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And when she wanted companionship — when she wanted to listen to their music, or let Bluecloak try out its rapidly increasing store of words and expressions — they were there. Quiet, polite, and eager. She didn’t mind being the center of attention when she could choose the time. In the evenings, when they played music, they offered her any of their musical instruments. She usually shook the gourd with its seeds, but she had finally coaxed a note — breathy but musical — from the handful of hollow reeds. They listened when she played music cubes for them; they even tried to sing along with the children’s songs, and came surprisingly close to the melodies. She tried to hum along with their songs, but worried that she would sing the wrong notes; it was easier to keep a rhythm on the gourd. Bluecloak and one of the others seemed determined to learn to read; they encouraged her to read from the children’s books in the center schoolrooms. She explained about letters and numbers, and soon saw them tracing letters in the air, on walls, in the dust of the lane. They seemed to learn very fast, but she had no idea how fast adults could learn letters if they had not been to school as children. She wondered if the creatures had any written language of their own. Again, her questions to Bluecloak didn’t seem to get through. Did it not understand, or did it not want to answer? She couldn’t tell.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kira Stavi reminded herself frequently that she had not expected this trip to be pleasant. It didn’t need to be pleasant; it was a chance to meet the first alien intelligence ever found on a colony world. On any world, for that matter. What did the usual shipboard nonsense matter, with that in view? Still, it was a
Except that they were. Primary and backup teams, two sets of paired specialists, eight active minds each determined to make or complete a reputation out of this trip, and too much shipboard time with too little to do besides worry about how the others might frustrate that ambition. The primary team alone could generate, Kira thought, a storycube of problems. Bilong Oliausau had to impress them with her knowledge of neolinguistic AI, and her sexual attractiveness. Ori Lavin, normally a calm, pragmatic Pelorist, almost a caricature of that sect, had reacted to Bilong as if to a shot of rejuvenating hormones, and sleeked his moustache every time she undulated by. He had engaged in one fierce argument after another with Vasil, most of them u
She reminded herself of this day after tedious day, through the intermediate jumps and the long insystem crawl to the planet. She reminded herself that it would have been worse — it would have taken longer — on most ships. Although it was tempting to think that a larger team would have been less difficult, she knew from previous field experience that large teams could offer just as many opportunities for interpersonal unpleasantness. Here, the small size of the team would force them to cooperate once they were on the planet. And she, the only one presently acting like a responsible adult, would make sure of that. When they were close enough, she joined the others at the wardroom viewscreen. Blue, white, tan, dark green… polar caps, mountain ranges, forests… no wonder someone wanted to colonize it, she thought. If it had been purpose-built for humans, it could not have been closer to ideal. “Needs a moon,” Ori said, as if reading her mind. Sometimes he could; they had been on several expeditions together. Kira took it as a sign that he was getting over his infatuation with Bilong. She smiled at him without saying anything.
“We’re going to sit out here for awhile and really look at things,” Vasil said. He had said this before, more than once; Kira felt her shoulders tighten now. She didn’t like being treated as an idiot who couldn’t remember. Perhaps that was what he was used to; unlike the others, he had no academic appointment. She tried to convince herself that this explained his attitude. “We’re going to launch a low-orbit sca
She watched the launch of the low-orbit sca
“I don’t think there’ll be any surface data for awhile, but we can check the response of the visuals.” “I’ll load the old data for comparison.” They knew it by heart, but the computer would catch subtle changes they might miss.
“Thanks,” Kira said. She wished Chesva were on the primary team with her… but then she might have had someone like Bilong for her backup. Better this way, probably.
The atmospheric data began to show up on her screen. She pulled up the old, and had the computer highlight any changes. Nothing showed. Just as she’d expected.
“What about that old weathersat?” Chesva asked. “Do we have the access codes?” “I’ll check,” Kira ran through the expedition manual, which was supposed to contain a précis of all relevant data, including enabling codes for any equipment Sims Bancorp had left behind. “Yes — and I’ll just give it a shove—” The weathersat’s computer obligingly dumped a long file of weather observations, graphics and all. Kira called up the current image. Blue water, swirling white clouds in streaks along the wind patterns, a mass of clouds lumped up over something on the western side of the image. She muttered her way through the selection tree to pull up information about that. Mountains, it turned out to be. Chesva had moved over to her workstation. “Do you suppose the weathersat has any idle sca