Part 7 (1/2)
”What?” Driscoll stared at them aghast. ”I've never talked to cla.s.ses of people. I wouldn't know how to start.”
”A good time to start practicing then,” Ci suggested. He swallowed hard and shook his head. ”I have to stay here. This conversation is enough to get me shot as it is.” Ci shrugged but seemed content not to make any more of it. ”Are you two, er...teachers here or something like that?” Driscoll asked.
”Sometimes,” s.h.i.+rley answered. ”Ci teaches English mainly, but mostly down on the surface. That is, when she's not working with electronics or installing plant wiring underground somewhere. I'm not all that technical. I grow olives and vines out on the Peninsula, and design interiors. That's what brought me up here-Clem wants the crew quarters and mess deck refitted and decorated. But yes, I teach tailoring sometimes, but not a lot.”
”I meant as a regular job,” Driscoll said. ”What do you do basically?”
”All of them.” s.h.i.+rley sounded mildly surprised. ”What do you mean by 'basically'?”
”They do the same thing all the time, from when they quit school to when they retire,” Ci reminded her mother.
”Oh yes, of course.” s.h.i.+rley nodded. ”That sounds pretty awful. Still, it's their business.”
”What do you do best?” Ci asked him. ”I mean...apart from holding people's walls up for them. That can't be much of a life.”
Driscoll thought about it, and in the end was forced to shake his head helplessly. ”Not a lot that you'd be interested in, I guess,” he confessed.
”Everybody's got something,” s.h.i.+rley insisted. ”What do you like doing?”
”You really wanna know?” An intense note had come suddenly into Driscoll's voice.
”Hey, back off, soldier,” Ci said suspiciously. ”We're still strangers. Later, who knows? Give it time.”
”I didn't mean that,” Driscoll protested, feeling embarra.s.sed. ”If you must know, I like working cards.”
”You mean tricks?” s.h.i.+rley seemed interested. ”I can do tricks, sure.”
”Are you good?”
”The best. I can make 'em stand up and talk.”
”You'd better mean it,” s.h.i.+rley warned. ”There's nothing worse than trying to spend money you don't have. It's like stealing from people.”
Driscoll didn't follow what she meant, so he ignored it. ”I mean it,” he told her.
s.h.i.+rley turned to look at Ci. ”Say, wouldn't he be great to have at our next party? I love things like that.”
She looked at Driscoll again. ”When are you coming down to Chiron?”
”I don't know yet. We haven't heard anything.”
”Well, give us a call when you do, and we'll fix something up. I live in Franklin, so there shouldn't be too much of a problem. That's where we usually get together.”
”Sounds good,” Driscoll said. ”I can't make any promises fight now though. Everything depends on how things go. If things work out okay, how would I find the place?”
”Oh, just ask the computers anywhere how to get to s.h.i.+rley-with-the-red-hair's place-Ci's mother.
They'll take care of you.”
”So maybe we'll see you down there sometime,” Ci said.
”Well...yeah. Who knows? He was about to say something more when Wellington interrupted.
”Two of your officers are heading this way. I thought you ought to know.”
”Who?” Driscoll asked automatically, tossing his cigarette b.u.t.t into the incinerator and s.n.a.t.c.hing up his gun. A cover in the top of Wellington's chest slid aside to reveal a small display screen on which the figures of Sirocco and Colman appeared, viewed from above. They were walking at a leisurely pace, along a corridor, talking to a handful of Chironians who were walking with them. Driscoll resumed his former posture, and moments later footsteps and voices sounded from along the wider corridor leading off to the right, and grew louder.
”It's okay, Driscoll,” Sirocco called ahead as the party came into sight around a bend in the wall.
”Forget the pantomime. We're back in the Bomb Factory.” Driscoll relaxed his pose and sent a puzzled look along the corridor.
”I might have guessed,” Colman said, nodding to himself and taking in the two girls as he drew to a halt.
”Very cosy,” Sirocco agreed.
”Er...s.h.i.+rley and Ci,” Driscoll said. ”And that's General Wellington.”
”Been having a nice chat, have you?” Sirocco asked. ”Well, yes, actually, I suppose, sir. How did you know?” Sirocco waved at the corridor behind him. ”Because it's happening everywhere else, that's how.
Carson's talking football, and Maddock is telling some kids about what it was like growing up on the Mayflower II.” He sighed but didn't sound too ruffled about it. ”If you can't beat 'em, then join 'em, eh, Driscoll...for an hour or so, anyway. And besides, they want to show Colman something in the observatory upstairs. I don't understand what the h.e.l.l they're talking about.”
”Steve's an engineer,” one of the Chironians, a bearded youth in a red check s.h.i.+rt, explained, indicating Colman and speaking to CL ”We told him about the resonance oscillations in the G7 mounting gyro, and he said he might be able to suggest a way of damping them with feedback from the alignment laser.
We're taking him up to have a look at it.”
”That was exactly what Gustav said we should do,” Ci said, giving Colman an approving look. ”He was looking at it yesterday.”
”I know. Maybe we can get Gustav and Steve working on it together.”
”Hey, don't get too excited about this,” Colman cautioned. ”I only said rd be interested in seeing it. The Army might have different ideas about me getting involved. Don't bet your life savings on it.”
The Chironians and Colman disappeared up the steel railed stairway, talking about differential transducers and inductive compensators, and s.h.i.+rley and Ci went on their way after Wellington reminded them that they had less than fifteen minutes to board the shuttle for Franklin. Driscoll and Sirocco remained with Wellington in the corridor.
”If you don't mind my saying so, isn't this a bit risky, sir?” Driscoll said apprehensively. ”I mean...with all this going on? Suppose Colonel Wesserman or somebody shows up.”
”No chance with these Chironian robots around. They've got the place staked out.” He wrinkled his nose, and his moustache twitched as he sniffed the air. ”Take a break while you've got the chance, Private Driscoll,” he advised. ”And I'll have one of those cigarettes that you've been smoking.”
Driscoll grinned and began feeling more confident. ”You see, Wellington,” he said. ”They're not all as bad as you think.”
”Amazing,” the robot replied in a neutral voice.
A party was thrown in the Bowery that night to celebrate the Mayflower II's safe arrival and the end of the voyage. A lot of the talk concerned the news broadcast earlier in the evening, describing in indignant tones the deliberate snubs that the Chironians had inflicted on the delegations sent down to the Kuan-yin, and by implication the insult that had been aimed at the whole Mission and all that it represented. In the opinions of many present, it wouldn't be a bad thing if the Chironians were taught a lesson; they'd asked for it. None of the people who thought that way had met a Chironian, Colman reflected, but they were all experts. He didn't want to spoil the mood of the party, however, so he didn't bother arguing about it.
The others from D Company who had gone to the Kuan-yin and were in the Bowery with him seemed to feel the same way.
CHAPTER TWELVE HOWARD KALENS WAS not amused.