She nodded, “Yes. Our sister planet. I could call home every day, take furlough home every couple of months.” Scorn spoke. “Anybody could.”
“And still do good science. But to more purpose. You know I expect the cession of New Halla to your friend Orichalc’s people will soon be approved.”
She tossed her head. “It had better be. We owe him enough. Everybody does.”
“Don’t you want to help them get established?”
“I’m not indispensable for that. Plenty of Asborgans know the region, the whole planet, better than I do.” Her mood began to soften. “Maybe after I get back. Yes, I’ll certainly look in on [167] them then. But here’s a—a challenge for me that I can’t resist.” At once she wished she’d found words less pretentious.
He stood silent. A breeze murmured across the land. Its sunny odors tugged at her from the depths of childhood. She braced herself against them.
“A chance to go away, be away, for those years, don’t you mean?” he asked most quietly. “Altogether away.”
Her eyes stung. “Oh, Dad—”
He nodded. “Like Captain Valen. The hero of the magnificent rescue. He can have any berth he wants. But he’s leaving too. Taking an offer from a company on Akiko, I’ve heard. Humans there, yes, but—also far away. Another language, other lifeways for him to learn.”
Her tenderness congealed. “I imagine he’s sick of the publicity and the fawning and the journalists prying into his life. I certainly am. And maybe he hopes to prove himself.”
Davy’s gaze narrowed. “He didn’t, there at the black holes?”
Lissa clamped her lips together.
“Something happened yonder,” Davy said, gently again, “something that nobody’s speaking about.”
She squared her shoulders and met his eyes. “Some things are nobody else’s business.”
He sighed. “I know you too well to keep arguing with you, dear.” His hand reached for hers. “But if ever you’d like a sympathetic shoulder and a tongue kept on a tight rein, here I’ll be.”
She took his grip and, for a moment, clung. “I know. Give me time, Dad. Only time.”
Time for healing, she thought. No, that’s another smarmy word. Smacks of self-pity. I just need to get out from under and keep busy for a while. A few years. What does that count for, when we’ve all got hundreds or thousands ahead of us?
With luck. Well, you have to assume you’ll be lucky.
Yes, indeed, I’ll be fine. Why, already I can start looking forward, vaguely, to my homecoming. And new surprises.
She didn’t know that they would begin with a new rescue mission.
XXXII
ARRIVING on Asborg, Hebo was surprised at the depth of his disappointment on learning that Lissa Windholm had lately departed and wasn’t expected home for several years. He considered going back to Jonna himself.
But no, he couldn’t make any further profit yonder. His capital had dwindled substantially. If he wanted to accomplish anything, he’d have to set in train the lengthy, complicated processes of transferring what valuta he had banked on other worlds to this one.
As for women, Inga was a lively town.
He found a small apartment in it and settled down to collect the information he needed. The database on the colliding black holes was public, huge, and rapidly growing. Most of it was quite beyond his comprehension. Interpretations of the material gathered yonder were streaming out, highly technical articles on this or that aspect, occasional popularizations interspersed.
More would be coming in. Two or three Houses, notably Windholm, were preparing in partnership to send some robotic probes that would conduct further observations. Probably a few of different origin were “already” there, though the Susaian Dominators, for one, would play such cards mighty close to the vest. However, it’d take a large fleet of those little craft, and an indefinite time span, to follow the course of post-collision evolution reasonably well.
Any proper expedition, crewed and in a big ship, would cost a bundle. Even what he had in mind, if it was feasible at all, would take more than he could pay for at the moment.
[169] He must go ahead cautiously. The first order of business was to gain a better idea of what the situation really was, what to look for, what to provide against. Or try to look, try to provide.