Hotel Andromeda Part 9

He murmured something polite, taking the hand briefly, re- placing it carefully on the covers. Why had this dreadful woman summoned him from his comfortable home on Secunda? Here on crowded Old Earth, trees grew only in des- ignated wilderness areas and people lived in multilevel cities.

He'd only lived twenty years on Earth, compared to two hun- dred years on Secunda. Secunda was home now. He resented being dragged away from it.

But you don't disobey a summons from the president of Earth.

"I'm sorry to hear of your illness, my lady." It was the only topic of conversation he could think of.

"I'm dying, yes, but that's not important. Death is in our genes for a purpose. My clone-sister Lady Fortune is ready to take over, now that the mindmeld has taken place. You met her outside, I believe.**

Another moment of readjustment. The girl outside had been beautiful. Time was a killer. "She looked very young to be president of Earth.*'

"Only physically. The mindmeld has given her all my knowledge and experience. Well, Imry Sanders. You'll be wondering why I sent for you."

"It did cross my mind.** He allowed himself a faint smile.

The Froanways journey had taken almost three years; he'd had plenty of time to wonder, even allowing for in-flight retabolism.

The thin lips stretched slightly. Was that an answering smile? "You're not an easy man to locate. Secunda is some- what ... casual, shall we say, about personnel records."

"We like it that way."

"Yes, I can understand that." She sighed. "Your name has been known to me for two hundred years, ever since my en- tourage arrived on Earth. Imry Sanders, my deputy told me.

Imry Sanders was asking some odd questions. The name haunted me. I kept waiting ... waiting for it to appear again.

It never did- For that I owe you a great debt. Perhaps all hu- THE SMALL PENANCE OF LADY DISDAIN.

63.

mans do. Only in the last ten years, when I knew my time was limited, have I tried to locate you. It took seven standard years. Now here you are, and I wish to thank you."

He stared at her. Lady Disdain wanted to thank him, a mere blipreader? This appalling old woman, product of an Earth- based project for genetic leadership material that produced only monstrous sn.o.bs with medieval t.i.tles, wanted to thank Aim? There had to be some mistake. What could he say? / am unworthy. No; he wouldn't sink to that kind of ba.n.a.lity.

But what did she want to thank him/or? What great deed did she think he'd performed? Was it-and he felt the begin- nings of an enormous embarra.s.sment-a case of mistaken ident.i.ty?

"And I wish to bestow an honor upon you," she continued.

"The honor is normally hereditary, but we must start making some exceptions, I think." She closed her eyes, looking sud- denly exhausted. "There have been accusations of elitism,"

she murmured. "Perhaps they are right."

She seemed to be asleep. He walked over to the window and looked out at the city. Direct sunlight illuminated this room only; it rose clear of the glittering canopy of solar cells stretching to the horizon. It was ironic that in using the sun for power. Earth deprived people of its light. And not a tree, not a blade of gra.s.s in sight. Despite the warmth, he shivered.

Oh, to be on Secunda, walking with Megan among the tree- clad hills!

A cold anger gripped him. He swung back toward the dreadful figure on the bed. He didn't want her thanks; he didn't want her honor, whatever it was. He wanted to go home. He walked slowly to the bed. She looked very frail; it would be a simple matter to snuff out that guttering candle of life. A pillow over the face. He stood looking down at her.

Behind that veneer of genteel sophistication, she was still me same bully who had thrown her weight about in Hotel An- dromeda two hundred years ago, and caged up a shipload of Secundans like animals.

There had been more meat on her bones then.

He chuckled at the significance of that last thought, and the murderous moment pa.s.sed.

64 Michael Coney Young Imry Sanders first met Lady Adelaide Disdain of Cartaginia shortly after being attacked by the girl gang from Secunda.

An hour earlier he'd ridden into the s.p.a.cebome vastness of Hotel Andromeda. The hotel scared him: the nulling multi- tudes, the strange smells, the yelling voices, the blazing bright lights instead of good honest sunlight and trees and birds.

The decisions, too. A blaring voice suddenly drowned out the other noises, asking him to vote on an incomprehensible topic.

"All humans please go to the nearest referendum booth and punch green if you are in favor of the proposition, red if not."

Imry had been raised in one of Earth's protected wilderness areas; spent the whole of his life preparing for this voyage.

He was bound for Cartaginia, so they told him, where people lived in the open air in small towns surrounded by forests and gra.s.slands.

And now here he was in Hotel Andromeda: covered, multilevel. He fought a deadly claustrophobia.

"You all right?" It was a young woman, about twenty standard years old-much the same age as Imry.

"I ... I guess I'm surprised at this place. I've just arrived on the Earth shuttle." He felt better saying that. Imry Sanders, a genuine product of the mother planet. Not one of your Johnny-come-lately colonists. A founding father, in a way.

And so, all by himself, he learned the first lesson of social in- tercourse between colonists: Make the most of your back- ground. "I'm bound for Cartaginia," he added.

"I'm from Secunda, bound for Earth," she said surprisingly.

Imry had been led to believe the inhabitants of Earth's first colony were little better than animals. Yet this girl looked good: pale gray jumpsuit, soft brown hair to her shoulders, slanting green eyes, wide mouth. And yet... was there a hint of wildness in those eyes? But when some goon pushed past her and knocked her against him, he didn't mind.

She smiled. "Sorry." She glanced behind him. A vast mob of people were surging out of the shuttle; they reached Imry and swirled him along like a breaking wave. The last he saw of the Secundan was a rueful grin as she was swept to the other side of a pillar.

"Come on, Imry!" shouted someone. "Let's get to know this place. There are four human modules docked right now!"

THE SMALL PENANCE OF LADY DISDAIN.

65.

Six months of being cooped up in the shuttle had been too much for them, and some ten thousand human juveniles were about to run amok. Imry shrugged. Somebody would sort it out. He slipped away from the accents of Earth, and walked alone in Hotel Andromeda among humans and humanoids of all worlds.

Much later he found himself welt away from the crowds.

Not exactly lost, because there were maps stuck to all the pil- lars; a guy couldn't go far wrong. But he had a craving to find an outside wall; he needed some point of reference. All this vastness hanging somewhere in s.p.a.ce was unreal and he needed something solid he could lean his back against. He craved trees and stone walls and rain drifting down from a real sky.

At last he found a narrow corridor leading off into the dis- tance. For all he knew this was a connector, and s.p.a.ce was on the other side of these walls. A window would have been nice. His feet were getting tired; there were no walkways here. A group of seven human-shaped figures approached from the opposite direction. He hoped they weren't from his shuttle. He'd had enough of the company of his fellow trav- elers for a while.

They were very young, slightly built, dressed in jumpsuits like the Secundan he'd met, but these jumpsuits were bright scarlet. There was an exuberance about them. He could hear them laughing, and one of them performed a complex dance step to unheard music. They looked like good company. They were all girls, maybe too young for him.

"Get him!"

Suddenly they were all around him, pulling at his clothes, clawing at his flesh, kicking him with shoes that looked un- commonly like leather. It was the shoes that decided him this was no playful romp. What kind of barbarians were these, to wear animal parts? He began to fight back in earnest, knock- ing one girl to her knees with a sweep of his arm. She looked up at him. and the expression on her young face chilled him.

There was an inhuman savagery there, and her chin was wet with saliva.

They had no weapons but their shoes-and their numbers.

Seven of them, each one smaller than he, but together they were overwhelming. They fought silently with a deadly pur- 66 Michael Coney pose and he didn't know what that purpose was. He didn't know exactly what he was defending himself against.

They'd torn his tunic from his shoulders, pinioning his aims. Now they dragged his pants down and one girl taller than the rest threw herself bodily against him. He fell back- ward over another girl crouched strategically behind. He was on the deck and they were all over him. He felt sharp nails scratch at his naked chest and teeth worrying at his shoulder.

"Stop! Stop that, right now!"

A gray-clad arm scythed down. The girl clawing at his chest grunted as a fist thudded into the side of her head.

"What the h.e.l.l?" She stared up, feral eyes burning.

"I said stop! You've made a mistake, you fools. This is a man!"

"This is no man, Megan!"

"You're not on Secunda now. You're in Hotel Andromeda-things are different. You were warned, huh? But you didn't listen. I'll have you confined for this!"

A dark-haired girl, startlingly pretty, snapped, "You're the fool, Megan Sunrise. You're too d.a.m.ned old to know the dif- ference." And she hooked her fingers into Imry's underpants, dragging them down and clawing parallel weals in his belly.

Her eyes widened in astonishment.

"Satisfied?"

The girls were scrambling to their feet. "He is a man.

But ..."

"But he's so thin." said another. "He looks like a woman."

"He's young, too," said Megan harshly. "Hadn't you no- ticed that, either?"

"He's wearing green. The light's dim around here. We took him for a crone."

"If you'd killed him," said Megan, "Security would have had you recycled."

"No," said the beautiful dark child. 'They can't recycle you for following the customs of your own race."

"They can if it results in the death of a member of a differ- ent race. This man's from Earth; I met him earlier. Now get going, and find yourself a Secundan crone, if you must!"

It was at that moment that Lady Adelaide Disdain arrived with her entourage.

THE SMALL PENANCE OF LADY DISDAIN 67 One hour later. Lady Disdain, her entourage, Imry, and Megan were seated before Froan, head of Security.

"I told you this would happen," Lady Disdain said, "but you wouldn't listen. Now even the corridors of this hotel are not safe. I take a stroll and what do I come across? This in- nocent young man, barely twenty standard years old, being set upon and severely beaten by a gang of young animals from Secunda. If we hadn't happened by at that very moment, G.o.d knows what might have happened! Cannibalism, in the very halls of Andromeda!"

She stared at Froan, conscious of a dangerously rising an- ger. She must keep control of herself. She must remember that, to the security chief-to it-she was just another guest.

But it was hard. This creature wasn't even human!

That wretched young woman in gray spoke before the alien could answer. "It was unfortunate, but I had it all under con- trol. It won't happen again."

"How do you know that? How can you possibly know that, young woman? Where are the miscreants now, tell me that!"

She felt herself flushing with temper and nudged her peac.o.c.k.

The garish bird's fantail fluttered, wafting a cool breeze.

At least the Secundan had the grace to look embarra.s.sed. "I told them to get back to the shuttle and place themselves in confinement."

"Ha! What you're actually saying is they're still at large."

"They will obey orders. If you must know, we're confining all the bloomers. But honestly. Lady Disdain, I don't see what business it is of yours."

The impertinence of the girl! "I'll tell you what business it is of mine! This young man is a human, a representative of thousands of other humans on their way from Earth to my home planet. A blipreader, too. A member of an ancient and respected profession." She turned her gaze on the alien again.

It was impossible to tell what that ghastly creature was think- ing. "I demand that the appalling Secundans be confined to their vessel-every one of them-for the safety of us all!"

The young woman shouted, "You know why he's going to Cartaginia? Because you're so old and inflexible there that you've asked for an infusion of fresh blood! You're stagnat- ing! Your birthrate is practically zero! And people like you are the reason why, you useless old woman!"

68 Michael Coney The impertinence of the girl!

The young man spoke. "Listen, I'm all right. Let's forget it, shall we?"

So much for grat.i.tude! Lady Disdain bent a terrible stare on him. "Perhaps you don't realize what a narrow escape you've had. Are you aware that those Secundans are canni- bals? They eat their own kind! It's in their culture."

He looked to the Secundan woman. "Is this true?"

She said, "Partly. In a way. But the only reason it's in our culture is because it's instinctive."

Hardly a valid excuse, thought Lady Disdain, "And be- cause of you-you barbarians-the Froans will not pa.s.s the Gift of Longevity to Mankind. Because of your existence, bil- lions of human beings are dying unnecessarily. Because of your disgusting behavior. Mankind as a whole is regarded as a race of savages-isn't that so. Froan?"

The alien spoke for the first time; and when it spoke, it spoke for its entire race. The Froans spoke but rarely because of the complex telepathic communication involved. The im- mense head shimmered crimson for an instant; die scaly jowls wobbled as the head nodded in deference to human gestures.

"Yes," said Froan.