Flatlander - Larry Niven [84]
We were Belters and flatlanders and lunies, and there was no problem telling us apart.
All the flatlanders were wearing inflated suits in bright primary colors. They hampered movement, made us clumsy. Even I was having trouble.
I’d talked to the other United Nations delegates just before the flight. Jabez Stone was a cross between tall black Watusi and long-jawed white New Englander. He’d been a prosecution lawyer before going into politics. He represented the General Assembly. Octavia Budrys of the Security Council had very white skin and very black hair. She was overweight but with the muscle tension to carry it well. You sensed their awareness of their own power. On Earth they had walked like rulers. Here—
Their dignity suffered. Budrys bounced like a big rubber ball. Stone fought the lower gravity with a kind of shuffle. They veered from side to side and into each other. I heard their panting in my earphones.
The Belters found their stride easily. Through the bubble helmets you saw Belter crests on both men and women: hair running in a strip from forehead to nape of neck, the scalp shaved on both sides. They wore silvered cloaks against the cold of lunar night. Under the cloaks were skin-tights: membranous elastic cloth that would pass sweat and fitted like a coat of paint.
Paintings glowed across their chests and bellies. A Belter’s pressure suit is his real home, and he will spend a fortune on a good torso painting. The brawny redheaded woman wearing the gold of the Belt Police had to be Marion Shaeffer. Her torso showed an eagle-clawed dragon stooping on a tiger. A broad-shouldered black-haired man, Chris Penzler, wore a copy of a Bonnie Dalzell griffin, the one in the New York Metropolitan: mostly gold and bronze with a cloudy Earth clutched in one claw.
I had abandoned a Belter suit when I returned to Earth. The chest painting showed a great brass-bound door opening on a lush world with two suns. I missed it.
The lunies wore skintights, but they would never be taken for Belters. They stood seven and eight feet tall. Their suits were in bright monochrome colors to stand out against a bright and confusing lunar background. Their chest paintings were smaller and generally not as good and tended to feature one dominant color, as Mayor Watson’s ash tree painting was mostly green. The lunies hardly walked; they flew in shallow arcs, effortlessly, and it was beautiful to watch.
One hundred fifty-seven years after the first landing on the Earth’s moon, you could almost believe that mankind was dividing into different species. We were three branches of humanity, trooping toward the lights.
Most of Hovestraydt City was underground. That square of light was only the top of it Three sides of the square were living quarters; I had seen light spilling through windows. But the whole east face of the city was given over to the mirror works.
We passed telescope mirrors in the polishing stage, with mobile screens to shield them. Silicate ore stood in impressively tall conical heaps. Spindly lunies in skintights and silver cloaks stopped work to watch us pass. They didn’t smile.
Under a roof that had rock and moondust piled high atop it for meteor protection, a wide stretch of the east face was open to vacuum. Here were big, fragile paraboloids and lightweight telescope assemblies for Belter ships; widgetry for polishing and silvering mirrors and more widgetry for measuring their curvature; garage space for wide-wheeled motorcycles, bubble-topped buses, and special trucks to carry lenses and radar reflectors. There were more lunies at work. I’d expected to see amusement at the way we walked, but they weren’t amused. Was that resentment I saw within the bubble helmets?
I could guess what was bothering them. The conference.
Tom Reinecke veered away to peer through a glass wall. I followed him. Lunie workmen were looking