Entoverse

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The others had gone to take care of various chores, leaving Hunt and Gina together at the dinner table. They had all agreed to meet later in the mess area for a nightcap-or two, or maybe several.

Gina stared down at her coffee cup and unconsciously traced a question mark lightly on the tabletop with her finger. “Is it true that some of the animals on Jevlen have an uncanny resemblance to ones found in Earth’s mythology?” she asked after a long silence.

Hunt had been watching her, thinking to himself that she was the most refreshing personality he had encountered in a long time. It wasn’t just that she was curious about everything, which was an attraction in itself, and that she took the trouble to find out something about the things that intrigued her; she did it without making an attention-getting display of it, or taking it to the point of where it started to get tedious. Her judgment in knowing how far to go was just right, which was one of the first things in making people attractive to be around. In the course of the meal she had won the company’s acceptance by refraining from thrusting herself on them, listening to Danchekker’s expositions without pandering like a student, putting Duncan at ease by not flaunting her femininity, and avoiding triggering rivalry vibes from Sandy. In fact, she and Sandy had gotten along instantly, like sisters.

“Do you know, you’ve never come back with a line that I expected, yet,” Hunt replied.

“Seriously, I read about it somewhere. There’s a kind of horned wolf with talons that’s exactly like the Slavonic ‘kikimora.’ Another has parts of what look like a lion, a peacock, and a dog, just like the ‘simurgh’ of Iran. And would you believe a plumed, goggle-eyed reptile, practically identical to all those Mexican carvings?”

“Roman Catholicism became a symbol of Irish nationalism. What Saint Patrick brought was Christianity.”

“You mean the original?”

“Something a lot closer to it, anyhow. And it flourished because it fitted with the ways of the native culture. It spread from there through Scotland and England into northern Europe. But then it collided with the institutionalized Jevlenese counterfeit being pushed northward, and it was destroyed. The first papal mission didn’t reach England until a hundred sixty-five years after Patrick died.”

“How do you know all this?”

“My mother’s side of the family comes from Wexford. I go there for vacations and lived there for a while once.”

“When did Patrick die?” Hunt asked, realizing that he really, had no idea.

“In the fifth century. He was probably born in Wales and carried across by pirates.”

“So we’re talking about a long time before that, then.”

“Oh yes. In terms of literature and learning, they were unsurpassed anywhere in Western Europe long before Caesar crossed the Channel.”

“Let me see, every English schoolboy knows that. Fifty-five B.C., yes?”

“Right. Their race was unique, descended from a mixture of Celts and a pre-Celtic stock from the eastern Mediterranean.” Gina stared across the room and smiled to herself. “It wasn’t at all the kind of repressive thing that people were conditioned to think of later, you know. It was a very earthy, zestful, life-loving culture.”

“In what kind of way?” Hunt asked.

“The way women were treated, for a start. They were completely equal, with full rights of property-unusual in itself, for the times. Sex was considered a healthy and enjoyable part of life, the way it ought to be. Nobody connected it with sinning.”

“The real life of Riley, eh?” Hunt commented.

“They had an easygoing attitude to all personal relations. Polygamy was fairly normal. And then, so was polyandry. So you could have a string of wives, but each of them might have several husbands. But if a particular match didn’t work out, it was easy to dissolve. You just went to a holy place, stood back-to-back, said the right words, and walked ten paces. So children weren’t emotionally crippled by having to grow up with two people hating each other in a self-imposed prison; but if the marriage didn’t work out, they weren’t traumatized, either, because they had so many other anchor points among this network of people who liked each other.”

“It all sounds very civilized to me,” Hunt said.

“And that was where early Christianity hung on,” Gina said again. “So maybe it gives us an idea of what it really had to say.”

Hunt watched the faraway expression on Gina’s face for a few seconds, then grinned impudently. “Oh, I can see where you’re coming from,” he teased. “It’s nothing to do with humanist philosophies at all. You just like the thought of having a string of men to pick from.”

“Well, why should men have all the fun?” she retorted, refusing to be put on the defensive.

“Ahah! The real Gina emerges.”

“I’m merely stating a principle.”

“What’s wrong with it? Don’t women fantasize?”

“Of course they do.” She caught the look in his eye and smiled impishly. “And yes, who knows? Maybe one day if you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”

Hunt laughed and picked up his coffee cup. He finished the contents and allowed the silence to draw a curtain across the subject. “How are we doing for time?” he asked, setting the cup down. “Will any of the others be in the bar yet?”

Gina glanced at her watch. “It’s a bit early. What else is there to see of the ship?”

“Oh, I think I’ve had it with being dragged around for one day. You know, I really do make a lousy tourist.”

“That’s too bad. I can’t wait to see Jevlen. Just imagine, a real, actual, alien planet. And we’ll be there tomorrow. I still haven’t really gotten over all this.”

Hunt looked at her thoughtfully. “Maybe we don’t have to keep you waiting that long,” he said.

Gina looked puzzled. “Why? What are you talking about?”

“What you just said has given me an idea… VISAR, are there any couplers nearby?”

“A bank of them, to the right outside the door you came in through,” VISAR replied.

“Are there two free right now?”

“What are you doing?” Gina murmured.

“Wait, and you’ll see.”

“Plenty,” VISAR replied.

Hunt stood up. “Come on,” he said to Gina. “You haven’t seen half of Ganymean communications yet. This’ll be the fastest interstellar trip you ever dreamed of. I guarantee it.”