The Garments of Caean

She arrested her train of thought. The space-clad Caeanic spoke again. ‘Take the view that you are making a diplomatic call, even a social call. Those are my instructions.’

‘And afterwards will we be permitted to return to Ziode?’ Amara asked coldly.

Captain Grieuard shrugged.

She took Captain Wilce to one side. ‘A tactfully put piece of coercion, Captain. Still, not quite what we had expected. Are you coming with us?’

‘In the present circumstances my duty is to stay with my ship. If they’ll agree to it I’ll send Second Officer Borg instead.’

‘All right. But what happens if they don’t let us back on board?’

‘Let’s be realistic, Amara. We always knew this might happen. We are entirely in their hands. Just see what pressure you can exert on whoever it is you’ll be seeing.’

‘Perhaps they won’t be eager to make too much of the incident, after all.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

Grieuard affected uninterest when Wilce offered Borg in place of himself. ‘It is a matter of choice on your part, Captain, though my principals would certainly be displeased not to receive Madam Corl. Frankly I am more concerned that we should not keep our dignitaries waiting any longer than we must. Perhaps we could now debouch? …’ He made an elaborate gesture that was almost gallant in its insistence.

A few minutes later Amara, for the first time in her life, breathed the air of a Caeanic planet.

While they had been negotiating, a traction platform had quietly moved the Callan away from its point of touch-down. By the time the seven-strong party emerged from the main port it had been deposited amid a complex of graceful buildings, and nestled among them so neatly as to seem to be one of them.

Amara took a deep breath, inhaling the warm scents of a summery afternoon.

Before them, somewhat below the level of the platform extruded by the port, stretched a pleasant esplanade on which had gathered a small crowd. Her first impression was of a fancy dress ball, all dazzling colour and finery.

Then she seemed to suffer a momentary paramnesia. The esplanade became a stage. On it, standing motionless and frozen, the figures in the crowd were no longer recognizably human, but were transformed into archetypal caricatures, primeval and menacing.

The dream-like experience passed. To clear her brain she shook her head, telling herself that the paramnesia must have been brought on by stress.

The crowd was waving and gesticulating. A cry went up. There was jeering, or cheering, she could not tell which. But Second Officer Borg had few doubts, and looked grim.

‘It looks as if we’re in for a rough time, madam,’ he murmured.

Amara frowned with discomfiture, trying to assess the crowd’s costume for herself from her somewhat inadequate knowledge. The gathering’s adornment could fairly be called sumptuous even by Caeanic standards, she hazarded. Nearly all present were of high rank, or at any rate prestige.

Captain Grieuard urged them down the ramp to meet two men of mature years who stepped from the crowd to meet them. The apparel of one of them was enormously self-assertive: a blazing-hued panoply, flounced, scalloped and bombasted, with flying lappets of lucent fabric so that to the observer’s fancy the wearer seemed to be throwing off fiery splashes of verve and energy; spurting feathery jets of panache. There was enough ostentation, enough magnificence, clearly to denote a man of leadership. And there was more than enough wildness to suggest that he was not bound by rules of convention.

Keeping a step to the rear, the second of the two was of a different style. He wore a variant of the diask known as the grid, exemplifying rectitude and dependable rigidity. Amara peered closely at both faces, hoping to see the look of passive, stylized consciousness a Ziodean automatically expected of a Caeanic. For a fleeting instant she thought she discerned it; but confessed that the impression was probably due to imagination. Far from appearing robotic, the faces confronting her were disconcertingly natural and individualistic.

Captain Grieuard made introductions: Abrazhne Caldersk, Director of Harmonic Relations; and – wearing the grid – Svete Trupp, his Foil (the title baffled Amara; she could not tell if Trupp were merely some kind of servant or private secretary, or himself an official of high rank).

Warmly Caldersk shook hands all round. ‘This is a splendid occasion!’ he exclaimed in a vigorous voice, speaking his native Caeanic. ‘It is not every day that we receive distinguished visitors from Ziode!’

Estru and Borg looked at him sourly. But Amara’s reaction was much more positive. She giggled, glancing again at Caldersk’s extraordinary features, and even the handsome space officer Captain Grieuard faded into nonexistence in her mind.

Her male companions aboard the Callan had been a dour lot. Caldersk was going to be entertaining, she promised herself.