Marygay looked at it for a long moment. “Where is your Tree?”
It cocked its head. “Everywhere, of course. Like a telephone.”
“Of course.” She unbelted and floated out of the chair. “Well, let’s help people get up and around. See what’s down there.”
We “buried” Jacob Pierson in space. He was sort of a Muslim, so Mohammed Ten said a few words before Marygay pressed the button that opened the outer lock and spun him gently into the void. It was deferred cremation, actually, since we were in a low enough orbit for him to eventually fall into friction fire.
We landed at Cape Kennedy, far out on a spit, on a special pad reserved for those of us who had to come down in a shower of gamma rays. A personnel carrier, heavily armored, rolled up to wait for us.
After thirty minutes, the radiometer let us exit. The air was sultry warm and heavy with salt fragrance. Wind rushed across mangrove swamps and ruffled our clothing as we walked unsteadily down the gangway. At the bottom, the smell was of burnt metal, and the landing pad patiently ticked as it contracted.
“So quiet,” Alysa said.
“This part has always been quiet,” Po said, “between launches and landings. I’m afraid the rest of the spaceport is going to be quiet, too. Like ours.”
The metal ground still radiated heat. And maybe a few alpha particles. The air was wonderful, though; I was a little giddy from breathing deep.
“Who are you?” the personnel carrier boomed, in Standard. “Where are you from?”
Marygay answered in English. “Speak English. We’re just a group of citizens from Middle Finger, a planet of Mizar.”
“Here to trade?”
“Just here. Take us to some people.”
A double door in the thing’s side swung open. “I can take you to the spaceport. I’m not allowed on roads, without wheels.”
We entered the thing and four large windows became transparent. Once we were seated, the door closed and the thing backed up, turned around, and lurched toward the other end of the long strip, moving fast. It walked on twelve articulated legs.
“Why don’t you have wheels?” I asked, my voice wavering from the carrier’s jerky progress.
“I do have wheels. I haven’t put them on in a long time.”
“Are there any people in the spaceport?” Mohammed asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been inside.”
“Are there any people in the world?” I asked.
“That is not a question that I am able to answer.” It stopped so abruptly that Matt and I, facing forward but not belted in, were almost thrown from our seats. The doors sprung open. “Check to make sure you have all your belongings. Be careful upon exiting. Have a pleasant day.”
The spaceport main building was a huge structure with no straight lines; all sweeping parabolas and catenaries, with facets like beaten bright metal. The rising sun gleamed orange from a hundred shiny surfaces.
We walked hesitantly toward the DIIJHA/ARRIVALS door, which for some reason slid open upwards. Walking through it gave me a guillotine kind of anxiety. The others hurried, too.
It wasn’t quiet. There was a soothing sound like modulated white noise, pulsing in a rhythm slower than a heartbeat. There were chimes at the edge of perception.
The floor was littered with clothes.
“Well,” Po said, “I guess we can turn around and go home.”
Antres 906 made a hissing sound I’d never heard, and its left hand tuned in a continual slow circle. “I appreciate your need for humor. But there is much to do, and there may be danger.” It turned to Marygay. “Captain, I suggest at least one of you return to the ship for a fighting suit.”
“Good idea,” she said. “William? Go see if you can catch that thing.”
I went back to the arrivals door, which wouldn’t open, of course. There was a MOSCH/TRANSPORTATION door a hundred meters away. When I went through it, the carrier minced up, clattering. “I forgot something,” I said. “Take me back to the ship.”
Putting on fighting suits used to be dramatic and communal. The ready room would have mounting harnesses for as many as forty people; you’d strip and back into the suit, hook up the plumbing and let it clamshell shut around you, and move out. You could have the whole company in suits and, theoretically, outside fighting in a couple of minutes.