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up so many years earlier.
How many years earlier? How many?
For a time he studied his hands, then stared out the unglazed window at
nothing.
He looked once more at the dust on the floor tiles, sniffed again the total
emptiness, and turned back toward the tunnel to the mesa top. He did not need
to take the other stairway, the one that had led down to the spring, the one
through which the shambletowners had poured one distant night, slings and
spears in hand, with their rat grease torches flaring.
As he entered the tunnel leading upward, he looked at his hands still yet
again. He shook his head to clear his vision.
Later, at the top step; he paused, but turned away and did not look back, and
stared instead at the clouds overhead, which reminded him of night, not
morning.
The clouds were thicker than when he had brought the flitter down, as if they
had decided against allowing the sunshine to break through. And the wind was
stronger, the chill more pronounced, as the click of ice droplets began to
pelt his jacket and bum his face.
Chapter XXXII
Gerswin glanced up from the Operations oversight console. Captain Altura, the
Imperial Auditor, was leaving Major Matsuko's office. She did not appear
particularly pleased.
Her lips were set even more tightly than when Gerswin had met her at the
hangar-bunker right after the shuttle had dropped her three days earlier. The
captain's fists were half-clenched as she marched out toward the tunnel to the
number one hangar-bunker.
"Opswatch, this is Outrider three. Interrogative permission to lift."
Ferinya, the duty controller, looked at Gerswin. His eyebrows raised
questioningly. "Permission to lift?"
"Why not? Met status is clear now. Squall line coming in."
"Outrider three. Cleared to lift. Interrogative destination and fuel status."
"Artifact survey run. Plan on file. Estimate air time at two plus stans. Fuel
status is plus four."
"Stet. Understand survey run for plus two. Fuel status four."
"Stet. Outrider three lifting."
Ferinya turned to Gerswin. "Do you know what that was all about. Lieutenant?
She already had clearance."
Gerswin shrugged. "No. No passengers or cargo on the schedule."
"What was what all about?"
Lers Kardias stood by the console, his stubby fingers tapping on the hard
console top.
"Lieutenant Starkadny requested clearance to lift twice. No explanation,"
explained Gerswin.
"Oh . . . That is funny." Junior Lieutenant Kardias shook his head. "You ready
to be relieved, ser?"
"More than ready."
"You stand relieved."
"I stand relieved, and you have it."
Gerswin picked up the light pen from the console and slipped it into the arm
pocket of his flight suit. "Good luck, Lers. There's a squall line coming in."
"Thanks."
"Which of you was responsible for sending that flitter off without me?" The
chill voice of the
Imperial auditor stopped Gerswin in his tracks.
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He turned back to face both the console and Captain Altura. Lieutenant Kardias
had swiveled in the chair, but had not stood.
"I was. Captain," answered Gerswin.
"Could you explain why?"
"First, no passengers listed. No cargo either. Second, pilot requested
clearance. Third, no one notified Opswatch that you were to be included."
The sandy-haired captain said nothing, but clamped her lips together until
they were nearly white.
Gerswin waited a moment, then asked, "Is there anything I could do. Captain?"
He caught the "now what have you said?" look from Lers Kardias as Captain
Altura glared at him.
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"Mister Senior Lieutenant, you have done quite enough for the moment. Anything
else would only compound that."
Gerswin laughed-a single harsh bark.
"Ms. Captain, I followed the order book. I would have gladly delayed the
flitter if anyone had asked me."
"I told the pilot."
"On every Imperial base, schedules and clearances are controlled by
operations. Bases are not ships. Captain." He paused. "Would you like a tour
of the maintenance facilities?"
"I've seen them. The conditions and status are better on Charon."
"Charon's an easier planet."
"Than Old Earth?"
Gerswin nodded. "I'll show you. Come on with me."
"Show me what?"
"Not what. Why."
"Why what?"
Gerswin had already turned away, as if to lead the captain, his quick steps
heading toward the southwest base exit.
The captain looked at Lieutenant Kardias, then at Gerswin's back, before, with
a shrug, she followed the senior lieutenant.
At the inner portal of the exit he turned to wait for her.
"Your home system?"
She clamped her lips shut tightly, then released them.
"New Augusta."
He nodded and stabbed the portal release. Once in the small room between the
inner and outer portals, he walked over to the line of lockers. He checked
one, then another, rummaging through several until he located a double-lined
jacket with thermal gloves.
"You'll need this."
"It's summer."
"You'll need it. Ice rain."
"Hail, you mean?"
Gerswin shook his head in disagreement and offered the jacket to the captain,
who donned it but stuffed the gloves into the side pockets and did not seal
them.
As the outer portal opened and the two stepped through, a gust of wind from
the east, sweeping along the edge of the berm, caught the captain unaware,
knocking her into the lieutenant.
Gerswin steadied the woman with his left hand, submerged a grin, and continued
toward the point where the ridgeline began to slope away toward the south.
"Watch the clouds."
Captain Altura said nothing, looked at the bare clay interspersed with grassy
humps. Finally, she took his advice and raised her eyes to the roiling and
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speeding mass of varied gray that hurtled toward the mountains in the distance
to her right.
Gerswin watched her, not the clouds, as the winds quickly turned her pale
cheeks reddish with the cold, and fluttered her short and sandy hair with each
gust above the steady chill breeze that whipped around them.
The darker cloud that presaged ice rain was nearly overhead before the
droplets began to sound against their clothing and the hard clay.
Click! Click! Click, click, click!
The captain held one in her bare right hand. So cold was the droplet that it
did not begin to melt for several moments.
"Why don't you put on the gloves?"
"I might, thank you."
As she struggled with the two gloves too large for her long-fingered but
narrow hands, Gerswin glanced at the clouds. Not quite dark enough for a
landspout, but the wind velocity would continue to rise and the temperature to
drop.
As she finished donning the gloves and looked back at the darkening clouds,
Gerswin whistled the first three notes of a tune, the one he thought of as a
lament for Old Earth.
The melody had come to him after he'd seen the black Gates to Hades. With the
auditor's impatience, the chill, and his own wondering what he was even doing
trying to explain Old Earth to a number-cruncher, the first three notes had
slipped out before he cut off the melody.
"What sort of instrument was that?"
"What?"
"That you were playing." Captain Altura was still adjusting the too-large
gloves, trying to
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falling off her hands.
"No instrument. Sometimes I whistle." Gerswin gestured, as if to change the
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