“Why should we move just to suit him? I like it here. The view’s nice.” Hawkins sat sprawled next to the transparent panel.
“It would be the courteous thing to do, dear,” murmured Gelmann.
“Where could we move to?” Shimoda wondered aloud.
“Not too far.” Gelmann had visions of the ship abruptly scooting by means of some unimaginably advanced tachyspace drive to an unknown system halfway across the galaxy and then losing the particular chunk of memory necessary to allow it to return. She directed her attention to the waiting Autothor.
“Could you do that? Move us away from here, but not too far away?”
“Certainly, although I prefer to navigate according to more specific directions. A moment. I haven’t done this in quite some time.”
“Whoa!” Hawkins waved frantically as he fought to untangle his legs. “If you’re out of practice, then maybe we’d better hold off going anywhere for a while!”
Too late. They felt a slight trembling underfoot or, in Hawkins and Shimoda’s case, underbutt. Several hundred meters below the ship, the roiling Atlantic vanished utterly.
In Barcelona the report was dutifully passed up the anxious chain of command until it reached Assistant to the Chief Administrator Jiang, who personally delivered it to Jean-François’s inner sanctum, which artfully decorated chamber had recently been host to a constant stream of off-world visitors. Inner it might still be, but lately it was anything but sanctum.
Jiang handed over the printout. “It’s gone, sir.”
Holmberg looked up tiredly. He’d been very busy. “What do you mean, it’s gone?”
“It’s vanished. Poof, gone.”
A senior controller came rushing into the room. “No it isn’t, no it isn’t! We’ve found it again.”
“Compose yourself, Selamat.” Holmberg eyed the new arrival reprovingly. “Where is it now?”
The controller fought to catch his breath. “You won’t believe it, sir. So quick it was, and so unexpected. We had to search for it, and we spent most of the time looking in the wrong places.”
“Evidently.” The Chief Administrator rubbed the fingers of his right hand together. The senior controller handed over another printout, which Holmberg examined in silence.
Jiang observed that as he read, his superior kept muttering to himself in old French.
Iranaputra knew they’d moved. He’d felt the subtle vibration in the floor. Also, the view outside had changed.
In place of the Atlantic lay distant escarpments, mountains that seemed to glow a pale yellow-white, and immense plains that reflected the glare of undiffused sunlight. At once intrigued and baffled, they gathered next to the sweep of transparent material to gaze out at the unearthly terrain.
“That’s Aristarchus.” Everyone looked at Iranaputra, impressed. “At least, I think it is Aristarchus.”
Behind them, the Autothor spoke. “I have complied with the request to move by placing us in orbit around the nearest astronomical body. I hope this is adequate to reassure those with whom you recently conversed.”
“I should think so,” murmured Follingston-Heath.
“Hell.” Hawkins gazed upon craters and maria. “Couldn’t you have just slipped over to the Pacific?”
“Be grateful we’re still in the neighborhood.” Shimoda contemplated a ragged, heavily eroded canyon.
“What do we do now?” Iranaputra wondered.
“Since we’re obviously not threatening anybody out here, why don’t we try to see some more of the ship?” Gelmann turned back to the Autothor. “Can you show us around?”
“Much is now available for general inspection. If you would please follow me?”
The blue ellipse led them into another large chamber.
“Remember, I’m not fond of long hikes,” Shimoda reminded his companions.
“Me neither.” Hawkins sucked air. “Don’t have the wind I did when I was younger.”
“Show us something really interesting,” asked Gelmann. “Something that might be more familiar to us, if there’s anything like that aboard.”
The Autothor obediently conducted them into a towering, narrow chamber devoid of monoliths, windows, or anything else. It paused there. A vast wall slid shut behind them and a moment later the room began to move. Loud metallic pings and scraping sounds insidiously assailed their ears. It might have been music.
“Elevator Muzak,” Shimoda commented.
The vibration underfoot ceased and the huge door removed itself. They stepped out into a cavernous chamber infinitely larger than any they’d encountered so far.
High overhead a simulated evening sky shone lavender through motionless gray-black clouds whose undersides were stained pink and gold. The smooth deck of previous acquaintance gave way to gravel and then sand as they walked down a slight incline onto a beach of granulated green. In the distance a pocket sun was setting behind a calm sea. Wavelets lapped at the shore in imitation of a falling tide. The air was pungent with the sharp fragrance of salt and sea-greens. A not-a-crab spotted them and burrowed quickly into the sand with a clockwise screwing motion.
Meanwhile the sun neither rose nor fell, hewing to its mark like a good actor while the visitors marveled at the artificial ocean it beamed down upon.
Sweating profusely from the walk, Shimoda sat down heavily on the beach, unconcerned that he was putting his expansive backside in immediate proximity to whatever might lie buried beneath. He picked up a fistful of sand and let the bright green grains trickle through his thick fingers.
Hawkins knelt to examine the ground. “Olivine and peridot,” he announced with a grunt. “Seen it before, on Earth. Volcanic origin. Hawaiian islands and Indonesia, though it isn’t common.”
“Maybe it is elsewhere,” Gelmann pointed out.
Silhouetted against the steady-state sun, Follingston-Heath stood appreciating the wonderful expanse, hands clasped behind his back. Wavelets approached his boots and backed off, as if wary of staining those now lightly scuffed leathers.
