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the ship could crush its un-derside like an eggshell if it came down too fast.
Its outer shell was strong, but only strong enough to face the winds of
atmosphere. Otherwise, the mass of the ship was far out of prudent proportion
for surface landings in planetary gravity New Earth's was a little less than
that of Association, a little more than that of Old Earth. If the "Other"
organization Bleys and Dahno controlled had not been a majority owner in the
vessel and demanded a surface landing, Favored of God would have discharged
its passengers to shuttle-craft beyond the atmosphere.
Outside, now, Bleys saw a row of black limousines lined up, waiting. They had
been driven out here in the landing area itself in special exception to all
ordinary Cus-toms and transportation procedures. The rest of the passen-gers
who were not members of his party would have to take a surface-bus to the
nearest underground departure point. But that would be after his group had
left first; and he, first of all.
At that moment, the spaceship grounded itself with hardly a jar. The port
swung open heavily before him, and at the crewwoman's gesture, Henry's advance
party trotted down the landing stair, to spread out watchfully on the field.
Bleys walked down onto the yielding surface of the landing area, a whiff of
cool air different, but invigorat-ing filling his lungs. The spring sunlight
of Sirius, so yellowishly different from the white light of Epsilon Eridani
over Association and Harmony, dazzled him briefly out of a beautiful
sapphire-blue sky as he set foot outside into what was obviously a hot summer
day.
He stood aside so that the rest of his people, who had been waiting just
behind him, could come off. Henry and Toni were among the first few the
Soldiers allowed to fol-low. Henry led Toni directly back to the fourth
limousine in the row. Some of the Soldiers were already getting into the first
three black magnetic-lift limousines with their dark one-way windows.
Bleys stood waiting at the foot of the ramp in the re-markable sky and the
different sunlight, feeling unusually satisfied and elated. He could think of
no particular reason for this. Then it struck him of course, he was finally in
action, committed to what he had planned to do all time for doubt was over
Henry's voice beside him interrupted his thoughts.
"I've put Toni in the fourth vehicle," Henry was saying. "You go in the second
one with the local Others' Headperson Ana Wasserlied?"
"She came to meet us, then?" said Bleys, absently. "Dahno thought she'd be at
the hotel."
"She's here and wants to ride with you. I'll have Dahno ride fifth, in that
limousine," said Henry. "I'll be up front in your limousine."
"No, why don't you ride with Toni?" Bleys murmured back. Henry looked at him
for a moment.
"All right," he said.
He led Bleys to a limousine. Bleys stooped and got in.
Ana Wasserlied, in one of the two individual chairs of the back seat, was a
capable-looking, tall, blond, rather an-gular woman. She was in her late
twenties, wearing a three-quarter-length semi-formal dress of some silky
blue-green material. Already seated in the car on the far side, she smiled a
somewhat weary-looking greeting as he joined her and the door was closed upon
them.
"It's good to meet you at last," she said. "I've always wanted to thank you in
person for appointing me last year to be Head of the Others' branch, here."
"Thank Dahno," said Bleys. "He runs the organization, you know. I'm just a
sort of roving philosopher, although he lets me advise from time to time."
"Oh, I will thank him," said Ana. The tone of her voice clearly refused to
give lip service to the idea that Bleys was nothing more than a roving
philosopher. A foolishly unreasonable small point to impress on Bleys himself
in particular, Bleys noted absently. "But I wanted to thank you as well."
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"That's very good of you," said Bleys. "Did you bring that recording spindle I
messaged for? The one with the latest information on our membership here, with
a break-down into those in training, and those we think able to hold a high
administrative position?"
"I have it right here," said Ana, producing it. Her voice was a rather
pleasant soprano; which, however, developed a slightly metallic edge when she
became brisk. She handed it to him.
He reached for one of the personal readers that was hanging against the back
of the front seat, below the win-dow there that shut him off from the driver
and the Soldier who had stepped in to sit beside the driver a moment since.
Bleys put the reader on. It was like a dark rectangu-lar mask, with insert
plugs for his ears and an elastic band behind to hold it on his head. Out of
long practice, he put on the mask with one hand and slid the spindle into its
slot below the viewing area of the mask with his other.
"Before you start," said Ana's voice, hastily if distantly, now that the plugs
were in his ears, "I wanted to tell you: you've got an invitation by the local
CEO Club for dinner tonight with some of their most important members. You
remember that the CEO and the Guildmasters are the two important organizations
on this world? CEO stands for Chief Executive Officers, of course although
these men you'll be meeting are much more than that. They're the heads of
multiple corporations."
"I see," said Bleys. "We'll talk about that more when we get to the hotel."
Ana fell silent. Unobtrusively, Bleys touched the con-trols on his wristpad.
The page of names that had filled his mask a second before disappeared; and
the screen filled in-
stead with a one-way connection to the intercom between his car and the one
that held Henry and Toni.
While Bleys and Ana had been speaking, the limousines had all been filled and
had already started to leave. The one Bleys and Ana were in plunged downward
into a tun-nel; and, as the picture of Toni and Henry in theirs came up, their
voices began to sound in his ears. Bleys' limou-sine came out of the tunnel on
to a magnetic roadway, al-most certainly the direct route into New Earth City.
"... Does your Soldier need to keep watching the driver like that?" he heard
Toni saying.
In the screen, she seemed to be looking directly at Bleys, from which he
assumed that she was looking in-stead into the front of the limousine through
the window that sealed off that part of the vehicle from the seats in back;
and made the conversation of the passengers back there private unless an
intercom connection like this was opened up.
"... The driver's an Other, isn't he?" she was going on.
Henry nodded.
"We hope he's trustworthy, but we play safe," he said.
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