The Delikon by H M Hoover

Author:H M Hoover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 1977-03-26T05:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

It had been a disquieting day spent listening to the auditors’ reports on the colony, and the ambassadors’ opinions and suggestions related to those reports. Earth as a colony had always been a financial liability, one which did not improve with time.

With relief Sidra removed the headgear she had worn all day and handed it to a servant. She disliked the confinement of the bubble helmet, the barrier it created between herself and her kind, between herself and Kim, chief ambassador. Besides that, her head rang from the resonance of her voice trapped within the helmet. As she walked down the corridor from the green room, she absentmindedly ran her long fingers, comb-like, through her hair, as if to free it from confinement too.

In her office, she recorded her notes of the day’s events and her reactions and then sat staring out the window at the twilight, where the temple roofs were making black silhouettes against a pale green sky. She still had to remind herself that on this world such a sky denoted high cold winds. Through the open window came the sound of a child’s laughter from the garden below. The sound reminded her. She reached over and pressed the intercom. “Madam?”

“If the cian Varina has not yet dined, ask her to join me for dinner in my private quarters.”

“Very well, madam.”

She leaned back in the chair, wondering how Varina had parted with her companions and feeling sorry for her. This evening would be another ordeal for the child.

The intercom hummed . . . . “Madam?”

There was a long pause, and Sidra felt a flick of irritation. “Yes?”

“I am told that neither the teacher nor her companions has returned, nor has the escort Cornelius.”

“That is improbable.”

“I will check further . . . .”

“Call the housekeeper. Check with the transport dispatcher.”

“I have checked. With both. The pilot sent to pick them up waited a full twenty-four hours. He then surveyed the area . . . .”

“Did they leave the caves?”

“On schedule.”

“Send the pilot to me.” Sidra was on her feet and pacing. The inactivity of the day combined with this news suddenly created great tension in her.

She would not have run away, Sidra thought—and in thinking that admitted her suspicion that Varina could have. She is not that disturbed. Besides, where would she run to? Any of them? Cornelius would not allow harm to come to her. Could they be lost? But she doubted that. Where was that pilot, and why hadn’t she been told of this before? She forgot she had been in meetings for days, unavailable to her staff.

When the pilot was shown into her office ten minutes later she verbally pounced on him. But all her questions revealed was that he had spent hours searching for his missing passengers; that neither the sanctuary nor the mountain stable where the horses were to be returned had any further knowledge of the four. He suggested they had become lost in the mountains.

“Ridiculous!” Sidra said. “No one from the Ruling House gets lost.

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