IPR base was a cultural vacuum.
Forzon contemplated its sterile hideousness and felt bruised.
Depressed by the drabness within, revolted by the view from his windows, Forzon spent some minutes in irate floor pacing and then flung himself from the room for a perfunctory tour of the building.
It had already occurred to him that for such an enormous establishment there were very few people about. The H-shaped building consisted of two two-story dormitory wings connected by a long, single-story section that housed the administrative and service rooms. Forzon passed by the reception room without a glance and prowled the full length of the lower corridor of the dormitory opposite his.
As he turned back he felt music.
Felt, rather than heard. The sound was so soft, so delicate, so indescribably fragile, that no single sense seemed to play a part in apprehending it. He stood transfixed and breathless before a door, and long after the sound had faded he imagined that he still heard it.
He waited, and when the music did not start again he knocked timidly.
The door opened and a girl stood before him—a startlingly feminine girl, her long hair a gleaming gold, her brightly colored robe a brilliant contrast to the severely furnished room behind her.
“I’m sorry,” Forzon said. “I didn’t know these were the women’s quarters. I heard the music, and I was curious.”
To his amazement she glanced furtively up and down the corridor, drew him quickly into the room, and closed the door. Then, magically, her frowning expression softened to a smile. He took the chair she offered, and not until the smile broadened did he realize that he was staring at her.
“Sorry,” he said. “All the women I’ve seen since I arrived here have been playing soldier.”
Her laughter, in some ethereal way, reminded him of the music he’d heard, but when she spoke she dropped her voice to a whisper. “They’re base personnel. They have to play soldier. I’m Team B.”
“Team B?” he echoed, matching her whisper.
“Resting up,” she went on. “I caught a virus.”
Suddenly he noticed the instrument standing on a low table near her cot. It was similar to the one he’d seen in the portrait, but only two feet high and looking more like a child’s toy than the medium for great art. Its wood frame was unadorned but richly polished.
“It’s so small!” Forzon exclaimed. “The one in the portrait was enormous!”
Her finger at her lips reminded him that he had raised his voice. “That’s a torril,” she said softly. “A man’s instrument. An instrument for public performance. The frame is elaborately carved and built precisely to the musician’s height. When the young torril player is growing up he must have a new instrument yearly. This one is a torru, a woman’s instrument. Its tone is well-suited to the boudoir but is much too delicate for concert use.”
“A marvelous, whispering tone,” Forzon said. He got to his feet and bent over the torru. The slender strings were of some tightly twisted fiber, white and—every fifth string—black. He plucked them gently, one at a time. “It’s an inflected pentatonic scale!” he exclaimed. “Primitive, and at the same time highly sophisticated. Curious.”
The girl was smiling at him again. “I’ve wondered what CS men were like. Now I know. They hear music!”
She could have been poking fun at him, but Forzon answered her seriously. “Culture is such a broad concept that the Cultural Survey has to have more areas of specialization than you’d care to hear about. My own specialty is arts and crafts, and I’m a connoisseur of the utterly unique in any of them. This instrument, now. The circular arrangement of strings. Do you know that it defies classification?”
“I never thought of classifying it. It’s a lovely instrument to play.”
“Play something,” Forzon suggested.
He watched her deft fingers and listened, absorbed and fascinated, until the last of the rippling, whispering tones had faded. “Amazing,” he breathed. “The technical facility is incredible. You have all of the strings right under your fingers, whereas with most species of harp—”
He paused. Footsteps had sounded in the corridor outside her door, and she stirred uneasily. “It must be nearly lunchtime,” he said. “Will you join me?”
She shook her head gravely. “I think it would be best if no one knows we’ve been talking. So—please don’t mention it to anyone.” She hurried him to the door, opened it cautiously, looked out. “Don’t come back here,” she whispered. “I’ll try to see you before I leave.”
Abruptly he was in the corridor again, walking away, and her door closed noiselessly behind him. He had turned the corner before he realized that she had not told him her name.
The wafting aroma of food drew him to the dining room, where he found his route to the food dispenser blocked by one of Coordinator Rastadt’s female militia. “Officers are served in their quarters,” she announced.
“That’s very kind of you,” Forzon said absently. “But I prefer to eat here.”
She flushed confusedly but held her ground with dogged determination. “The coordinator has directed—”
“Tell him,” Forzon murmured, “that the supervisor was hungry.”
He stepped around her, served himself, and carried his food to a long table where a number of young women in uniform and young men in work dress were already eating. He was received in silence; the other diners avoided his eyes and responded in mumbled monosyllables when he attempted to start a conversation. One by one they departed, and long before Forzon finished eating he was alone.
He returned to his quarters, where he found a lavish luncheon laid out on his work table. Disgustedly he emptied the congealed food into the disposal. He was dourly contemplating the blighted view from his windows when a knock sounded.
He measured his caller with one swift glance. This, he thought, has got to be the assistant coordinator.
The man snapped to attention and saluted. “Assistant-Coordinator Wheeler reporting.”
Forzon told him to skip it and come in and sit down. And when he answered, “Yes, sir,” Forzon told him to skip that, too. “The name is Jef. Do you have a first name?”
“Blagdon.” Wheeler grinned foolishly. “My friends call me Blag.”
“Good enough. I’d wear myself out saying Assistant-Coordinator Wheeler.”
Wheeler grinned again, handed Forzon a thick book, and arranged himself comfortably on a chair. Forzon grinned back at him. Having met Coordinator Rastadt, he could have predicted his assistant. A big, easygoing, pleasant-looking man, his principal function on this base would be the soothing of feelings rumpled by his brusque superior.
Then Wheeler’s grin faded, and Forzon realized with a start that the man had two faces, tragic and comic, and probably did not know himself whether he was a weeping clown or a laughing tragedian.
Forzon hefted the book. “What’s this?”
“Field Manual 1048K. The basic IPR manual. It tells you everything, which is probably a lot more than you’ll want to know.”
Forzon pushed it aside. “You’re supposed to brief me.”
“Yes,” Wheeler agreed. “But first—we’ve found your orders.”
“You’ve found them?”
Wheeler nodded unhappily. Even at his glummest his round, congenial face seemed about to break into laughter. Forzon regarded him sympathetically. Whatever abilities the man had, he was doomed to pass through life as someone’s assistant. At every crisis in his career the clown in his character would rear its leering head and