Expendable - James Alan Gardner [103]
“Yes.”
“You’ve changed.”
“Have I?”
“Yes.”
He spoke flatly—no grin of welcome for an old friend, or even a courteous smile for a fellow Explorer. Walton had been happier to see me, and Walton was a complete stranger.
Jelca’s eyes stared fixedly at my cheek. God knows, I was used to stares, but this one unsettled me. I couldn’t read his face. Was he simply surprised? Or was he disappointed with me, maybe even repelled?
I noticed that his hand had dropped onto the stun-pistol holstered at his hip—not a purposeful gesture, I thought, just a reflex, just something he was in the habit of doing. Everything about him seemed as tight as wire.
“You look good,” he said at last. It did not sound like a compliment.
“You look good too,” I responded immediately.
“You both look very ugly,” Oar announced in a loud voice. “And you are so stupid I want to scream.”
“So scream,” Jelca said. “Who’s stopping you?”
“I am too civilized to scream,” she answered. “I am very cultured, I have cleared many fields, and I do not—”
“You’re Oar,” Jelca interrupted, obviously making the connection for the first time.
Oar shrieked. “You recognized ugly Festina but did not recognize me?”
“You all look alike,” Jelca shrugged. There was no apology in his voice. “Why are you here?”
“My friend Festina needed my help to come to this place! That is the only reason. She wanted me with her so I came, because she is my friend.”
“Friend,” Jelca repeated with pointed intonation. “Oh.”
My face burned. I wanted to blurt, It isn’t what you think…and I hated myself for feeling that way. I hated Jelca too. Why didn’t he smile? Why didn’t he run forward and sweep me into his arms?
Why didn’t he think I was beautiful?
“How’s Ullis?” I asked, just for something to say.
“Fine,” he said. “Busy. You haven’t seen her yet?”
“We just got here. We saw Walton outside.”
“Oh. Well.” He took his eyes off my face long enough to look at his watch. “It’s almost suppertime. I’ll show you where the others are.”
He still didn’t smile; but suddenly he held out a hand to me as if I remained a silly little freshman who’d leap forward at the first opportunity. Maybe I would have. I didn’t run to him immediately, but maybe I would have given in after a few seconds, telling myself that this was the start of whatever I wanted.
Who knows?
Before I made up my mind, Oar darted forward and took the offered hand, lacing her fingers with his. Jelca stared at me a moment longer, then shrugged. “This way,” he said.
Monstrosity
We walked to the central square. It was a huge space, several hundred meters on each side…and almost completely filled with a giant glass whale.
“The spaceship,” Jelca said.
I winced. A spaceship that looked like a whale? And a killer whale at that, an orca, with lines etched into its exterior skin to suggest the usual pattern of black and white coloration. It stood on its tail at the very center of the city, as tall as any nearby skyscraper. Its bulbous body no doubt contained living quarters, engines, and so on, but all of it was glass, glittering with prismatic refractions.
Could it fly? Like any whale, it looked streamlined enough. Still, it was a far cry from Technocracy starships. They were simply long cylinders with a “Sperm head” at the front—an oversized gray sphere that generated the Sperm-field back along the hull. The orca had no such sphere: nothing more than a huge glass parasol sticking out of its snout…as if the whale had a beach umbrella clenched in its teeth.
“So that’s our way home,” Jelca said.
“You’re going into space in a whale?” I asked.
“It’s a ship, Festina.” His voice flared with hostility. “Why should appearance matter?”
“It doesn’t,” I answered. “How are you going to get it out of here?”
“There are roof doors.” He looked up briefly, then shook his head. “You can’t see them from here. Can’t see them from outside either. A whole section of the mountain just opens up.”
“And off you go in an orca.”
I meant to sound lighthearted and teasing, but Jelca didn’t take it that way. “The whale was all we had to work