He tried to break it to her gently as the ship picked up speed. “Helena, it’s possible that the old people here won’t be Senior Citizens—not hi your planet’s sense. They may just be old people, with no special authority over young people. I think, in fact, that we may find you outranking older people who happen to be males.”
She took it as a joke. “You are funny, Ross. Old means Senior, doesn’t it? And Senior means better, wiser, abler, and in charge, doesn’t it?”
“We’ll see,” he said thoughtfully as the main reaction drive cut in. “We’ll see very shortly.”
The spaceport was bustling, busy, and efficient. Ross marveled at the speed and dexterity with which the anonymous ground operator whipped his ship into a braking orbit and set it down. And he stared enviously at the crawling clamshells on treads, bigger than houses, that cupped around his ship; the ship was completely and hermetically surrounded, and bathed in a mist of germicides and prophylactic rays.
A helmeted figure riding a little platform on the inside of one of the clamshells turned a series of knobs, climbed down, and rapped on the ship’s entrance port.
Ross opened it diffidently, and almost strangled in the antiseptic fumes. Helena choked and wheezed behind nun as the figure threw back its helmet and said, “Where’s the captain?”
“I am he,” said Ross meticulously. “I would like to be put hi touch with the Cavallo Machine-Tool Company of Novj Grad.”
The figure shook its long hair loose, which provided Ross with the necessary clue: it was a woman. Not a very attractive-looking woman, for she wore no makeup; but by the hair, by the brows and by the smoothness of her chin, a woman all the same. She said coldly, “If you’re the cap-tarn, who’s that?”
Helena said in a small voice, “I’m Helena, from Junior Unit Twenty-Three.”
“Indeed.” Suddenly the woman smiled. “Well, come ashore, dear,” she said. “You must be tired from your trip. Both of you come ashore,” she added graciously.
She led the way out of the clamshells to a waiting closed car. Azor’s sun had an unpleasant bluish cast to it, not a type-G at all; Ross thought that the lighting made the woman look uglier than she really had to be. Even Helena looked pinched and bloodless, which he knew well was not the case at all.
All around them was activity. Whatever this planet’s faults, it was not a stagnant home for graybeards. Ross, craning, saw nothing that was shoddy, nothing that would have looked out of place hi the best-equipped port of Halsey’s Planet. And the reception lounge, or whatever it was, that the woman took them to was a handsome and prettily furnished construction. “Some lunch?” the woman asked, directing her attention to Helena. “A cup of tribrew, maybe? Let me have the boy bring some.” Helena looked to Ross for signals, and Ross, gritting his teeth, nodded to her to agree. Too young the last time, too male this time; was there ever going to be a planet where he mattered to anyone?
He said desperately, “Madam, forgive my interruption, but this lady and myself need urgently to get in touch with the Cavallo company. Is this Novj Grad?”
The woman’s pale brows arched. She said, with an effort, “No, it is not.”
“Then can you tell us where Novj Grad is?” Ross persisted. “If they have a spaceport, we can hop over there hi our ship——”
The woman gasped something that sounded like, “Well!” She stood up and said pointedly to Helena, “If you’ll excuse me, I have something to attend to.” And swept out.
Helena stared wide-eyed at Ross. “She must’ve been a real Senior Citizen, huh?”
“Not exactly,” said Ross despairingly. “Look, Helena, things are different here. I need your help.”
“Help?”
“Yes, help!” he bellowed. “Get a grip on yourself, girl. Remember what I told you about the planet I came from?
It was different from yours, remember? The old people were just like anybody else.” She giggled in embarrassment. “They were!” he yelled. “And they are here, too. Old people, young people, doesn’t matter. On my planet, the richest people were—well, never mind. On this planet, women are the bosses. Get it? Women are like elders. So you’ll have to take over, Helena.”