Jacky Schottke, the elderly one who was responding with some embarrassment (or could it almost be guilt?) to Captain Tscharka's surprisingly affectionate greeting. But I forgot all the names again halfway to the town, which was out of sight on the side of a distant hill. I was too busy looking at all the sights, including the one next to me.
The sight was the driver of the lead car, I was sitting next to her, and she was worth looking at. (I don't want you to think that I had already forgotten Alma. I was working hard at trying to stop remembering Alma.) The person was named Theophan Sperlie, a woman maybe just a little older than myself, who not only had a pleasant, friendly face but smelled nicely of soap and mint. And she kept looking around at me in just the same way that I kept looking at her, as she gave me a running commentary on all the things we were passing.
Behind us the Khaim-Novellos and a few others were holding hands and singing in the back of the car, still wearing those fuddled grins. "Looks like those guys are happy to be on Pava, anyway," I said to Theophan Sperlie.
"We'll just have to find some way of making you happy, too, Barry," she said, and took her hand off the wheel long enough to pat my knee. It seemed I had begun to make friends on Pava very quickly.
To confirm her goodwill, Theophan Sperlie pointed out all the sights on the way in. There was the lumber camp, where they got their wood. (Well, not really wood like pine or oak; most of it was more like bamboo, along with some other "trees" that resembled boxwood hedges but grew ten times taller.) Off across the river there was the road that led up, she said, to the community's mostly disused iron mine. ("But if we ever get our short-range ships going properly we'll get the iron from space, and then we can close that down. People get hurt there.") Some things I saw on my own. Now and then there were things moving in the underbrush—animals, no doubt—but by the time I called Theophan Sperlie's attention to them they were gone, too fast to identify. ("Don't worry, Barry. You'll get plenty of chances to meet the local fauna!") And I saw a nice little waterfall as we passed a narrow valley—a slim stream thirty meters high and splashing prettily on the rocks at the bottom. But when I mentioned it to Theophan she cocked an eye and said, "Must be a new one. I didn't see it last time I came by. I guess a fault let go and opened up a spring."
It wasn't a long drive, but the large, orange Pava sun was getting low in the sky.
Civilization on Pava was a town called Freehold. I looked it over with care. At first sight, I wasn't that thrilled with the town—well, call it a town out of courtesy, although a population of 853 hardly even makes a village, does it? Freehold wasn't big. No part of it was much more than ten minutes from the farthest other part of it, and even so it wasn't at all densely built. There were little clusters of what Theophan Sperile said were homes—the places where the Freeholders lived, anyway; each composed of four rickety wooden structures built around a little central yard. The clusters were spaced out every hundred meters or so along the "street"—which was rutted and potholed and had never been paved; I understood why all their vehicles had those giant wheels. In the spaces between buildings were open lots, overgrown with vegetation of no kinds I had ever seen before. About all there was besides was an occasional larger structure, apparently a workplace of some kind—and a lot of churches. I guessed they were churches, though some of them were tiny, from the fact that each one had a cross, star of David, crescent or other religious symbol over its door. The biggest one did have a cross, but as we passed I saw that it also displayed the omega sign of the Millenarists, and from behind me the Khaim-Novellos and the others gave a little cheer.
I should have expected that, I suppose, from what I knew about so many of the
The sight was the driver of the lead car, I was sitting next to her, and she was worth looking at. (I don't want you to think that I had already forgotten Alma. I was working hard at trying to stop remembering Alma.) The person was named Theophan Sperlie, a woman maybe just a little older than myself, who not only had a pleasant, friendly face but smelled nicely of soap and mint. And she kept looking around at me in just the same way that I kept looking at her, as she gave me a running commentary on all the things we were passing.
Behind us the Khaim-Novellos and a few others were holding hands and singing in the back of the car, still wearing those fuddled grins. "Looks like those guys are happy to be on Pava, anyway," I said to Theophan Sperlie.
"We'll just have to find some way of making you happy, too, Barry," she said, and took her hand off the wheel long enough to pat my knee. It seemed I had begun to make friends on Pava very quickly.
To confirm her goodwill, Theophan Sperlie pointed out all the sights on the way in. There was the lumber camp, where they got their wood. (Well, not really wood like pine or oak; most of it was more like bamboo, along with some other "trees" that resembled boxwood hedges but grew ten times taller.) Off across the river there was the road that led up, she said, to the community's mostly disused iron mine. ("But if we ever get our short-range ships going properly we'll get the iron from space, and then we can close that down. People get hurt there.") Some things I saw on my own. Now and then there were things moving in the underbrush—animals, no doubt—but by the time I called Theophan Sperlie's attention to them they were gone, too fast to identify. ("Don't worry, Barry. You'll get plenty of chances to meet the local fauna!") And I saw a nice little waterfall as we passed a narrow valley—a slim stream thirty meters high and splashing prettily on the rocks at the bottom. But when I mentioned it to Theophan she cocked an eye and said, "Must be a new one. I didn't see it last time I came by. I guess a fault let go and opened up a spring."
It wasn't a long drive, but the large, orange Pava sun was getting low in the sky.
Civilization on Pava was a town called Freehold. I looked it over with care. At first sight, I wasn't that thrilled with the town—well, call it a town out of courtesy, although a population of 853 hardly even makes a village, does it? Freehold wasn't big. No part of it was much more than ten minutes from the farthest other part of it, and even so it wasn't at all densely built. There were little clusters of what Theophan Sperile said were homes—the places where the Freeholders lived, anyway; each composed of four rickety wooden structures built around a little central yard. The clusters were spaced out every hundred meters or so along the "street"—which was rutted and potholed and had never been paved; I understood why all their vehicles had those giant wheels. In the spaces between buildings were open lots, overgrown with vegetation of no kinds I had ever seen before. About all there was besides was an occasional larger structure, apparently a workplace of some kind—and a lot of churches. I guessed they were churches, though some of them were tiny, from the fact that each one had a cross, star of David, crescent or other religious symbol over its door. The biggest one did have a cross, but as we passed I saw that it also displayed the omega sign of the Millenarists, and from behind me the Khaim-Novellos and the others gave a little cheer.
I should have expected that, I suppose, from what I knew about so many of the
Similar Books
