Citizen of the Galaxy (27 page)

The elderly man shook hands vigorously. “It's a miracle, son! You look just like our boy -- your father. Doesn't he, dear?”

“He does!”

There was chitchat, which Thorby answered as well as he could. He was confused and terribly self-conscious; it was more embarrassing to meet these strangers who claimed him as their blood than it had been to be adopted into Sisu. These old people -- they were his grandparents? Thorby couldn't believe it even though he supposed they were.

To his relief the man -- Weemsby? -- who claimed to be his Uncle Jack said with polite authority, “We had better go. I'll bet this boy is tired. So I'll take him home. Eh?”

The Bradley's murmured agreement; the party moved toward the exit. Others in the room, all men none of whom had been introduced, went with them. In the corridor they stepped on a glideway which picked up speed until walls were whizzing past. It slowed as they neared the end -- miles away, Thorby judged -- and was stationary for them to step off.

This place was public; the ceiling was high and the walls were lost in crowds; Thorby recognized the flavor of a transport station. The silent men with them moved into blocking positions and their party proceeded in a direct line regardless of others. Several persons tried to break through and one man managed it. He shoved a microphone at Thorby and said rapidly, “Mr. Rudbek, what is your opinion of the --”

A guard grabbed him. Mr. Weemsby said quickly, “Later, later! Call my office; you'll get the story.”

Lenses were trained on them, but from high up and far away. They moved into another passageway, a gate closed behind them. Its glideway deposited them at an elevator which took them to a small enclosed airport. A craft was waiting and beyond it a smaller one, both sleek, smooth, flattened ellipsoids. Weemsby stopped. “You'll be all right?” he asked Mrs. Bradley.

“Oh, surely,” answered Professor Bradley.

“The car was satisfactory?”

“Excellent. A nice hop -- and, I'm sure, a good one back.”

“Then we'll say good-by. I'll call you -- when he's had a chance to get oriented. You understand?”

“Oh, surely. We'll be waiting.” Thorby got a peck from his grandmother, a clap on the shoulder from his grandfather. Then he embarked with Weemsby and Leda in the larger car. Its skipper saluted Mr. Weemsby, then saluted Thorby -- Thorby managed to return it.

Mr. Weemsby paused in the central passage. “Why don't you kids go forward and enjoy the hop? I've got calls waiting.”

“Certainly, Daddy.”

“You'll excuse me, Thor? Business goes on -- it's back to the mines for Uncle Jack.”

“Of course . . . Uncle Jack.”

Leda led him forward and they sat down in a transparent bubble on the forward surface. The car rose straight up until they were several thousand feet high. It made a traffic-circle sweep over a desert plain, then headed north toward mountains.

“Comfy?” asked Leda.

“Quite. Uh, except that I'm dirty and mussed.”

“There's a shower abaft the lounge. But well be home shortly -- so why not enjoy the trip?”

“All right.” Thorby did not want to miss any of fabulous Terra. It looked, he decided, like Hekate -- no, more like Woolamurra, except that he had never seen so many buildings. The mountains --

He looked again. “What's that white stuff? Alum?”

Leda looked. “Why, that's snow. Those are the Sangria de Cristos.”

“ 'Snow,' “ Thorby repeated. “That's frozen water.”

“You haven't seen snow before?”

“I've heard of it. It's not what I expected.”
    
“It is frozen water -- and yet it isn't exactly; it's more feathery.” She reminded herself of Daddy's warning; she must not show surprise at anything.

“You know,” she offered, “I think I'll teach you to ski.”

Many miles and some minutes were used explaining what siding was and why people did it. Thorby filed it away as something he might try, more likely not. Leda said that a broken leg was “all that could happen.” This is fun? Besides, she had mentioned how cold it could be. In Thorby's mind cold was linked with hunger, beatings, and fear. “Maybe I could learn,” he said dubiously, “but I doubt it.”

“Oh, sure you can!” She changed the subject. “Forgive my curiosity, Thor, but there is a faint accent in your speech.”

“I didn't know I had an accent --”

“I didn't mean to be rude.”

“You weren't. I suppose I picked it up in Jubbulpore. That's where I lived longest.”

“ 'Jubbulpore' . . . let me think. That's --”

“Capital of the Nine Worlds.”

“Oh, yes! One of our colonies, isn't it?”

Thorby wondered what the Sargon would think of that. “Uh, not exactly. It is a sovereign empire now -- their tradition is that they were never anything else. They don't like to admit that they derive from Terra.”

“What an odd point of view.”

A steward came forward with drinks and dainty nibbling foods. Thor accepted a frosted tumbler and sipped cautiously. Leda continued, “What were you doing there, Thor? Going to school?”

Thorby thought of Pop's patient teaching, decided that was not what she meant. “I was begging.”

“What?”

“I was a beggar.”

“Excuse me?”

“A beggar. A licensed mendicant. A person who asks for alms.”

“That's what I thought you said,” she answered. “I know what a beggar is; I've read books. But -- excuse me, Thor; I'm just a home girl -- I was startled.”

She was not a “home girl”; she was a sophisticated woman adjusted to her environment. Since her mother's death she had been her father's hostess and could converse with people from other planets with aplomb, handling small talk of a large dinner party with gracious efficiency in three languages. Leda could ride, dance, sing, swim, ski, supervise a household, do arithmetic slowly, read and write if necessary, and make the proper responses. She was an intelligent, pretty, well-intentioned woman, culturally equivalent to a superior female head-hunter -- able, adjusted and skilled.

But this strange lost-found cousin was a new bird to her. She said hesitantly, “Excuse my ignorance, but we don't have anything like that on Earth. I have trouble visualizing it. Was it terribly unpleasant?”

Thorby's mind flew back; he was squatting in lotus seat in the great Plaza with Pop sprawled beside him, talking. “It was the happiest time of my life,” he said simply.

“Oh.” It was all she could manage.

But Daddy had left them so that she could get to work. Asking a man about himself never failed. “How does one get started, Thor? I wouldn't know where to begin.”

“I was taught. You see, I was up for sale and --” He thought of trying to explain Pop, decided to let it wait. “-- an old beggar bought me.”

“ 'Bought' you?”

“I was a slave.”

Leda felt as if she had stepped off into water over her head. Had he said “cannibal,” “vampire,” or “warlock” she could have been no more shocked. She came up, mentally gasping. “Thor -- if I have been rude. I'm sorry -- but we all are curious about the time -- goodness! it's been over fifteen years -- that you have been missing. But if you don't want to answer, just say so. You were a nice little boy and I was fond of you -- please don't slap me down if I ask the wrong question.”

“You don't believe me?”

“How could I? There haven't been slaves for centuries.”

Thorby wished that he had never had to leave the Hydra, and gave up. He had learned in the Guard that the slave trade was something many fraki in the inner worlds simply hadn't heard of. “You knew me when I was little?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Why can't I remember you? I can't remember anything back before I was a -- I can't remember Terra.”

She smiled. “I'm three years older than you. When I saw you last, I was six -- so I remember -- and you were three, so you've forgotten.”

“Oh.” Thorby decided that here was a chance to find out his own age. “How old are you now?”

She smiled wryly. “Now I'm the same age you are -- and I'll stay that age until I'm married. Turn about, Thorby -- when you ask the wrong question, I shan't be offended. You don't ask a lady her age on Terra; you assume that she is younger than she is.”

“So?” Thorby pondered this curious custom. Among People a female claimed the highest age she could, for status.

“So. For example, your mother was a lovely lady but I never knew her age. Perhaps she was twenty-five when I knew her, perhaps forty.”

“You knew my parents?”

“Oh, yes! Uncle Creighton was a darling with a boomy voice. He used to give me handfuls of dollars to buy candy sticks and balloons with my own sweaty little hand.” She frowned. “But I can't remember his face. Isn't that silly? Never mind, Thor; tell me anything you want to. I'd be happy to hear anything you don't mind telling.”

“I don't mind,” Thorby answered, “but, while I must have been captured, I don't remember it. As far as I remember, I never had parents; I was a slave, several places and masters -- until I reached Jubbulpore. Then I was sold again and it was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.”

Leda lost her company smile. She said in a still voice, “You really mean it. Or do you?”

Thorby suffered the ancient annoyance of the returned traveler. “If you think that slavery has been abolished . . . well, it's a big galaxy. Shall I roll up my trouser leg and show you?”

“Show me what, Thor?”

“My slave's mark. The tattoo a factor uses to identify merchandise.” He rolled up his left trouser. “See? The date is my manumission -- it's Sargonese, a sort of Sanskrit; I don't suppose you can read it”

She stared, round-eyed. “How horrible! How perfectly horrible!”

He covered it. “Depends on your master. But it's not good.”

“But why doesn't somebody do something?”

He shrugged. “It's a long way off.”

“But --” She stopped as her father came out.

“Hi, kids. Enjoying the hop, Thor?”

“Yes, sir. The scenery is wonderful.”

“The Rockies aren't a patch on the Himalayas. But our Tetons are pretty wonderful . . . and there they are. Well be home soon.” He pointed. “See? There's Rudbek.”

“That city is named Rudbek?”

“It used to be Johnson's Hole, or some such, when it was a village. But I wasn't speaking of Rudbek City; I meant our home -- your home -- 'Rudbek.' You can see the tower above the lake . . . with the Grand Tetons behind it. Most magnificent setting in the world. You're Rudbek of Rudbek at Rudbek . . . 'Rudbek Cubed.' your father called it . . . but he married into the name and wasn't impressed by it. I like it; it has a rolling thunder, and it's good to have a Rudbek back in residence.”

Thorby wallowed in his bath, from needle shower, through hot pool whose sides and bottom massaged him with a thousand fingers, to lukewarm swimming plunge that turned cooler while he was in it. He was cautious in the last, having never learned to swim.

And he had never had a valet. He had noticed that Rudbek had dozens of people in it -- not many for its enormous size, but he began to realize that most of them were servants. This impressed him not as much as it might have; he knew how many, many slaves staffed any rich household on Jubbul; he did not know that a living servant on Terra was the peak of ostentatious waste, greater than sedan chairs on Jubbul, much greater than the lavish hospitality at the Gatherings. He simply knew that valets made him nervous and now he had a squad of three. Thorby refused to let anyone bathe him; he gave in to being shaved because the available razor was a classic straight-edge and his own would not work on Rudbek's power supply. Otherwise he merely accepted advice about unfamiliar clothing.

The clothing waiting for him in wardrobe loads did not fit perfectly; the chief valet snipped and rewelded, muttering apologies. He had Thorby attired, ruffled jabot to tights, when a footman appeared. “Mr. Weemsby sends greetings to Rudbek and asks that he come to the great hall.”

Thorby memorized the route as he followed.

Uncle Jack, in midnight and scarlet, was waiting with Leda, who was wearing . . . Thorby was at loss; colors kept changing and some it was hardly there. But she looked well. Her hair was now iridescent. He spotted among her jewels a bauble from Finster and wondered if it had shipped in Sisu -- why, it was possible that he had listed it himself!

Uncle Jack said jovially, “There you are, lad! Refreshed? We won't wear you out, just a family dinner.”

The dinner included twelve people and started with a reception in the great hall, drinks, appetizers, passed by soft-footed servants, music, while others were presented. “Rudbek of Rudbek, Lady Wilkes -- your Aunt Jennifer, lad, come from New Zealand to welcome you” -- “Rudbek of Rudbek, Judge Bruder and Mrs. Bruder -- Judge is Chief Counsel,” and so on. Thorby memorized names, linked them with faces, thinking that it was like the Family -- except that relationship titles were not precise definitions; he had trouble estimating status. He did not know which of eighty-odd relations “cousin” meant with respect to Leda, though he supposed that she must be a first cross-cousin. Since Uncle Jack had a surname not Rudbek; so he thought of her as taboo -- which would have dismayed her.