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was firm, if brisk almost to the point of rudeness, and he could feel some odd
ridges, scars, on the back of her hand and on her forefinger. She wasn't
pretty; she didn't act sensual, the way some green riders did, and she was
only half a head shorter than he was. She wasn't too thin, but the lack of
flesh on her bones gave her a slightly boyish appearance.
"I'm F'lessan, Golanth's rider, of Benden."
"Yes," she said, shooting him a sharp look. Her eyes were set at an unusual
upward slant, but she looked away so quickly he couldn't see what color they
were. Oddly enough, she flushed. "I know." She seemed to gather breath to
continue. "Zaranth just told me that
Golanth had apologized for disturbing her nap on the ledge." She flicked him
another almost contrite glance, awkwardly clasping her left wrist with her
right hand so that the knuckles turned white.
F'lessan grinned in his most ingratiating fashion. "By nature, Golanth is very
considerate." He gave a little bow and gestured toward the volume open on the
reading desk. "Don't let me disturb your studies. I'll be over there." He
pointed to the far right.
He could just as easily work in the alcove as in the main room and not intrude
on her solitude. In no time at all he had collected three
of the records he thought most likely to contain the information he sought,
and brought them to the smaller reading desk in the alcove.
A narrow window gave him a view of the eastern hills and the barest sparkle of
the sea. He seated himself, placed the piece of paper that he had brought with
him on the table, and started riffling through the thinly coated plastic pages
of the COM Tower records. He was looking for one name: Stev Kimmer, listed in
the colony records as Stakeholder on Bitkim Island, now called Ista Hold. He
needed to find any connection between Kimmer and Kenjo Fusaiyuki, who had been
the original Honshu Stakeholder.
In his careful clearing of debris in the ancient dwelling place, he had found
the initials SK carved or etched on several surfaces: on the metal worktop in
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the garage of the ancient sled and on several drawers. No other inhabitant had
defaced or initialed anything. The only SK not listed as going north in the
Second Crossing-when the Thread-beleaguered colonists had resettled at
Fort-was Stev
Kimmer. Previous research revealed that the man had disappeared with a sled
after Ted Tubberman's illegal launch of an appeal for help from old Earth.
Kimmer had not been seen again. The loss of a functional sled had been
officially regretted; Kimmer's absence had not.
The interesting point in F'lessan's earlier search was that Ita Fusaiyuki had
continued to hold at Honshu and resisted every invitation to move north with
her children. Other colonists, like those at Terne Island and some of the
smaller holds in Dorado, had hung on in the south as long as they could.
Eventually all, save perhaps those at Honshu, had immigrated. There had been
no reference to Honshu or the Fusaiyukis in the early records at Fort Hold.
The initials, S and K, were distinctively carved. F'lessan needed to find any
other samples of Stev Kimmer's handwriting to be sure of his identification.
Not that it mattered, except to him. With atypical zeal, F'lessan yearned to
complete the history of Honshu itself as accurately as possible: who had lived
there, when they had left, where they had gone, and why.
Honshu was also an excellent example of colonial self-sufficiency. Clearly it
had been occupied by quite a few people and designed for many more: a whole
floor of bedrooms had never been furnished. Then, all at once and in some
hurry, considering details like drawers left pulled out in a workshop that had
otherwise been meticulously kept, everyone had left. Twelve of them at least.
To judge by strands of moldering material, even garments had been left behind,
folded on the shelves, in drawers, or hanging in closets. The fact that all
the utensils were still stored and hung about the capacious kitchen argued
that, wherever the inhabitants had gone, they hadn't needed to bring along
household equipment. Storage canisters filled with desiccated remnants
indicated that few, if any, staples had been taken. There were homely
artifacts like rusted needles, pins, and scissors. There had been no human
bones to suggest a sudden annihilation from attack or disease.
Although all the other entrances to the interior of Honshu had been shut, the
heavy doors to the beasthold had been propped open, suggesting that the
Ancients had released their livestock but had left the creatures access to a
refuge.
He turned page after page of the daily comings and goings from Landing, neatly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]