He sighed and went back to the dreary business of trying to understand the commission reports. Briefly he wondered if he had made a serious mistake in trading his idyllic life in Bal Harbor for the irksome constraints of this new existence on Tupelo. He couldn’t honestly say that he had any good reason to be happier here.
The funny thing was that he actually was happier. Not for himself. For Rina. There was no doubt that the woman was blossoming by the hour here on Tupelo; and how strange it was, Giyt thought wonderingly, that he found himself happy simply because she was.
VII
There is only one inhabited island on the planet Tupelo. It occupies the center position in a thousand-kilometer-long island arc, like Maui in Earth’s Hawaiian chain. Like the Hawaiis, the chain on Tupelo was formed as a chunk of ocean crust dragged itself over a deep hot spot, producing volcanoes that ultimately produced islands; like the Hawaiian chain, too, this one is situated close to the planet’s equator in the middle of an enormous sea—Tupelo’s even vaster than Earth’s Pacific Ocean. The island’s soil is fertile. There is plentiful water arising from springs and streams on the central mountainous massif. However, as all the islands are of volcanic origin, they are singularly poor in exploitable mineral ores and completely lacking in fossil fuels. There are three other similar island chains elsewhere in the ocean; they also are mineral-poor. The only rich ore finds are on the planet’s one Australia-sized continent, which lies near the planet’s north pole.
Extraction of useful ores from the continental deposits, including petroleum, was begun by the nonhuman races before Earth was admitted to the planet. Most of the ores are worked and refined on site. Then the raw materials are fabricated into goods of all kinds by largely automatic factories.
While Evesham Giyt was dressing after his post-siesta shower he turned on Silva Cristl’s early-afternoon news broadcast. There wasn’t much news that day, only a couple of announcements. The polar rocket was due in at 1950 hours; one family had given up on Tupelo and was heading back to Earth; the Bassingwells had had another baby, their fifth. Giyt listened with a feeling of comfortable lassitude. He and Rina had fallen into the pleasant custom of making love twice a day—at least twice a day; once at bedtime, but also once at the time of the midday siesta, because, as Rina said, “What else is a siesta for?” It certainly made the afternoons nicer. When Rina looked in to announce that she was taking the younger de Mir children to the beach, because Lupe had to go in for a checkup, Giyt surprised himself by volunteering to walk along.
The day was warm and the beach was crowded, not only by Earth humans. A pack of Kalkaboos, as near naked as made no difference, lay soaking up as much sunlight as they could extract from Tupelo’s inadequate star. Even the Responsible One of the Petty-Primes was there. He wasn’t alone, either. Rina was greeting two of his mates, and at least half a dozen of their little kits were running energetically around and kicking sand in one another’s faces. When Rina greeted the little creature, he responded at once, the translator phone in Giyt’s ear doing its job as well, and as poorly, as ever. “A misfortune that cannot remain,” the Responsible One apologized, throwing his head back to face the giant Earth human. “Second eldest daughter just presently returning from first-ever duty tour at polar complex, must go meet rocket to greet.” He waved one tiny arm in the general direction of the landing strip across the lake, and Giyt nodded.
“Yes,” he said, awkward with the problem of talking to someone who only came up to his thighs. Giyt wondered if he should kneel, but the Petty-Prime didn’t seem to mind. “I’d like to see that myself.”
“Can be nothing more simple, you come with ourselves,” the Petty-Prime declared hospitably. “Plenty of room on skimmer for even large person,”
And Rina looked up from trying to rub sunscreen on the back of one of the squirming de Mir toddlers. “Yes, Shammy, why don’t you do it? You’ve been stuck in the house too much. Get out and blow some of the stink off.”
Giyt had never been in a skimmer before. Even on Earth he had rarely trusted himself in any kind of waterborne craft, and he wondered if he would get seasick in the fast drive across the lake. But the water was calm, the spray cast up by the skimmer’s racing progress was pleasing enough on a warm day, and it was a nice change from sitting before his screen. The Responsible One chattered away, pointing out the things of interest along the far lakefront: the crude road that led through the jungle down to the cargo-submarine port; the ancient dam, originally built by the Slugs for hydroelectric power back in the days when only the first two races had come to live on Tupelo. “Entire lake,” he piped up, “is due to existence of dam Slugs built, was not here before.”
Then they were approaching the rocket’s landing pad. There were three or four other skimmers moored to its floating dock, a variety of races sitting in the craft and talking idly among themselves. He was surprised to see that Hoak Hagbarth was among them, which triggered a reminder in his brain: where was the energy-conservation plan Hagbarth had promised to give him for the Kalkaboos?
It was a good chance to remind him, but apparently the chance for that was not going to happen right away. “Must not debark out of skimmer craft yet,” the Responsible One cautioned as his children scurried about, tying the skimmer to the dock with cords the thickness of packing twine. “Not given permission. Requirement to wait for rocket to land, thus minimizing risk.”
In fact, Giyt could see the suborbiter coming at them, high up to the north. It was no more than a glint of metal and a flickering flare of red flame and white as its thermal shield ablated. They had left their arrival to the last minute; as Giyt watched the craft was visibly settling lower and growing larger. It passed directly over the island, no more than a couple of thousand meters up. Then it reversed course and, dropping rapidly now, touched ground, the flames from its main rockets almost blinding Giyt. When it stopped, it was directly in front of the waiting group at the dock.
Chittering wildly, the Petty-Prime kits started to romp toward the rocket, with only their parents reining them in. A low-slung vehicle Giyt hadn’t noticed before began to roll in the same direction, one end of it tilting upward as it moved to form a flight of steps. Almost at once the rocket’s doors began to open—first the heat shield, far too hot to be touched; then the inner door. The passengers began to disembark, stepping carefully over the hot metal of the exterior shield.
Then the Petty-Prime kits broke loose. First off the polar rocket was a pair of Petty-Prime females, one of whom hopped agilely down the steps to throw herself into the arms of the Responsible One. Cheeping and squealing, the kits were doing their best to swarm over them both, and not cautiously. A Delt was coming down the steps in a hurry. He tried to dodge around the Petty-Prime family and didn’t quite miss them all. One of the kits wound up under the Delt’s foot; it squealed shrilly and began to whimper.
The situation quickly developed the makings of a nice little squabble, the Responsible One chirping belligerently up at the unrepentant Delt, others gathering around to take sides. Giyt observed that the infant wasn’t really hurt; in fact, it and all its siblings had already taken themselves away from this argument of the grown-ups.