Giyt considered trying to stow away on the rocket—impossible—or just showing up at the launch pad and trying to bully his way aboard—just as impossible. Then he faced up to reality. He only had one alternative left. He had to swallow his pride and ask Hagbarth for help.
That wasn’t easy, and what made it harder still was that he couldn’t get Hagbarth on the screen; his personal access didn’t respond, and when Giyt tried the one for the Hagbarth house, it was jammed up. He would have to do it in person.
When he got to Hagbarth’s house he saw what the problem was. The cookout reception for the delegates was in full swing. He had to abandon his cart half a block away, because hundreds of people were swarming around the house. As he tried to pick his way through the crowd he got surprised looks from nearly everyone, some uneasily reluctant to meet his eyes, some staring at him with frank loathing. He was still a dozen meters from the front door when Hagbarth himself came steaming up. “What are you doing here, Giyt?” he demanded.
“I want to go to the Pole,” Giyt said.
Hagbarth didn’t laugh. He barely smiled—well, “sneered” might have been a better word, though he spoke mildly enough. “Can’t be done. Don’t you follow the weather reports? They had this big blizzard at the Pole. They’re still digging out. No time to have tourists.”
“I’ll take my chance.”
“Well, Giyt, you won’t. Not this time. There’s no room on the rocket. Don’t you pay any attention at the commission meetings? You guys allocated us two seats, and they have to go to highly qualified technicians just waiting for a ride; we need them on duty there, Giyt. The factory might break down without them. Maybe next time.”
“Which is when?”
“Well,” Hagbarth said reasonably, “how can I tell? You never know when some of these home-planet people might take it into their heads to bump everybody and go up and take a look for themselves. Maybe next week, maybe not. Now I’ve got guests to attend to.”
In the end, it wasn’t Hagbarth or any of the eeties he’d asked who gave Giyt help. It was Rina.
“Hon?” she said, coming into where he was bent over his screen again, sounding doubtful. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea. It wouldn’t be comfortable, that’s for sure—”
“What wouldn’t?”
“Well, my friend—you know, the Petty-Prime female, the one that’s married to the horticulturist? You’ve seen her over here. Anyway, she says they’ve got space reserved for their whole family on the rocket. They’re willing to wait. So if you’re sure you really want to go there . . .”
XXV
The polar power plant was primarily Delt, in both construction and operation. The mines were largely Kalkaboo, though the Centaurians and the Slugs had combined on the lab work that made possible the processing of the ores. The factories were everybody’s.
In its original form, the polar complex began with three structures set at the vertices of an equilateral triangle. One of the structures is for the Centaurians, one is for the Slugs and the Kalkaboos combined, and the third common to all three for shipping and warehousing; it is near this third building that the landing and launch pad for the suborbital rocket is located. Two kilometers away is the dock for the robot submarines, which carry heavy cargo to the island settlement. This is kept ice-free by waste heat from the power plant, though the structures themselves are often banked high with drifts.
Earth’s single structure is one of four hived off from the original Centaurian structure, the other three being an additional dome for the Centaurians and two that are the property of the Petty-Primes.
The opening session of the six-planet meeting wasn’t scheduled to begin for nearly three hours, but a lot of the delegates and their staffs were roaming the town. In the cart to the lakefront Giyt saw clumps of them wandering around like any tourists anywhere, taking pictures, getting souvenirs. Giyt wasn’t paying much attention to them. He was preoccupied with the prospect of making a polar flight under the conditions the Petty-Primes’ generosity made possible, while Rina wasn’t looking at the visitors at all. She was withdrawn and worried. It wasn’t until they were getting into the boat for the ride across to the launchpad on the far side of the lake that she glanced at the other passengers and said in consternation, “They’ve all got heavy coats, Shammy! You don’t even have boots. It’s winter up there!”
Giyt had noticed the same thing, but tried to reassure her. He wouldn’t be out-of-doors at all, he promised. It didn’t satisfy Rina. “No, Shammy,” she announced, “you need somebody to take care of you. I’m going to come along.”
She very nearly did board the ship at the last minute, as a matter of fact. Very likely would have done it, too, in spite of everything, if there had happened to be an available unoccupied seat in the Pole rocket.
But there wasn’t. “No more seats, certainly none at all, definitely not any, no,” the Delt at the door announced morosely. “Two seats remain open now for Earth-human persons, yes, but taken. Persons are late, too! Persons better damn come soon so captain get this vehicle back in time for watching of opening ceremonials, otherwise captain be damn mad!”
“I’ll be taking the Petty-Prime space,” Giyt informed him.
The Delt gave him the benefit of a concentrated stare from both eyes; “You say what?”
“It’s all right. The Responsible One gave his permission for the switch.”
“Ho!” the Delt snarled. “Responsible One? Gave permission? That very sweet, but, tell me, is Responsible One perhaps person who must now have task of to remove Petty-Prime seating structures from vehicle, so as to make physically feasible space for person your volume and mass to occupy? Still more not to be forgiven injustice!” As he turned to enter to do the job he flung over his shoulder, “For female Earth-human person, still no. Not possible at all.”
Giyt turned to Rina. “So you see there’s no room. But I’ll be all right.”
“Maybe so,” she granted dubiously, “but also maybe not. What if these other people don’t show? Then there’ll be room, won’t there?”
But that was a faint hope, quickly dispelled; the sound of a motor from across the lake was what dispelled it. A boat was speeding toward them, and as it was slowing down to touch shore Giyt saw who was in it. There was a driver, and two men huddled in parkas behind him. “Damn!” Giyt muttered. The men were Wili Tschopp and Hoak Hagbarth.
When the driver got out it turned out to be Olse Hagbarth, unctuously friendly. “Came along to see your hubby off?” she asked, chummy enough to make a cow puke. “Me too. Isn’t that always the way for us wives? We stay home with the housework while our men go off—what? You go along with him? Oh, no, hon, you mustn’t think about going along. Even if there was space for you. The acceleration in that rocket is fierce! Not so bad for a healthy man, maybe, but do you have any idea what it might do to that precious little baby inside you?”
Giyt’s big fear was that his wife would punch Olse Hagbarth in the face, but she didn’t. Rina allowed herself to be led morosely away across the charred surface around the pad, and Giyt hoisted himself into the entry door as the Delt mechanic brushed past him. He paused to speak to Giyt, half apologetic, half aggrieved. “Is now as good as can make it, which not in fact specially good, you know? You having nasty ride. Do not later speak didn’t tell you so.”