Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

outsiders.”
    “It’s a meeting, isn’t it?”
    “Oh, why are you acting this way? I’m going. Good night!”
    She flounced out. The door fluttered with the force of her exit. Bram stared thoughtfully at it for a moment, then got his own overgarment out of the clothes chest.
    Before he left, he checked the food locker. There was nothing in it except a few stale cornflats. Kerthin hadn’t been spending much time at home either.
     
    The bachelors’ lodge was about two hundred years old, if you dated it from the time its original occupant died and was scraped out of the interior. Thick deposits of lime partially filled in the original grooves of the spiral, turning the basic helical shape into a squat, bumpy cone. Nevertheless, you could easily distinguish the five fat bulges that comprised it, not counting the cap chamber, which was almost too cramped to stand up in and which was used mainly for storage.
    Bram felt a pang of nostalgia as he let himself through the outer gate and looked up at the calcified ribs and old-fashioned casements fitted into the reticulated pattern they formed. The manicured grounds looked exactly as they had looked on the day he had first moved in with his few belongings, ready to begin his independent life and uncertain of how the other members would receive him.
    Jimb, the old man who tended the plantings, was working with a spade near the path. He looked the same too, bent and ageless, his face a network of unchanged wrinkles, his knotted forearms burned brown by the suns. He was wearing the same stained garden smock, the same shapeless bags over his feet, tied around the ankles to keep out loose dirt.
    “Hello, Jimb, how’ve you been?” Bram said as he approached.
    The old groundsman looked up from the hole he had been digging and squinted incuriously at Bram’s face.
    “Fair enough, young fellow, fair enough,” he said, and went back to his work. Old Jimb had seen them come and seen them go for over a century. There had been no glimmer of recognition in the faded eyes.
    The anteroom was dark and cool, with heavy comfortable furniture and the worn appointments that had reassured generations of new members. A smell of cooking and a clatter of dishes came from the dining chamber beyond, where they would be having the early serving about now. A few neophytes, too young for Bram to recognize them, stood around, talking in appropriately hushed voices.
    He hesitated, wondering if he ought to speak to the steward first, when one of the older members came through the curtain and spotted him.
    “Welcome back, Bram. Drop by to say hello to the old fogies? How are you? We’ve been hearing great things about you.”
    Bram pressed palms. “Hello, Torm. You’re not ready to join the fogies yet, I hope.”
    Torm laughed. He was a small, neat, pink man who supplemented his allowance by doing freelance sound transcription for the Nar. “Any day now, but I’m trying to stave it off.” He winked broadly. “I’ve got myself a new girl friend out at the cove. A lady of mature years like myself, but worth the trip every Tenday, if you know what I mean. I’d take the monandry pledge with her and move out of this place if I wasn’t so set in my ways.”
    “Well … I’m glad to see you so lively.”
    “Stay young, my boy. Any way you can. That’s my motto. Do you agree?”
    “Yes,” Bram said, concealing the jolt that Torm’s words had given him. The man couldn’t possibly have read his thoughts. Bram’s eyes strayed to the curtain as he remembered the errand that had brought him here.
    “Looking for Smeth? He isn’t here tonight. He had a guild meeting.”
    “No. I was wondering … is Doc Pol around?”
    Torm’s eyebrows lifted. “You’ll find him in the common room, same as always. What do you want with the old codger?”
    “Just thought I’d have a few words with him. He was very helpful when I was studying mol-med applications. I couldn’t have passed my molecular biology exam without him.”
    “So? I’d have thought his mol-med would have been out of date even then. Don’t let him trap you into a game. Smeth’s his usual victim, so tonight is dangerous. Shall I tell the steward you’re staying for supper? Second serving’s in about an hour.”
    “Thanks, Torm,” Bram said.
    He found Doc Pol in the corner chair that was reserved for him by the general consent of the members. When an unwary newcomer tried to sit in it, he was quickly set right. Doc evidently