Free H.M. Hoover - Lost Star by H. M. Hoover Page A

about the computer.
    The dining room quickly became a babble as the rest of the staff arrived to discuss the accident over lunch. The most popular opinion was that either the jackhammers or the cutting torches had somehow built
    up a charge in the metal. The tolats loudly expressed the opinion that all nonengineers on this expedition were ignorant untranslatables. But all seemed to agree that this morning's incident was the most interesting discovery they had made to date. They just weren't sure what they had discovered.
    It seemed to Lian that ninety-five percent of all this chatter was totally unnecessary and repetitious, that they were all talking in order to avoid thinking about what had really happened, that two of their number had come frighteningly near death in a manner they did not understand. She wondered if that was the source of most social noise—the need to avoid thinking about what really mattered.
    "If you're through eating, can we go outside?" she said.
    "Noise bothers you, doesn't it?" Scotty guessed later when they were walking along the top of the earthwork en route to the lumpie colony's sleeping place. "Perhaps that's the lumpies' attraction for you—their silence?"
    Lian grinned. "Maybe. Maybe lumpies talk only when they have something to say worth hearing."
    "Humans can't go by those rules," said Scotty. "Whole weeks would pass in silence." She hesitated, then asked, "Why does noise bother you?"
    "It's probably because of the observatory," said Lian. "Everybody works pretty much alone—well, I do anyway. If you talk, it's to the computer—and that's what talks to you. The loudest noise is the wind. For months it's never still."
    "Do you have any friends there?"
    "Everyone's friendly."
    "That's not what I asked."
    "No." It bothered Lian to admit that, and she resented having to do so.
    "I thought so."
    "Why? Am I that unpleasant?"
    "Oh, no! You're very nice," Scotty assured her,
    "But you seem to take solitude for granted. You go off exploring by yourself for hours alone and apparently content. So I guessed you were accustomed to it. I'm not. I have friendly acquaintances here, but no real friends. Loneliness bothers me." She smiled to dismiss the pathos of the remark. "When I left Earth I had no idea what this sort of trip really would be like—how lost it could make you feel to watch your home planet fade in the distance—to see how small Earth is in space. . . ."
    "How long will you be here?" asked Lian.
    "A year on Balthor, another year in return travel time. It's a working sabbatical for me. And you?"
    "I don't know. Until my parents are reassigned, I guess. Or . . ."
    "Or what?"
    "I decide I want to be assigned someplace else."
    They were down at the far end, not far from the entrance to the halls, when Scotty turned off on an angled path that led away from the site. "It's over here someplace. I found it the first day we were surveying."
    Unlike the lumpie routes within the site, which followed gentle parabolas, this path meandered into the deep woods, circled massive tree trunks, dipped down along a creek to follow its banks, and then swung uphill.
    "Where does this path go?"
    Scotty shrugged. "Miles. Going nowhere." She stopped and pointed. "There's a hammock—see it up there?"
    Hung from a heavy branch, the hammock fell a yard above ground, too high for a lumpie to climb into without great effort. Lian examined the intricately braided mesh. It was far too beautiful a skill to waste on peeled vines and hang out in the weather. The ground below it bore no tracks, no crushed plants, no signs of wear.
    "Have you ever seen them sleep here?" she asked casually.
    "No. I've always been here in the daytime. There are more up here." Scotty forced her way through a thicket,
    and Lian followed. In the next hour she counted thirty hammocks. None showed any sign of use. Although they had gone to great effort to make it look otherwise, wherever the lumpies slept, it was not here.
    There was a pok-pok