Pallas (39 page)

He ran a nervous hand over his face, feeling the lines and scars of a lifetime of...what?
Action and adventure?
Accidents and mistakes, more likely.
“Not to discover a lost alien civilization, that didn’t have anything to do with it?”

She shared his laughter. “Well, that might have been part of it. Whatever the reason, Miri didn’t have to be any more persuasive than she and Digger were tonight. But you’re interrupting, and I’m pretty certain I
can only work up to this the one time: Emerson Ngu, I think I’ve been in love with you, or at least with stories about you, since I was a little girl.”

He felt an almost painful tension in his body that hadn’t been there for years, perhaps even decades. Most of all, it hurt him—and at the same time stirred him—in a very private, secret place he thought had been permanently scarred over, thoroughly numbed to any possibility of se
n
sation, a place where no one, not even Cherry, had been able to touch him in a long, long time.

“There’s usually a difference,” he told Rosalie sadly, “between stories and reality.”

“Yes,” she whispered, pulling his face down to hers, “and in this case, it’s entirely to your advantage.”

That was all it took to blast his bitter resolve to bits, along with his embarrassment. In a matter of seconds, he and Rosalie lay together on the dried leaves at the edge of a quarter-mile drop into oblivion—which he felt was ironically symbolic of the circumstances. His mouth was still on hers as he slipped the khaki bush shirt off over her shoulders, his fingers having seen to its half-dozen buttons without his conscious attention. He would reflect later that it was nice to be middle-aged after all, to know what the hell you were doing.

She wore nothing underneath, and while he felt her nipples rise and stiffen beneath his palms, and reveled in the scent of her, she struggled, first with the awkward buckle of his heavy gun belt, then with the fa
s
tenings of his Levi’s. Women, he had long since come to believe, always knew what they were doing, regardless of age.

They melted together for the first time in the heat and blazing light of freshly discovered passion, and to them it was more than a matter of mere coupling, it was as if the subatomic particles which constituted their b
o
dies, their minds, their very beings, mingled and fused. She cried out with welcome, long-anticipated pain as he exploded, letting go of a lifetime of grieving, anger, loneliness, despair, and frustration he’d never fully re
a
lized he’d been carrying around inside him. Everything was right, the feel of her body beneath his, the sound of her voice, the texture of her firm young flesh, everything.

He held her afterward without a word, and, in a surprisingly short time, their second moment of passion was slower, gentler, more relaxed and deeply satisfying. They smoked a cigarette and watched the violently multicolored sunset for which Pallas was famous, then the moon rise over a hundred miles of alien landscape.

There would have been a third moment, but, as he was about to take her again, and she was about to give herself, he heard a low cough behind them at the edge of the trees and tumbled off her awkwardly to snatch up his pistol, expecting to see a chagrined Drake-Tealy with some reason for having interrupted them.

It had better be a
very
good reason.

The pistol had been only a precaution, but it was well advised. Over the moonlit front sight of the massive automatic, he was looking straight into the luminous eyes of an African leopard.

Behind him, he heard the hammer of Rosalie’s pistol clicking back to full-cock.

They must have been a hell of a sight, he thought, the two of them, completely naked, guns in hand, startled by the big cat who gave them another polite, if somewhat sarcastic-sounding coughing noise, turned on itself like a rope of silk, and vanished without another sound into the utter blackness beneath the trees.

Neither of them could stop laughing as they put their clothes on in the dark and gathered up their belongings to go back to the cabin, leopard or no leopard. Perhaps, he thought, there wouldn’t be a problem now about that living room couch.

There wasn’t, and they were married within a week.

TV—chewing gum for the eyes.

—Frank Lloyd Wright

“I
’m Ned Polleck and this is
DarkTalk,
a feature of the East American Television Service, coming to you on this particular
occasion from the
studied of KC—of a TV station in Curringer,
the principal town on the asteroid Pallas.”

The famous newsman was sitting at a table, shuffling papers, in what was recognizable to any Pallatian as His Master’s Voice, the saloon that was also home to KCUF. Around him, the patrons and staff of the place were carrying on with business as usual, although somehow, with lighting or camera angles, the whole scene had been made to look like something from a Robert Service poem about the Yukon. Watching from his apartment at the
Ngu
Departure plant, Emerson expected the camera to pan down at any moment for a view of the Face on the Barroom Floor. Rosalie’s hand, where it clutched his, was cold and a little damp. He glanced at the automated camera perched atop the TV set like the intr
u
sive parasite it was, and tried to suppress the sour look it engendered and which could only add to the overall disreputable impression given by his scars and eye patch.

“With us tonight from their respective homes on Pallas are
former U.S. Senator Gibson Altman, longtime Chief Administrator of the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project, and Mr. and Mrs.
Emerson Ngu. Mrs.
Ngu
is better known as Dr. Rosalie Frazier, a
xenoarchaeologist associated with North California’s Stanford
University. Her husband is also famous, the inventor and Industri
alist Emerson Ngu, a man who, in his own way, has become as controversial as the industrialist who founded the asteroid c
o
lony,
William Wilde Curringer.

“Senator Altman—”

The camera’s-eye view, which had switched briefly from the bar to a picture of themselves, to a picture of Altman, and then back for a moment to Polleck at His Master’s Voice, showed Altman’s office at what was left of the Project again.

“Good evening, Ned.”
Despite his years, Altman looked as phot
o
genic, calm, and composed as ever.

“Senator, for years, you’ve been advocating a plan under which
the United Nations would take charge of alien artifacts found on Pallas, the so-called ‘Drake-Tealy Objects,’ to ensure that their
scientific value is preserved. More than a dozen nations have forbidden their importation,
yet a multibillion-dollar business contin
ues to thrive, mostly through J
a
pan, South Africa, and West America. There are rumors that a UN mil
i
tary force stands ready to enforce a global ban, and yet that international body has yet to ratify your plan. Why is that, Senator?”

Altman leaned back casually in his chair and steepled his fingers.
“In the first place, Ned, let me say I’d never have
agreed to appear on this broadcast if I’d known that Emerson
Ngu
and his wife were going to be on it, too. They’re simply the most
visible portion of a vicious and obscenely well-financed lobby which
has been able to block appropriate action in the UN. They repre
sent interests which have only profit in mind, rather than the benefit of mankind as a whole. As such, they have no legitimate right to
speak on this issue.”

Polleck gave the viewers the boyish grin he was famous for,
then
a
s
sumed a serious expression. Emerson could never decide whether he more closely resembled Alfred E. Neuman or Howdy Doody, two American institutions which enjoyed periodic revivals.

“I see. That’s a rather unique interpretation of the First
Amendment, wouldn’t you agree? Or doesn’t the First Amendment
apply on Pallas? And yet those on the other side of the argument
freely acknowledge the scie
n
tific and historical value of the Drake-Tealy Objects and claim that their free-market methods do more to
preserve those scientific and historical values, while at the same
time protecting the rights of the individuals concerned. What would
you day to that, Senator?”

“Why, I’d say that’s Rosalie Frazier talking.”
Altman leaned forward, frowning.
“She was employed in the first place by Mirelle Stein and the Curringer Foundation to act as their
scientific mouthpiece, to lend an air of respectability to the blatant
profiteering going on up here on Pallas. If you want more proof, look at the way she married Emerson
Ngu
almost the instant she
arrived. Since then, she’s generated one publication after another,
apologizing—”

Polleck interrupted.
“Dr. Frazier, the Senator has leveled
serious charges concerning your scientific and academic integrity.
What do you have to say in reply?”

Emerson had felt Rosalie stiffen for a moment, then force herself to
relax. “I’d say he’s lucky I
do
believe in free speech, which is protected on Pallas by the Stein Covenant, and that I’m not the kind who initiates lawsuits at the drop of an unkind word.”

Emerson knew that she was privately furious about the lies Altman had been spreading about her, but had stoically refrained from public comment until now. He wasn’t at all sure why she’d talked him into this particular charade.

She took a breath. “The fact is that I was invited here by Miss Stein and the Curringer Foundation to confirm or deny the scientific authe
n
ticity of the Drake-Tealy Objects, and that they didn’t care which way it happened to turn out. I’ll also add that SUNC issues my salary checks, and that I don’t work for anyone but them. The fact that I met and fell in love with Emerson shortly after I arrived on Pallas is a happy coincidence I don’t intend to apologize for.”

She turned and smiled at him as the view shifted back to Polleck at His Master’s Voice.

“Well, while we’re at it, I’d like to ask Mr.
Ngu
what’s so bad,
really, about a UN scientific body supervising the handling and disposition of Drake-Tealy Objects? Isn’t that the best way to make sure that they’re preserved and studied? Why do Pallatians object to it, to the point that they seem willing to go to war over what amounts to a mere handful of archaeological artifacts?”

Now it was Emerson’s turn to be nervous, and for a moment he wasn’t sure whether he could force his voice to work. He felt Rosalie’s hand give his a squeeze.

“Mr. Polleck, I understand that if you weren’t visiting Pallas, you’d leave this broadcast as you do any other night to go home to a farm you own near Fairfax.”

Polleck grinned, and this time it seemed genuine.
“Re
mind me to borrow your research staff sometime.”

Emerson grinned back. “If scientific or historical objects were found on that farm—say, remains of a long-lost Indian tribe—under the legi
s
lation Altman’s pushing, it’d mean a squad of UN goons would move in on you, take up residence at your expense, watch your every move, search
your safe and dresser drawers at regular intervals, and interfere every time you planted or picked a flower in your garden. If they wanted to dig that garden up to find more objects, you’d have no recourse in the matter, and as each object was found, it’d be removed from your property without compensation. If you attempted to interfere, you’d be jailed, possibly killed in the process. I don’t know if you’d be willing to go to war to prevent that. I’ve lived under the thumb of the UN, and I would.”

Somehow, he’d maintained an even tone throughout, and he even managed a cheerful smile at the end. Right now he wanted one of his cigars more than life itself.

Polleck shrugged.
“But under United States law, not to mention the archaeological statutes of the state of Virginia, isn’t that essentially what happens right now?”

“It probably is,” Emerson replied. “
Which is why we’re living here on Pallas, where a person’s life, liberty, and property—not to mention pr
i
vacy—belong exclusively to him- or herself, not some gaggle of self-impressed, self-appointed keepers of the public weal.
”

“But what about the scientific and historical—”

“Excepting Rosalie, I’ve yet to meet an archaeologist or paleontologist who didn’t want a free ride on someone else’s back or gave a damn
who
he had to have shot to get it. To be fair, I suppose that’s true of scientists and academics in general. The difference here is that they’re not going to get it. If they try, we’ll shoot back.”

Polleck raised his eyebrows, another famous expression.
“Strong words, Mr. Ngu.
Your response, Senator?”

“Thank you, Ned.”
Altman shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger, and gazed thoughtfully at the camera.
“I’m glad you’ve had a chance to witness for yourself the typical violent and aggressive behavior one has to deal with every day on
this backward
—”

Emerson interrupted. “Wait a goddamned minute, Senator. Since when does self-defense constitute aggression?” He hadn’t been able to help himself, and Rosalie had refrained from interfering. It was one of about a million reasons he loved her.

Polleck took a deep, almost weary-sounding breath, but Emerson was
sure the man was getting what he’d wanted all along, a noisy argument.
“I suppose Mr.
Ngu
has
asked a fair question, Senator Altman. Do you have an answer for
him?”

“When it selfishly denies the common heritage which is the
property right of all humanity as a whole.”

His adversary had assumed such a self-righteous expression that Emerson wanted to smash in the screen of the TV. “With someone like you acting as the executor of the estate,” he demanded, “keeping the books, holding the whip? Better hope you do a better job than you did with the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project!”

“Now see here, Emerson Ngu!”
Abruptly, Altman seemed to lose control of
himself
, as well. This made Emerson feel better, and he m
a
naged to calm down a little.
“I didn’t agree to this interview to be insulted and badgered by conspirators bent on discrediting the Altman Plan and the Antiquities Protection Act!”