Nor did he know the person he would meet there. Or what they would speak of. Or where he would spend the night. He’d better leave his luggage behind.
Although he was properly clad, in an inconspicuous gray unisuit and soft boots, he felt naked as he stepped forth.
Nonsense. The air lay soft, barely stirring. He thought he sensed fragrance in it. Jasmine, growing somewhere nearby? His hearing captured a murmur. Gentle waves, gentle traffic, or maintenance machinery at work throughout the town? Sunset gilded field and walls.
But what was he bound for?
Why was he?
He squared his shoulders and marched.
Had the terminal been of any size, its stillness and emptiness would have ratcheted the tension in him. A single woman was leaving. She cast him a half-curious glance. Unthinkingly, he gave it back. Brown-complexioned caucasoid, middle-aged, well-dressed, doubtless a local person who’d landed a few minutes before he did. To what contentments was she returning? A door made way and she disappeared from. Kenmuir’s sight forever.
He went to the service panel. “A cab, please, uh, por favor,” he said, automatically courteous, as if he were addressing an awareness.
“Where to?” asked the operations robot.
“Xibalba.”
“Post number five, senor.”
He went out. The designated spot was about four meters to the right. Very soon, a car slid up to the curb. He’d had lengthier waits. Maybe population here was declining rather fast, or maybe the residence had the political energy to get a large fleet assigned them.
The car was intended for this region, chassismounted on tracks rather than wheels and with a ground-effect motor in case of major obstacles. It opened itself and extruded a gangway. He got in, sat down, set the informant on his wrist to give an account number and touched it to the debit scan. “Xibalba district,” he said. “Uh, the Asilo.”
The car purred into motion. A screen displayed a map, on which a red dot crawled to show his position. “Advisory,” said a voice. “The Asilo is a gathering house frequented by metamorphs, numbers of whom live in the vicinity. Unpleasant incidents involving outsiders have occurred. On 3 August last year, a patron of standard genome was badly beaten in a fight before police could arrive. For favor, think about this.”
Evidently the robot was programmed to refer questionable destinations and the like to a central intelligence. Kenmuir’s pulse quickened. Nevertheless, “Thank you, but I should be all right,” he said. He wasn’t the sort to go looking for trouble—on the contrary—and if it sought him out, well, at worst he had his martial arts to fall back on. In friendly contests he didn’t do badly.
“As you wish, seftor.”
Dusk thickened into night. The ride became slow and lumpy, on lightless pavement cracked, potholed, littered with debris. Twice the car lifted above a heap of wreckage. The glow from riding lamps glanced off remnant walls, then dropped them back into shadow. When he passed through a village, shining windows made the dark beyond seem deeper yet.
It seeped into Kenmuir. What business did he really have here? He had been Lilisaire’s emissary to the Rydberg, and gained nothing. What more did he owe her? What had she given him, what would she in future? His career among the planets, yes; but always the stars taunted him, always Alpha Centauri gleamed out of reach. Her presence, yes, embraces like no other woman’s whom he had known or imagined or even met in quivira dreams; but he did not delude himself that she loved him, and never could he have a child by her. The salvation of her race? So she said; but did she say rightly, did she say truthfully? And was it a claim on him? If somehow he gave her the means of forbidding the Habitat, might that deny his kind its last chance to get back and abide in the outer universe?
Guthrie’s colony didn’t count, he thought. In a few more centuries, Demeter would be shattered. Although transmissions across the light-years swore that folk yonder had not given up hope, neither did they know any means of saving their descendants. Would they ever?
Lights glared ahead. Buildings clustered together, a longhouse on four arches, an octagon white below an iridescent cupola, a corkscrew spire. A measure of heart came back. He straightened in his seat. Let him at least hear out this Irene Norton who was to meet him.