Dwendle Stoffelsen took one last glance over the notes for his speech of welcome. It would never do to stutter or mix his words in front of a Diplomat—damned people probably had an entire dictionary stored in one of those little chips they had stuck in their heads. A thesaurus. In six languages. Along with canned speeches for every possible occasion. And here he was, eyes too old to focus on the words that flashed on the tiny prompters built into the podium, reduced to relying on a handful of old-fashioned flimsies and his own memory for what was likely the most important event of his career.
"Floris, can't you set the prompt screen to a larger font?" he demanded of the young tech who was setting everything up in the meeting hall.
"Sure, Haar Stoffelsen, if you want to be prompted one word at a time," the kid said cheerfully. "Heck, I can even bring up a font so big you'll get one letter at a time, if that's what you'd like. What I can't do is make the screen itself any bigger—that would require a new screen, and we'd have to get that shipped via Tasman."
Not to mention, he thought, that a bigger prompt screen would have to be fitted into a bigger podium, and old Stoffelsen would look like even more of a doddering old fool than he was, standing behind a pedestal that dwarfed him. Why hadn't the old guy gone off-planet for a lens replacement as soon as his eyes began playing up, like any normal person?
Dwendle Stoffelsen was wondering the same thing, but unlike young Floris, he knew the answer. Some of the Society business he managed was just too delicate to be left in the hands of subordinates while he took the time to visit off-world medical facilities. And too dangerous! You couldn't trust these kids nowadays; they'd be poking into all his private files as soon as his back was turned. And there was no telling when some crisis might arise that needed his personal management. Why, he might even have been off-world at the time this Diplomat arrived! And what a disaster that would have been. One certainly couldn't trust Torston to handle a Diplomat properly, and as for Kaspar, he simply didn't understand the protocol and traditions of the Society. These kids new from Barents were too impetuous by half, always trying to solve problems with the first wild idea that flew into their heads. He shuffled the flimsies irritably. Even these notes were too hard to read. But there wasn't time to have them printed in a larger font; he could already hear the welcoming music outside.
The vaguely melodious sound of flughorns in the distance, supported by the rhythmic drumming of the boras, became a deafening cacophony of blare and thump as the doors to the meeting hall were thrown open. After the blue-uniformed guards entered there came a slender, dark woman almost dwarfed by the tall forms of the honor escort on either side. Good Barentsian lads, Dwendle saw approvingly; the best of the new generation, reared in and dedicated to the traditions of the Society. Standing between them, swaying with fatigue and most inappropriately dressed in some modernistic off-world outfit that was half skin-tight stretch fabric and half billowing draperies, the Diplomat didn't look like such a threat after all. Just a young woman who didn't know anything about Kalapriya or the Barents Trading Society, and who—with any luck—would leave knowing little more. Dwendle took a deep breath and waited for the blare of the flughorns to die down before he began his opening remarks.
"Diplomat Vissi, the assembled Fruen and Haaren of the Barents Trading Society welcome you to Valentin on Kalapriya. We are deeply honored by your visit . . ."
It was, after all, nothing he hadn't said hundreds of times before, if not to quite such a dangerous visitor. And as the formal phrases rolled on, Dwendle felt his confidence returning. This slight young woman could hardly pose any real threat; if it weren't for all those increasingly urgent ansible messages from Rezerval, he'd begin to think this whole visit was just a formality, the Federation's polite way of showing respect to the Barents Trading Society and the invaluable service they offered. And not only the Society, now.
Thinking of that, and of the wealth and power that would totally overshadow even the wealthiest of the conventional Society members, Dwendle went on almost automatically with the flowery phrases he had assembled from a hundred such speeches to make sure that no compliment, no phrase of welcome, would be lacking from the Barents Trading Society's formal greeting to this most unwelcome visitor. He gazed with mild irritation at the glazed eyes and expressionless faces of his colleagues. You'd think they could pretend a little more interest; maybe they had heard it all before, but he flattered himself that his vibrant voice and measured, dignified yet forceful delivery lent new life to the old words.
"And in conclusion . . ." he began, and was irritated yet again to see a flicker of joy on the faces in the front row. Just for that, he extended his "conclusion" by a good five minutes, repeating already-expressed hopes for a joyful visit and a fruitful collaboration between the Barents Trading Society and the Federation of which their home planet had the honor to be a member, reiterating the honor they felt upon being visited by a Diplomat from Rezerval and the deep desire of every member of the Barents Trading Society to serve the visitor in any way possible.
Maris didn't mind how long the old geezer talked; as long as he was speechifying, she didn't have to figure out what to do next. Not that she'd had a lot of options yet. She'd meant to be out of the shuttle seconds after it docked. Hadn't ever ridden a shuttle before; didn't realize how long it took to complete docking, how everybody lined up and shuffled forward a step at a time, how she'd be stuck in the line of travelers. You'd think a Diplo would get special treatment, first one off—not that it would have done her much good; the reception committee was waiting right there in the docking bay. Uniforms, lots of blue uniforms, and so much gold braid it made her eyes hurt. A sea of tall young men with hair as yellow as their gold braid and tall old men going grey, or losing their hair altogether, like nobody here ever heard of implants. Tall blond people closing in around her, no way to slip away on the short walk to the single exit door—which was guarded, anyway, by more of the tall guys in the blue and gold uniforms. On both sides. And outside, a blaze of heat and light and white dust that half stunned her, even before that godawful blare they called the Barents National Anthem started up and they lifted her into some kind of box on wheels with large animals tied to it.
Of course she knew what a sun looked like, she wasn't ignorant. Johnivans treated his crew to the best entertainment holos even before they were released for public distribution. She just hadn't realized how big and bright the thing was, and how it released waves of heat that settled down on your head like a smothering blanket—and how come, if the Barents Trading Society was so rich, they couldn't afford a nice climate-controlled city? Nobody in the holos had to experience this kind of raw dirtside life, not unless they were brave pioneers colonizing a new world or something.
At least the hall was climate-controlled. From the outside it looked like all the other primitive buildings they'd passed, built from some kind of creamy white stuff that dripped and crumbled, topped with hard round red tiles; but inside it was a reasonably normal kind of place, with smooth walls and gentle lighting and, thank goodness, cool air.
And it, too, was guarded inside and outside by uniformed men. Maris felt as though she'd been swimming through a sea of tall blondes ever since she came off the shuttle. The women were as bad as the men, big and buxom, with yellow braids wrapped around their heads to make them look even taller. And their clothes weren't anything like Calandra Vissi's up-to-the-minute stretch bodysuit and woven wrap. Instead they wore loose floating panels of some flimsy organic-looking cloth, topped with falls of fine white lace that set off their pink-and-white complexions. No way Maris would be able to slip away and blend in with this crowd, even if they hadn't had six people watching her every minute since she stepped off the shuttle.
The old geezer had finally shut up; a discreet pattering of palms filled the hall, and suddenly they were all looking at Maris: hundreds, thousands it seemed, of bright blue eyes watching her.
Expecting her to stand up and act like a Diplo.
Make a speech, probably.
She couldn't make a speech. She hadn't had any practice. She didn't know the words. She talked like a Tasman scumsucker.
This was where they discovered her imposture and—what? Shipped her back to Tasman on the departing shuttle, most likely.
Not a good idea. Somehow she'd have to drag it out a bit longer, at least until the shuttle was gone; she didn't mind if they threw her out on a ship going somewhere else, just not back to Tasman.
Stand up. You can do that much, can't you?
The folds of her fashionably draped overwrap were damp with sweat from the brief ride outside, and the bodysuit was sticking to her in places she had never expected anything to cling. But yes, she could stand up. She could even find a few words of thanks to what was his name, oh yes Haar Stoffelsen don't forget the others and all the members of the Honorable Society who had found time to welcome her today. She apologized for being too tired from the trip to respond properly. "Maybe later," she said, and sat down more quickly than she'd planned, dizzy with fear and certain that her last words had come out in the Tasman twang as "Mybe lyt'r."
It seemed that whatever she said marked the end of the welcoming ceremony; the Society members all stood and came crowding round her, a sea of bright blue eyes and broad smiles that seemed somehow pasted onto their faces. The band crashed into action again. Maris winced and leaned back against her padded chair, then stood again as people started coming up to shake her hand. She dropped her eyes and murmured syllables that might have been polite greeting formulas. Weren't they ever going to finish saying hello—so that she could say good-bye and get out of here?
Her sway was not feigned at all, but it brought one of the matrons sitting on the stage behind her to her elbow. "Dwendle, you fool, the young lady's not used to our climate, nor dressed for it. Go on, all of you!" She shooed the elders of the Society, now all on their feet, away with quick impatient gestures. "Do you let me take her home now for a nice rest, heavens know the poor girl will need it before the banquet and ball tonight. Saara—drat that child, she's never here when I want her!"
"You told her to stay home, Mama," murmured a young woman even taller than Fru Stoffelsen, bending her head meekly even as she spoke.
"So I did, Faundaree! Well, heavens know somebody has to see to those dratted servants or they'd take a half-day holiday with all of us cooped up in here listening to Dwendle. Come along with me, m'dear."
"Ivonna, my love," Haar Stoffelsen protested weakly, "we'd planned a tour of orientation for Diplomat Vissi after the welcoming ceremony."
Maris belatedly remembered that she was Diplomat Vissi, and tried to look interested in the horrible prospect of being toured and oriented, but there seemed to be no need; Ivonna Stoffelsen ignored Dwendle's objections as if she hadn't even heard them. Quite possibly she hadn't; the lady had not stopped talking since she took charge of Maris, ordering the tall girl—Fawn, was that her name?—to see that the carriage was ready, telling a young man on the fringes of the crowd not to lounge like a Kalapriyan servant, but to get on to the Stoffelsen house and see that Saara had the young lady's rooms properly prepared and a light repast ready to send up.
"Yes, yes, Fru Stoffelsen," another of the interchangeably tall, fair young men interrupted, "but we must have Diplomat Vissi for the tour of the culture caves first. The tide, you understand."
Ivonna Stoffelsen puffed disapproval. "Well, I call it cruel, Benteen Teunis, dragging the poor young lady off to be seasick and lecturing her about bugs before she's even had time to find her land feet!"
"We don't want to waste the Diplomat's time, do we now?" Teunis took Maris's elbow and deftly steered her out of the crowd. "I'll return her to Jetty Six," he promised Fru Stoffelsen. "Tell your driver to wait there with a carriage and a pair of turagai."
Turagai, turagai, turagai, the big animals that pulled the boxes were called turagai, that was the kind of thing a Diplo with a language download would be expected to know. Maris repeated the word like a charm to keep her safe while Ivonna Stoffelsen indignantly proclaimed her intention of meeting the young lady personally at Jetty Six—"and you'd best not take too long with your bugs and slime, Benteen Teunis!"
"Microbes," Teunis said in a tired voice that somehow told Maris he'd heard this from Ivonna before. "Microbes, Fru Stoffelsen, and biofilms. And the reason we are all here."
"Diplomat Vissi," Dwendle Stoffelsen managed to interject before Teunis carried Maris away, "we will look forward to seeing you at the welcoming banquet tonight. My fellow Society officials and I will be prepared for an in-depth discussion of your mission so that we may learn how best to serve you."
Serve her up on a platter, he thought privately, with an apple stuffed in her mouth. Wasn't it bad enough that she'd come here, with all the implications of meddling and interference and undesirable questions that the visit of a Diplomat meant, but she also had to show how superior she felt to them all? Not even bothering to respond to his speech! Dwendle straightened his shoulders, feeling taller and stronger now that his horrible wife was out of the building. It was unthinkable that all he had worked to achieve should be called into question by this—this insolent child. Tonight they'd get the details of her orders out of her, and then he could consult privately with Torston and Kaspar as to how to arrange matters. Surely they could whirl her through Kalapriya, bury her under uninteresting details, send her away with the impression they'd told her everything about the 'mat trade while leaving her with very little real information. Have her tour the breeding caves, then send her on state visits to the native nobility of the Plains States until the heat and humidity exhausted her. They'd done it to other important visitors. Diplomats couldn't really be possessed of the superhuman powers rumor credited them with. Could they?
Maris decided she had no real choice but to follow wherever this Benteen Teunis wanted to take her. She didn't know enough about what a Diplomat really did to plan her own schedule; presumably these guys did, so if she just went along with whatever they had planned they'd likely accept her for what she pretended to be. And sooner or later there'd be a chance to slip away. They couldn't very well keep her in meetings and on tours for every watch of the cycle.
Could they?
Anyway, all she had to do now was follow Benteen Teunis from the cool meeting hall, along a dusty white path inadequately paved with big flat rocks. Sweat dripped off Maris's forehead and dampened her curls into slick, wet locks. But after they had walked a good two corridor sections' distance, she felt the warm air moving gently against her face. Something smelled different, too. Aha! They might talk about living under the planet's low-tech restrictions, but she could tell now. Somebody, somewhere, had turned the temp down and set a ventilator fan in motion. The air fresh out of the ventilators always smelled different . . .
"Ah, the sea breeze," Teunis said. He gave a deep sigh of satisfaction. "I am grateful my work keeps me on the water or in the caves most of the time; tell you the truth, Diplomat Vissi, I don't know how my colleagues in the Society can stand living in the heat of Kalapriya.
Sea? Maris mentally riffled through her memories of old vids and found a number of quite unlikely images: scantily dressed people standing on stages that rocked up and down, waving shiny sharp things and yelling at each other. Oh, yes—that had been in Sea Pirates of the Iraveen.
The sea pirates had been quite unpleasant people until Captain Quirk of the Federation landed and reformed them.
With tanglenets and dazers.
"Ah—there aren't any pirates where we're going, are there?"
Teunis laughed a bit harder than Maris thought the question warranted. "No, the Kalapriyans are a peaceful people. At least within the Trading Society's sphere of influence. Piracy would interfere with our business, you see, so we—ah—discourage it."
Probably with tanglenets and dazers.
"Only simple fishermen use the coastal waters," Benteen Teunis reassured her. "And—ah—the Society, of course."
The cool, sharp-smelling air was all around them now, and Maris could see a line of blue-green between the white-walled buildings that lined the road. As they drew closer, the line got larger. Wider. Not really a line at all. Fields? Some sort of crop, waving in the ventilator breeze?
Water.
A lot of water.
And things bobbing up and down on top of the water like those stages in Sea Pirates of the Iraveen, only Maris didn't think there were any machines making the things sway up and down like that. She thought—
A particularly long, rolling, heaving sway felt like it was trying to carry her stomach with it, and she concentrated so hard on not noticing the movement of the wooden things that she barely noticed anything else: not the short, dark men around them coiling ropes and folding nets and talking in a strange birdlike chatter, not Benteen Teunis's hand on her elbow again urging her to step down into one of the little wooden things, not—
She would have told him, not on your life, I ain't going on one of them things, but she was afraid that if she unclenched her jaws long enough to say anything she would lose the entire contents of her stomach, just like some new dirtsider in zero-g for the first time, and pride kept her silent.
Two young men, as fair-haired as Benteen Teunis but with redder skin and younger faces, did things with ropes and pieces of cloth around them and Maris, teeth clenched firmly against the heaving swell of the water and its echoes in her stomach, barely noticed that the little box she was sitting in was moving away from the land, out into the unimaginable expanse of blue-green water. The Kalapriyan fishermen watched them, unmoving on the dock.
"Why do they not awaken the demon in the box?" Sunan asked.
His friend Ladhu shook his head. "They never awaken it until they are out of sight of the harbor. Perhaps the sea-demons cannot be called up near land, lest they leap ashore and escape from the outlanders' control."
"Or perhaps they think if they are careful enough, we will not notice that they use demons to push their boats?"
Ladhu laughed. "Even outlanders cannot be that stupid."
Benteen Teunis sighed with relief as they rounded a rocky crag that blocked the small harbor of Valentin from view. "All right, boys, you can start the motor now."
There was a rumbling noise like a small—a very small—shuttlecraft taking off, and the box suddenly tilted, pointy end up, leveled off just above the water level and began to move forward smoothly and much more quickly than before. Maris gave an involuntary sigh of relief. This felt so much more natural than all that sloshing and swaying and pulling pieces of cloth around against the wind.
Benteen Teunis gave her a friendly smile. "My apologies if the motion of the boat under sail bothered you, Diplomat Vissi, but we are under strict orders not to use the hover engines within sight of the natives. Can't risk cultural contamination, you know."
Maris nodded. She couldn't think of a properly toppie-class reply; he'd just have to think her a snob.
"It'll only take a few minutes now to reach the sea caves," Benteen went on without even waiting for a reply. "I'd better give you some background on how we harvest the 'mats—or no, I suppose you've already been briefed on all that?" His face fell as he realized that there was probably very little he could tell a fully trained and briefed Diplo.
Fortunately, there was plenty he could tell Maris.
"Nobody understands the local situation like a—um—local," Maris said brightly. "Tell you what, why don't you just pretend I dunno nothin' about yer mats an' give me the usual spiel?"
Idiot! She was slipping back into the sloppy Tasman way of speaking Galactic. But Benteen didn't seem to have noticed; he was too happy to tell her all about his beloved bugs. He talked microbes and biofilms and bacterial communities even when they reached the protruding tongue of slick, black stones leading into the first cave, even during all the business of docking and handing her over the side and mentioning that she just might want to watch out for the algae that made the cave entrance so slippery and oops, I forgot to mention that little bump just inside. Maris would have thought a rock hanging low enough to bang her head would have been considered a serious health hazard by the tall, solid Barents colonist.
"I'm s'prised you haven't removed that," she said, rubbing her forehead and glaring at the rather ugly mud-colored lump of rock that had been hiding in the overhead shadows just behind the cave entrance, now illuminated in Benteen's handlight.
"Oh, we couldn't do that," Benteen said, sounding shocked. "We haven't yet tested it for microbial life."
"I thought you knew what grows in here."
"The 'mat colonies, yes. But who knows what else might be here, might also prove of incalculable benefit to mankind?" Benteen gestured largely at the craggy rock formations surrounding them, turning the handlight as he did so to point out each type of microbial colony in turn. The pools of salty water on the cave floor held fuzzy blobs that looked to Maris like bits of somebody's lunch bar that had been left in a warm place for much too long; one of the walls was dotted with circles of pinkish-beige stuff; misty white nets trailed down from the top here and there. Personally, Maris would have described the place as seriously icky, not as a source of incalculable benefit to mankind. But then, what did she know? Apparently bacteriomats also came from this dank hole in the ground. And those had certainly been of major benefit to her, and Keito, and Ice Eyes, and . . . Johnivans.
Who had been father and brother and friend to her.
Who had been casually willing to throw her life away.
Waves of pain swept over Maris and she missed a good part of Benteen Teunis's explanation of the incredible biodiversity concealed in the fuzzy blobs and other odd things growing on the cave rocks. When she could pay attention again, he was earnestly explaining the difficulties of culturing the bacteriomats outside the cave environment.
The famous bacteriomats seemed to consist of two, no, three spots of greenish-grey film, hardly visible against the grey rocks on which they grew. The sparkling glass dishes placed all around them were far more noticeable.
"Looks like a shrine," Maris said when Benteen paused, evidently waiting for her comment.
"What? Oh!" He laughed. "No, those are our attempts to find some culture medium that the 'mats will like. You see, we can harvest from these three 'mats, but only when they grow large enough that we can take a ten-centimeter square and still leave something a little bigger. Take a sample smaller than that, and it dies in transit. Leave less than that, and the whole colony dies. We lost two of the five original 'mats learning that." The light shone briefly on a grey rock that had been scraped bare in two spots. "So far they—the 'mats—are still VNC."
"Meaning?"
"Oh. Viable but nonculturable." Benteen paused and chuckled self-consciously. "In layman's terms, you might say it means we still haven't figured out how to grow them outside the cave environment. We can keep them alive—in stasis—but they don't reproduce until they're implanted in a human brain." He went on to tell Maris more than she really wanted to know about synthetic media versus complex media, the school of thought which swore by Beccoham's G-22 Fetal Calf Serum and the opposing school supporting RQNJ 554, and the isolated nuts who insisted on using pure red agar with selected growth agents manually added.
None of which concoctions had as yet appealed to the bacteriomats.
"It's basically just a matter of trial and error," Benteen admitted. "Even on worlds we've known for centuries, successfully collecting microbes is as much folklore as science. Some researchers even leave vital medium ingredients out of their publications!"
"No, really?" Maris said, trying to sound appropriately shocked. If it was as hard as Benteen claimed to grow these bugs, and as valuable as they were—well, if she figured out how to do it, she for sure wouldn't be publishing her results for anybody and his brother to copy.
"Why, when I was in graduate school, I needed to collect some samples of the luminescent strains of Barentsian cyanobacteria for my dissertation research. And I tell you! I tried to grow them on agar, and on Lochinver's LML, and even on Falcon's Medium with glucose, and nothing worked. Finally I got in touch with Professor Benedetti, who had collected the original cultures, and you know what he told me to put into the medium? Paper clips! Old-fashioned, unplasticized, wire paper clips. And it worked!"
Maris made admiring noises.
"But the point is," Benteen emphasized, "that so far nothing has worked with the 'mats. They like these particular rocks, right here in this cave, and this particular damp air probably supplies some catalyst we haven't identified yet; and they like human brains. Nothing else! That's why there's such a demand for them, because the supply is limited to what we can harvest from this site and the three other caves we've found with 'mat films. We've got researchers going up and down the coast looking for other cave sites, but for all we know, these four caves may be the only places on the planet where these particular biofilms are found. So you see, it would be impossible for somebody to be harvesting them without our knowledge. We have each growth site mapped before and after every harvest. You think somebody could come in here and cut a ten-centimeter square off one of these babies and I wouldn't even notice? It would be like taking ten square centimeters off my own skin." Benteen thought this statement over briefly. "Worse, really. It's easy to get skin replaced."
"Then how is it being done?"
"What d'you mean?"
Maris thought she'd been clear enough. "How is somebody getting extra 'mats to smuggle off-planet?"
"They aren't," Benteen said emphatically.
"Oh, but—" Maris stopped short. Right, scumsucker. Explain to him exactly how you know somebody's smuggling 'mats? Calandra wouldn't know.
"Oh, you know," she finally said. "One hears rumors . . ."
"Rumors, schmumors. I can tell you of my own personal knowledge that the supply is carefully controlled and every single bacteriomat sample is accounted for from the moment it leaves its cave until the moment it is shipped to Rezerval."
Fru Stoffelsen was waiting at the dock when they returned. She started talking before Benteen handed Maris up the steps, and she continued talking all through the hot, weary journey to the Stoffelsen chambers. Maris recalled little of the jolting ride but heat, sweat, the ubiquitous white dust, and Ivonna Stoffelsen's voice going on and on, expressing her low opinion of men in general, Barents Trading Society officials in particular and her own husband most of all; fools who thought being a Diplo, sorry, Diplomat meant a young lady was a machine and not a young lady tired out from too many space transfers and in no condition to be subjected to speeches and tours of orientation and all that nonsense.
And yet this Dwendle Stoffelsen seemed to be a very important member of the Society. He certainly acted as if he ranked all the others, just as Johnivans ranked everyone else in Tasman's underworld. Maris tried to imagine what would have happened if she or Nyx or even crazy Daeman had brushed Johnivans out of the way and countermanded his plans, and looked at Ivonna Stoffelsen's buxom form with dawning respect. Either these people had a very strong tradition of courtesy to women, or they had some very egalitarian customs. Either way, Maris thought she could learn to like it here, and even felt a slight pang of regret when she remembered that she needed to sneak off as soon as she was left alone for a minute. But there was really no alternative. "In-depth discussion," ha! Even if she got a chance to look at Calandra Vissi's official orders, she had a feeling Dwendle Stoffelsen was going to want more information about her plans than that. A lot more.
Fru Stoffelsen's nonstop chatter was at least giving her some idea of what kind of world she'd stumbled onto. From the complaints interspersed between pointing out landmarks, Maris began to understand why life on Kalapriya reminded her of a holo about brave pioneers settling a new world. There had already been a civilization on Kalapriya when Barents "discovered" the planet: First Wave colonists, so long separated from interstellar civilization that they had developed their own culture and primitive technology. Due to previous disastrous encounters between long-separated First Wave cultures and the modern world, the Federation had protocols for minimizing the culture shock and easing these cultures into modernity. The state or world or confederation of planets that claimed rediscovery of a First Wave world was allowed to govern that world as a colony and to exploit its natural resources, but only subject to severe Federation restrictions. Technology beyond the level attained by the indigenous culture had to be necessary, approved by the Federation as necessary, and restricted to small enclaves that could be strictly segregated from the indigenes.
In some sense, Maris had known all this, known that much of Johnivans' income derived from smuggling prohibited technology onto Kalapriya. Since Tasman was the one point through which all Kalapriya traffic had to pass, and since Johnivans had a lock on Tasman's underworld, the pro-tech smuggling business was a very profitable one indeed.
And, of course, things that were smuggled onto a planet were not displayed openly. Maris would have said she knew that too, if anybody had questioned her. Only, just as the burning globe overhead was so excessively large and real compared to the suns she had seen in holos, the reality of Kalapriya itself far outstripped what she might have imagined a low-tech planet to be like. No visible technology higher than the best indigenous level meant no climate control outside of a few strictly guarded Trading Society official buildings, no powered walkways, no transport at all other than these boxes-on-wheels, no servomechs in homes . . . Ivonna Stoffelsen enlarged on these and other restrictions which, she felt, made the lives of Society officials and their families little more than one long sacrifice to the economy of Barents, and in so doing, gave Maris a better idea of what to expect on Kalapriya than any number of training vids could have done.
By the time the jolting box turned in at an avenue shaded on both sides by trees as high as any three levels of Tasman, Maris thought she was beyond surprise—but the gracious white structure visible at the end of the avenue took her breath away. "Your—the Stoffelsen family chambers—are in that?" She'd seen holos of a palace, once. Three-level columns holding up shaded porches, walls pierced with viewing vents a level high and a grown man's armspan across, billowing swathes of flowered fabric . . . this seemed to have no relation to the squalid living conditions Fru Stoffelsen had been complaining about all the way from the meeting hall.
"This," Ivonna Stoffelsen said with pride, "is House Stoffelsen at Valentin. Nothing to compare with the home House on Barents, of course, but . . . the Stoffelsens are Old Trader Family, you understand? "Those lindenbaumen"—she waved at the trees shading the avenue—"were put in by old Joris Stoffelsen himself. Not really lindenbaumen, of course. Not allowed to plant anything from Barents. Natives call 'em something else, one of their unpronounceable outlandish words. But they have flowers that smell just like linden, so we call them lindenbaumen. Makes us feel we've got a little bit of Barents with us in our exile."
Faundaree made an odd strangled noise at this and Maris glanced anxiously at her, wondering if the girl was choking. "Ma's never been off Kalapriya in her life," Faundaree whispered under cover of Fru Stoffelsen's monologue. "None of us have. We're fourth-generation Society. She just likes to put on airs about being an exile!"
Despite Fru Stoffelsen's words, Maris had been escorted halfway through the sprawling house before their meaning dawned on her. This wasn't the building where the Stoffelsens had chambers—this whole building was theirs! Interior space such as she'd never dreamed of in her life: high-ceilinged, white-walled rooms, their shadowy darkness a relief to the eyes after the glare of the Kalapriya sun. One room opened off another in a seemingly endless procession, all with wide windows and some sort of mechanical flappers overhead creating an artificial breeze, all furnished with tables and chairs and shelves made from real organics. Maris knew the material was organic because Fru Stoffelsen complained endlessly about the ban on high-tech imports that made it impossible for her to offer her guest a suite with proper self-molding chairs and an autobed.
"I think this is beautiful, Fru Stoffelsen, honestly," Maris told her, standing in the center of one of the three spacious rooms that constituted her guest suite. "The space, and the quiet, and this wonderful furniture . . ." She ran her hand gently over the satin-smooth top of a chair back, appreciating the deep glow that emanated from the reddish-purple wood. "I've never seen anything like it."
Ivonna Stoffelsen bridled with pleasure. "Now that's real courteous, coming from a young lady that's likely already seen more worlds than you've had hot dinners, Faundaree! You could learn some manners from the Diplomat, Faun, instead of standing there gawking like a great country girl with nothing to say for herself, as if you hadn't been educated on Barents and everything! Now over here we have the washing facilities, such as they are, Fru Vissi, and poor makeshifts you'll likely think them—"
"Please, call me Mar—uh, Calandra," Maris caught the slip just in time, and let Fru Stoffelsen go on to explain away her awkwardness with the porcelain washstand and the bathing tub as the natural confusion of somebody used to the latest in high-tech refinements. "Really, after the tube-showers on Tasman, this is luxury," Maris said with perfect honesty. "All of House Stoffelsen is perfectly lovely, you have nothing to apologize for, Fru Stoffelsen, it's me should be apologizing for imposing myself on you this way. I could have stayed at a public—"
"Not one of them shelters the Society puts up for officials in transit, wouldn't be proper for a young lady on her own," Ivonna cut her off. "And what are you giggling for now, Faun?"
Faundaree hastily straightened her face and begged pardon. "It's just that the lady sounded almost like one of us for a minute, and then she slipped back into that awful Tasman twang, Ma."
"Uh—automatic mimicry," Maris improvised hastily, hearing the echo of her own unfortunate words. Impowsing meself this wye. She strove for an effect similar to the Stoffelsen ladies' broad, slow vowels. "I'm afraid it's one of the hazards of the profession; I seem to pick up the speech patterns of anybody I'm with." She gestured vaguely toward her head, as if to implicate one of the embedded microchips that were said to give Diplos such amazing powers.
Fortunately, the Stoffelsens didn't seem to know much more about what Diplos actually could and could not do than Maris did; in any case Ivonna was more interested in castigating her daughter for rudeness than in accounting for her visitor's slipping accent. Finally she allowed as how "Calandra" might want to rest before that evening's banquet and ball, chastized Faundaree again for standing there chattering when any fool could see the young lady was tired from her trip, and moved toward the door. Maris privately thanked the God of Looking After Unimportant Persons. If she could just be left alone for a little while, long enough to figure out how and where to disappear to—it was going to be more of a problem than she'd realized, with her olive skin and black curls she'd never be able to blend inconspicuously into a population of red-and-white-complexioned blond giants.
"Bless me, what was I thinking of?" Ivonna exclaimed, halting her progress toward the suite door. "You'll be needing proper clothes for the ball—die of the heat, you would, in something like you've got on now, Fru Vissi—I mean, Calandra. Didn't your bosses warn you about us having no citywide climate control?"
"Don't be silly, Ma," Faundaree interrupted, "Diplos know everything about everywhere, all planted in machines in their heads."
Maris smiled weakly. "There are an awful lot of exaggerated rumors about what we know," she said. No need to mention that in her case the rumors would be more than just exaggerated. "And your mother's right. A sudden posting—I didn't even have time to pack appropriate things for this climate." That at least she knew was true. None of the high-tech, high-fashion outfits she'd raided from Calandra's closet would be suitable here. Given the restrictions on inappropriate technology, they were probably illegal. "You know how these bureaucratic offices are, Fru Stoffelsen . . ."
"Don't I just! No consideration for anybody anywhere, and that's the truth! How much notice did you get, anyway?"
"This time yesterday," Maris said with perfect truth, "I had no idea I was coming to Kalapriya."
Ivonna Stoffelsen clucked some more about the well-known inconsiderateness of all bureaucrats everywhere and finally, half towed by her daughter, left with promises to send her second daughter, Saara, up with some suitable Kalapriyan-style clothes.
"Not too soon, I hope," Maris muttered as soon as Ivonna and Faundaree were out of sight.
"The Fru desires—?" piped up a fluting voice behind her.
Maris gasped and whirled to see a squatting form where she'd thought there were only shadows. The form elongated, fluttered, moved forward and became a slender-boned person even shorter than Maris, bowing deeply.
"Who the—who are you?"
The small person looked up at Maris. Its dark face was placid. "This one called Kamnan, set here to serve Fru because speak ver' good Galactic. But could not understand what Fru said just now."
"Oh. Um. It doesn't matter. I don't want anything, could you just go away for a while?"
"Not speak good enough?" Dark, liquid eyes became even more liquid with welling tears.
"Speak great, Kamnan, you probably speak better bunu Galactic than me, but I—don't—want anything right now, understand?"
"Understand. Will wait." Kamnan sank back down into her—his?—corner, and Maris stifled a sigh. She hadn't figured on having to know how servants worked on top of everything else. Even in the holos, nobody had servants, not even toppies, except . . . well, except those old story-vids about pioneers. Okay, it made sense. If you couldn't have so much as a dust-sorber, let alone a molecular clothes box, then somebody had to push things to clean the floor and do whatever you did to get clothes clean without a moly-box, and it was probably not the most interesting work in the world, so if you were a toppie—and the Barentsians seemed to think they were all toppies—you got some lower-level type to do it for you. Which, in this case, probably meant a native Kalapriyan.
Maris felt quite proud of herself for working all this out unassisted. There hadn't been much call for thinking things out in Johnivans' gang; Johnivans himself did all the thinking; what he wanted the others for was to carry out his plans.
I was a servant, she thought suddenly, his servant, and so were all the rest of us. I thought he was my friend, but he wasn't; he was my boss. He didn't save me from working the corridors because he cared about me, but because he thought I could be useful. All he ever did was use me—use all of us.
That thought made something deep in her chest hurt; she felt more alone than she had since her days as an orphan without a gang, roaming the lowest levels of Tasman and stealing or begging just enough to keep alive. Don't think about it now, think about practical things; think about where you are now. There was certainly enough of that to keep her newly discovered intellect busy! This Kamnan, who couldn't be sent away, who acted so subservient and looked so different from the other people she'd met, must be a Kalapriyan—all right, she'd already worked that out, but what she hadn't seen at first was how useful Kamnan could be. She could tell Maris all about Kalapriya; maybe she could even teach her enough of the language to cover up Maris's total lack of Diplomatic language implants.
"Kamnan—" Maris began, and then was interrupted by a flurry at the door.
"Masaidtobringyousomeclothestotryonyou'reaboutmyheighttheyshouldfit. You'reFruViissiright? I'm Saara."
"Huh?"
"I said," repeated the pile of light-colored organic fabrics filling the door, "I'm Saara."
The long bare legs under the fabrics moved forward; a cloudburst of lightweight white fabric covered with tiny flower prints billowed over the bed, and a girl just a little taller than Maris looked her over gravely.
Maris returned the assessing look. Not a giant like the rest of the Barentsians she'd met, this Saara, and instead of a wreath of yellow braids her hair was cut short and brushed up in a sort of defiant crest. And it wasn't yellow, either, but a mix of pink and turquoise stripes. The girl was so slender that she gave an impression of being extremely tall, but it was really just long graceful bones and a way of carrying herself, that boss-of-all-the-world look all Barentsians seemed to have.
"Yougottabehotinthatoutfitwantatrysomeoftheseon? Well?" the girl added impatiently when Maris didn't respond immediately. "You want to try some of these on?"
"If they're like your mother's and sister's dresses, I don't really see the need," said Maris. Those loose billowing tents of lightweight organics would fit anybody, wouldn't they? And she was less than thrilled about wearing a white organic tent printed with tiny little pastel flowers. With her coloring, she'd look like a short stick of broiled soypaste kebab wrapped in way too much recycled flimsy.
Saara grinned. "You'd be surprised. Ten millimeters too long in the hem, and you step on it every time you try to walk anywhere."
A very short kebab, Maris thought ruefully. Even if she liked these pallid prints, these dresses were designed for tall fair Barentsians.
"And if I hike it up and get it ten millimeters too short, I suppose that wouldn't be so good either?"
"My dear! Dreadfully fast, showing your ankles like that! And a Diplomat, too! Old hens," Saara added in her own voice, making a couple of clucking noises with her tongue.
Maris looked at Saara's own long, tanned legs and minuscule cut-off bodysuit without saying anything.
"Yeah, but I'm only a child," Saara said. "Sixteen next spring. I get until I turn eighteen before I have to wear this stuff. 'Course I got some proper lady dresses now, for like Ma's parties and like that, but I don't have to like wear it all the time, sowhenMasayscanIsparesomeIgolikesure, no problem, you know? Howoldareyouanyway?"
When Maris deciphered the question a flash of panic stopped her voice. I don't bunu know how old I am, nobody ever said, nobody ever asked me that, nobody ever cared . . . oh, stop worrying, you ninny, she wants to know how old Calandra is. But the answer to that was somewhere on the identity papers Nyx had handed her, and she hadn't studied them, she hadn't planned on "being" Calandra Vissi longer than it took to disembark from the shuttle . . .
"Sorry," Saara said with an embarrassed laugh as Maris failed to answer, "Ma keeps telling me to talk slower, but I get like wound up and I forget. I said how old are you anyway?"
By that time an acceptable evasion had occurred to Maris. "Old enough to have to dress like a proper lady," she said ruefully. "Can you show me how these go on?" What had looked simple at first glance turned out, when she picked up one of the garments, to consist of a bewildering profusion of under-panels and over-panels, hard knobbly round things, long narrow fluttery things, gathered bits and straight bits . . .
"Sure, and you can tell me all about other worlds. I'm going to be a Diplo, you know, when I'm old enough."
Maris blinked. "But don't you have to be—"
"Selected? Yes, but the School would select me, if they knew about me," Saara said confidently. "As soon as I'm old enough to take passage off-planet without my parents' permission, I'm going into the Real World, and—"
"What do you mean, the Real World?"
"Oh, you know. Anywhere but here. I mean, Valentin is like some kind of game we're all playing, pretending to be pioneers back in the Age of Expansion, playing at living without technology. Nothing happens here!" Saara said explosively. "Anyway, I'm not going to wait around for a Selector to happen to notice me; I'll just go to the School and explain that they ought to want me. I'm plenty smart enough and I know lots of useful things already, and I'm good at languages—only I suppose that doesn't matter if you get those chip implants, does it? Like, you probably speak better Kalapriyan than I do!"
"I think it extremely unlikely," Maris said firmly, resolving to get some language practice with Kamnan as soon as this unnerving girl went away. "The implants aren't nearly as powerful as most people think they are." Since Saara accepted this without question, she went on to say, "All they really give me is ability to learn the language faster than most people would." That felt safe enough. Maris's entire life had depended on being faster and sneakier than anybody expected, and why should learning languages be any different from the things she'd learned with Johnivans?
"Oh. You don't already—"
"Hey," Maris said with a forced laugh, "it's not like they open up your head and pour a dictionary in, you know!"
After a moment's disappointed silence, Saara laughed too. "Silly me," she said good-naturedly. "Up until this moment I had the idea it really worked like that. I guess a lot of things in the Real World don't work like I think. I guess if I just like stop talking and let you tell me how it is out there, I can learn a lot from you."
"Not nearly as much," Maris said, "as I hope to learn from you."