Adiamante by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page B

Were my flitter trips too common, so common that they were accustoming the deer to the aircraft despite my attempts to vary my flight path?
    Even after all my maintenance efforts, the odor of hot metal and oil crept into the cockpit, and I ended up flying in a flitter filled with very cold and fresh air.
    Another dusting of snow covered the Esklant Peaks to the north, but the flattened mountains to the east of the
locial center had no new snow. Some of the red rocks were showing through, as were the patches of darkness that represented the meleysen groves.
    After securing the flitter on the side of the Deseret locial tower away from the two black landers where the cybs were already unloading, I walked the three klicks to center Parwon, at not quite a run, but more than a fast stroll.
    The wind gusted out of the north, and the ground was hard underfoot. Two ground shuttles whined past me toward the landing station, and both drivers waved. Though I knew neither, I waved back and kept walking, past the nearly full-klick band of the low bungalows where the admin draff families lived, past the cinqplexes that housed the singles on compensatory duty of some sort, past the residential transient blocs, and across the park toward the Deseret admin building. Most of the functions were below ground, in spaces far larger than the three-story structure in the northwest corner of the park.
    The shouts of children playing came from the school west of the admin area, and I smiled. Yslena had gone there, oh so long ago, before …
    I shook my head. She had her own life, and that was what she had chosen, three continents away, although she was certainly warm enough when we netlinked, or got together all too infrequently.
    The Coordinator’s office was on the top level of the admin building. Outside the office was a cedar-paneled waiting room with two long wooden benches backed up against the inside walls. Guarding the door to the office was a cedar-framed and covered console station where Keiko sat. The faintest hint of flowers filled the space, though none were in evidence.
    Keiko smiled as I walked in, though she’d certainly known the minute I’d touched down at the station. Her teeth shimmered white against her dark olive skin and
black hair. Keiko was acting as the Coordinator’s aide and receptionist—though Old Earth never had a Coordinator except in times such as these, or a receptionist. Certainly, she really didn’t need the screen and keyboard input before her, but visible technology always seemed to disarm and reassure people, and we needed someone to remain as a link-point while the world unraveled.
    â€œGreetings, Coordinator.” Keiko’s voice was deep and smooth, revealing nothing she did not want disclosed.
    I tried not to wince at the title, and my eyes flicked to the closed door to the office, and the three-centimeter-high brass letters.
    COORDINATOR
    ECKTOR DEJANES
    The letters were very shiny, like a vorpal’s eyes, and about as soulless.
    â€œThe cybs have landed,” she said.
    â€œI saw them, and I probably should go over to the residence bloc—be a presence on site.”
    I opened the office door. An antique cedar desk, seemingly as broad as the landing dock of an equally antique battlecruiser, surveyed the seamless expanse of windows that overlooked the park and offered a panorama of the eastern peaks. The Deseret landing station spire was visible to the left side of that expanse.
    I turned back to Keiko. “Later, I’ll need a shuttle to Ell Control. Just me.” I could have set up the arrangements, but Keiko was there, and before long I wouldn’t be able to handle it all, not the way things were headed.
    â€œYes, ser. Is it safe to leave the cybs unattended?”
    â€œIt is right now. Before long, it won’t be.” My guts told me I needed to actually check out the feel of the ell station, although a cyb would have called making a noncomputed