“What did you find at the Temple?”
Ellin keyed her file, which immediately recreated the sight and sound of the visit. When the record had played itself out, Questioner murmured, “Joys to compensate thankless duty? You didn’t pursue that?”
Ellin flushed. “I was so taken with the idea, I forgot.”
“We will ask next time,” said Questioner. “Meantime, it seems you can make yourself understood in the local dialect.”
“After all those hours with the sleep teachers on the ship, it isn’t difficult,” Ellin replied. “It still cleaves closely to Earth-universal.”
“In my family, we were speaking Asia-matrix, not Earth-universal,” said Gandro Bao from his place by the window. “But I am coping.”
Questioner nodded. “Have you encountered any reference to the first settlement made here? It preceded the second by half a century, at least.”
“Of that, I am having word,” said Bao, picking up his own project file and keying through it. “Ah, here is note. A man I asked about the Temple building—he would not look at the woman I was being, only at his feet—said building of Temple and the Fortress of Vanished Men in Naibah was being done by first settlers. First colony is disappearing, but fortresses and many other buildings were remaining, mostly along river. There are records in fortress. Are you wanting me to read them?”
Questioner frowned. “No. I’ll send one of my aides to make a copy. I try to keep them as busy as possible with things that don’t matter greatly. The entourage is supposed to be for my help and protection, but they don’t help and I don’t need protection here. The population seems conditioned to respect older women.”
“Isn’t that the norm in most worlds?” asked Ellin.
Questioner replied. “Far from it, my dear, especially on nonmember worlds. Surpluses are not much respected, whether of eggs, grain, or women, and elderly women are always surplus.”
“Newholme is unique in the scarcity of women, then,” remarked Ellin.
Questioner spoke thoughtfully. “At the current time, it is the only planet I know of.” She rose and went toward the door, saying over her shoulder: “Dig around a bit more. Talk to some common people. Talk to some children. We will meet again over our evening meal.” She departed. In a moment, they heard the door to the room in which the Questioner’s massive and complicated reference files had been installed. It opened and, after a long pause, closed.
Ellin stood at the window, using the sill as a barre as she stretched and bent. “Oh, Gandro Bao, let us dance a little more. Just that little bit of dancing worked out some of my kinks! I feel like a wooden doll, all stiff.”
“You should be dancing with me more.” Bao smiled. “The exercise will be doing us both good.” He drew her into the dance once more, looking her up and down as they twirled. “Are you still wondering who you are, Ellin Voy?”
“Not when I’m dancing,” she cried breathlessly. “Not then.”
She bent, turned, bent again, then stopped, her eyes caught by movement in the gardens below.
“There,” she said, pointing. “Gandro Bao, there are two gardeners there below. They’re common people. After we’ve had some lunch, let’s talk to the gardeners.”
He looked out the window, noted the gardeners, started to draw her to him once more, then changed his mind. Her eyes were sparkling, and she had just given him a very friendly and intimate look. He did not want her to get the wrong idea. She was a dear companion, with a truly sweet nature, but in the pursuit of certain pleasures, Gandro Bao preferred men. He took her hand, bent over it, then suggested they go into the small salon where their lunch was served.
Behind them, in the walls of the room where they had danced, voices cried:
“Dancers! They are dancers! Oh, we must take them!”
“Tim was going to take the other ones! The different ones.”
“Take the different ones, but take these, too.”
“Now? Shouldn’t we ask Bofusdiaga?”
“Now. We shouldn’t waste time!”
“Ask some-tim,” a voice cried. “Find out.”
After a moment, the walls were silent, the peepholes hidden, the room quiet. Elsewhere, however, was a bustle of coming and going as the Timmys decided whether and when to take away Ellin and Bao.