Watson, Ian - Novel 08 Read Online Free PDF

it. We thought this could be pretty vital as to how effectively
colonies in general could ‘take’ ...”
                 Jeremy
chuckled. “I’d say that we’ve had our psychological problems pretty well sorted
out for us.”
                 “Austin
Faraday’s our Captain and planetologist. Tanya Rostov is an agronomist, among
other things. Denise Laroche is our ecologist.”
                 “Athlone, eh? Laroche?” Jeremy
seemed to be enjoying some private joke. “Well, well, I wonder what your own deeper motivation was in coming? Interesting name, yours.” “Athlone? It’s just a town in Ireland . Presumably my ancestors were peasants, who
took the name of the town. They weren’t lords of the manor or anything.”
                “There’s only one Lord here, Sean: Himself. Laroche, too, now there’s a
good name!”
                 “What’s
so funny about our names?”
                 “Oh,
you’ll find out. He should like them.
He has a sense of elective affinites.”
                 “Whoever
or whatever ‘He’ is, they sure need a psychologist here,” confided Muthoni.
Aloud, she said to Sean, “I’m thirsty. How about fetching the others? As the
man says, a steel hull isn’t going to make much difference. And while you’re
about it, bring a canteen with you.”
                 “If
you’re thirsty, just help yourself off any bush,” said Jeremy. “Or else there’s
a pool through the hedges there. I promise you won’t get poisoned or doped.” He
waved breezily. “Who needs hallucinations, when you’ve got this for a reality?”
                 A
naked woman, who’d been watching with a faint anticipatory smile upon her
face, advanced towards them now. (Naked, yes, but the clothed crewpeople were
the curiosities . . .) She had little round breasts like fruits, and her body
was particularly white, the white not of pastiness but of milk or ivory. Her
long damp hair was drying back to a strawy yellow. As Sean turned to walk back
up the access ramp, she pouted and assessed Paavo instead. Muthoni it was,
though, whom she walked up to and kissed lightly upon the cheek.
                 “Nigredo,”
laughed the woman. She made ironic sheep’s eyes at Muthoni, who stepped back.
                 “What
did she call me?” she asked Jeremy, as though he was their interpreter.
                 Jeremy
ignored the question. “Take your pleasure as you will,” he said instead. “So long as you don’t cause hurt. Not strenuously, at any
rate. The strenuous hurt, the hurt that is serious, belongs in Hell.”
                 “What
does ‘nigredo’ mean?”
                 The
naked woman clapped her hands delightedly. “I’m Loquela. Hullo there. Why are you all dressed up? Beware, you’ll turn into beasts or
lure bad beasts to you.” It was hard to say whether she was teasing or serious.
                 “These
are called clothes,” explained Paavo loftily. “One wears them on board a
starship when one’s not in coldsleep.”
                 “We’ve
been naked in our ice boxes for eighty-seven years,” added Muthoni lightly. “It
makes a pleasant change.”
                 “Oh,
so the cold got into your bones, my dusky beauty! Is this a . . . starship,
then?” Loquela sounded vague about it, though. The name seemed to lack any
precise reference in her mind.
     

 
FOUR
                 Sean either forgot about Muthoni’s
water-flask or else he took Jeremy at his word . He
reappeared, emptyhanded, shepherding the other three members of the crew.
Denise gazed around the lawns of the meadow with open delight, Tanya with a
certain sulky trepidation as though the God Sean had spoken of might step out
from behind a bush to accost her, and Austin with as authoritative a stance as
he could muster. Noticing Sean’s