Terraforming Earth by Jack Williamson

Author:Jack Williamson [Williamson, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novel
ISBN: 0312872003
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2001-04-19T13:45:54+00:00

22

Nice to meet you both.” Laura Grail raised her voice and smiled for those around us. “Welcome to the regency. When you have time, I want to get the whole Tycho Station story for our readers.”

“One more question,” Pepe murmured. “How can we find Mona?”

She shook her head and slipped away. He stood looking after her till Frye caught his arm.

“Your Mercies, please.” Frye nodded at the crowd, scores of people talking and sipping their drinks, ignoring us after those curious glances when we were introduced. “Our guests are dignitaries invited to meet you.”

“Happy about it?” Pepe grinned. “They’re keeping their distance.”

“Hesitant, perhaps.” Frye frowned in apology. “Please understand that your sudden arrival has taken us by surprise. Created something of a crisis, in fact. Nobody is certain what to expect from you.”

“We are grateful for the welcome,” Pepe assured him. “We plan no trouble for anybody.”

He gave us a narrow look and escorted us around the hall. I listened and made mental notes for our reports. Pepe spoke for us, wary with what he said.

The Agent of Trade was short fat man named Gait Wickman, who wore a bright gold headband and a golden fringe on his toga. Frye told us he owned the rail system. He shook our hands and beckoned the girl with cocktails. Moving as stiffly as a robot, she thrust her tray toward us and stood rigid, the black bug on her forehead watching us with tiny bright eyes till we refused the drinks and the agent waved her away. He stood inspecting us in a silence that had grown awkward before Frye broke it.

“Our guests are curious about our sources of power. They were asking if we understand electricity.”

“Our engineers have looked at the theory.” His mouth pursed thoughtfully. “I’ve seen them creating bolts of lightning, but we have steam. Our rail system spreads south to the Indian Ocean and east to the Pacific, and our ships reach the Americas. We’ve never needed anything better.”

“Are you certain?” Pepe frowned after the girl with the drinks. “With electricity, you wouldn’t need human power.”

“Why bother?” He shrugged. “It’s free.”

Pepe blinked and looked again at the girl. “That thing on her forehead?

A rider, I think you call it? I understand that they come from Africa?”

“The seeds do.”

“So you grow the bugs?”

“I don’t.” Wickman flushed and looked uncomfortable. “If you want to inquire into rider culture, talk to Sheba Kingdom.”

“There she is.” Frye nodded at a woman half across the hall. “I’ll introduce you. Her family controls the Africa Company. If you care about history, there’s a historic drama.”

Sheba Kingdom glanced at us and turned back to the group around her while Frye expanded on his drama.

“Her great-great-grandfather was an early explorer, back before the age of steam. A typhoon wrecked his sailing vessel on the east coast of Africa.

He got ashore alive and escaped twenty years later, paddling across the Red Sea in a crude little skin-covered canoe.

“He had been captured by the strange creatures of the continent.

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