Seed of Stars (17 page)

"You went out?"

"Sure I went out," he said, with a touch of defiance. "You were busy talking and giggling with Yoko and Mrs. Sato. What else was there to do?"

"But we agreed..."

"Ah, where's the harm in it? Ten days stuck here in this damned doll's house with nothing to do but sit and think. It's worse than being in jail."

"But .you know it's only temporary. When
Vee Twelve
has gone, Doctor Sato has promised to find work for you. We shall be Keplerians, free to do as we please, to come and go..."

He looked at her, the comers of his mouth down-turned. "Citizens of the brave new world? I wonder.. ."

"Why, whatever do you mean?"

"I mean, if I keep on looking like this, with the crosscut eyes and the black hair, will I be looked on eventually as an insider?"

"I don't understand."

"No, I don't think you do," he said. "But whether you know it or not, right now I'm an outsider; the one

European in a household of Asiatics, and I can feel the prejudice. I can feel them watching me, and pitying me, when I pick up my rice bowl with the wrong hand, or when I fumble clumsily with my
hashi
saying to themselves, 'Poor man, he does not know our ways..."'

"No, Piet, you're imagining it."

"The hell I am! When I came into the room this evening, you and Yoko were playing a game with wooden blocks, and you both looked up at me as though—just for a fraction of a second—as though you didn't know me ... as though you had no need for me. Sometimes I think that, now you have the baby in your womb, maybe you don't; that my part is over, and now I'm nothing but a burden to you." He finished his drink at a gulp and slammed down the glass, staring deliberately away from her. Then, realizing that she had made no sound, he looked at her again.

She was regarding him with an apparently placid face, but tears streamed down her cheeks. The ice of his self-pity could do nothing but melt before her mute appeal. He took her in his arms, and she came to him, nestling against his chest.

"It's me, isn't it?" he said, talking to the dark top of her head. "I'm a mess, hadn't you realized that— a bloody mess! Call it lack of inner resource, latent instability, what you like, but I'm gradually going out of my mind here in this idleness. Back there on the ship, I was at least useful, I had some function, and there was a place for me in the scheme of things. Here..."

She moved away slightly, looking up at him, the tears drying on her cheeks. "You've changed your mind? You want to go back?"

"No! That's out of the question. There can be no going back now. Now I don't even belong there, and you..."

"Then what, Piet, love? I will do anything, anything at all."

He ran his fingers down her arm, feeling the warmth of her flesh, ashamed of the frustration that had made him cause her pain. "I know you would, my darling. But I think
that at this stage there is nothing you can do. As you have said so many times, we must wait, and we must be patient Doctor Sato will find me a position when the time is ripe, and I shall work, and all these misgivings will be forgotten."

"There would be something for you to do here, if you wished," she said.

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Yoko," she said. "There is a great fear in her heart about the birth of her child. As a doctor, you could talk to her, reassure her."

"All women must have certain fears during their first pregnancy. And I doubt that I can give her any better advice than that she must have had from her father."

"But this is not her first," Mia said. "There was another, nearly eighteen months ago..."

"Stillborn?"

"No—the child lived, but there was something, something wrong. Just what, she will not say, but it is away in some special hospital, under constant care."

"You're sure ie has told you no details?"

"No—only that it was... different."

"Different . . ." he repeated, his mind suddenly alert, the alcohol-induced dullness sloughed away, as he began to think like a doctor again. When the word
different
was used to describe a child born on a planet like Kepler III, there was one obvious interpretation that sprang immediately to mind:
mutation,
the genetic effects of radiation from an alien sun. And yet the colony on Kepler had existed for a hundred years, with no reports of such genetic effects; the second and third

generation colonists he had met were apparently normal in every respect.
Those he had met...
"Piet, love, what are you thinking?" she asked. He smiled a reassurance he did not feel. "Nothing, my darling—only, as you say, that there may be work for me here, after all."

COM QXYPRL to BIOCOM
H.Q.
29/67/789

Reference examination of sample specimens re Project Biocom VX2541D. 15%

product viable, but definitely substandard to specifications.

Results indicate Project VX2541D failure, but valuable data obtained-see appended schedule of suggested episome modification.

Request instructions re environment

and fauna—suggest decontamination.

Tom Bruce was seated at the head of the table next to the Explorations Division officer. He found himself almost grateful that Magnus's carefully planned schedule included these working lunches during which the people in charge of the various aspects of the independence investigation were able to exchange ideas in an informal manner. Additionally, as his own daily program included at least one appearance as guest of honor at a Keplerian banquet, he was pleased to get back to the predictable plainness of Corps ship food. On one occasion the CPO chef, inspired by a visit to Central City, turned out an imitation Japanese meal, complete with mountains of boiled rice and raw fish. A brief interview with Bruce ensured that this flight of fancy was not repeated, and after that the content of the meals settled down to comfortable normalcy. Ichi-wara had told Bruce that Japanese stomachs had, over many centuries, adapted themselves to a diet of
gohan,
with intestines a foot longer than the European normal, and an enquiry to George Maseba had confirmed this fact, adding the bonus suggestion that this was not so much a matter of special development as a clear example of natural selection, because people without the extra intestinal length tended to die off under the continued strain of such a diet. Bruce, convinced that his own stomach was irrevocably European, was attacking a sirloin steak with some pleasure.

"You mentioned Sato?" said George Maseba, who was sitting next to him on the other side. "A very strange little man. Most cooperative, and painfully polite, like the rest of his countrymen, but so terribly harassed ... no, it's even more than that, he looks like a man who is haunted by some dreadful fear."

"You say he actually burst in on President Kido in the middle of a reception?" Magnus asked Bruce.

"Not quite that, there were only myself and Kido on the balcony. But I got the feeling that it wouldn't have made any difference if Kido had been in conference with God Almighty—Sato would have insisted on having his say."

Magnus eyed his underdone fillet reflectively. "Rather uncharacteristic for a Keplerian, wouldn't you say, Joseph?"

"One can only assume that Doctor Sato was under very considerable strain at the time," Ichiwara agreed. "Even so, such behavior would undoubtedly be frowned on as a serious breach of protocol. To display such unseemly urgency in the presence of a person of high rank..."

"Tell me more about this Doctor Sato," Magnus said, addressing his question to Maseba, and saving those within earshot from listening to one of the eager Ichi wara's extended lectures on Japanese manners and customs.

"Well, let me put it to you this way," Maseba said. "If Sato were an officer aboard any ship of mine, I would immediately suspend him from active duty, and insist that he undergo psychotherapy."

"You're suggesting that he is a psychotic?"

"Well, now, I wouldn't commit myself to that extent," Maseba said. "But I would say that he has been under some constant strain for such a long period that his judgment may already be impaired, and that if the stress situation continues, he is likely to break down completely."

"Interesting . . ." murmured Magnus, thoughtfully. "We must give further consideration to the condition of Doctor Sato."

"While you're about it, you would do well to focus your attention on President Kido," Bruce said. "I have a feeling that he is an extremely devious and ruthless gentleman."

"A
feeling,
commander?" said Magnus.

"Let me put it this way," Bruce said. "If I were in charge of this independence investigation, I would consider it obligatory to make a very thorough study of the motives and actions of Kido."

"With what in view, commander?"

"Well—assuming that you are going to grant independence to Kepler III, you will be investing considerable extra power in the hands of Kido as its president-in-office by doing so. It seems to me, from the point of view of the future of the planet, that could be a serious mistake."

"President Kido is the democratically elected leader of the Keplerian people," Magnus said. "It would also be a mistake to interfere in the interned affairs of the planetary government on the basis of a sheer hunch, Commander. However, I shall bear your opinion in mind."

Bruce turned his attention to his plate, conscious of the flush of anger that suffused his cheeks. Damn Magnus! There were times when the man's patronizing manner was quite intolerable.

Kenji Sato woke in the darkness and waited for the meshing of the mental gears, the runaway acceleration of his mind as it began the usual fruitless playback of insoluble problems, a cycle which he was able to break only by drugging himself, or by abandoning the idea of sleep altogether and leaving his bed. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. Two
a.m.
He usually awoke around four. And this awakening was somehow different; by now his mind should have been racing through the endless labyrinth of unsolved problems like a maddened rat in a circular maze, but it wasn't; instead, there was an alertness. It occurred to him that for once the stimulus which had awakened him had been external rather than internal.

Careful not to disturb the still-sleeping Tana, he raised himself on one elbow, listening. The faint
chirr
of night insects, and above that another sound which stimulated recall of the one which had awakened him —the slight, familiar creak of the garden gate. Now he could hear someone, or some
thing,
making its way up the path towards the front door with slithering, unsteady footsteps.

Slipping carefully out from under the
futon
quilt, Sato paused only to pick up a pencil torch and a small needle gun, then hurried quietly out of the room towards the front of the house. Burglary was a rare, almost unheard of crime on Kepler, but these were strange times, and his own situation was an unusual one. Even now he could not be sure that Kido had been telling the truth about the disappearance of the inhabitants of the Intensive Care Unit; and whatever that truth might be, it was clear that there were unusual and desperate forces at work here on Kepler at this time.

Reaching the polished wooden floor of the hallway, he paused a few feet away from the front door, which was, in the customary manner, closed but not locked. Even had it been locked, a light structure of bamboo and lath, it would have offered little resistance to a determined intruder. In Keplerian society, the barriers of respect and etiquette were far stronger than any physical obstruction when it came to preserving personal privacy.

The footsteps were closer now, and he could hear the sound of heavy, grunting breathing. A moment later, a clumsy fumbling with the handle of the door, and it was thrust open abruptly. Sato stood for a moment, staring at the figure that loomed hugely in the rectangle of night sky revealed by the open doorway, then switched on his pencil torch.

"What the hell?" Piet Huygens blinked owlishly in the sudden glare, one hand clutching for support against the door lintel, the other grasping a bottle. Standing some six feet away, Sato was aware of the disgusting reek of second-hand alcohol. Lowering the torch, he moved quietly to the wall switch.

"Oh, it's you," said Huygens, as the light came on. "Did I wake you up? Sorry." With the exaggerated care of a drunk, he closed the front door. "Didn't mean to disturb anybody."

Sato made no attempt to hide his disapproval. One had responsibilities towards guests and family—but guests and family also had responsibility.

"Aw, now look here, Doc." Huygens began to move forward across the polished floor of the hallway, gingerly, like a man walking on thin ice.

"You will remove your shoes, please," Sato said quietly.

"My? Oh, yes—my shoes!" giggled Huygens. "Mustn't spoil the shine, must we?" Bending down, he went through an elaborate and unsteady pantomime, during which he twice overturned the bottle and twice placed it upright. Eventually barefoot, he picked it up again and stood, swaying slightly, regarding Sato through bleary, red-rimmed eyes.