“Keep your distance, then, Lieutenant Mackay!” Helen laughed. “Well, are we ready?”
They were. They left the ship and walked in a group through the throng of cheering Vegians toward the nearby, gaily-decorated stands in which the official greetings and thank-yous were to take place. Helen and Babs loved it; just as though they were parading as finalists in a beauty contest. Bob and Joe wished that they had stayed in the ship and kept their clothes on. Joan didn’t quite know whether she liked this kind of thing or not. Of the six Tellurians, only Neal Cloud had had enough experience in public near-nudity so that it made no difference. And Vesta?
Vesta was fairly reveling—openly, unashamedly reveling—in the spotlight with her Tellurian friends. They reached the center stand, were ushered with many flourishes to a reserved section already partly filled by Captain Ross and the lesser officers and crewmen of the good-will-touring Patrol ship Vortex Blaster II. Not all of the officers, of course, since many had to stay aboard, and comparatively few of the crew; for many men insist on wearing Tellurian garmenture and refuse to tan their hides under ultra-violet radiation—and no untanned white Tellurian skin can take with impunity more than a few minutes of giant Vega’s blue-white fury.
Of the ceremonies themselves, nothing need be said; such things being pretty much of a piece, wherever, whenever, or for whatever reason held. When they were over, Vesta gathered her six friends together and led them to the edge of the roped-off area. There she uttered a soundless (to Tellurian ears) whistle, whereupon a group of Vegian youths and girls formed a wedge around the seven and drove straight through the milling crowd to its edge. There, by an evidently pre-arranged miracle, they found enough copters to carry them all.
Chapter 16
▂▂▂▂▂▂VEGIAN JUSTICE
THE NEARER THEY got to their destination the more fidgety Vesta became. “Oh, I hope Zambkptkn could get away and be there by now—I haven’t seen him for over half a year!”
“Who?” Helen asked.
“My brother. Zamke, you’d better call him, you can pronounce that. The police officer, you know.”
“I thought you saw him this morning?” Joan said.
“I saw my other brothers and sisters, but not him—he was tied up on a job. He wasn’t sure just when he could get away tonight.”