* * *
Later, after Julia had retired ahead of him, Cade sat brooding in his study for a long time. He checked the clock, made several calls, and sent out a few carefully worded messages into the net.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A FEW MILES NORTH OF Catalina Island, the Sassy Lady trailed a foamy wake across a placid sea rolling gently under a cloudless sky. Cade, in a straw hat and swim trunks, leaned over from a sun lounge on the boat deck aft of the wheelhouse, helped himself to another beer from the ice chest, and passed one to Blair. Vrel and Krossig declined, nursing their previous ones, still somewhat wary of this dubious Terran habit. Julia and Dee were sunning themselves on the bow, while Luke kept Warren company in the wheelhouse, and others were in the main cabin below. A crewman was preparing rods and tackle on the fishing platform at the stern. Rebecca had stayed behind, preferring to remain within the security of the house. Blair was still enthusing about his forthcoming move to Australia. He had some things to finish up in Los Angeles, and would be following on a month or so after Krossig.
“Just think, they’re giving me a position to study Hyadean science officially,” he told Cade. “I’ll be getting paid for it.”
“But don’t our own people have jobs like that here?” Cade said. “I thought half of Washington was into it.”
Blair shook his head. “I’m talking about understanding the real science, the attitude of mind that let them get it right. The government collaborations focus too much on short-term applications—better ways to make weapons and profits. I got offers there a couple of times but it wasn’t what I wanted.”
Cade really didn’t know one way or the other. He nodded, sipped his beer, and left it at that.
“We got a message from Erya, on her way to Chryse,” Krossig told Cade. “She says you’ve shown her a new way of seeing things. She hopes she’ll be able to spread it on Chryse.”
“Sounds as if the place could do with it,” Blair commented.
“I just received a gift too,” Vrel told them. He had acquired an outrageously gaudy pair of beach shorts and was sprawled on a blanket spread out over the deck. The Chrysean sun, Amaris, shone more brightly and slightly more toward the violet. Hyadeans had no problem with the solar intensity on Earth and soaked up all they could get. Blair had speculated to Cade that maybe that was why they chose mountainous areas. Vrel made the announcement sound like a special event.
“What was that?” Cade asked him.
“From Neville Baxter—at the party. It’s a Maori sculpture, a kind of figurine. Very attractive. I’ll show it to you next time you’re at the mission. Dee says it’s probably worth quite a lot.”
“That sounds like Neville,” Cade agreed.
“He also says I have to visit him in New Zealand. Apparently, it’s important to see that all the world isn’t like America. What does he mean by that?”
“A kind of private joke that we have between countries,” Cade said. Vrel nodded vaguely but didn’t really seem to understand.
“Well, I’m looking forward to seeing the East,” Krossig said. “I might even get a chance to visit other areas . . . even the Himalayas, maybe.” He leaned back against the sun lounge he was on and tossed out an arm in a sweeping gesture. “Have you any idea how unique this planet of yours is? These huge mountain ranges; chasms like the Yangtze gorges. The whole surface is young, sculpted only yesterday. That’s why life here is so colorful and varied. It’s life that has been renewed and reinvigorated. The worlds we know are old and tired—endless expanses of monotonous plains and eroded hills, silted rivers, insipid swamplands. Worlds in their old age, awaiting rejuvenation.”
“Have those planets been around all that much longer, then?” Cade asked.
“No. They’ve just been wearing down for longer,” Krossig said.
“They haven’t had the disruptions that Earth has gone through,” Blair put in. “Not anytime lately, anyhow. Our conventional notion of slow, gradual change over huge time-spans got it wrong. Changes happen quickly and violently.”