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NINE

If most people could be compared to dull glows, Nestor was white heat. Her eyes were wide and full of energy even while her voice was measured and restrained. She never said a thing that hadn't been passed through a dozen self-contained censors. But she had ways of letting out her energy. One was in a sleepfield.

She was almost too much for him. On his home world, such cooperation and enthusiasm would have been unseemly. He was almost afraid of her independence, of having to satisfy both of them. Yet she didn't demand more than he could give. All in all, they matched each other rather well.

After they'd made love, he sat up in the sleepfield and folded his hands on his stomach. "I was raised on a pretty straight-laced world," he said.

"So was I—though my world was a ship."

"No, I mean where love is concerned."

"You've had some good teachers, wherever you came from," she said, smiling at him sleepily.

He stroked her shoulder and reached down to caress her breast. Her skin was soft, just taking on the matte texture that shows a woman is leaving girlhood behind. He found it much more attractive than the plastic tightness that usually brought approval.

"This means a great deal to me," he ventured. "Where I come from, we believe in commitments."

"Mm," she breathed, snuggling against him.

"I know it's a release . . . shared release of tensions." His words sounded incredibly inept to him. "And I don't think you're trying to win me over."

"Already have," she said under his arm.

He shook his head and said no more.

The Centrum team visited Nestor's lander the next day. Four men and six women ex officio Judges took the case under consideration after listening to the depositions. Half of the proceedings were held aboard the USC lander, and a tour of the Waunter vehicle was made as well. The Waunters watched without expression, grimly confident—it seemed to Elvox—that they had no case at all. True enough, the Centrum was seldom called in to intervene on the behalf of individuals, dealing instead with entities like USC or Nestor's far-flung operation.

The Waunters could not give up all hope, however. Alae prepared a deposition on her own, using what legal advice she could glean out of the lander's library. The Centrum took it under advisement.

Nestor—in the presence of the judges—behaved according to strict protocol. Elvox was an officer attached to United Stars, she was a representative of separate interests. They were cordial but aloof.

The next evening, however, he was again a friend and confidant. They ate a late snack and made love. Before sleep, he realized how beautiful she really was. He had thought of her as moderately attractive before, but when she laughed, she went right over the line into beauty. It was like watching a monument turn into a living woman.

As they ate breakfast in the lounge—alone, as if by assumption of the crew and Kawashita—he felt a moment of emotional vertigo. It was worse now. Not only did he not care about duty, he hardly cared about returning to United Stars. He chastised himself for thinking like an adolescent.

"I've been working for USC for seven years," he said.

"They must have gotten you young."

"Nineteen. How does that stack up against your crew, in terms of experience?"

She shrugged. "Depends on what you're an expert at."

"General ship work, I suppose. Command of equipment watches, sortie captain."

She cocked her head and looked at him. "Julio, you're not thinking of transferring, are you?"

He didn't know how to answer. "It crossed my mind," he said finally. "I've been comparing services. Your crew—"

"Works very hard," she threw in.

"Yes, but the work seems much more basic, important. In the action."

"We're both here. USC can't be that far away from the good stuff."

"And besides," he said, "you're here." He chuckled knowingly but watched her expression.

"Close to the action, as it were," she joked, eyes twinkling.

"Yes."

"Indeed I am. Some of my crew never see me for weeks at a stretch."

He felt like a fish being played on a line. Her words were double-edged. "I always honor my commitments," he said.

"Yes, I would think that."

"But a lateral transfer, with warning, is allowed in our contracts."

"I could offer you a post," Anna said. "The work's hard, but . . . I think you'd fit in."

He grinned broadly, caught himself, and felt his face flush. She laughed and patted him on the shoulder. "But I'm in command, and I'm not always reasonable. Sometimes I do monstrous, foul things—and make my officers drop years off their lifespans, right and left, like dandruff. You don't believe that, do you?" she asked, this time with a bite in her tone.

"I believe you can be tough," Elvox said.

"Tough is not the word," she said, looking away from him. Something seemed to cloud her expression. "We'll think about it."

In the days following, he realized that there were competent people, and there were masters. Nestor was a master at what she did. She wined and dined the Centrum lander crew—not so intimately as Elvox, and not beyond discretion—and got into their good graces. Because she was obviously staying neutral, they had no objection to her tutoring Kawashita, and Kawashita had no objection to almost anything she did. By being pleasant and cooperative, she got her way.

The judgment of majority ownership was made in the Centrum lander, with all parties attending. The lander lounge was turned into a small courtroom, and the ten judges opened their records of deliberation. Elvox almost felt sorry for the Waunters. They looked totally defeated as they read the judgment. Alae's face was grim as death. She took her copy of the proceedings and walked out of the ship with Oomalo close behind.

Even after the judgment, the Centrum work wasn't over. It took two weeks for Centrum satellites to thoroughly scan the planet. Percentages of ownership had to be established, and values assigned for taxation.

In that time, Elvox's confusion seemed to evaporate. His time with Anna was smooth and regular. His awe at her status became subdued.

The planet yielded almost nothing—and what it did yield was an insult. The ruins of a weather machine were discovered practically at antipodes to the dome. Like the simulacra and equipment in the dome, the machine had powdered to a sandy mix of minerals and metal traces. How such a small device could control the weather was impossible to tell, but nothing else was found, and the ruin's outlines were at least suggestive of its purpose—field vanes, seeder guns, and the like. They analyzed the marks that resembled roadbeds, and found they were geological. The planet was still mildly active. The concrete plains were already being re-formed. In a hundred million years all traces of the Perfidisians would be buried or ground to rubble. It would be no great loss.

Of the nothing that the Perfidisians had left behind, Kawashita was given a ninety-percent interest. The Waunters, because of the unusual circumstances, were given a ten-percent share. The planet itself was to be controlled by Kawashita, but of any profits he might make from its eventual sale or lease or other dealings, ten percent would go to the Waunters. The Waunters could orbit and land anywhere on the planet they wished, at any time, so long as they did not interfere with operations that Kawashita could profit from. And so on, and on . . . all the fine legal points established over centuries of planetfalls and millennia of property settlements.

In the final proceedings, Kawashita didn't seem the least disappointed that he wasn't going to be wealthy.

"Has the majority owner decided on a name for this world?" the first judge asked him.

"I have," Kawashita said. "It will be known as Yamato."

Anna had coached him on the presentation, and he performed flawlessly.

"And does this name have a meaning?"

"Yes, your honors. It is the old name for my native land, Japan."

"Well and good. This court has made its decisions, executed its responsibilities as arbiter and mediator, and any further judgments must be appealed to Centrum courts on Myriadne. These proceedings are at an end."

Four hours later, the Waunters returned to their old Aighor ship and broke orbit.

 

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Framed