“I’ll tell you something else,” Murray said. He motioned with a thumb in the direction they had come from. “This wasn’t the first time it’s happened. Those guys back there have seen it before. Maybe that’s another reason they don’t like publicity.”
They dropped Murray off, then continued on to PAC with their still unconscious charge. But when they finally arrived back at the UNSA labs, they found that the whole episode had been unnecessary. Gina had walked back in while they were gone, still in one piece and looking as well as ever.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Hunt stood with his back to one of the benches in the UNS/~ labs, his hands loosely gripping the edge on either side of him. Gina sat at the worktable in the middle of the room, chewing a chicken sandwich from the store of good, tasty, Earth-style food that Duncan had accumulated. The one visible effect on Gina after her disappearance was that she was hungry. Sandy was sitting across from her, listening and saying strangely little.
“Okay, let’s go over the main points again,” Hunt said. “You set out from PAC and saw some of the surrounding parts of Shiban center.”
Gina nodded. “A kind of introductory tourist walkaround.”
“You didn’t have any set agenda?”
“No. It was just to help me get my bearings. . . and to get to know each other a little better, I guess.”
Hunt threw a doubtful glance at Del Cullen, who was leaning with his shoulder against an equipment cabinet, his arms folded. “Weren’t you supposed to be meeting some people from these Jevlenese historical societies, or something like that?” Cullen queried.
Gina shook her head firmly. “That was going to be the day after.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. You must have got the dates mixed.”
Hunt frowned as he listened. That was not the way he remembered it, either. “Do you remember the names of any of these people?” Cullen asked, obviously with a view to checking it out. “Or the organizations they were with, maybe?”
“No, I’m afraid not. Baumer had it all in his head. There didn’t seem any reason for me to go writing it all down at the time.”
Cullen nodded, letting it go at that. They weren’t going to get anything out of Baumer now.
“Okay,” Hunt said. “Then what?”
“We went through a kind of street market, underneath some huge, curving shapes going up into the sky—as if they were part of something from way back that never got finished. It was full of junk, old clothes, secondhand stuff, that kind of thing. Seemed to be a freakout place for the local dropout culture.”
“Kinchabira. I know the place,” Cullen interjected, nodding.
“Baumer blamed it all on Thurien lack of discipline and control. He seemed to think a good dose of Nazism would work wonders.” Gina nibbled another piece of her sandwich and took a sip of coffee—real. “Then there was a deposit company that seemed to be turning itself into a bank. He didn’t approve of that, either.”
“And we’re quite sure that his motivation wasn’t simply the obvious?” Hunt asked. “I mean, here’s this guy, stuck out here on his own for a long time. Pretty girl from home shows up . .
Gina shook her head. “That was the first thing I thought, too. But there was never a hint of it. Anyhow, that isn’t how he gets off.”
“Okay. Then you looked in some luxury-good stores. .
“Right,” Gina said. “And he didn’t agree with that, because it doesn’t force everyone to be equal. I got a speech on why society ought to protect people like him from having to face up to why the world isn’t listening to them. Then we sat on a wall and watched some weirdos with eyeshadow and icicles for haircuts while we ate some Jevlenese pita—burgers.” Gina paused to recollect what they had talked about. “He seemed interested when I asked him if he’d gotten to know any other people here who thought the way he did. He was curious to know more about what you UNSA scientists were doing here.”
“That’s his real reason coming out,” Cullen murmured.
“The punks weren’t any trouble?” Hunt asked. There had been a report of some trouble in that area at around the same time, involving a group who sounded like the people Gina had described. But she shook her head again.