"You must have or I'd have said intuitive without asking. It sounds as if your mind is trying to put something together which you can't yet articulate. On that basis, meeting Zebara, spending a day with him, might give you enough data to come to some conclusions. But the rest of us are going to have a terrible time with Bias."
"I know. I'm sorry, truly I am."
"If I didn't believe you were, I'd be strongly tempted to play heavyhanded leader and forbid your going. I presume that if your mind finds its gestalt solution in the middle of the night, you will stay with us instead?"
"Yes - but I don't think it will."
Tailler sighed. "Probably not. Some rest-day this is going to be. At least stay out of Bias's way today and let me tell him tomorrow. Otherwise, we'll get nothing done."
When she answered the summons early the next morning, Zebara's escort hardly reassured her. Uniformed, armed - at least she assumed the bulging black leather at his hip meant a weapon - stern-faced, he checked her identity cards before leading her to a chunky conveyance almost as large as the medical center's utility van. Inside, it was upholstered in a fabric Lunzie had never seen, something smooth and tan. She ran her fingers over it, unable to decide what it was, and wishing that the broad seat were not quite so large. Across from her, the escort managed to suggest decadent lounging while sitting upright. The driver in the front compartment was only a dark blur through tinted plex.
"It's leather," he said, when she continued to stroke the seat.
"Leather?" She should know the word, but it escaped her. She saw by the smirk on the man's face that he expected to shock her.
"Muskie hide," he said. "Tans well. Strong and smooth. We use a lot of it."
Lunzie had her face well under control. She was not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she was disgusted.
"I thought they were hairy," she said. "More like fur."
His face changed slightly; a glimmer of respect came into the cold blue eyes.
"The underfur's sometimes used, but it's not considered high quality. The tanning process removes the hair."
"Mmm.' Lunzie made herself touch the seat again, though she wished she didn't have to sit on it. "Is it all this color? Can it be dyed?"
Contempt had given way now to real respect. His voice relaxed as he became informative.
"Most of it's easily tanned this color; some is naturally black. It's commonly dyed for clothing. But if you dye upholstery, it's likely to come off on the person sitting on it."
"Clothing? I'd think it would be uncomfortable, compared to cloth." Lunzie gave herself points for the unconcerned tone of voice, the casual glance out the tinted window.
"No, ma'am. As boots, now," and he indicated his own shining boots. "They're hard to keep polished, but they don't make your feet sweat as bad."
Lunzie thought of the way her feet felt in the special padded boots she wore most of the day. By evening, it was as if she stood in a puddle. Of course it was barbaric, wearing the skins of dead sentient creatures. But if you were going to eat them, you might as well use the rest of them, she supposed.
"Less frostbite," the man was saying now, still extolling the virtues of 'leather' over the usual synthetic materials.
Outside the vehicle, an icy wind buffeted them with chunks of ice. Lunzie could see little through the windows; the dim shapes of unfamiliar buildings, none very tall. Little vehicular traffic: in fact, little sign of anyone else on the streets. Lunzie presumed that most people used the underground walkways and slideways she and Zebara had used their two previous meetings.
"The ride takes more than an hour," the escort said. "You might as well relax." He was smirking again, though not quite so offensively as before.
Lunzie wracked her brain to think of some harmless topic of conversation. Nothing was harmless with a heavyworlder. But surely it couldn't hurt to ask his name.
"I'm sorry," she began politely, "but I don't know what your insignia means, nor what your name is."
The smirk turned wolfish. "I doubt you'd really want to know. But my rank would translate in your Fleet to major. I'm not at liberty to disclose my name."
So much for that. Lunzie did not miss the significance of 'your Fleet.' She did not want to think what "not at liberty to disclose my name" might mean.
Did Zebara not trust her, after all? Or was he planning to turn her over to another branch of his organization and wanted to keep himself in the clear?
Time passed, marked off only by the slithering and crunching of the vehicle's wheels on icy roadway.
"The Director said he knew you many years ago. Is that true?" There could be no harm in answering a question to which so many knew the answer.
"Yes, over forty years ago."
"A long time. Many things have changed here in forty years."
"I'm sure of it," Lunzie said.
"I was not yet born when the Director knew you." The escort said that as if his own birth had been the most significant change in those decades. Lunzie stifled a snort of amusement. If he still thought he was that important, he wouldn't have much humor. "I have been in his department for only eight years." Pride showed there, too, and a touch of something that might have been affection. "He is a remarkable man, the Director. Worthy of great loyalty."
Lunzie said nothing; it didn't seem needed.
"We need men like him at the top. It saddens me that he has lost strength this past year. He will not say, but I have heard that the doctors are telling him the snow is falling." The man stared at her, obviously hoping she knew more, and would tell it. She fixed on the figure of speech.
"Snow is falling? Is this how you say sickness?"
"It is how we say death is coming. You should know that. You saw Bitter Destiny."
Now she remembered. The phrase had been repeated in more than one area, but with the same melodic line. So it had come to be a cultural standard, had it?
"You are doing medical research on the physiological response of our people to longterm coldsleep, I understand. Hasn't someone told you what our people call coldsleep, how they think of it?"
This was professional ground, on which she could stand firmly and calmly.
"No, and I've asked. They avoid it. After the opera, I wondered if they associated coldsleep with that tragedy. It's one of the things I wanted to ask Zebara. He said we would talk about it today."
"Ah. Well, perhaps I should let him tell you. But as you might expect, death by cold is both the most degrading and the most honorable of deaths we know: degrading because our people were forced into it. It is the symbol of our political weakness. And honorable because so many chose it to save others. To compel another to die of cold or starvation is the worst of crimes, worse than any torture. But to voluntarily take the White Way, the walk into snow, is the best of deaths, an affirmation of the values that enabled us to survive." The man paused, ran a finger around his collar as if to loosen it, and went on. "Thus coldsleep is for us a peculiar parody of our fears and hopes. It is the little cold death. If prolonged, as I understand you have endured, it is the death of the past, the loss of friends and family as if in actual death - except that you are alive to know it. But it also cheats the long death of winter. It is like being the seed of a chranghal - one of our plants that springs first from the ground after a Long Winter. Asleep, not dreaming, almost dead! And then awake again, fresh and green.
"When our people travel, and know they will be placed in coldsleep, they undergo the rituals for the dying and carry with them the three fruits we all eat to celebrate spring and rebirth."
"But your death rate in coldsleep, for anything beyond a couple of months, is much higher than normal," said Lunzie. "And the lifespan after tends to be shorter."