She recognized some of the heavyworlders: scientists and doctors from the medical center where they'd been working. These clumped together to talk shop, while the political guests - high government officials, members of the Diplo Parliament (which Lunzie had heard was firmly under the Governor's broad thumb) - did a great deal of 'mingling.'
The green nubbins turned out to be salty, not sweet, and the orange dollop on the cracker was not cheese at all, but some land of fruit. Across the room a premonitory squawk from an elevated platform warned of music to come. Lunzie could not see over the taller shoulders around her. As the room filled, she felt more and more like a child who had sneaked into a grownup party.
"Lunzie!" That was the Lieutenant Governor, his wide white sleeves billowing, the ribbons at his knee jiggling. He took her free hand in his. "Let me introduce you to my niece, Colgara."
Colgara was not as tall as her uncle, but still taller than Lunzie, and built along the usual massive lines. Her pale yellow dress had rows of apricot ruffles down both sides and a flounce of apricot at the hem. She bowed over Lunzie's hand. The Lieutenant Governor went on, patting his niece on the shoulder.
"She wants to be a doctor, but of course that's just adolescent enthusiasm. She'll marry the Governor's son in a year, when he's back from…" His voice trailed away as someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned away, and the two men began to talk.
Lunzie smiled at the girl who towered over her. "So? You're interested in medicine?"
"Yes. I have done very well at my studies." Colgara swiped at the ruffles down the side of her dress, a nervous gesture that made her seem a true adolescent. "I - I wanted to come see your team at work, but you are too busy, I know. Uncle said you must not be bothered, and besides I am not to go to medical school." She glowered at that, clearly not through fighting for it.
Lunzie was not sure how to handle this. The last thing she needed was to get involved in a family quarrel, particularly a family of this rank. But the girl looked so miserable.
"Perhaps you could do both," she said.
"Go to school and marry?" Colgara stared. "But I must have children. I couldn't go to school and have babies."
Lunzie chuckled. "People do," she said. "Happens all the time."
"Not here." Colgara lowered her voice. "You don't understand how it is with us. It's so difficult, with our genes and this environment."
Before Lunzie realized it, she was being treated to a blow-by-blow account of heavyworlder pregnancy: Colgara's mother's experience, and then her aunt's, and then her older sister's. It would have been interesting, somewhere else, but not at a formal reception, with all the gory details mingling with other overheard conversations about politics, agricultural production, light and heavy industry, trade relations. Finally, at great length, Colgara ended up with "So you see, I couldn't possibly go to medical school and have babies."
"I see your point," said Lunzie, wondering how to escape. The Lieutenant Governor had disappeared into a sea of tall heavy shoulders and broad backs. She saw no one she knew and no one she could claim a need to speak to.
"I've bored you, haven't I?" Colgara's voice was mournful; her lower lip stuck out in a pout.
Lunzie struggled for tact, and came up short. "Not really, I just…" She could not say, just want to get away from you.
"I thought since you were a doctor you'd be interested in all the medical problems…"
"Well, I am, but…" Inspiration came. "You see, obstetrics is really not my field. I don't have the background to appreciate a lot of what you told me." That seemed to work; Colgara's pouting lower lip went back in place. "Most of my work is in occupational rehab. That's why I focus on making it possible to do the work you want to do. People always have reasons why they can't. We look for ways to make it possible."
Colgara nodded slowly, smiling now. Lunzie wasn't sure which of the things she'd said had done the trick, but at least the girl wasn't glowering at her. Colgara leaned closer.
"This is my first formal reception - I begged and begged Uncle, and he finally let me come because his wife's sick." Lunzie braced herself for another detailed medical recitation but fortunately Colgara was now on a different tack. "He insisted that I had to wear oflworld styles. This is really my cousin Jayce's dress. I think it's awful but I suppose you're used to it."
"Not really." Lunzie didn't want to explain to this innocent that she'd been forty-three years in one suit of workclothes, coldsleeping longer than Colgara had been alive. "I have few formal clothes. Doctors generally don't have time to be social."
She could not resist looking around, hoping to find something - someone, anything - in that mass of shoulders and backs, to give her an excuse to move away.
"Want something more to eat?" asked Colgara. "I'm starved." Without waiting for Lunzie's response, she turned and headed for the refreshment tables.
Lunzie followed in her wake. At least on this side of the room, people were sitting down at tables and she could see around. Then Lunzie was caught up by the ornate center arrangement on the nearest table, pink and red whorls surrounded by flowers and fruit. Surely it wasn't? But her nose confirmed that it was and some was uncooked. She glanced at Colgara. The girl had reached across and was filling her plate with the whorls. Didn't she know? Or was it deliberate insult? Slightly nauseated by such a blatant display, Lunzie fastidiously took a few slices of some yellowish fruit, more crackers, and moved away.
"Is it true you lightweights can't eat meat?" asked Colgara. Her tone held no hidden contempt, only curiosity. Lunzie wondered how to answer that one.
"It's a philosophical viewpoint," she said finally. Colgara, her mouth stuffed with what had to be slices of meat, looked confused. Lunzie sighed, and said "We don't think it's right to eat creatures that might be sentient."
Colgara looked even more confused as she chewed and swallowed. "But… but muskies aren't people. They're animals, and not even smart ones. They don't talk, or anything." She put another slice of meat into her mouth and talked through it. "Besides, we need the complex proteins. It's part of our adaptation."
Lunzie opened her mouth to say that any protein compound could be synthesized without the need to kill and eat sentient creatures, but realized it would do no good. She forced a smile. "My dear, it's a philosophical position, as I said. Enjoy your… uh… muskie."
She turned away and found herself face to face with a white-haired man whose great bulk had twisted with age, bringing his massive face almost down to her level. For a moment she simply saw him as he was, exceptionally old for a heavyworlder in high-G conditions, someone of obvious intelligence and wit (for his eyes twinkled at her), and then her memory retrieved his younger face.
"Zebara!"
It was half joy and half shock. She had halfway wanted to find him, had not wanted to search the databases and find that he'd died while she slept, had not wanted to see what was now before her: a vigorous man aged to weakness. He smiled, the same warm smile.
"Lunzie! I saw your name on the list, and hardly dared believe it was you. And then there you were on the cameras! I had to come down and see you."
Conflicting thoughts cluttered her mind. She wanted to ask him what he'd done in the years she'd lost. She wanted to tell him all that had happened to her. But she had no time for a long, leisurely chat, even if he'd been able to join her. She was here with two missions already, and at the moment, she had to concentrate on Sassinak's needs.
"You're looking surprisingly… well…" he was saying.
"Another forty-three years of coldsleep," said Lunzie, wondering why he didn't know already, when some of the heavyworlders certainly did. "And you, you look…"
"Old," said Zebara, chuckling. "Don't try to flatter me, I'm lucky to be alive but I've changed a lot. It's been an interesting life and I wish we had time to discuss it." Lunzie looked a question at him and one of his heavy eyebrows went up. "You know we don't, dear girl. And yes, I can condescend to you because I have koed those forty-three years." He reached out and took the plate from her hand. "Come here."