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Samuel K. Wilby, Secretary General to the UN. Beside him were Irwin Frenshaw,
Director General of UNSA from Washington, D.C., and General Bradley Cummings,
Supreme Commander of the uniformed arm of the UNSA. Wilby greeted him with an
extended hand and a broad smile.
"Dr. Hunt, I believe," he said. "Welcome home. I believe you've brought some
friends with you." He shifted his eyes. "Ah -- and you are Professor
Danchekker. Welcome."
Danchekker had no sooner completed shaking hands when the noise around them
rose to an unprecedented crescendo. They looked up and back at the ship.
The Ganymeans were coming out.
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With (3aruth in the lead, the first group of Giants had emerged at the top of
the ramp. There they had stopped, and were staring around them in a way that
hinted at their complete bewilderment.
"ZORAC," Hunt said. "They look a bit lost up there. Tell 'em to come on down
and meet the folks."
"They will," the machine replied in his ear. "They need a minute to get used
to it. Remember they have not breathed natural air for twenty years. This is
the first time they've been out in the open for all that time."
At the tops of other ramps around the ship's stem section more airlocks had
opened and more Ganymeans were appearing. Garuth's carefully planned order of
emergence was already forgotten. Some of the Giants were milling around in the
airlock doors, while others were already partway down the ramps; some were
just standing motionless and staring.
"They're a bit lost," Hunt said to Wilby. "We ought to go over and straighten
them Out." Wilby nodded and motioned his group to follow. Some UN
aides conducted the main party of Earthmen from Ganymede toward the national
delegations while Hunt, Danchekker and a couple of others turned back to
escort Wilby's group to the ramps.
"ZORAC, connect me to Garuth," Hunt muttered as they walked.
"You're through."
"This is Vic Hunt. Well, how d'you like it?"
"My people are temporarily overwhelmed," the familiar voice answered.
"Come to that, so am I. I had expected that the sensation of coming out under
an open sky after so long would be traumatic, but never anything like this.
And all these people...the shouting...I can find no words."
"I'm with the group that's approaching the ramp you're on now," Hunt advised.
"Get your act together and come on down. There's people here you have to say
hello to."
As they neared the base of the ramp, Hunt looked up and saw Garuth, Shilohin,
Monchar, Jassilane and a few others moving down toward them. To the left and
right, other Ganymeans who had already reached the ground via the
other ramps began converging on the spot where Wilby's group was waiting.
Garuth stepped off the ramp, his companions following close behind, and halted
to look down at the Secretary General. Slowly and solemnly they shook hands.
Hunt acted as an interpreter via ZORAC and concluded introductions between the
two groups.
"This is one of the guys who runs the whole of the UNSA show," he said to
Garuth when they came to Irwin Frenshaw. "Without it we'd never have been
there for you to find."
And then the two groups turned and, now mingled together, began walking away
from the ramp. From above and behind them, scores of eight-foot-tall figures
flowed downward along the ramps to join the lead group from behind.
They came out into the sunlight and halted for a moment to survey the
delegations from the nations of Earth arrayed before them. A sudden hush
descended upon the hills behind.
And then Garuth slowly raised his right arm in a gesture of salutation.
One by one the rest of the Ganymeans copied him. They stood there silent and
unmoving, a hundred arms extended and raised to convey a common message of
greeting and friendship to all of the peoples of Earth.
At once the roar swept down from the hillsides again. If what had come before
had been a flood, then this was a tidal wave. It seemed to echo back and forth
across the valleys as if the mountains of Switzerland themselves were
reverberating and joining in their welcome.
Wilby turned toward Hunt and leaned forward to speak close to his ear.
"I think your friends have made something of a hit," he said. "I
expected some fuss," Hunt told him, "but never this in a million years. Shall
we carry on?"
"Let's go."
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Hunt turned toward Garuth and tuned in.
"Come on, Garuth," he said. "It's time to pay our respects. Some of these
people out there have come a long way to meet you."
Slowly, with the small mixed party of Earthmen and Ganymean leaders in front,
the Giants began moving forward en masse toward the waiting heads of the
governments of Earth's nations.
Chapter Nineteen
For the next hour or so, the Ganymean leaders went from one group of national
representatives to the next, exchanging brief formal speeches of goodwill. As
the Ganymeans moved on, the groups broke up and dispersed to join the growing
mass of Earthmen and aliens mingling on the concrete apron below the
Shapieron. It was a very different reception from the one that had greeted the
first hesitant emergence of the Ganymeans out onto the ice at Ganymede
Main Base.
"I still don't quite understand it," Jassilane said to Hunt as the party moved
toward the delegation from Malaysia. "So far you've told us that everyone
we've met was from a government. But what I want to know is who is the
government?"
"The government?" Hunt asked, not quite following. "Which one?" The
Giant made motions of exasperation in the air.
"The one that runs the planet. Which one is it?"
"None of them," Hunt told him.
"That's what I thought. So where are they?"
"There isn't one," Hunt said. "It's run by all of them and none of them."
"I should have guessed," Jassilane replied. In translating, ZORAC
managed to inject a good simulation of a weary sigh.
For the rest of the day the formalities continued amid an almost carnival
atmosphere. Garuth and the Ganymean leaders spent some time with each group of
government representatives, establishing relationships and arranging a
timetable of projected official visits to the various nations represented.
It was a busy day for Hunt and the other Earthmen from Ganymede, whose
familiarity with the aliens put them in great demand for performing
introductions and made them the obvious choice for acting as general mediators
in the dialogues. By invitation of the European Government, a liaison bureau -
- a representative international body operating under UN sponsorship -- had
been established as a permanent institution within the Earthman sector of
Ganyville. By evening the program of affairs to be discussed between the two
races was being handled in a more-or-less orderly and coordinated fashion.
That night there was a grand welcoming banquet in Ganyville, vegetarian of
course, in which words, and wine flowed freely. After the meal and still more
speeches were over and the two races had begun mixing and socializing, Hunt
found himself, glass in hand, standing to one side of the room with three
Ganymeans -- Valio and Kralom, two of the crew officers from the Shapieron,
and Strelsya, a female administrator. Valio was explaining his confusion over [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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