Precursor by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online Page B

wing. Bren recognized the route, had absolutely no question they were on it, finally in it, and safe, at least in that regard.
    The van leveled out, pulling to a halt with a low-tech complaint of over-burdened brakes. A thump sounded at the side of the van, someone hitting the doors, and a warning horn sounded outside.
    Banichi and Jago left their seats, opened the doors in response to the signal from outside, and let them out into the dimly lighted concrete tunnel of the center. The white-and-black baji-naji emblem was conspicuous on the metal doors that faced them.
    It was the emblem of Fortune and Chance, those governors of all cast lots, appropriate symbol for the shuttle as it was historically appropriate for the halls of government.
    Nothing about the opening vista offended the eye. The columns that supported the roof were felicitously grouped. Atevi would be comfortable with all that met them, though the guests were doubtless oblivious to that felicity, even the two from the FO. It was concrete, black and white and gray, full of shadows and echoes… but it opened onto a table with a black vase, white flowers, a single, rising strand of blooms. It was a statement: felicity, ascent, under a stark white arch.
    Banichi led the way up to the platform, stood at attention as an inner security door admitted them all at once to warmer, more decorated hallways.
    Now, now it was the human reception area. The lowering of tension was palpable as his human companions met the soft brightness of the lights, the subtle pastels—felicitous colors to atevi, to be sure, soft green and blue, both quiet nature colors: that was what the human heart wanted. He and Jase together had picked out this scheme for the human comfort zone and approved it… he and Jase had planned this, as they’d planned everything about the center. They’d ordered human-scale furniture from Mospheira, and they’d translated the shuttle specs, a mammoth undertaking.
    They’d defused the atevi resentments of the two-doored shuttle design, they’d found compromises… they’d ended up with three hatches on the shuttle, and atevi, who’d dug in their heels for decades—fighting every advance Tabini-aiji tried to bring them—had gathered enthusiasm for the most incredible advance of all.
    For three years a handful of atevi engineers, he and Jase and to a certain extent, Yolanda Mercheson, with their respective staffs, had shared every breath, lived and breathed the shuttle, the space center, the program.
    “Nice,” Lund said of the decor.
    Bren took a breath. Let it out slowly. Lund meant a compliment. He and Jase had
hoped
for just such ease in humans when they came to these rooms. Cope hadn’t even said that much when he’d come down four weeks ago, yet Cope had lived those four weeks almost exclusively in these rooms because he’d had motion sickness
only
when he’d left this facility… had had it all the way across the strait at night on the plane, had had it in his new residence on Mospheira, probably would have it in his new offices, give or take the drugs that held it at bay, and despite his suggestions to State to try to limit Cope’s exposure to changing light conditions and contrasts and open horizons.
    He’d grown sensitive to such details, thanks to Jase. Irregularities in lighting were an indication of failing systems, to a ship-born human… large spaces were a particular fear, or so Jason had explained to him: a sensible fear of impact.
    Make the corridors interrupted with cross-corridors and nooks that could be a refuge in acceleration: the center did that. Zero chance the space center would ever accelerate, but small chance that blue that comforted Lund and his friends was sky, either. It was something to do with hindbrain and childhood security, he supposed, not intellect.
    So Lund liked the decor… didn’t apparently notice that there were no steps to make humans labor or to trip up atevi strides. Elevators handled all level