"Well that's a relief! But I'm assuming that you're about to tell me just what it is he does plan on doing?"
"Actually, we're all planning on doing it with him."
"Doing what with him?"
"Tell me," her father said, "have you ever heard of Mathison's World?"
"No," she said, regarding him narrowly.
"I'm not surprised." He shrugged. "It's a very nice planet, though. Out near the frontier, beyond Franconia. The climate is on the cool side, especially during the winter, but it's got absolutely gorgeous scenery. More to the point, I happen to know that Out-World Affairs is planning to organize a new Crown Sector out that way. It's not going to happen overnight, but in five or six years, they're going to open Mathison to general colonization and begin offering incentive credits to get people out there."
"But isn't Franconia an awful long way from anywhere important?" Alicia asked, frowning as she tried to dredge up a better mental feel for the astrography involved.
"Oh, it certainly is, at the moment, at least!" Collum chuckled. "On the other hand, I grew up on a world a lot like Mathison, you know, and your grandfather isn't exactly going to be comfortable surrounded by cityfied real estate. And the system itself is strategically located. It's got not just one, but two asteroid belts, which is going to make it a natural site for heavy industry, eventually. And it's going to turn into a logical site for a major freight transshipment point, too, once the borders start expanding in the region. Speaking as a Foreign Ministry weenie, I'm surprised, in some ways, that that hasn't already happened. I understand the logic, more or less, but we really ought to have gotten a new Crown Sector organized out there years ago. Once we finally do, though, the Crown is going to put a lot of horsepower into the effort, and things are going to happen fast, compared to most colonization waves. Give it another fifteen or twenty years, and Mathison is going to be the sort of colony that has to beat off applicants with a stick. Which is why your mother and I have decided to put our names on the preliminary list."
Alicia blinked at him. She knew he'd grown up on a farming world, but somehow she'd always thought of him right here, on Old Earth-or else jaunting about the galaxy on the business of the Foreign Ministry. The one word she'd always associated with him most strongly was undoubtedly 'cosmopolitan,' and somehow it was a bit difficult to see him on some rustic, barely settled planet on the very fringe of the Empire.
But only for a few moments. Then she began to see how well it would truly suit him.
"Well, this is certainly sudden," she said, sparring for time while she adjusted to the entire concept.
"Not really." He shook his head. "Your mother and I have always planned on retiring someplace a bit less hectic than Old Earth. And while my own current profession isn't one that provides a lot of skills a colony world would find useful, I did grow up in a saddle, riding herd on megabison back on Silverado. And your mom can probably write her own ticket anywhere-colony worlds always need first-rate doctors. It's true that we hadn't planned on relocating this soon, but we've certainly accrued enough retirement credits we can convert to colonization credits. We've decided it makes sense to go ahead and use them while we're still young enough to build entirely new lives for ourselves, and given the probability of your grandfather's retirement-and the amount of lead time we're talking about-it makes sense to go ahead and get started."
"It sounds nice," she said, just a bit wistfully.
"Oh, believe me, it'll have its drawbacks." He chuckled. "It won't be like some of the horror stories from the original colonization waves, but it's going to be decades before Mathison has the sort of technical and industrial infrastructure most Incorporated Worlds take for granted. But the fact that it's a virgin planet, without any old League odds and ends, means we won't have any of the sort of liveliness places like Gyangtse have experienced. We may have to get used to riding horses for local transport for a few years, but at least it should be fairly peaceful. And of course," he smiled, "given the size of the spreads original colonizers get to claim, we ought to have plenty of dirt available when it comes time for you to retire, too."
Chapter Seventeen
"So, welcome to Guadalupe Inйz Juanita Melйndez y Redondo de Castillo Blasquita Capital City Spaceport," the corporal in Cadre uniform said with a smile.
"You're putting me on," Alicia said.
"Oh no I'm not," the other woman assured her. The nameplate on the breast of her undress uniform tunic read "Cateau, Tannis," and she was considerably shorter than Alicia. Then again, most women were. Cateau, however, also had the stockiness of a heavy-worlder. "In fact," she continued, "the entire planet's official name is Guadalupe Inйz Juanita Melйndez y Redondo de Castillo Blasquita. The original survey captain was some high muckety-muck from Granada who chose to name it for his mother."
"Then he must have held a gun on the rest of his crew while he did it," Alicia said tartly. "Nobody would use a mouthful like that every time they refer to a planet!"
"I don't know about guns," Cateau said with a shrug, "but you're right about it's being just a tad long for a comfortable name. The colonists never bothered to change the official name, but they did shorten it to 'Guadalupe' in common usage, and that's what pretty much everyone's called it since."
"Well, by all means, let's honor the tradition," Alicia said, extending her hand. "Alicia DeVries," she added.
"Tannis Cateau," the other woman said. She gripped the offered hand firmly but with a certain degree of care, confirming Alicia's suspicion that she'd been born and raised in a considerably heavier gravity than that of Old Earth's and had the muscles to go with it.
"Given the fact that you and I are the only people in this entire concourse in Cadre uniform, it leaps to my powerful intellect that someone sent you to collect me," Alicia said.
"I'm awed by your keen deductive ability," Cateau agreed with a grin. "Let's go get your gear."
"Lead the way, O local guide," Alicia said.
"Glad to see you, DeVries," Captain Madison Alwyn said as First Sergeant Pamela Yussuf walked Alicia into his office.
The commander of Charlie Company, Third Battalion, Second Regiment, Fifth Brigade, Imperial Cadre, was at least fifteen centimeters taller than Alicia, which made him very nearly two full meters in height. He was also very, very black. Alicia couldn't place his accent, but humanity had settled a great many worlds over the past seven or eight centuries, and most of them had evolved their own local accents and dialects. That same plethora of planetary habitats had preserved, and in some cases actually intensified, the human race's variations in skin pigmentation and other environment-controlled physical differentiation. It had added its own variations on the theme, too, of course, like Corporal Cateau's impressive physique. From Captain Alwyn's complexion, for example, it was obvious that his ancestors hadn't settled in the middle of a frozen tundra somewhere.
"Thank you, Sir," she replied as he stood behind his desk and reached out to shake her hand.
"I know you've had a long voyage out from Old Earth," Alwyn continued, "and I know you just finished ACTS. Bearing all of that in mind, I'd really like to give you a couple of nice, quiet weeks or so to get settled in."
He paused, still holding her hand, and she felt one of her eyebrows rise.
"But -?" she said after a moment or two.
"But I don't think that's what's going to happen," he replied with a tight smile. He released her hand, and sat back down behind his desk, looking back and forth between her and Yussuf.