"Okay, this is it. No change from plan; play it as briefed. Open her up, pilot."
The outer door of the bus slid into its recess and a short metal stairway unfolded onto the platform. Storrel moved forward to stand framed in the entrance for a second, then disappeared slowly outside. The UNSA officer who was to be second, already waiting at the inner door, followed him while, farther back in the cabin, Hunt took his place in the slowly shuffling line.
Hunt's impression as he emerged was one of a vastness of space that had not been apparent from inside the bus; it was like walking suddenly out of a side chapel and into the nave of a cathedral.
Not that he found himself surrounded by a large unused area--this was, after all, a spacecraft--but beyond the tail assembly of the Shapieron's daughter ship, now seen as a sweeping, metaffic, geometrical sculpture above their heads, the perspective lines of the docking bay's interior converged in the distance to add true proportion to the astronautic wonder in which they were now standing.
But these were just sensations that flitted across the background of Hunt's perceptions. Before him, history was being made: the first face-to-face meeting between Man and an intelligent, alien species was taking place. Storrel and the two officers were standing slightly in front of the rest of the party, who had formed into a single rank; just a few feet away, facing Storrel, stood what appeared to be the leader of the Ganymean reception committee and, behind him, his four companions.
Their skins were light gray and appeared somewhat coarse compared to that of humans. All five displayed dense hair covering their heads and hanging to their shoulders though there was no hint of any facial growth. On three of them, including the leader, the hair was jet black; one of the others had gray, almost white, hair while the fifth's was a very dark coppery hue, enhancing the subtle reddish tint of his complexion.
Their clothes were a mixture of colors and shared nothing in common except a basic style, which was that of a simple, loosefitting, shirtlike garment worn with plain trousers gathered into some kind of band at the ankle; there was certainly no suggestion of any sort of uniform. All were wearing glossy, thick-soled boots, again in various colors, and some had ornate belts around their waists. In addition, each sported a thin, gold headband supporting what looked like a disk-shaped jewel in the center of his forehead and wore a flat, silver box, at a distance not unlike a cigarette case, on a metallic wrist bracelet. There was nothing to distinguish the leader visually.
For a few momentous seconds the two groups faced each other in silence. In the doorway behind the Earthmen, the copilot of the bus was recording the scene for posterity, using a hand camera. Then the Ganymean leader moved forward a pace and made the same head-inclining gesture they had seen earlier on the screen in Jupiter Five. Wary of anything that might unwittingly give offense, Storrel replied with a crisp, regulation UNSA salute. To the delight of the Earthmen, all five Ganymeans promptly copied him, though with a trace of uncertainty and an appalling lack of timing that would have brought tears to the eyes of a UNSA drill sergeant.
Slowly and haltingly, the Ganymean leader spoke. "I am Mel-thur. Good af-ter-noon."
That simple statement would go down among history's immortal moments. Later it became a standard joke, shared equally by Earthmen and Ganymeans alike. The voice was deep and gravelly, nothing like that of the interpreter who had spoken previously via the egg; in the latter case, the diction, and even the accent, had been flawless. Evidently this was not the interpreter; it made the fact that he had taken the trouble to offer an opening greeting in the native tongue of his guests an even nicer gesture.
Melthur went on to deliver a brief recitation in his own language while the visitors listened respectfully. Then it was Storrel's turn. All the way over from J5 he had been anticipating and dreading this moment, wishing that there was something in the UNSA training manuals to cover a situation like this. After all, weren't mission planners paid to exhibit a modicum of foresight? He straightened up and delivered the short speech that he had mentally prepared, hoping that the historians of years to come would be lenient in their judgment and appreciative of the circumstances.
"Fellow travelers and neighbors, greetings from the people of Planet Earth. We come in peace and in a spirit of friendship to all beings. May this meeting prove to be the beginning of a long and lasting coexistence between our races, and from it may there grow a mutual understanding and an accord that will benefit both our kinds. Henceforth let Ganymeans and Earthmen together continue to expand that common frontier of knowledge that has brought them both away from their worlds and into this universal realm that belongs to all worlds."
The Ganymeans in their turn showed respect by remaining motionless and silent for a few seconds after Storrel had finished. Then, the formalities over, the leader beckoned to them to follow and turned back toward the door through which he and his companions had appeared. Two of the other Ganymeans followed him to lead the party of Earthmen, and the remaining pair fell in behind.
They proceeded along a broad, white-walled corridor onto which many doors opened from both sides. Every place was brilliantly lit by a uniform diffuse glow that seemed to emanate from every part of the ceiling and from many of the panels that made up the walls. The floor was soft and yielding beneath their feet and made no sound. The air was cold.
Along the way, groups and small lines of Ganymeans had gathered to watch the procession. Most of them were as tall as those who had met the bus, but several were much smaller and looked more delicate in build and complexion; they appeared to be children at various stages of growth. The variations in clothing on the bystanders was even more pronounced than before, but everyone was wearing the same type of jeweled headband and wrist unit. Hunt began to suspect that these served more than purely decorative purposes. Many of the clothes showed signs of wear and general deterioration, contributing to the overall atmosphere of weariness and demoralization that he sensed on every side. The walls and doors bore scars that had been left by countless scrapings of passing objects; away from the walls the floors had been worn thin by feet that had passed to and fro for longer than he could imagine; and the sagging postures of some of the figures, several of them being supported by companions, told their own story.
The corridor was quite short and brought them to a second, slightly wider one that ran transversely; this second corridor curved away from them to left and right and seemed to be part of a continuous circular thoroughfare that encompassed the core of the vessel. Immediately in front of them, in the curving wall that formed the outer shell of the core, was a large open door. The Ganymeans ushered them through into the bare circular room beyond--it was about twenty feet in diameter--and the door slid silently shut. A vague whine of unseen machinery issued from an unidentifiable source and meaningless symbols flashed on and off on a panel set into the wall near the door. Hunt guessed after a few seconds that they were inside a large elevator that moved along a shaft contained within the ship's core. There had been no sensation of acceleration whatsoever--another example, perhaps, of the Ganymean mastery of gravitic engineering.
They emerged from the elevator and crossed another circular corridor to pass through what seemed to be a control or instrumentation room; on both sides of the central throughway the walls were lined with console stations, indicator panels and displays, and Ganymeans were seated at a number of the positions. The general lines of the room were cleaner and less cluttered than those aboard UNSA vessels. The instruments and equipment seemed to be integrated into the decor rather than added afterward. At least as much thought had been devoted to aesthetics as to function. The color scheme, a subtle balance of yellows, oranges and greens, formed a single, organic, curviform design that flowed from end to end of the room, making it as much an object for appreciative contemplation as an operational part of the Shapieron. By comparison the command center of Jupiter Five seemed stark and utilitarian.