He glanced around. “Just the same, we got caught pretty flatfooted,” he said. “And you folks from the Wheel are worse off. Uh, about changes of clothes for you. Pegeen-Caitlin Mulryan, our quartermaster, you recall, she’ll be happy to lend you a couple of things-you’re about the same size-and she’ll make more out of spare cloth we’ve got along when she gets a chance, for you and whoever else wants. She’s a good seamstress. You might be thinking what sorts of garment you’d prefer.”
Joelle shrugged. “You know I don’t care, provided it’s comfortable. But thank her for me, please. I’ll try to remember to do so in person, but you also know how forgetful I am about everyday matters.”
“What more can you use? For instance, most of us keep a small private stock of food and drink. I imagine you’d rather not eat every meal in the mess.”
“Oh, if they don’t mind me often being a poor conversationalist, I don’t mind sitting at a public table. I shut the noise out. –
But it would be nice if I could offer you-offer a guest refreshment.”
She gestured, noting how awkward the motion was. “Won’t you sit down? And, well, I didn’t acquire any dislike of a pipe while I was gone.”
“I noticed that at the conference, and was glad.” He took a chair. She brought another to face it. Fetching out his tobacco pouch, he went on, “I can’t stay but a minute or three. Got to arrange for making the salt water bath you say Fidelio needs. We have the chemicals, I’m sure, and the metal or plastic or whatever for a container, but we’d better make some recycling arrangement too, in case this trip stretches out longer than I hope it will.”
“Isn’t that a problem for your engineers?”
“Yes, but first Fidelio has to explain exactly what the requirements are. That’ll be slow, even with Carlos to help, he knowing some of the Betan language. No, languages, right? You’re the expert in those, but I gather you’re due for a computer session. I think I can help discussion keep moving. Not to mention forty million other things that need attention before I knock off.”
“Do call on me if you encounter serious linguistic problems. By the way, would you consider modifying a set of encephalic attachments for Fidelio, so he can link in with me? He’s a holothete.”
“Huh? I’d no idea.”
“It appears to affect the personality less among Betans than among humans.” Silence closed in while she tried to say what she wanted to say.
Breaking the barrier in a rush: “Dan, it’s wonderful seeing you again. More than being liberated. You were the man who did it.”
He became busy charging his pipe. “No, we did, the team of us; and Sergei- We may not have done you a favor. You’re headed into danger.”
`Were we in no danger in the Wheel?”
“Yeah, true. . . I guess. . . . I have to keep shoving away this nightmare notion that we’re dead wrong in what we’re trying to do. That I’m putting lives at hazard for naught.”
She managed to lean forward and drop a hand on his knee. “Don’t fret.
Politics always confuses me, but you’ve a feel for it and a knowledge. I rely on your judgment, as you’ll have to rely on my calculations. Have faith in yourself, Dan.”
“I’d better,” he said dryly. His fingers remained at work on his pipe.
“Well, are you set to make that analysis, Joelle?”
Have I grown too gaunt and gray for him? She withdrew her touch. “Yes.
It’d be easier, ~perhaps more certain, if Fidelio and I could operate as a Side 89
Anderson, Poul – Avatar, The
holothetic unit and take a complete theoretical structure from a memory bank.
However, I did master the physical principles the Betans have found apply to the T machines- those were right down my alley, as you’d put it-and he and I have finished ransacking your ship’s data collection for exact parameters of local space-time. The information appears to be sufficient. I expect I’ll need a preliminary run-through today, then tomorrow work out the guidepath in detail.”