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Besides, he looks like a traveler."
"Old-style..." added Gerioc in a softer voice.
"I have been called witch-spawn, or worse." I had the feeling Mellorie had
more to say, but had held her tongue.
Amenda shivered, as if the term were all too familiar.
Mellorie nodded.
Over her shoulder, I saw another threesome enter the dining area, none of whom
I recognized, since neither of the two women happened to be Dr. Relom.
"How would I put this... ?" Gerloc's voice was softer, pitched not to carry
beyond the table. "Your... shall we say...
experience level... ?"
"I don't know. No basis for comparison." Gerioc might be friendly, but I was
reluctant to blurt out anything. "I can travel from point to point on Query.
Too much travel bums a lot of energy, though."
Gerioc opened his mouth.
"I certainly have no experience in travelling to the stars or other planets.
You discovered someplace called Sertis?
Could you tell me about it?"
Gerioc closed his mouth, then took a sip of water.
Mellorie chuckled. "Guess what, Gerioc? He listens."
With a sheepish grin, Gerioc looked at Mellorie, then back at me. "I gather I
don't have much choice."
"You're right. You don't," said Amenda pleasantly.
"I'll skip the details of how I stumbled onto Sertis, because they're in the
notebooks you'll be reading. I'm pretty limited in terms of how far back or
forward I can travel seems to be in the neighborhood of fifteen hundred to two
thousand years back and about half that forward. The forward side is always
shady. That's because of the uncertainty factors, I gather..."
"You might try getting to the point ..." Mellorie's voice was friendly.
"I will. I am simply not as direct as you are, Mellorie.'' Gerioc took another
swallow and cleared his throat. "The point to which dear Mellorie refers is
that Sertis doesn't change. The buildings are occasionally modified, but the
population and technology are always the same, at least as far as any of us
have been able to tell."
I frowned. "Does that mean we're different? Or
they are?"
"They are." That was Mellorie. "We've found half a dozen other cultures out
there, and they change. Dramatically, sometimes within local decades."
I was still frowning. So what difference did it make whether one culture on
another planet in another solar system was stable?
"You look even more displeased, Sammis." Amenda's voice was softer, less
persistent than Mellorie, yet removed.
"I'm new here." I swallowed, then spit out what I shouldn't have said.
"Everything I hear still sounds like a research project. All very interesting,
but so what? We've been destroyed by an unseen enemy, and our entire
civilization is crashing around us, and we're gathering data?"
Now Amenda and Gerioc were the ones frowning.
I found myself wiping my forehead with the cloth napkin, a true social
blunder, but sweat was oozing from my forehead, despite the room's coolness.
"Salads here." With that a waitress set a bowl before each of us.
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"Thank you." My response was automatic.
The silence around the table lengthened as the waitress departed with a nod to
me. No one else said anything. So I
took a bite of the salad. Even with bitter reddish leaves interspersed with
some mushrooms and wild onions, it was refreshing.
"What would you do, then?" Mellorie asked.
"I'm scarcely in charge," I mumbled with a mouth half-filll of leaves and
crunchy mushrooms that tasted of nut-bark.
"That's begging the question. You raised it."
Gerioc and Amenda looked from Mellorie to me, and back, as if they were
watching a contest.
"Something useful."
Mellorie looked ready to snap back, when she smiled over my shoulder.
"May I interrupt?" Deric's question was only half-whine.
"Of course," Mellorie's voice dripped syrup.
I turned, caught a glimpse of a woman and found myself standing and bowing.
The old traditions don't die.
"Sammis, I believe you know Dr. Relom. I just wanted to reassure her that you
had in fact arrived and were enjoying our hospitality."
"Everyone has been most hospitable, Deric. Most hospitable." I inclined my
head toward my tablemates.
The doctor nodded politely under the makeup designed to make her look like an
older woman trying to look young.
"I'm glad to see you have been so well received, Sammis. Although I have
interrupted an animated conversations, I do not intend to take much of your
time."
"It's good to see you, Doctor, outside the testing laboratory, and I
appreciate your efforts. Very much." I bowed slightly, again.
"He's quite the gentry, Doctor, isn't he?" observed Deric.
"I believe he is, Deric. But he also survived the ConFeds." She turned back to
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