“Yes, Gran Masha,” they said meekly. But Dee had readily discovered the meaning of the odd word from overtones of the professor’s thoughts: thrawn meant “unpleasant” or “misshapen.” Grandad had intended both terms to apply to Daddy’s house manager, and Dee felt a slight shiver of apprehension. In her concern about her father, Dee had never considered what the other people living on the farm might be like. Not only Janet, whom Grandad made fun of because he was a little afraid of her, but also the other farm workers and the three nonborn children Daddy had taken as fosterlings when Mummie left him and took her and Kenny away. Gran had willingly explained the Caledonian custom of fosterage on the starship. But she had changed the subject when Dee wanted to know what a nonborn was, and the professor’s associated thought-image was so complex that Dee had been unable to understand it. Kenny hadn’t the foggiest, either, but he pretended he did and declared that a nonborn was some kind of orphan. Dee knew there was more to it than that, but there was no such entry in the Drumadoon Bay’s library and so her curiosity had remained unsatisfied.
The egg reached the cloud deck, decelerated, and began a long, slow, 180-degree turn through thick clouds. Eventually they emerged into a clear zone of gray twilight and saw the northern end of Beinn Bhiorach spread out below. The Porsche continued to descend at greatly reduced speed, flying now on a southerly course down a huge fjord with steep walls of dark rock interrupted here and there by scree slopes or canyons. Dee knew from her studies of the egg’s map-displays that it was Loch Tuath. Snow-tipped peaks and sawtooth ridges rose on either side and the calm black water was dotted with picturesque wooded islets and rocks. Kyle pointed out the massive extinct volcano called An Teallach that loomed 50 kloms to the east, its summit hidden in the clouds.
At the head of the sea-loch the land opened out and became somewhat less precipitous and barren. A medium-sized riverbed, clogged with boulders and having very little water in it at this time of year, ran through the valley. To the left of its mouth was a small cove with a dock where two cabin runabouts were tied up. A dirt road led up the left bank. Further to the east was a snug portable cabin set up next to an excavation among the rocks. Lamplight shone from the plass dwelling’s windows. A Range Rover, a hop-lorry, and several large pieces of equipment covered with tarpaulins stood beside it.
“Those are the fossil-diggers,” Kyle said to Masha. “Salvage archaeologists named Logan and Majewski from the Old World. They’ve been working there nearly half a year. Ian plans to level that area eventually for a new warehouse, and by law the fossickers have to pick it over first so that nothing of scientific interest is lost or destroyed. We must invite ourselves to a nosh-up at their place while you’re here, Maire a ghràidh, for they’ve got the only supply of decent plonk on this end of Beinn Bhiorach—and the Logan woman makes barbecued ribs to die for.”
The course of the river up the glen into the misty southern highlands was marked by bordering stands of the multicolored coleus trees, already beginning to shed their leaves at this far northern latitude. The farm fields, completely enclosed in repellor-fencing, began about three kloms upstream from the sea-loch where a small bridge crossed the river. On both banks were pastures of proper green grass that gave way to rock or moorland as the terrain rose. A double-rut track zigzagged away westward into the Daoimean Mountains, leading to the mines. Little red West Highland cattle as shaggy as yaks grazed in one meadow and a herd of black miniature horses dotted another. Sheep wandered the stonier uplands. A flight of white birdlike creatures soared below the slowly drifting egg, heading north toward the open sea.
Ian Macdonald’s establishment consisted of more than a dozen sturdy buildings, all with steep, silver-striped black roofs that would heat up to melt winter snow or ice. The elegant gabled farmhouse that Viola Strachan had designed stood on a rise surrounded by rock gardens and genuine gnarled Scots pines. The house was painted light Wedgwood blue picked out with white and was discreetly crowned with two satellite dishes, a navigation dome, and a podded device that looked for all the world like a small laser cannon. At the foot of the knoll lay an unusually large egg-pad with two rhocraft parked in front of an open hangar. Across the landing area from the house was an important-looking barnlike structure. Steam vented in a thin plume from machinery at the rear of it.
“That’s the primary processing factory for the airplants,” the writer said. “Mostly automated. Over there’s the main stock barn, a warehouse, and a combination pub and general store that Janet operates for the sake of the workers and the occasional drop-in patron. Nearer the river are three cottages for the farmhands and their families, who usually move into apartments in Muckle Skerry when fast winter sets in up here. The other buildings are the implement shed, the repair shop, and the utility-powerhouse.”
“Kyle, some sort of very odd aircraft are coming.” Gran Masha was gazing intently up the valley, obviously exerting her farsight. “A large yellow one and four smaller ones of different colors. They’re flying very slowly. I’ve never seen anything quite like them.”
“Flitters,” he said, tapping away at the pads of the console viewer, “more formally known as aerostatic harvesters.”
A close-up of the parade of flying machines appeared on the viewscreen and the children leaned forward eagerly to look. The craft were shaped like fat wedges of cheese with blunt, bullet-shaped fuselages suspended beneath.
“The top part of the flitter is a rigid hydrogen balloon with inflatable external storage compartments for the airplant harvest,” Kyle went on. “The operator rides in an enclosed cockpit below, but he sometimes has to climb outside in mid-air to fix things that go wrong with the pumps up in the balloon that slurp the floating plants. The fairy-critters clog the intake all the time, even though the farmer zaps as many of them as he can with thread-beam lasers, and once in a while the harvester sucks up a certain kind of really bad plant that can drill holes in the thin walls of the storage cells and let the other plants escape. Och, airfarming isn’t a job for the fainthearted.”
“Now I can see the flitters coming!” Ken said. “Does Daddy fly the big yellow one?”
“Not usually,” his grandfather said. “It’s slow and clumsy and usually acts as a storage dump for the others at the same time it chugs along harvesting. Your Dad usually drives the silver jobbie. It’s so maneuverable that the wee things have a hard time escaping it. The three other flitters belong to the hired hands.”
“Are flitters rhocraft?”
“No, lad. There’s some technical reason why even sigma-shielded rhocraft can’t be used to harvest airplants. The flitters maneuver by means of high-compression air jets, but the machines are held up by hydrogen in the balloon section. Your Dad knows more about how they work than I do.”
The Porsche egg flew slower and slower, until it hovered motionless 200 meters above the farm. Kyle explained that the loaded flitters had priority to land first, then NAVCON would let their egg come down. The aerostats arrived in a stately train: yellow, red, blue, and Ancient Gordon tartan, with the silver flitter bringing up the rear. They landed neatly in a row with their noses at a white line drawn on the tarmac in front of the factory. Two people emerged from the building to meet the harvesters. Through the egg’s panel viewer Dee watched a man and a woman in coveralls pull corrugated tubes from small hatches in the pavement and begin attaching them to the superstructures of the aircraft.
“Unloading the skyweeds,” Kyle explained. “Have to sip ’em out very, very gently or they—hah! Now it’s finally our turn.”
Their egg descended sedately under control of the farm navigation system. It landed more than a hundred meters away from the five flitters on the opposite side of the pad, not far from a flight of wide, shallow steps that led up to the house on the knoll.
Dee climbed out stiffly with the others. It was cool and very quiet, with a light breeze blowing from the direction of the southern mountains. An unfamiliar, faintly musky scent mingled with the smell of pines and the h
eated patches of asphalt beneath the egg’s unshielded landing-gear soles.
So this was her Daddy’s farm! From the ground, many of the outbuildings were partially screened by trees and colorful bushes. The rock garden forming the house knoll was planted with what Dee recognized as familiar fall flowers from Earth—purple asters, gold and white and ruby chrysanthemums, dahlias in every hue imaginable.
Suddenly an unobtrusive metal door set into the hillside whisked open. Out stepped a young woman with a hard-favored face and ginger hair cut in a short bob. She wore a blue denim skirt and jacket, a tartan shirt, a beautiful silver necklace studded with turquoises, and cowboy boots. A cream-colored Skye terrier at her side broke into a bouncy run, yapping with shrill ferocity as it charged the visitors. The woman put two fingers to her mouth and emitted a piercing whistle. The long-haired little dog skidded to a halt. “Sit!” the woman commanded. “Stay, you goldarn mutt.”
“Citizen Janet Finlay was originally from Arizona,” Kyle whispered to the children. He sidestepped the growling terrier, hauled off his cap, and flourished it in a sweeping bow. “As radiant and charming as ever, Janet m’annsachd! And how about a big wet smùrach for the auld pòitear?”
The domestic manager strode on past him without a word and extended her hand to Gran Masha. “How do, Professor MacGregor-Gawrys. I’m Janet Finlay. Welcome to Caledonia and Glen Tuath Farm.” As the two women shook hands, Janet’s narrowing gaze swept over Masha’s fashionable outfit. Her subvocal disapproval was perceptible to both Dee and the professor.
“We’re happy to be here at long last,” Masha said in a neutral tone. “Let me introduce Kenneth and Dorothea.”
Thrawn Janet smiled thinly. “Hi there, Kenny. Hi, Doro.” She gestured to the dog. “That there’s Tucson. He’s got a fancy-schmancy Scotch pedigree name I forgot soon’s I got him. Better not pet him till he gets to know you, less’n you don’t value your fingerbones.”
The children nodded mutely.
“You kids must be tuckered out and starving,” she went on. “There’s a mole-car just inside that door that’ll take us through the burrows to the main house’s elevator. The burrows are what we call the tunnel system we use for transporting supplies and for getting around the farm in really bad weather.” She gave a grim little chuckle. “You’ll find that winter here’s a whole lot tougher than it was back on Earth in dear ole Edin-berg.”
Dee and Ken gave gasps of dismay. With a sweet smile, Gran Masha corrected the manager’s mispronunciation.
“Why, thanks all t’hell, perfessor! I ’preciate that.” Janet was almost gleeful. “It’ll be a real treat having somebody fresh from Scotland clearing up my ethnic boo-boos. They like t’drive ole Ian off his nut. A lot of Callies are like me—enough Scotch genes to qualify for emigration here, but five, six generations removed from life among the bagpipe tootlers. Too bad you’re not staying longer. You could prob’ly teach me a whole lot.”
“I may,” said Gran Masha casually, “stay a bit longer than I had originally intended. Just to make absolutely certain that the environment is congenial to the children.”
“Swell! We’ll find a way to put you to work.” Janet’s daunting gaze flicked to Dee and Ken, who had continued to stare at her in frozen fascination. “And you li’l ankle-biters’ll earn your keep, too, after we fatten you up a tad. Count on it! Now let’s get up to the big house. Ellen and Hugh’ll bring along your bags and traps later.”
Dee said in a small, clear voice, “I’d really rather go meet my Daddy first.”
“He’s busy. He’ll be along when he figgers up the day’s take. You can see him at supper.” Janet turned away abruptly and headed for the door in the hillside. A snap of her fingers brought Tucson the terrier to heel. Dee heard the manager’s subvocal grumble: Homely as a mud fence and sassy too! That little brat better learn to do what she’s told.
Wordlessly, Dee lifted her eyes in appeal to her grandfather, who had been standing with his hands thrust into his pockets, glowering. The writer perked up. There was a sly grin on his face as he seized both children by the hand.
“Còir càir e!” he said. “To think Ian would be too busy to see his own bairns! Havers! It’ll be a grand surprise.” Leaving Janet and Gran Masha standing there, he hauled Dee and Ken off across the tarmac at a brisk canter. But after they had gone only a few dozen meters, Kyle pulled up, winded. “Don’t wait for me!” he wheezed. “Run on ahead!”
Dee shrieked with delight and went dashing away, outdistancing her less sturdy brother easily. Ken soon gave up the race and dropped back to join his grandfather, but Dee rushed on, heading straight for the five parked aerostats. They were much bigger than they had seemed from the far side of the landing field. Even the small ones were more than twice the height of an egg, and in the gathering dusk they looked more like otherworldly animals come to their night roost than flying machines.
The two coveralled ground crewmen were talking to four other people who wore half-unzipped flight suits and carried bulky helmets under their arms. They all grinned when little Dee came running up. Suddenly seized by shyness, the girl found herself unable to speak. But the workers knew who she was, all right.
A woman pilot pointed to the silver aircraft. “Your Dad’s still inside his flitter, sweetheart. Just go knock on his boarding ladder and he’ll come down in a jif.”
“Zonked out after a killer day,” another pilot said, laughing. “Or maybe he’s just floating on cloud nine because he finally figured out how rich he’s gonna be when we get this humongous crop of screw-weed tallied and shipped.”
Dee managed to thank them and scurried away. The aircraft were still tethered to the exsufflation hoses that gently sucked out their fragile cargo. A soft humming sound came from invisible machinery and the musky odor was stronger. The silver flitter was the last in line. A dim greenish radiance illuminated its cockpit, which was still covered by a transparent canopy. Like the others, her father’s aerostat rested on retractable jointed legs similar to those of an egg. A plass ladder had been extended down to the tarmac from the left side of the fuselage.
Dee could see a figure sitting inside, but it looked scarcely human, for its face was hidden behind a shiny lowered helmet visor and a strange mask. Was it really Daddy? Carefully, she reached out to touch the pilot’s mind.
Tired … tired enough to die.
For the briefest instant she perceived his outermost layers of thought—the harvest of airplants; a vast burden of physical exhaustion shot through with flashes of pain like a dark cloud stabbed by lightning; and below that the hint of an enormous, all-consuming sorrow that she could not understand and flinched away from examining any closer.
Poor Daddy! He had been working so very hard, thinking of nothing but gathering up the precious, unexpected masses of plants, working night and day almost without a break. His subliminal thoughts revealed to Dee that the arduous job was finally done. Harvest season was over, and tonight shifting winds would scatter the airborne treasure; but Glen Tuath Farm, after tottering for years on the brink of ruin, had been saved. As for Ian Macdonald, he was home with his crew and he could shed his responsibilities at last. What he wanted most of all was to go to sleep.
Escaping it all—including the greater pain that had nothing to do with his weary body.
Dee felt a pulse of dread lance through her. If the farm had been saved, then why was Daddy still so unhappy? Was it because she had come? She knew that her father’s deeper, secret thoughts probably held the answer, but she shrank from looking any further into his mind. She could not bear to learn the truth about his feelings for her before even seeing his face.
Hesitantly, she rapped on the plass ladder. The masked figure did not move.
“Daddy?” she called. “It’s me. Dorothea.”
For a little while nothing happened. Then, just as she lifted her hand to knock again, the cockpit canopy slid back. The green light inside was extinguished and the masked man climbed out very slowly and
began to descend.
She backed away apprehensively as he reached the ground and turned to look at her there in the twilight, slowly removing his gloves.
“Daddy?” she whispered.
His flight suit was silvery like the ship, fitting his body tightly, having elaborate ridged and corded patterns like an insect’s armor. He had lifted the reflective visor of his complicated helmet, but the lower part of his face remained concealed behind a silver oxygen mask. His eyes were hazel like Dee’s own, bleared by fatigue and deeply creased at the corners. When his hands were finally free of the gloves he clipped them to his belt, then unfastened one side of the mask and slipped off the helmet and its self-contained breathing apparatus, setting it on one of the ladder steps. His hair was damp and plastered to his head. A thin bruise ran across his upper cheeks and nose where the mask had pressed into his flesh during long hours working high in the air. He had a dark stubble of beard and dry, cracked lips.
Was he really the father she could not remember, the handsome young man in the old photo, the furious, heroic protector whom she had seen so briefly on the subspace communicator in the Islay police station back on Earth?
He stared at her, unsmiling. As the silence lengthened between them Dee’s throat tightened. She tried to speak again but apprehension had rendered her mute. Sudden tears transformed the motionless tall figure to a dim blur.
Daddy? Are you—
Oh, no! She must never use farspeech, just as she must not try to read his private thoughts! She must be careful to give no hint of what she was, must try to be the kind of daughter he would find lovable—a child who was quiet, useful, obedient, and uncomplaining. She blinked away the tears and tried to smile, seeing his careworn face clearly again in the dusk.
He was hurting so much inside. Poor Daddy.
The urge to share her healing redaction with him, to really know him, suddenly became irresistible to Dee. She had to find out whether this man could love her, no matter what price she paid.