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As Killashandra gave him time to leave her passage-way, she reviewed her
"performance" and decided that she hadn't dropped from character, even if he
had. It was rather nice of him, too, not to have
"taken advantage" of her. When she felt secure, she slipped from her cabin and
down to the gymnasium level. At that hour, it was empty and she enjoyed an
hour's luxuriating in the radiant fluid.
They met the next morning at the breakfast hour, Corish solicitously inquiring
after her health.
"Did I fall asleep on you?" she asked with wide-eyed dismay.
"Not at all. I just saw to it that you were safely in your own cabin before
you did."
Critically, she held her hands out in front of her. "Wel1, at least, they're
steady enough to practice."
"You're going to practice?"
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"I practice every day."
"May I listen""
"Well . . . it can be quite boring-I have to spend at least an hour on the
preliminary finger exercises and scales before I can do any interesting music
. . ."
"If I'm bored, I'll leave."
As she led the way to the practice rooms, she wondered if she had slipped up
in her characterization. Why else should he be curious enough to
want to listen to her practice?
Killashandra was rather chuffed to discover that the old drills came easily to
her fingers as she addressed the keyboard with every semblance of true
authority. Corish departed after fifteen minutes but she left nothing to
chance and played on, making remarkably few errors for someone who had not
played in three years.
As she had established her credentials with him, he continued to project the
image of an amiable young man on a journey to protect family interests. He
sought her out at mealtimes, helped her evade the organizers of team sports,
directed her investigations of the caterer's potential with the amused
tolerance of the mature traveler, and accompanied her to shipboard activities.
On one or two occasions, she had the urge to shock him with her true identity
just to see how he might react, but she repressed that whimsy.
Then, after a particularly bibulous evening, when she had taken an extra long
radiant bath. she encountered him in the gymnasium. He was sweating profusely,
working out against a hefty weight on the apparatus with apparent ease.
Stripped as he was for the exercise, Killashandra could appreciate that
Corish's lean frame was suspiciously well muscled and fine tuned for his
public image.
"I didn't know you were a gymnast!"
"It's only smart to keep fit, Killashandra Ree." He whipped a towel about his
shoulders and mopped his face. "Where've you been?"
Killashandra managed a blush of embarrassment, dropping her eyes and affecting
mortification
" I tried that radiant stuff. In the tank, " and she pointed vaguely in the
right direction. "That blonde girl from Kachachurian was saying that it was
good for hang-overs!" She kicked at the apparatus base with her toe, eyes
still downcast.
"Well, is it?"
"I think it is." She allowed some doubt in her tone. "At least that awful
spinning has stopped . . . and the nausea!" She put one hand to her head and
the other to her stomach. "I think I may have to go back to
Fuertan beer. I could always drink as much of that as I wanted. Or is it
something to do with traveling in space? My brother did say something about
that . . ." She looked up at Corish. "Isn't this a funny time to be working
out?"
"That's how I work alcohol out of my system," Corish said, pulling on his
shirt. "I'll see you back to your cabin. You really shouldn't be wandering
about the ship at this hour. Someone might get the wrong impression about
you."
As Killashandra permitted him to escort her back, she wondered why he was
rushing her out of the gym. She felt she had deftly accounted for her
presence. And naively accepted his explanation. Safely returned to her cabin,
she agreed to meet him as usual for breakfast the next morning, and dutifully
went to bed.
Waiting for sleep, she reflected on his extraordinary fitness and the stealth
in which he kept it. Could Corish possibly be an FSP agent? It struck her as
unlikely that the Federation would choose to send only one observer -- an
inexperienced one at that -- into a planetary society that was being
investigated. She chuckled to think that, out of the eighteen hundred
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passengers and crew on the Athena, Corish should attach himself to her. Of
course, in her eager-student guise, she might constitute an integral part of
his shipboard cover. Unless he had been advised of her extra assignment by his
superiors. If he was a Federal agent, he would also know the capabilities of
crystal singers, and the subtler ways to identify them.
No matter! In her concentrated efforts to recall her days as an impecunious
and ardent music student, she had been able to shelve the more recent, painful
episode. Seriously now, Killashandra considered Antona's
advice to record incidents in detail. Who knew when she might find it
necessary to adopt the role of the student again?
Chapter 4
As the Athena plunged toward the Optherian primary for the deflected
hyperbolic pass that would bring it close to the one inhabited planet of the
system. the passengers who were disembarking went through the rituals of
leave-taking from their shipboard acquaintances. That strange magic of
voyaging which could make total strangers into confidantes and lovers had lost
none of its potency in the space age.
As they waited in the airlock for the shuttle that would take them to the
surface, Killashandra found herself prattling on at Corish about how they must
meet and share their adventures: that they couldn't part and never meet again
while they were on the same planet. She'd want to know how he'd made out with
his uncle and she hoped she'd be able to tell him of her success, invading the
Optherian musical hierarchy. Of course that sort of chatter was in character
with her role. What astonished Killashandra was that she meant what she said.
"That's very sweet of you, Killa," Corish replied, patting her shoulder in a
condescending fashion that returned her instantly to her own personality.
"If I don't get a place at the Music Center hostel, I'll go to the
Piper Facility," she said, ducking away from his hand as she fumbled with the
fastening on the side pocket of her carisak. She tendered the small plastic
card distributed by the Facility with its communit codes. "The
Optherian Traveler's Guide says they'll take messages for visitors. You could [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]