Stewards of the Flame Page 5

  He was speaking lightly, but nobody laughed. Peter in particular lit up with unmistakable pleasure, as if he had just recognized an old acquaintance whose companionship he valued highly. Finally, out of a silence less uneasy than solemn, Carla rose and said, “It’s late. We’d better get going.”

  Jesse rose too, ready to take his leave, but Peter stopped him. “Jess, we’re headed for an island where we spend offshifts,” he said. “We’d like you to come.” The welcome in his words was unmistakably genuine.

  “Thanks, but I won’t intrude,” Jesse said, returning the smile. “It’s time I found myself someplace to live.”

  “You’re not intruding,” said Carla. “Please come.” Then, as often happened with her, it seemed she picked up what he had not voiced. “I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I didn’t think. There’s nothing special between Peter and me, Jesse. A lot of friends gather at this place we’re going, more than a dozen this shift, probably. We’d really like to have you. I’d have invited you sooner, but—” She paused for an instant, then concluded, “I wasn’t sure there’d be room in Peter’s plane.”

  It was a six-place seaplane, moored in a basin that they reached by water taxi. At sight of it Jesse began revising his estimate of these people’s place in the colony. Peter, at least, must be wealthy. Perhaps inherited wealth—he was surely too young to have accumulated it, rich in diamonds though Undine was said to be.

  “The government’s monetary laws are complicated,” Peter told him, answering his unspoken question. “All of us here have assets apart from our jobs, assets that are . . . uncommon, elsewhere. But we’re limited in how we can spend what’s left after taxes. We can buy goods through importers—and since flying’s the only practical way to get to most of the islands during an offshift, many of us own planes, just as people own cars on worlds where there are roads.”

  “Apart from import transactions, though, we can’t spend our funds offworld,” Liz added. “Not for passage, not for living expenses. So we don’t have the option of leaving the planet.”

  “Which is why we envy you for having traveled in space,” Kwame said. “If I’m lucky, I might someday get into orbit to work on our power satellites. Most people can’t hope to go even that far.”

  No wonder Fleet’s installation here was a small one, Jesse thought, if there was no passenger traffic. Like most colonies, this one was dependent on solar power satellites and thus on a permanently-based shuttle to service them; it had no source of fuel, and due to its limited land area, no means of generating hydroelectric power. But since its moon wasn’t used and there were no other habitable planets in its solar system, there was little else for Fleet personnel to do when no freighter was in orbit. Undine was an isolated, backwater outpost compared to others he had visited.

  Yet as the seaplane took off and rose over the vast expanse of water surrounding the island city, Jesse decided that if he must be worldbound, this particular world was not such a bad one to be stuck on. It was a cool blue world—blue ocean and blue sky, with only small blotches of green. There were farms and small settlements on some of the larger islands, too widely separated for frequent boat traffic, but no other cities yet. Colonies tended to centralize things.

  Very soon he was wholly confused as to directions. They couldn’t be navigating by sight without landmarks of any kind; they must be on instruments. “Got a chart?” he asked casually, his voice easily heard over the hum of the plane’s high-powered electric engine. “I’d be interested in getting my bearings.”

  Nobody answered; they seemed to be waiting for each other to speak. Finally Peter said, “There’s no use telling a space pilot we haven’t got a chart aboard. The fact is, Jess, our offshift retreat is privately owned. The management doesn’t want crowds, so our use of it’s conditional on not giving out the location. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Jesse agreed. “My feelings aren’t hurt.” Am I crazy? he thought suddenly. I don’t know these people; even Carla, I’ve known outside the Hospital for less than a day. They could be taking me anywhere. I could never get back on my own. For the first time since meeting them, he felt on edge.

  He could not doubt Carla. But how reliable was her trust in the others? She’d trusted Anne, too—and he recalled, now, that she’d mentioned seeing Anne “on the Island.” Anne’s betrayal had evidently troubled her. He’d sensed concern beneath her elation during dinner last night. Perhaps the hacking she’d done might still be uncovered—even today, she wasn’t being quite open with him.

  Something was hidden. Something she knew of this group had not been mentioned. Yet to be with her, he’d blocked that out; he’d noticed only their friendliness. How odd, when he did not even know their full names. . . .

  It was still odder that no one had been introduced by a full name. He looked at Carla, her dark hair resting against a window, half-covering a face that was by now, to him, unforgettable. She had not even told him hers!

  She turned and smiled at him. “We’re very informal,” she said. “A lot of us like to escape from the city; we hate to think of the world outside during offshifts. So we’ve made a sort of rule about conversation, the opposite of what we’d follow at home—we don’t ask questions about what people do. Am I making any sense?”

  “Maybe I’d better get it straight before we land,” Jesse said forthrightly. “We don’t know where in the world we are. We don’t know each other’s full names. We don’t know what anyone does in the city. And yet we’re all close friends.”

  “You’ve got it,” said Carla, not elaborating.

  And do we know who’s married and who’s not? Jesse wondered. Probably we don’t. Okay, that should be clear enough. He had never been a swinger, and had not taken Carla for one; but there was something going between these people beyond mere friendship. He could feel a tension between them even now. It was hardly cause for suspecting anything sinister. What the hell, this could be a fun offshift—though with Carla, he’d hoped for more.

  After several hours they touched water and taxied across the wide bay of an island that seemed deserted. It had rocky outcroppings, with thick trees down to the shore, willowy green trees he knew had been planted by the terraforming team that originally prepared Undine for settlement. There was a long dock with a pole from which a windsock flew alongside a bright red pennant. Other seaplanes and some small boats were tied up there. Only one building was visible, a sprawling stone structure backed by more trees. It seemed too large for a private house; it looked more like a hotel of some kind.

  He followed them up the path to the wide porch. It was a rustic place, built partially of natural wood. Jesse had never seen its like; onworld, he’d known only cities. “Does this place have a name?” he asked, as they mounted the steps.

  “Officially it’s Maclairn Lodge, after the owner,” said Carla. “But we just call it the Lodge. Sometimes there are lots of people here, but it will be quite empty this time. We’ll have to fix our own meals.”

  The heavy wooden door led into a spacious room occupied by nine or ten more attractive young people who were introduced to him. It had no furniture except a few tables with benches, but in the center, large comfortable floor cushions surrounded a huge circular stone fireplace, above which was suspended a hammered-metal hood and chimney. Sunlight streamed in through tall windows. Nobody seemed to be doing anything in particular. They were simply relaxing. They looked as if they felt at home.

  “I’ll find you a bed,” said Peter, “and some clothes. That Fleet outfit you’re wearing can’t be comfortable.”

  It was, by Fleet standards, but it was warm; everyone else wore bright, flimsy shirts outside casual pants. Jesse went with Peter into a hallway. The rooms opening off it were, to his astonishment, bunkrooms, with two double-tiered bunks in each. Peter followed his glance and said, “We have cottages, but since no couples are here today, we’ve not bothered to open them. I suppose starship captains rate private quarters, but I take it you don’t mind?”

&nbs
p; “Of course not,” said Jesse, somewhat stunned. God, he thought, do we not even pair off? Is it going to turn into some sort of orgy out in the common room?

  They fixed lunch. Nobody seemed to organize it, but after changing clothes Jesse found himself making sandwiches. People clustered in small groups on the wide porch and ate casually. There was a lot of laughing and joking, and it seemed happy laughter, not the sort you heard in a bar. The food was good, too, much better than last night’s tasteless restaurant fare, which, Carla had said, was legally required to meet the standards set by nutrition inspectors—as were all edibles offered by city markets. It appeared that only on this secluded island was it okay to enjoy eating.

  Pretty soon people started taking their shirts off to lie in the sun. They were not at all self-conscious about it, though even the women wore nothing beneath. Jesse looked at Carla, looked away, and then looked back, realizing that he was not supposed to react. Colonial customs would take getting used to, he decided.

  “Hey, guys,” said Peter. “Let’s go swimming.”

  Everyone headed toward the waterfront. Carla grabbed Jesse’s hand. “I’ll race you,” she cried, with enthusiasm.

  Jesse froze inside. “I guess I’ll pass,” he said. “I’m not a swimmer.”

  “Oh, come on, Jesse. Nobody cares how good you are.”

  “No,” he confessed, “I mean I never learned to swim. Most spacers don’t; there’s no opportunity.”

  “But you were born on Earth. Didn’t you ever swim as a child?”

  “No,” he said shortly. It was the first lie he had told her. This was not something he liked to think about—splashing happily at the beach with other kids, then the pier, the fall into deep water, the undercurrent dragging him down. His uncle had rescued him, though he had no memory of that part. He’d been only about four then, and had avoided water thereafter. But he still had dreams from time to time.

  In space training, the issue hadn’t arisen; there were no pools on the spartan orbiting stations that housed Fleet cadets. The phobia was on his record, however. You could not lie about such things in psych evaluation—if you denied every fear on their list, they knew you were lying and probed. For that reason he had not lied about it even on the Hospital questionnaires here. God, had Carla seen? She was, after all, a psych technician, though readouts normally showed profiles rather than answers to specific questions.

  “Come with us anyway and watch,” said Carla. “Please, Jesse.”

  Relief swept over him. She could not have seen; if she had, she wouldn’t be urging him to come. It was not in Carla to do anything unkind. Nor would she scorn him—he’d feared not that from her, but pity. Better to make excuses than to have her offer them for him, and watching wouldn’t be bad.

  “Okay,” he said evenly, and followed.

  ~ 8 ~

  A cluster of people gathered on the rocky shore, some distance from the dock. The water was calm and deep there; the cliffs dropped off sharply beneath the water and there was no surf. Peter stood on a tall rock, sunlight illuminating his hair. He dove, cutting the water with effortless grace. Jesse stared at the spreading ripples, wondering how long he would stay down.

  “It’s safe at high tide,” said Carla, noting Jesse’s indrawn breath. “We know these waters. There aren’t any rocks beneath the surface.”

  She took off her long pants, revealing swimwear beneath, and plunged in from ground level. Soon they were all in, laughing and shouting, having a glorious time, like children. Peter dove repeatedly, and others followed. Jesse sat on a flat rock away from the edge, realizing with dismay that he envied them.

  After a while Peter came and sat beside him, drying his bright hair with a towel. “You should try it,” he said. “Carla says you never learned, but we wouldn’t let you drown, you know.”

  Jesse forced a smile. “No, thanks. I’ll leave it to you young folks.” For the first time the fact that he was older than the rest struck home. He had never thought much about age. In space, he was a Captain. Everybody looked up to a Captain. Here . . .

  “Really,” persisted Peter. “You might surprise yourself.”

  “I’d look like a fool, floundering around out there.”

  “I’ll tell you how to make real fun of it, and not flounder,” Peter said, with a rather cryptic smile. “Jump off the high rock there. You’ll sink, of course. The trick is to relax completely as you come up. Don’t try to swim. Just let yourself rise to the surface and float—”

  He broke off in response to what Jesse had hoped was an impassive face. “Yes, I can imagine how it might feel to do it that way if you’ve never been in deep water before. But that’s the fun part, you see. Isn’t it? I mean, why do people ride roller coasters? Why do they jump out of planes? God, Jess, what do spacers do for that kind of fun?”

  Well, nothing, thought Jesse, which was one of the things you learned about the difference between what you thought space would be, and what it turned out to be after you got there. Peter’s argument was unassailable. The difficulty was that Peter wasn’t in a position to imagine how it would feel in his case. He didn’t know about the phobia, and even if he had known, it was unlikely that this man had ever feared anything in his life.

  “Come on,” said Peter, standing up. “I dare you, Jess.”

  He seemed eager—too eager, Jesse thought suddenly. It was irrational for a grown man to play with dares. Yet wasn’t it even less rational to see hidden menace in this? There could be no conceivable motive. His own nerves were playing tricks on him, surely.

  Carla approached them. “He’s a trained lifeguard,” she remarked, her eyes sparkling. “There’s no way you can drown.”

  She smiled brightly at him, not in a taunting way, but with genuine enthusiasm. She too was much younger than he was, which was a thought he did not relish.

  Jesse rose and stripped to his briefs. What the hell, he thought sardonically. How you felt scarcely mattered; you upheld the honor of Fleet. Not Fleet as it really was—God, what a travesty—but as these young people on an isolated world believed it to be.

  He climbed to the rim of the rock and jumped.

  He had known he would sink far below the surface; he had not realized quite how far, or how fast. He had the presence of mind to keep his mouth closed, but his lungs were bursting—he hadn’t stopped to think of filling them beforehand. That was the only real discomfort. In airlock emergency drill you learned to deal with such things. Somewhere along the way it dawned on him that the plunging sensation itself was not much after zero-g, a condition he hadn’t yet experienced at the age of four.

  As he rose, he made a conscious effort not to struggle. He surfaced, throwing himself onto his back to breathe free air. Peter was in the water with him. So was Carla. They were laughing, but not in ridicule—it was sheer exuberance and playfulness. He found himself laughing with them. He wasn’t really floating, they were holding him up; but he knew that by tomorrow he could float.

  “We’ll have you scuba diving before the offshift’s over,” Peter remarked as they climbed out onto the low rocks. Jesse perceived that this had been meant quite seriously.

  The afternoon passed, then the evening. Everyone sat on the porch to watch the sun go down, dipping toward the western horizon to stripe now-grey water with orange. As dark came on the air turned cool; lightweight sweaters covered the thin shirts. People talked. They drank wine. They shared the intimacy of mutual trust. But nothing more than that happened.

  It was unnatural, Jesse thought, perplexed. They were not what he’d first assumed, that was evident—but they weren’t strangers to each other, either. It was not as if they lacked sexual feelings. The undercurrents between them were unmistakable. Why should they behave as if in public, when their Lodge was so evidently a loved home?

  They went indoors and built a fire, gathering in a circle around it, quiet, not even speaking. Carla put her arm around him. She moved close, with warmth but without provocation. Well, this was how we were
last night, he thought, and it’s too soon to go further in any case . . . and all the rest are acting the same way. And then suddenly he thought, do they know? Is that why? Have they that much regard for my feelings, that they avoid what I can’t yet share?

  What a strange thing to guess. If it was true, he’d been given no sign, and certainly other colonies had no such custom. Why did he want so much to believe the best of them? They were concealing something vital, something bigger than mere motives; why did all suspicion vanish easily in their presence?

  Someone turned on music—surging, soaring electronic music, not hard, yet more exciting than tranquil. His spine tingled with it. He forgot Fleet, forgot the drab years, felt he had never belonged anywhere but here, in an island lodge on an obscure planet among people who somehow already mattered to him.

  “Would you mind giving up space for this?” Carla asked softly. “Is it the end of your life if you’re marooned here?”

  “No,” Jesse said. “It feels more like the beginning, right now.”

  ~ 9 ~

  The days passed too quickly. They swam again; they cooked food over an outdoor fire; they climbed the hill above the Lodge to view a dazzling jeweled chain of green islands. The group’s camaraderie remained strong. After a while, Jesse’s liking for its members overshadowed his clear sense of something concealed.

  They did go scuba diving. Apparently it was a sport popular among them, for a storeroom in the Lodge contained a wide variety of gear. The breathing apparatus was simple to manage and not intimidating, considering his experience with spacesuits. Only the swimming involved proved challenging. Jesse felt strangely calm about it, and he found that under Peter’s direction it was possible to learn fast. The man was a born instructor, just as he seemed born to do everything else he tried with casual ease. The others all seemed to look up to him, young though he appeared to be. He was wasted on a world like this—in Fleet, he could in time become Captain not of a mere freighter but of a liner or even a colonizer. Yet Peter never spoke of ambition, never mentioned any longing for the space travel his colony’s laws denied him. What did he do for a living? Jesse wondered. But that was one of the questions that had been declared taboo.