Marquoz sighed. “That’s it, then. Let’s do it.”
The High Priestess looked surprised at this sudden and simple acquiescence, but was very pleased.
“We’ll need a lot of help,” Mavra Chang noted. “He’ll have buried himself very well. Even if we manage to dig him up, he might catch on and rebury himself even deeper—if, indeed, his disappearance is deliberate and not a sign of something more ominous. We can’t use the government—he’s obviously got a lot of influence there. That means the Fellowship.”
Yua was ecstatic. “Of course we will channel all our resources into the search. I will convey—”
“Iwill convey!” Mavra snapped, cutting her off. “I think I had better see just who and what we’ll be partners with myself.”
“But you can not go to Olympus!” Yua protested. “It is forbidden—and you could not survive there, anyway. You haven’t the physical adaptability for it!” Mavra smiled. “I will. Marquoz, will you and Gypsy please get off the platform and stand about where we did when we were served dinner?”
“With pleasure!” Gypsy responded and moved well away; Marquoz, too, was not eager to subject himself to the computer’s scrutiny any more than necessary.
Mavra seemed satisfied. “Obie, you know what to do.”
“Right, Mavra,” the computer answered pleasantly. The dish swung out. Yua got up and started to say something, perhaps to protest, but it was too late. The forms, the table, the chairs were all bathed in the violet glow, and disappeared. The platform was bare. “Now what… ?” Gypsy mused aloud, but Marquoz held up a small green hand.
And they were. Two forms, minus the furniture, rematerialized.
TwoYuas, absolutely identical, stood there. Two High Priestesses.
“Yua, you will take me to the Temple. We shall go by conventional ship; I wish no suspicions raised,” one said in the High Priestess’s voice.
The second Yua turned and actually kneeled before the speaker.
“Oh, yes, my Lady,” she responded softly, almost adoringly. “You have but to command and I must obey.”
Marquoz turned to Gypsy. “Remind me,” he said casually, “not to get back on that platform, won’t you?”
Gypsy nodded absently. “That thing changes minds faster than a fickle shopper at a bargain bazaar,” he commented dryly.
Olympus
Olympus was well off the main shipping lanes.It had actually been discovered fairly early in Earth exploration and might have wound up as a grand Terraforming experiment except that the same space drive that allowed man to reach the planet also made possible the almost simultaneous discovery of a number of more attractive and less expensive planets more or less in a row.
It was roughly thirty-two thousand kilometers around at the equator, a bit smaller than old Earth, and farther out so it was colder. In fact, normal air temperature would be about three degrees Celsius on a summer’s day, minus eighteen in winter. Geologically Olympus was very active. Volcanoes larger than any seen on old Earth spewed hot gases and molten magma all over the place; earthquakes were an everyday occurrence on most of the world, although severe ones were rare. To top it all off, the atmosphere was loaded with oxygen and a lot of other gases. The air smelled something like that around a huge chemical plant no matter where you were, and though it rained frequently the chemical content of that rain was a mixture of weak acids stronger by far than those around industrial areas on more Earthlike worlds. The usual materials wore away quickly here; the rains stung and irritated exposed human flesh, and the additives in the air were severe enough to require an artificial air supply. The place had developed a lush plant life well adapted to it as well as some minor insects and sea creatures, but nothing very elaborate. The environment was still too hostile.
The First Mothers, bankrolled by Councillor Alaina, had bought Olympus cheap. Although Ben Yulin had wished for idealized love-slaves, he had made them into superwomen able to withstand enormous extremes. Obie had been the engineer, and he’d done a fine job. The First Mothers found they could live easily on Olympus; their metabolisms permitted them to consume just about anything organic.
Initially, living conditions on Olympus were primitive; houses hewn from solid rock by borrowed lasers were the first homes, and for a generation the population was just a small band of primitives living as naked hunter-gatherers in an almost stone-age culture. They had two advantages, though, a large interest-accruing account in the Com Bank and continuous contact with the Com and its resources.
After a few months, all the First Mothers discovered that they were pregnant. All of the children born were female save two. It was then that they realized they could, in fact, found a new race.
Off-world cloning was employed to guarantee a large, steady supply of females who would be of roughly the same age as the two males when they matured.
The girls were raised to believe that it was their duty to have children as long as they were able and as often as they were able, and the population grew rapidly, eventually allowing the Olympians to dispense with cloning and the outside interests the process necessitated. Now, over seven hundred years later, the population of Olympus was well over thirty million and still growing, although the birth rate had been slowed centuries earlier.
And all the women, except for hair and eye color, looked exactly alike with one additional difference. Of the First Mothers, Yulin had created two before adding the decorative tail. After seven centuries, ten percent of the population lacked the tail. They were the Athenes. The tailed majority were Aphrodites (the last two syllables pronounced as one). They called their race the Pallas, although everyone outside of their culture referred to them as Olympians after their planet. (One of their early books had contained information on human myths, legends, and ancient religions.)
Mavra Chang, disguised as a Pallas, along with Yua made subservient to her by Obie, approached Olympus in an Olympian ship after transferring from a commercial freighter. Realizing the naivete and vulnerability of their early state, the First Mothers had severely restricted access to Olympus. Over the centuries the rules had been chiseled in stone and made absolute. Only Olympians were allowed on the planet. Even freighters had to be Olympian owned and operated.
Although the planet was now modern and civilized, it produced little that was marketable. The old bank funds had been invested in the freighting concern, though, which also did some work for Com worlds. Although it was little known, skilled Olympian females were available for hire, as couriers, as guards, as private ship captains. They were totally loyal to their employers, absolutely incorruptible, and, as super-women, not easy to tangle with. Their attributes made them very useful as couriers of secret information of vital material. The Temple, too, invested heavily in Com businesses; its recent growth had made its wealth astronomical.
All this Obie extracted from Yua’s mind; also the linguistic differences, cultural forms and attitudes. Mavra would make no outward slips. But Yua was not the biggest help. She’d been raised in the Fellowship with the sole purpose of becoming a Priestess, so she had little contact with the greater society of her home planet, no more than one born and raised in a nunnery. Even her education had been turned toward dealing with the humans of the Com.