“I guess an InterSec cop can do pretty much anything she wants,” Sandy observed from behind her.
“She can if she has you with her,” Marguery said, studying the screen. “Especially if she used to be in the astronaut corps herself. Here, take a look.”
On the screen a picture began to form—a bright, small object like a soup can, far away.
“We’re watching in the infrared,” Marguery told him. “These are the same kind of telescopes that were tracking the reentry. You’ll see a streak across the picture now and then. Pay no attention to them, they’re just space junk in Low Earth Orbit, like the piece that just fell in the ocean. Here, I’ll zoom in a little closer.”
Sandy stared. It was the Hakh’hli ship, all right! It seemed to glow with its own light. It was stark and clear, and he had never seen it thus. Every detail showed. As it slowly turned to even the heating from the sun, even the little welt on its surface that had been the cradle of his own landing craft was clearly visible.
“I didn’t know you could see the ship from Earth,” he said numbly.
“Well, hell of course we can see you,” she said, cross. “Do you think we’re ignorant savages? We’ve been watching you for nearly two months.”
“Two months?”
She made an impatient gesture. “Just because we can’t go into space doesn’t mean we don’t keep looking. They found the gamma-ray emission weeks ago in a routine sweep. The source was obviously moving pretty fast, so naturally they followed up on it. The gammas came from your drive, I believe.”
She touched a few more keys, and the image grew larger still. “Your ship was still out of the plane of the ecliptic, more than a billion miles out. We couldn’t get decent optics at first. Then, after you came around the Sun, we followed you on radar.”
“Radar?”
“Radio beams,” she explained. “We bounce them off things and pick up the reflections.”
“Ah,” he said, gratified that one point at least was coming clear to him. He nodded. “ChinTekki-tho said there were transmissions from Earth, but the Hakh’hli didn’t exactly know what they were. They didn’t seem to carry information.”
“Not on the way out, they don’t,” Marguery agreed, “but we could see you very clearly from the reflection. Then we could get you optically, too, at least in the infrared—your ship soaked up so much solar heat at perihelion that it sticks out like a light bulb. Sandy? Do you see those lumps on the side of the ship? What are they for?”
He peered at the screen. “Those five in a row, there? They’re other landers. The ship has half-twelve of them, altogether—you can see that landing craft is gone. That was ours.” Then he glared at her. “You watched us coming?”
“Of course we did. Wouldn’t you?” she asked patiently. “We kept a pretty close eye on you. We were listening on all frequencies, too, to see if you would send a signal to let us know who you were. You didn’t, though.”
“Well,” Sandy apologized, “the Major Seniors weren’t sure of what kind of people you were, you know.”
She shrugged. “We weren’t sure of you, either. As soon as you launched the lander we tracked its landing orbit. You didn’t have to wander around in the rain, Sandy. If you had just stayed put, we would have come to you as soon as the storm was over.”
“But why didn’t you tell us?”
“Well, I’m telling you now.” Then, unwillingly, she added, “The fact is that I wasn’t supposed to, before. It’s just been cleared.”
“I see,” Sandy said bitterly. “You are now permitted to share some truths with me. But not all, I suppose?” She scowled at him, not answering. “So besides being my jailer, now you are permitted to give out certain little crumbs of information, to see what I’ll make of them?”
“I’m not your jailer, Sandy!”
“Then what do you call it?”
“The term,” she said primly, “is ‘escort.’ ”
“But you’re a policeman. Woman, I mean.”
“InterSec is not police. Not exactly police, anyway. Oh, hell,” she flared, “what do you expect? It was just a precaution. Naturally we have to make sure of what we’re getting into, so we—” She stopped. She glanced at the ceiling, then said stubbornly, “So we keep an eye on you. Just as you did on us.” She changed the subject. “Do you want some more coffee?”
“Is that what my ‘escort’ takes me to do next?” he asked bitterly. “Then what am I required to do after that to satisfy your natural concern?”
She gave him a look he couldn’t translate. “That’s up to you,” she said.
“Oh, but surely you have instructions,” he persisted.
She stared into space for a moment. Then she sighed and looked at her watch. “It’s almost time for Polly to speak,” she said.
“Then, of course, we have to go there, don’t we? To carry out your instructions for me?”
She didn’t answer that. He turned to leave, but she put a hand on his arm. She glanced at the other people in the room before she spoke. “Sandy,” she said, almost whispering. “You told me you might like to visit the old New York City. We can do that this afternoon, if you want to.”
The tone of her voice was odd, but Sandy was not mollified. “Of course,” he snarled. “I will want to do exactly what you say. What choice do I have, after all?”
Polly was late. Nearly everyone in the audience was already seated when she made her entrance, splatsplatting down the center aisle in the long, galumphing Hakh’hli strides, with Hamilton Boyle grimly keeping up beside her. He lost her when they got to the first row. Boyle pointed politely to the stairs that led up to the side of the stage, but Polly was having none of that. As Boyle turned toward the steps Polly gave him a disdainful look. Then she launched herself in an easy jump onto the platform. By the time he got to her she was already squatting before the podium, studying her notes.
There was a faint titter from the audience.
It was a typically Polly sort of thing to do—no, Sandy corrected himself, a typically Hakh’hli thing. Polly looked up, acknowledging the chuckle with a pleased tear. From Sandy’s seat in the first row, with human beings all around, he looked at her through Earthly eyes, and he had no doubt that to them she looked comical.
While Hamilton Boyle introduced her, Polly preened herself. She looked up, twitching in annoyance, as Boyle pressed a button and a screen descended behind them, and when he finished by saying, “So our distinguished guest will show us some of the astronomical records her people have acquired in their long voyage,” she turned on him.
“Must I?” she demanded.
Boyle looked astonished. “But I thought you wanted to. That’s what you were invited here for,” he reminded her.
She twitched irritably. “Oh, very well. Let’s get that part over with, then. Is this the picture control?” Impatiently she allowed Boyle to show her how to use it, then snatched it away from him. “All right, have the lights turned out,” she ordered, craning her neck to see the screen. Before the room was fully dark she began clicking rapidly. “These are some of your nearby stars,” she said, as the pictures flicked by, half a second apart. “This first series is what you call Gamma Cephei and its two planets—not very interesting; they are what you call ‘brown dwarf’ objects, of no use to anyone. We were leaving the Gamma Cephei system en route to what you call Alpha Centauri when we detected your radio signals and passed here, some fifty of your years ago. Now, this is Alpha Centauri. It does not have any sizeable well-formed planets, only a great many objects which most resemble comets or asteroids. Here they are. Now we come to your own system—why are you interrupting me, Boyle?”