So we walked to the lift.
19
Barna
In comparison to my stateroom, the work space was luxurious—but only in comparison. Still, it was an office-studio five meters by four, with an array of wall screens and enough power sources for all my equipment. Someone, somewhere, had understood that an artist needed to see, to take in images.
The center screen, a good two meters square, showed a color image of an asteroid, with a tower protruding from its irregular surface. After a moment, I realized that it was a real-time image, doubtless light-enhanced, of Deep Find Station. We hadn’t moved that far, and I hadn’t felt any motion at all when the captain had announced that we were separating from the station.
I settled into the chair facing the board. While I didn’t understand everything before me, I had time to learn it. I would. As I leaned forward, the small master screen flashed, and the words SYSTEMS INSTRUCTIONS appeared. While I would have preferred to experiment, it couldn’t hurt to watch and listen as the system explained itself.
The instructions were very simple. I had access to all outside screens under normal conditions, and any remote feeds or views gathered by the ship’s shuttles or needle-boats once those were entered into the system. If they were. Whether that content was put on the feeds I could access would be determined by the operations officer.
“Ser Barna?”
I bolted upright in the chair. My back twinged as I turned to the open hatch. Elysen stood there.
“Would you care to join me for supper, or whatever one calls the evening meal upon a military vessel?”
I returned the center screen to the view of Deep Find Station and rose. “I’d be honored, Doctor.” I stood and bowed.
“Elysen will do.”
“Only if you call me Chendor.”
“Fair is fair… Chendor.”
We took one of the lifts. We had it to ourselves. When we got off at the mess level, two ship’s officers hurried before us—both women. They were pilots. They had winged insignia—in gold—above their name strips. One was blonde, full-figured but muscular, with short hair, and taller than I. The other was petite, with dark hair. Both were visually stunning, one like a goddess, the other almost doll-like. Beneath the vibrant beauty of the blonde was molten iron. The apparent serenity of the smaller pilot concealed cold steel.
I knew I’d have to try to recapture that image once I got back to the office-studio, the contrast between the apparent and the reality beneath.
“You’re staring, Chendor.”
“Yes. I’d like to capture that image.”
“Just the image?” Elysen laughed.
“Just the image,” I replied. “Beneath those exteriors are women I’d just as soon not get too close to.”
Elysen frowned for a brief moment.
Women think they’re the only ones who see beneath surfaces. Some artists do, too. I can paint what I see better than I can describe it in words.
The officer’s mess was paneled in cherrywood. It was only a veneer, but it made the room warmer. The off-white ceiling and the dark green hangings helped, too. The tables and chairs were cherry synth-wood as well, with pale green linens on the tables. A single rectangular table was set at one end of the mess. Every seat was taken except for the one at the head. All those who were seated there were more-senior officers. That was if I’d read the rank insignia right. The other tables were circular.
“It almost looks like a private club,” I said.
“It is. There aren’t thirty officers on the Magellan, and I’d be surprised if there were that many civilian experts,” Elysen replied. “There might be three hundred or four hundred crew members.”
“Where do you want to sit?”
She gestured. We stepped toward an empty table. None of the occupied tables had space for two, except for the one where the two pilots had seated themselves with a man—another pilot He was red-haired. The three of them also would have made an interesting composition.
At that moment, a senior officer stepped through a side door, and all those at the rectangular table stood.
“Carry on.” The captain took her place at the head of the rectangular table.
We seated ourselves. Within moments, we were joined by two men. I remembered to stand. “Chendor Barna.”
“Misha Nalakov, I’m an applied mathematical theorist.” He didn’t look like a theorist. He had the muscular build of an old-time smith, with black hair slicked back away from a hawk nose.
“Rikard Sorens.” He was slender, with a narrow triangular face that dwindled to an elfin chin. “Materials engineering.”
“This is Dr. Elysen Taube.” I sat down after that.
“I’m an astronomer.” Her smile was that of a regal grandmother or an ancient queen mother.
“What do you do?” Nalakov looked at me.
“I’m an artist.”
“Oh… documentary, I suppose.”
“Representational.”
Both men looked at Elysen.
“Do you have a subspecialty, Doctor?” asked Nalakov.
“Old galaxies… postflex.”
Sorens nodded.
A steward came to the table and set bowls in front of us. Another followed with a tureen and a ladle. The soup was orangish and steamed.
“Where do you think we’re headed?” Nalakov looked at Elysen.
“Somewhere quite distant, I would think.”
“The D.S.S. has to have found some sort of alien artifact. Astronomers, materials engineers, chemists, physicists…” The mathematician shook his head.
“With the military, you never can tell,” Sorens replied. “They once had me consulting on the contents of an outer Oort object. It looked different to them, but it wasn’t manufactured at all, just coated and polished by millennia in the outer reaches of the system. It was something that I couldn’t add much on. The astronomers and chemists knew more than I did.”
“They wouldn’t put together all this for something small,” Nalakov retorted. “They’re too cheap.”
“You’re probably right. One way or another, we’ll know more at the briefing tomorrow.”
“You’re an optimist,” Nalakov mumbled. He was talking and eating.
Sorens smiled indulgently. I liked him.
At the table behind us, I overheard one of the social scientists. I’d been introduced, but couldn’t recall his name. His voice carried.
“… the human species is characterized, assuming the term ‘character’ is not exceedingly charitable, by its predilection to create divisions and barriers, even at times to assert that humans of differing skin shades were of other species, as a basis for establishing competing polities…”
Why didn’t he just say that people used any excuse to assert that they and their group were special?
“Chendor?” Elysen asked politely.
I shook my head.
Elysen smiled, and her eyes flicked toward the adjoining table. Her voice barely carried to me. “Once you get past his tendency to use the largest word possible, Liam seems like a fairly pleasant individual.”
“Do all academics do that?”
“Do you think I do?” Her voice remained a murmur.
“You always knew better.”
“How would you know? We’ve known each other for less than two weeks.”
“Artists always know.” I could see what lay beneath the surfaces of people and what they created. I laughed inside at the contradiction I’d expressed. Elysen was right. I should look inside Liam Fitzhugh before judging. Then, would I see what lay beneath wherever the D.S.S. was taking me? Could I portray it?
20