83
serving table toward the short end of the hall. The servant was still smirking, grinning openly finally, as Zebara led her through a double doorway into a wide, carpeted passage. Here the crush was less, but still heavyworlder men and women walked by in both directions.
“Restrooms,” said Zebara, still holding her wrist and leading her right along a side corridor, then left along another. He opened a door, and pulled Lunzie into a room lined with glass-fronted shelves. Broad, heavy couches clustered around a massive glass-topped table. “Here! Sit down and we’ll have a chat.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Lunzie began, as Zebara turned to look around the room, his eyelids drooping. He waved a hand, which she took as a signal for silence.
The couch was too deep for her comfort; her feet did not reach the floor if she relaxed against the backrest. She felt like a child in an adult’s room. Zebara walked around the room slowly, obviously intent on something Lunzie could neither see nor hear. She could not relax while he was so tense. Finally he sighed, shrugged, and came to sit beside her.
“We must take the chance. If anyone comes, Lunzie, pretend to be struggling with me. They’ll understand that. They know I was fond of you, that I considered you a ‘pet’ lightweight. That is their term for it.
“But ...”
“Don’t argue that with me. We haven’t time.” He kept scanning the room. This close, Lunzie could recognize the slight tremor that age had imposed on him; she grieved for the man he had been. “I know about Ireta, though I didn’t know beforehand, and couldn’t have stopped it anyway. Please believe that.”
“I do, of course. You aren’t the kind ...”
“I don’t know what land I am any more.” That stopped her cold, not only the words but the deadly quiet tone of voice. “I am a heavyworlder, I am dying. Yes, within the year, they tell me, and nothing to be done. I’ve been luckier than most. My children and grandchildren are heavyworlders, who face the same constraints I do.
.; So while I agree that mutiny is wrong, and piracy is wrong, that we must not make enemies of all you
· lightweights, I wish the Federation would face facts about us. We are not dumb animals, just as you say that the subhuman animals that all once ate are not ‘dumb animals.’ How can I convince my children that they should watch their children starve, just to preserve the sensitivities, the ‘philosophical viewpoint’ of those who don’t need meat but do want our strength to serve them?”
Shaken, Lunzie could only stare at him. She had been so sure, for so long, that Zebara was the best example of a good heavyworlder: trustworthy, idealistic, selfless. Had she been wrong?
v “You didn’t mistake me,” Zebara said, as if she’d
· >’:. spoken aloud. Was her expression that obvious? But he I wasn’t really looking at her; he was staring across the t.: room. “Back then, I was what you saw. I tried! You | can’t know how hard, to change others to my view-^ point. But you don’t know what else I’ve seen since,
#. while you were sleeping the years away. I don’t want 1 war, Lunzie, as much because my people would lose it |-;_ as because I think it is wrong.” He sighed, heavily, and < patted her arm as a grandfather might pat a child. “And ^ I don’t like being that way. I don’t like thinking that
*’ way.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lunzie. It was all she could think of.
•\ She had trusted Zebara; he had been a good man. If something had changed him, it must have been a powerful force. She let herself think it might have convinced her if she’d been exposed to it.
“No, I’m sorry,” said Zebara, smiling directly at her Again. “I often wished to talk with you, share my feelings. You would have understood and helped me stay .true to my ideals. So here I’ve poisoned our meeting, a
•,;•.; meeting I dreamed of, with my doubts and senile fears, Mid you’re sitting there vibrating like a harpstring, afraid ^ of me. And no wonder. I always knew you were a brave woman, but to come to Diplo when you’d had such III vicious treatment from heavyworlders? That’s incredi-fe, Lunzie.”
84