Voyage From Yesteryear

“All right then,” Cromwell challenged. “Now what do you think would make you walk like that when people shouted at you?”

“I don’t how.” Amy screwed her face up and rubbed the bridge of her nose with a finger. “I suppose I’d have to be crazy.”

“Well, there’s something to think about,” Cromwell suggested.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CLUMP, CLUMP, CLUMP, clump, clump, clump, clump, clump.

“Detail… halt!’

Clump-Clump!

The D Company detachment ‘came to a standstill in the corridor leading from the X-Ray Spectroscopy and Image Analysis labs, at a place where it widened into a vertical bay housing a steel-railed stairway that led up to the Observatory Deck where the five-hundred-centimeter optical and gamma-ray interferometry telescopes were located. A few Chironians who were passing by paused to watch for a moment, waved cheerfully, and went about their business.

“Sentry detail, detach to . . . post!” Sirocco shouted. PFC Driscoll stepped one pace backward from the end of the by-this-time-diminished file, turned ninety degrees to the right, and stepped back again to come to attention with his back to the wall by the entrance to a smaller side corridor. “Parade . . . rest!” Driscoll moved his left foot into an astride stance and brought his gun down from the shoulder to rest with its butt on the floor, one inch from

his boot. “Remainder of detail, by the left.. . march!” Clump, clump, clump, clump…

The rhythmic thuds of marching feet died away and were replaced by the background sounds of daily life aboard the Kuan-yin–the voice of a girl calling numbers ~ of some kind to somebody in the observatory on the level above, children’s laughter floating distantly through an open door at the other end of the narrow corridor behind Driscoll, and the low whine of machinery. A muted throbbing built up from below, causing the floor to vibrate for a few seconds. Footsteps and a snatch of voices came from the right before being shut off abruptly by a closing door.

~Driscoll was feeling more relieved. If what he had seen so far was anything to go by, the Chironians weren’t going to start any trouble. He’d had to bite his tongue in order to keep a straight face back in the antechamber by the ramp, and it was a miracle that nobody important had heard Stanislau sniggering next to him. The Chironians were okay, he had decided. Everything would be okay.. . provided that ass-faces like Farnhill didn’t go and screw things up.

What had impressed him the most was the way the kids seemed to be involved in everything that was going on just as much as the grown-ups. They didn’t come across like kids at all, but more like small people who were busy finding out how things were done. In a room two posts back, he had glimpsed a couple of kids who couldn’t have been more than twelve probing carefully and with deep frowns of concentration inside the electronics of a piece of equipment that must have cost millions. The older Chironian with them just watched over their shoulders and offered occasional suggestions. It made sense, Driscoll thought. Treat them as if they’re responsible, and they act responsibly; give them bits of cheap plastic to throw around, and they act like it’s cheap plastic. Or maybe the Chironians just had good insurance on their equipment.

He wondered how he might have made out if he’d had a start like that. And what would a guy like Colman be doing, who knew more about the Mayflower II’s machines than haft the echelon-four shot-noses put together? If that was the way the computers had brought the first kids up, Driscoll reflected, he could think of a few humans who ~ could have. used some lessons.

His debut into life had been very different. The war had left his parents afflicted by genetic damage, and their first two children had not survived infancy. Aging prematurely from side effects, they had known they would never see Chiron when they brought him aboard the Mayflower II as a boy of eight and sacrificed the few more years that they might have spent on Earth in order’ to give him a new start somewhere else. Paradoxically, their health had qualified them favorably in their application to join the Mission since the planning had called for the inclusion of older people and higher-risk actuarial categories among the population to make room for the births that would be occurring later. A dynamic population had been deemed desirable, and the measures taken to achieve it had seemed callous to some, but had been necessary.

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