Harry Turtledove: A World of Difference

He heard a centrifuge whir and looked into one of the chambers. “Well, Doctor,” he said, smiling, as he glided in. “Are we healthy?” The question was a way to start a conversation, but also seriously meant: if anything was wrong, Tolmasov needed to know about it right away.

Dr. Zakharova checked a reading, squinted, checked again, then nodded. “Healthy enough, after so much freefall. The new calcium supplement seems better than the last one we tried.”

“That’s good, Katerina Fyodorovna. I’m glad to hear it.” Again, Tolmasov felt his words bearing two meanings. He was not looking forward to being under gravity again-even less so if he and his comrades suffered more than they had to from the weakened bones brought on by prolonged weightlessness. Moreover… “Have your tests reached a point where you can stop for a while?”

The doctor raised an eyebrow and smiled a little. “I think so,” she said. She was a small, dark woman with startling blue eyes. Tolmasov was no longer sure whether she really was pretty. As the only woman on Tsiolkovsky, by now she looked good to him-and, he was sure, to the other four men in the crew.

Afterward, in his cabin, they sat in midair, her legs still wrapped around his back. Freefall did not have many advantages, but sex was one of them. Tolmasov kept a grip on a handhold, so he and Katerina would not drift out through the curtain into the corridor. “A pleasant way to pass the time,” he said.

“I’m glad you think so.” She raised that eyebrow again.

He’d expected her to; after so long, few surprises were left between crew members. It had to be a lot like being married, he thought.

That brought Athena, always in the back of his mind, up to the front. The Americans had tried to solve the problem of sexual tension by putting three married couples aboard. They hailed it as a triumph of equality. Tolmasov could not see that-he doubted any combination of couples would get the Americans’ best people to Minerva. And Minerva was too important for anything less than the best.

The Soviet selection boards had thought as he did. If that meant life aboard Tsiolkovsky sometimes got complicated, too bad. Fortunately, Katerina was as fine a woman-as fine a person-as she was a physician. He wondered if the boards had chosen her for that, too. Probably not, he decided. Otherwise they would never have come up with Igor Lopatin.

He grimaced. Had Katerina been as crabbed and dour as the engineer, life aboard Tsiolkovsky would have been a lot worse than complicated. It would have been intolerable, and maybe dangerous. He ran a grateful hand down the smooth skin of her back, glad she favored him at the moment.

She stirred and detached herself from him. “Now,” she said, “back to work.” She retrieved her underpants and coverall from the little bag where she had stowed them. Tolmasov used a tissue to mop liquid out of the air. Katerina chuckled. “To the head first, then back to work,” she amended with a doctor’s practicality. As soon as she was dressed, she slipped out of the cubicle and away.

Tolmasov put his clothes back on more slowly. It was not animal lassitude; he was too disciplined to let that affect him. Calculation played a much bigger part in it. Someone besides Oleg Lopatin, he was sure, had KGB connections. That was the way things were. Katerina made the most obvious choice: if anyone on the ship could find out everything that was going on, she was the one.

Of course, the KGB did not have a reputation for being obvious. Tolmasov let out a snort of laughter. If Katerina was not what he suspected her to be, she doubtless had suspicions about him.

A drop of water fell from the castle ceiling onto Reatur’s head.

He extended an eyestalk and stared balefully upward at the ice. Was it starting to drip already? Plainly, it was. Summer was coming.

Reatur was not happy about summer. It would be too hot; it always was. Most of the tools made of ice would melt; they always did. The domain master would have to see to getting the stone tools out of storage, as he did toward the end of every spring.

He did not like stone tools. They were hard to make and expensive to buy. His peasants did not like them, either. They were heavier than ice and tiring to use in the fields. He wished he lived in a land with a better climate, where ice stayed ice the year around.

Even his castle’s thick walls would drip and trickle all summer long. He remembered the really scorching summer-how long ago was it? Seven years, that was it-when big chunks of the roof had melted and fallen in. Lucky his domain had been at peace then, and lucky the collapse had killed only mates.

Reatur’s eldest son Ternat came into the great hall, breaking his chain of thought. Ternat thickened his body so the top of his head was lower than the top of Reatur’s. “You are respectful,” the domain master said, pleased, “but I know you are taller than I.”

“Yes, clanfather.” Ternat resumed his natural height. “A male from the great clan of Skarmer waits outside. He would have speech with you.”

“Would he?” Air hissed out through the breathing pores under Reatur’s eyestalks. “I wonder what he wants.” Visits from the males who lived on the west side of the Ervis Gorge were never casual affairs; the gorge was too hard to cross for anything but serious business to be worthwhile. “Bring him in.”

“Yes, clanfather.” Ternat hurried away. He was eldest, but he knew better than to do anything without his father’s leave. One day, if he outlived Reatur, he would be clanfather himself, and domain master. Till then, he was as much in his father’s power as a just budded mate.

He led the Skarmer male up to the domain master. The westerner politely widened himself before Reatur, though like most of his people he was already the shorter and rounder of the two. That peculiar combination of plump body and long eyestalks always made the males from west of the gorge look sneaky to Reatur.

Still widened, the Skarmer male said in trade talk, “I bring my clanfather Hogram’s greetings to you, domain master, and those of all the domains sprung from the Skarmer bud. I am named Fralk; I am eldest of eldest of Hogram.”

Reatur felt like hissing again but refused to let this Fralk see his surprise. Not only did the westerner have plenipotentiary power-Reatur was not even sure how many domains there were on the far side of the gorge-but he was also in line to become clanfather of his domain.

“I am pleased to receive such a prominent emissary,” Reatur said, more polite than ever. Then, still without abandoning his manners, he started to get down to business. “To what do I owe this privilege?”

“A moment, if you please, before I come to that,” Fralk said. “I have heard from merchants and travelers of a curious-well, a curious thing that you keep here. May I see it? Travelers’ tales are often wild, but the ones that have come to me have enough substance to be intriguing, I must confess.”

“Odd you should mention the strange thing. When Ternat announced you, I was just thinking about the summer I found it,” Reatur said. “Come this way. In deference to your rank, I will not even ask any price of you.”

“You are generous.” Fralk widened again, then trailed after Reatur and Ternat toward the side chamber where the domain master kept the strange thing.

That chamber’s outer wall had much less sand and gravel mixed with its ice than was true of the rest of the castle. As Reatur had intended, more sunlight came through that way; the room was almost as bright as day.

Fralk walked all around the strange thing, looking at it with four eyes and barely managing to keep a polite pair on his hosts. Reatur understood that. When he had first found the strange thing, he had stared with all six eyes at once, lifting the stalk on the far side of his body over his head. He remembered that that had only made matters worse. He was so used to seeing all around him all the time that having a big part of his field of vision blank left him disoriented. He had wanted to lean in the direction his eyes were pointing.