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to half their length.
"Does that help?"
"A little . . ." The agent took a deep breath. He could not have even touched
his stunner in the time the commodore had found, aimed, and thrown the heavy
knives. ". . . but how it couldn't have just been the weapons skills."
"No. Helped me stay alive. Any man who cared about Old Earth, about life . . .
any man could have done the rest . . . if he sacrificed as many as I did . .
."
The man in the blue uniform nodded.
"Now. A favor."
"What?" asked the agent cautiously.
"Better that the locals know I'm just a retiree. Don't know more, and they
don't need to. Your records will go when the Empire falls."
"Should I? Why? Let you suffer in notoriety. . .
The hawk-yellow eyes of the commodore-who-was caught the agent, and in spite
of himself, he stepped back.
"Why?" he repeated, more softly.
187
"Because, like the Empire . . . out of time . . . out of place . . ."
The agent watched as the commodore's eyes hazed over, looking somewhere,
somewhen, for a minute, then another. He waited . . . and waited.
A jay screamed from a pine downhill from the pair, and a croven landed on the
rock above the flitter, but the commodore noticed neither the birds nor the
man in blue.
Finally, the Corpus Corps agent stepped forward.
Thunk!
A third knife appeared in the brace, and the former I.S.S. officer shook
himself.
"Sorry . . . reflex. Hard to keep a thought. Too many memories," apologized
the commodore, who still looked to be a man in his middle thirties.
The agent, despite his training, shivered.
"I understand, I think, Commodore." He paused, then saluted, awkwardly. "Good
day, ser. Good luck with your house."
He turned and slowly descended the even-set and smooth stone steps, then
walked along the precisely laid stone walkway, still shaking his head slowly
as his strides carried him back to the flitter.
"We all lost. Him, too."
He was yet shaking his head as the flitter canopy closed and the turbines
began to whine.
Behind him, the blond man picked up his tools and returned to smoothing the
golden log, smoothing it for a perfect fit, a perfect fit that would last
centuries.
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188
LVIII
WEARY OLD. EITHER adjective could have applied to the still-buried building
that served as the landing clearing area for the few travelers to visit Old
Earth.
The historian/anthropologist took another step away from the shuttle-port
entry before stopping. Her recorder and datacase banged against her left hip
as she halted to survey the hall. Compared to imperial architecture, the
ceiling was low, and despite the cleanliness of the structure, a feeling of
dinginess permeated the surrounding. That and emptiness. There had been two
passengers on the annual Imperial transport-most of the space was for
technical support equipment for Recorps.
She debated taking a holo shot of the receiving area, then decided against it.
She squared her uniformed shoulders and stepped up to the console.
A bored clerk in a uniform vaguely resembling hers waited for the lieutenant
to present her orders.
He took the square green plastord and eased it into the console.
"Your access code, please, sher."
"I beg your pardon."
"You have special orders, Lieutenant. Service doesn't trust us poor cousins.
For me to verify your arrival, you have to punch in your own access code." He
pointed to the small keyboard built into the counter.
"Right there."
The lieutenant shrugged. Her precise features, thick, short, and lustrous
black hair, and an air of command gave her more of an "official" presence than
the Interstellar Survey Service uniform.
Stepping over to the keyboard, she tapped in the access code and waited.
Several seconds later, another console beside the clerk beeped. He retrieved
the plastord square and handed it back.
"Welcome to Old Earth, Lieutenant Kerwin."
"Thank you. What's the best way to reach the old Recorps Base?"
"Old Recorps Base? Didn't they tell you? You're in it. There's never been more
than one main base.
Outside of the work ports in afrique and Hiasi, this is it. Oh . . . we have a
few detached officers in Euron and around the globe, but here's the center."
Lieutenant Kerwin looked around the open gray hall, again, even more slowly.
"You want base quarters . . . go to the end of the hall. Take the left fork.
That leads to the tunnel to
Admin. Plenty of room these days."
"These days . . . ," she murmured.
"Days of the captain are gone, Lieutenant. Lot of nostalgia, especially with
the big Atey report,"
added the suddenly loquacious rating. "Their Institute sent a team last year, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]