The transport landed, and the Hyadeans disembarked via a covered escalator brought up to the door. Shayle and the three that Vrel had picked out departed at once in a Terran automobile, registering disapproval by declining to say a word. Luke and Dee were standing in front of a limousine-quality minibus. Vrel introduced the remaining Hyadeans except Krossig, whom they already knew because he worked with Vrel in LA. Dee had shoulder-length blond hair, fringed at the front, and was wearing a light wrap over a stretchy orange dress. She slipped an arm through Vrel’s as they began walking around the bus. He had to suppress an impulse to flinch at the public display, reminding himself that he was back among Terrans now. A week of conforming to Hyadean protocols had reawakened his social reflexes. One of the arrivals nudged a companion and raised his eyebrows, not a little enviously. Terran women had a reputation among Hyadeans for being sensuous. Vrel pretended not to notice, resisting the conflicting urge to put on a little showiness. Opportunistic exhibitions of good fortune or superiority were considered bad manners here.
“Good flight?” Dee asked him.
“Just fine.”
“I was a bit worried . . . with all that trouble on the news this afternoon.”
“It was ugly. But we weren’t really involved. How’s Roland?”
“Oh, he never changes. Going with the flow.”
That was a new one. Vrel checked with his veebee. It returned the best it could come up with. “He’s on the river?” Vrel repeated, looking puzzled.
Dee laughed. “It means living life as it comes. Not fighting it. Making the best of whatever comes along.”
“That sounds like Roland,” Vrel agreed.
“One day you’ll learn how not to rely on a computer all the time and develop your instincts instead,” Dee told him. They climbed into the minibus. There were all-round leather seats, a screen, and a bar. Background music was playing of a kind that Vrel had learned to identify as strings. Classical Terran music had a big following among Hyadeans.
“Who was the composer of this piece?” Vrel asked the veebee in Hyadean.
“Antonio Vivaldi. 1678 to 1741. Born in Venice, Italy.”
“And did you get the thing about the river. . . . What was it again?”
“Going with the flow.”
“Oh, right. It means . . .” Vrel frowned and thought back. “Not fighting life. Taking things as they come. Is that right?”
“Close enough,” the veebee replied.
CHAPTER THREE
OTHER HYADEANS HAD ARRIVED direct from the Trade and Cultural Mission by the time Luke and Dee returned with the party from the airport. A number of unattached Terran women, all of them attractive, stylish, sophisticated, and sociable, had also begun arriving.
To most Terrans, Hyadeans came across as rather conformist and image-conscious. From what they were told or saw on Hyadean productions carried by Terran media, life on Chryse and its colonized worlds seemed overstructured and regimented. An example was the rigidity of rules governing dealings between the sexes, which by most Terran standards came across as stiff and prudish. Partly in consequence, Hyadeans found Earth a mysterious, exciting place, where sensual indulgence and freedom of expression which at best would have been frowned upon back home were regarded as normal. Biological nature being apparently much the same in at least the nearby regions of the galaxy, it followed that more than a few Hyadeans would develop a taste for, or curiosity to sample, at least, a little of the risqué that Earth’s cultural phantasmagoria had to offer.
Of course, it wouldn’t do for visiting officials and other prominent individuals to be seen actively pursuing or even expressing interest in such diversions. But if the price was right, most things could be arranged with discretion. That was where people like Roland Cade came in. Cade was a “fixer.” He knew the right people. If a Hyadean wanted to send a small package of coffee, spices, perfumes, a selection of alcoholic bracers, perhaps, to impress the folks back home, where such things tended to be illegal or restricted, Cade had a contact who did business with the Hyadean in charge of loading the surface lifters going up from their spaceport at Xuchimbo in western Brazil. Or if one was tempted to get away from routine for an evening to eat a dinner Terran-style with fresh animal meat (practically unheard of) cooked in unimaginable sauces, washed down with delicious fermented plant juices, while listening to the music they composed spontaneously, and afterward maybe get to dance with a Terran girl (body contact!)—Cade could set something up in places from California to New York, or beyond that refer you to somebody in Russia, Algeria, Britain, or Japan. For a particular kind of souvenir of one’s stay on Earth, or for importing high-demand Terran creations, or to find an outlet on Earth for spare Hyadean production capacity that could be made profitable, Cade had the contacts. And naturally, everyone paid for the favor. Sometimes Cade thought that it was impossible for a Hyadean and a Terran to meet without money falling out of the sky for him somewhere. Indeed, it seemed that for him the phrase had come true literally.