Janet Ruello looked at him. Her eyes were blazing.
“I hoped it would, Alex.”
Chapter 4
New Ukraine was considered to be a successful planet, with solid prospects for the future and more or less loyal to the Imperial government. In a word, it was the golden center of the Empire, one of the pillars propping up civilization. Peaceful, plentiful, and utterly dreary.
Had the hyper-channel near the planet been a continuously functioning one, Alex wouldn’t have even considered landing on New Ukraine. But the colony wasn’t a galactic crossroads like Gamma Snakebearer. Neither was it a bustling trading post like Quicksilver Pit. Mirror came out of the channel, traced another arc to return to the entrance, but didn’t manage to re-enter. A whole caravan of refrigerators loaded with frozen and nominally live pork—the two main New Ukrainian exports—was slowly pulling into the narrowing aperture of the channel.
“The next time it opens will be in nine hours and seventeen minutes,” reported Xang gloomily. “Do we wait, Captain?”
Alex was lost in thought. He had walked onto the bridge about a minute before they exited the channel, and Janet appeared in the system literally one second before they came out into real space. His emotions hadn’t yet settled, and mentally he was still with this tall, dark-skinned woman, so charmingly depraved, and at the same time so conservative…
“C-the-Third…” Alex had connected to the ship’s inner net. The clone was in his cabin—he sat at the computer terminal working on a text file. “We have some nine hours in the New Ukrainian system. Shall we land or wait in orbit?”
“Let’s go down,” replied the clone without hesitation. “The Zzygou prefer to attend to their natural needs in open air or running water.”
Alex was using an open channel, audible to the whole crew, and Janet let out a quiet, spiteful laugh.
“Very well. Please tell your wards,” Alex asked him. “And… how are they feeling, by the way?”
“Everything’s back to normal,” answered the clone calmly. “Sey-Zo has explained to me what had happened. The cocktail included some anise liqueur from Hellada-2. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding. Turns out, the natural alkaloids of anise cause a strong intoxication in the Zzygou, which is accompanied by a propensity for mystification and an uncontrollable need to say things that are unpleasant to their interlocutors. They beg your pardon… and ask not to offer them any more beverages that contain anise.”
It was impossible to tell whether C-the-Third really believed that what had happened was an accident, or if he simply preferred not to blow up the scandal. He seemed ready to believe it was an accident.
“Propensity for mystification…” Janet murmured. “Yes, of course…”
“Right battle station, please be quiet,” said Alex dryly. And Janet fell silent. Not offended; rather, fully satisfied with what she had heard.
They began their descent toward the planet.
New Ukraine had four spaceports. One was located near the capital city, Mazepa-Misto. Two more were out in the boundless green steppes, where herds of mutated swine roamed—huge, elephantine creatures, covered by a three-and-a-half-foot-thick layer of aromatized lard, rich in vitamins. Alex had had occasion to try various kinds of local pork, created by the artful cunning of geneticists. He had also tried the lard, which, though untreated, had a smoked flavor and consistency. He had also sampled the sweet “chocolate” lard you could buy in small cans. Alex wasn’t a great fan of the local delicacies, but the geneticists’ mastery was unquestionable.
The fourth New Ukrainian spaceport, where they would be landing, was located near the planet’s one and only sea. The colony was not lacking for water, but by a strange caprice of nature, there were no large lakes on New Ukraine, to say nothing of seas or oceans. A long and arduous terraforming process had artificially created the sea. There was no true necessity for it, especially considering that this large body of water had a significant, and not positive, effect on the climate of the adjacent regions. But at this point, it had become a matter of principle. Every colony wanted to have everything a normal planet should: seas and mountains, forests and swamps. Alex had already seen the shapeless, monstrous, artificially created mountain chain on Serengeti, so the New Ukrainians’ desire to have a sea did not surprise him.
The ship went in for landing over the sea. Tore through a line of clouds—a sign of an approaching storm moving toward the shore at a leisurely pace. Rushed over the pallid gray blotches of water poisoned by hydrogen sulphide—the terraforming was still not completed. The view changed closer to the shore. The sea turned a clean greenish blue, and the air got clear and bright. The ship was moving about three hundred thirty feet above the surface of the water, having reduced its speed to a minimum and shifted to the clean, though energy-consuming, plasma thrusters.
“Will there be any shore leave, Captain?” inquired Generalov, in a businesslike tone. He had absolutely nothing to occupy him at the moment, so he was visibly bored.
“Yes. A six-hour leave for anyone interested. The only one to stay on duty…”—he hesitated briefly—“will be me.”
The raging white vortex—Kim’s consciousness—tossed a needle of white light at him.
“Alex!” The girl was clearly mad at him, but at least she chose to confront him on a private channel. “I thought we’d hang out on the planet together!”
“Kim…” He transferred the piloting to Xang, who was delighted with this unexpected gift. Then Alex focused on the conversation. “As the ship’s captain, I must make sure that the crew has a chance to rest. By tradition, the first shore leave is the captain’s time to stay aboard.”
“I hate your traditions! I won’t leave the ship, either!”
“Fine. Stay on,” Alex agreed.
She fell silent immediately. Then grumbled:
“I changed my mind.”
“Come on, don’t be mad…” Alex tried to imbue his words with as much warmth as he could. “We’ll hang out together on Zodiac for sure. And it’s a much more beautiful planet, trust me.”
“Do I have your word?” asked Kim quickly.
“I swear.”
Kim fell silent, apparently satisfied. Alex returned to piloting, though he did not take the controls away from Xang, simply keeping an eye on the co-pilot instead. There was no real need for that—the ship was already coming in for landing. Below them stretched green fields of lush alfalfa, pigs leisurely plodding through them. Alex turned on the magnification to take a closer look at these gigantic, imperturbable animals in all their glory. They did not in any way react to the landing ship—they were used to them. And only a mischievous shepherd boy, making his rounds on the back of a fast young piglet, turned his little face toward the sky and waved at the ship enthusiastically, his little hand clutching a thermal whip. Alex smiled, regretting the fact that he couldn’t greet the happy kid in kind.
“Landing glissando…” Xang reported.
Mirror slid down to the very surface, rushing over the landing field paved with six-sided concrete slabs.
“Standing in the pillar…”
The ship came to a stop over the spot assigned to it by flight control.
“Touchdown…”
The landing supports had slid out of the body of the ship and touched the work-weary slabs of the spaceport.
“Thank you very much, Mister Morrison,” said Alex ceremoniously.
“Much obliged to you, Captain,” replied Xang with feeling. “Shall we make the transfer to parked mode?”
“Yes. Go ahead.”