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when Showm said, "Well, as I said earlier, I do have another pressing matter
to take care of now. I'll leave you to experiment with your office at your
leisure. But we must pursue our talk further, Mildred. It's not the kind of
thing I'm used to discussing with Terrans. I live in the mountain region to
the south of Thurios. You'll have to be my guest there next time I mean in
actuality, in person. But for now, I have to take my leave."
"Thank you. I'd like that," Mildred said. "Au revoir, then." And she was alone
in her Bavarian office, staring out at the valley and the mountains, with the
yellow-and-red zeppelin growing larger above. Lynx opened an eye, stretched,
and yawned. Mildred was too filled with new thoughts to be in a mood for
playing with the cat right now. VISAR seemed to pick up on it, and Lynx
settled down again.
"I just think I ought to point out what an unusual honor it is to be invited
in person to a Thurien's home," VISAR said. "And especially with someone like
Frenua. You're the first Terran she has ever said that to. I just thought it
was something you should be aware of. You've evidently made quite an
impression."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Bryom Calazar had a silver-gray crown flecked with white, extending down at
the sides to bracket a pair of large, vertically elliptical, violet eyes. His
protruding lower face with its blend of hues from mahogany to ebony always put
Hunt in mind of ancient Egyptian depictions of Nubians. He arrived in the
tower block next to the Multiporter building accompanied by Eesyan and a small
retinue, clad in a short open coat over a tunic of embroidered green. It had
never ceased to amaze Hunt that the effective head of at least an entire
planetary administration he wasn't sure how Calazar fitted in with the running
of other Thurien-inhabited parts of the Galaxy would travel as casually as a
sightseeing tourist and show up with less fuss and ceremony than a regional
manager back home visiting the local office. It seemed that Thuriens were as
unimpressed by pomp and symbols of grandeur as they were by overassertiveness
or attempts at intimidation. Reputation was what counted.
All of the Terran team were present to greet him, with the exception of Sandy,
who had gone down with a Thurien bug or rebelled against something in the
diet, and was holed up back at the Waldorf. There was also a heavy attendance
of Thuriens, both from the project itself and other parts of the Institute,
eager to pay their respects or simply to be part of the occasion. Hunt,
Danchekker, and Duncan were old acquaintances of Calazar's from the time of
the Jevlenese troubles and then afterward, when the first Thurien delegation
came to Earth. Despite the demands for a word here, an introduction there,
Calazar made a point of finding time to get to know Sonnebrandt and Chien
better, to their unconcealed surprise and delight.
"This is unbelievable," Sonnebrandt said to Hunt when Calazar had moved on.
"I've just talked to an interstellar overlord. He was interested in my fish
and wanted to know if Berlin was like Geneva."
"Stick around. I said you'd be joining the right team. . . . What fish?"
"I keep tropical fish."
"I didn't know that."
"You see. And he found out already!"
After the social preliminaries, Eesyan's scientists updated Calazar and his
companions on the latest developments. Then it was time for the visitors to
proceed to the adjacent part of the complex to see the Multiporter itself.
Eesyan had arranged for some demonstrations of the machine in action. As the
throng around the labs began thinning out, Hunt noticed that Danchekker was
missing from the group assembling with Calazar to follow Eesyan across.
"What's up?" Sonnebrandt asked, seeing the way Hunt was looking perplexedly
around.
"We seem to have lost Chris." A mental nudge activated his avco. "Hey, Chris?
It's Vic. Where are you? The party's moving on."
"What? . . . Oh." Danchekker came through on audio only, presumably not
wanting to be distracted by visuals just now. "I'm in the office." He and Hunt
had opted to share office space adjoining the area that the Thuriens used;
Thuriens seemed to prefer working communally to being isolated in individual
cubbyholes. "I'll catch you up."
"Lost something?" Hunt inquired.
"Yes, as a matter of fact. Sandy made some notes that Eesyan will be needing
later. I thought I'd brought them in, but I can't seem to lay my hand on them.
Maybe I forgot to pick them up at the Waldorf. It's extremely annoying."
"I'll come back there and help you look."
"Really, there's no need."
"No problem. I've seen the show enough times before, anyway. I'll be there in
two minutes." Hunt cleared down and looked back at Sonnebrandt. "He's in the
office, looking for something. You carry on, Josef. I'll go back and give him
a hand." He winked. "You know how it is with Chris. I'd hate it if he got lost
trying to find his way over."
He found Danchekker rummaging around among piles of papers and boxes from
Earth that had not yet been emptied. The working space was bright and
spacious, with an attention to detail in the fittings that was not functional
in any utilitarian sense and carried the surreal feel of an almost Victorian
fondness for ornamentation that blended with the quasi-oriental decor of
traceries and pointed arches. But it was a hard scientific working environment
nonetheless. The walls were graphically active in effect, complete
floor-to-ceiling screens that could be directed to display images, text,
communications windows, lighting panels, or when nothing more demanding
presented itself, background designs of whatever mood suited the moment. Just
now, one of the larger mural areas was showing a scene from a world that had
taken Danchekker's fancy in one of his "travels." It showed a stand of strange
trees looking like ice-cream cones made out of broccoli, except that they
stood two hundred feet high, their tops fashioned into nests for leathery,
long-snouted flying creatures vaguely reminiscent of pterodactyls.
Things had been shifted around in the muddle of moving in, and a few sheets of
notes could have been put anywhere. "One of the more exasperating
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