitors had so much to learn about Slowyear, and the locals were delighted to tell them. About Slowyear's seasons: "Well, yes, we have a very long year," Blundy was telling Mercy MacDonald, "so we divide it into six principal seasons-coldspring, warmspring, summer, hotfall, coldfall and, of course, winter."

  Petoyne made a face. "Winter's the worst," she said, looking at Mercy MacDonald in a very wintery way.

  "Not for me," Rosha disagreed. He leaned past Murra to set down the soup tureen. "Wow, that was heavy," he informed them all. "The way I look at it, when it's winter at least you can dress warm and go out for a little while if you want to, but there's nowhere to go in summer. Unless you're rich. How's the soup?"

  "Fine," Blundy said, just as though it were a reasonable question for a server to ask.

  "Good, I'll tell Grannis," he said, and reluctantly left the room.

  Murra smiled after him, just as though she meant it. "As a matter of fact," she told her guests, "Blundy and I do go to one of the polar places sometimes in the summer." Then she saw the look on Blundy's face.

  "But not this one, I think," she said.

  Blundy picked up the conversation where it had been interrupted. "So altogether we have a hundred months, each one about seventy days long-there are holidays now and then to make it come out even with the year. Right now we're in Green, coming up on Flower. The whole countryside gets really pretty in Flower; you'd like it."

  "I was born in Flower," Vorian contributed. "That isn't a good time, though. I was just beginning to get big enough to be really active when summer came along. My mother told me she had the devil of a time keeping me indoors from Fry to Sweat."

  "And I was born on the sixty-seventh of Shiver-that's the first month of winter," Murra added, "and Blundy's birthday is the forty-fifth of Christmas, while Petoyne here has just had her very first birthday. The 11th of Green, wasn't it, dear?"

  Petoyne looked down at her food without answering. Blundy took up the thread. "So I'm two and seventeen months," he told the company.

  "That would be about thirty-five of your years, Mercy. And, let's see, Murra's now-"

  Murra was already overriding his voice. To the deputy captain: "Are you really enjoying your soup?"

  "It's delicious," Horeger responded gallantly. "What is it?"

  Petoyne giggled. "You don't want to know. What do you eat on the ship?"

  "Nothing as good as this," Horeger said at once, and gave Murra a complimentary smile. She smiled back, comfortably aware that the main appreciation in his eyes was not for the food but for herself. That was a situation familiar to Murra, and always welcome. There was no doubt in her mind that this Hans Horeger person would sooner or later do his best to get her alone, and from there to a bed. She didn't mind that. She looked forward to it, in fact. She also, however, knew that she definitely would not let it go that far, not ever. The self-indulgece of actually sleeping with any of the men who had made it clear she was invited would cost too much.

  As a minimum, it would mean the sacrificing of a grievance: she wouldn't be unselfishly tolerating Blundy's adulteries any more. Simply knowing that she could easily be bedded by Horeger was almost as good as doing it, and a lot less trouble in the long run.

  When the scoggers were served, and each of the guests from the spaceship had sampled them with enjoyment, Petoyne spoke up.

  "They're bugs, you know," she said, avoiding Murra's quick, vexed look.

  "The soup was made out of their shells, now this is the meat."

  Horeger stopped with a fork almost at his lips. "Bugs?"

  Blundy took over, explaining that Slowyear's native fauna were seldom vertebrate, not counting the flying "pollies", and never mammalian. The largest life forms the original settlers found were arthropods, vaguely like terrestrial insects, with an insectoid egg-pupa-winged life cycle. "You won't see them now-they're only out at night-but they're around," he told the visitors. "Then when the dry season starts they burrow into the ground and cocoon up. In hotfall they come out when the rains start. By then they're big winged things the size of my fist; they fly, eat, mate, lay eggs and die. Then the eggs hatch and over the winter the pupae grow underground. We use dogs to dig them up in the winter, before they hatch come out by themselves; this time of year we can catch them on the surface, if we're good at it."

  "These are fresh," Murra said, proudly careful to refrain from displaying the pride she felt in the meal she had set before her guests-after all, not every hostess could provide out-of-season delicacies on short notice.

  "Hunters brought them back this morning."

  "They do taste good," Horeger said, doubtful but game.

  Mercy MacDonald said, "Oh, God, Hans, why shouldn't they? After all, back on Earth we used to eat lobsters. We'd eat them on the ship, too, if we had any."

  Which led to talk about shiplife. That was the part that really fascinated the servers, consequently slowing the meal down. Murra sighed and resigned herself: at least that meant more time for conversation. Mercy MacDonald described the universal shipboard practice of making scrimshaw-"to sell, sure, but mostly to give us something to do. Otherwise we'd all go crazy." Hans Horeger modestly explained the difficulties involved in guiding a starship across the long light-years between worlds.

  MacDonald pointed out how boring it was for everyone and how, no matter how careful they were in dealing with each other, sometimes some members of the crew simply could not stand some other member of the crew one second longer-she was, Murra thought with interest, talking more to her deputy captain than to her hosts. But Horeger didn't appea
r to notice. He blithely began to explain that they would soon have to dislodge the ship's fuel storage, converting it to a factory for more fuel and sending it close in to the star for solar energy to make the antimatter fuel. Murra said quickly, "Surely there's no hurry. Aren't we being good hosts for you here?"

  "Well," said Hans Horeger, turning toward her, "in some ways extremely good."

  "He means we don't have any complaints at all," Mercy MacDonald put in.

  "You've been so good about commercial dealings you've just about put me out of a job. I don't have to bargain! You pay us so well that we can afford just about everything we ask for-machine parts, metal, supplies-"

  "Some of us can still hope for more," Horeger murmured in Murra's ear.

  "We're getting plenty from you people in return, of course," Blundy declared, paying no attention to what was going on at the other end of the table. "That's what makes good business, a fair price both ways and everybody sat- Is that the phone, Murra?"

  It was. She looked resignedly amused. "Excuse me, please," she said, getting up. "It won't take me more than a minute-"

  In fact, it took less. She wasn't out of the dining room before Grannis appeared from the kitchen, his flushed face looking sad. "Say, Murra," he said, "this isn't so good. It's your sister. You know your nephew Porly? She says he's in the hospital."

  * * *

  While Murra was out of the room everybody, of course, had some sort of reassurance, or at least good wishes, to offer. But it was Horeger who said the thing that no one else said. He looked around the table, then turned to Blundy. "Is it this infant-mortality thing you people have?" he asked.