Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [29]
Matthew could not see what was going on in the side-corridor because he could not force a way back to it, but the person who had tried to attract his attention had obviously made as little headway as he.
When Riddell helped him back to his feet, Matthew had to admire the slickness with which the operation had been accomplished. No one else in the corridor was carrying a sidearm, and no one else was an obvious member of an escort party, but everyone there had been ready to act in concert as soon as anyone unauthorized to do so attempted to make contact with the two defrosters.
“What’s going on?” Solari demanded of Riddell, his detective instincts immediately coming into play. “Who was the man who called out? Why was he not allowed to talk to Dr. Fleury?”
“I’m very sorry, professor,” Riddell said, ignoring Solari and addressing himself solely to Matthew. “These corridors are always busy, and we’ve had to cultivate skills and etiquette for coping with that. You’re not used to it, so you can’t help being clumsy. These people really should have got used to giving colonists more leeway.”
There was an immediate clamor of apology as the people who had tripped him up assured him that it was entirely their fault—but the wall of flesh remained quite impregnable. No one moved a centimeter to make way for him. There was no way for him to go but forward.
“It’s okay,” Matthew said to Solari. “An accident.” But while he said it he was looking into the green eyes of their guide, observing the reflexive hostility of the adamantine stare that met his own half-contemptuous glare. He really does think he’s at war, Matthew thought. However this conflict first arose, it’s infected each and every one of them.
“No harm done,” Riddell said, tugging gently on Matthew’s arm to urge him forward again.
“None at all,” Matthew assured him, deciding that from now on, he had to exercise all possible caution in his dealings with the crew. He allowed himself to be urged into action again, and only glanced back once to marvel at the way in which the sudden queue had melted away.
As they resumed their progress through the curved corridors, Matthew followed the train of thought. These people presumably no longer had the commitment to the mission that had carried their forefathers out of the solar system. It had only required five lifetimes of isolation, and maybe twice as many generations, to turn them into a new species with their own ideas and objectives. Whatever else they wanted, they probably wanted rid of every sleeper in their vaults. They wanted rid of the past, of the pressure of inherited obligations. They wanted their freedom. But how far were they prepared to go to get it? And how fast would their remaining inhibitions decay if the awakened sleepers remained obdurate in their insistence that Hope belonged to them and had no reason for being except to serve their purposes and answer their demands?
That, Matthew realized, must be the true cause of the rebellious attitude simmering on the planet’s surface. There was a matter of principle at stake. The would-be colonists were trying to recover and assert the authority that was, in their eyes, their right. But where was Shen Chin Che, the owner of the Ark and guarantor of that right?
“This is worse than I thought,” Solari whispered in his ear.
“Whispering is probably futile,” Matthew whispered back. “They can hear everything, if they want to—and they’re probably interested enough to listen hard.”
Their guide paused before a door that seemed no grander than the rest. It opened when he brushed the keypad with his fingers, but he did not follow them through. Presumably, he remained on guard just as he had while they were in their temporary quarters.
EIGHT
The room to which they had been brought was luxurious, after a fashion, and reassuringly personalized in its decoration. Captain Milyukov