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frantically tried to gulp down the last of the ice cream as he stumbled
back toward his seat. "We're slowing to sublight speed. At least, I
hope we are. Because of the damage we incurred while fleeing the
Oomemian ships, we might have a problem or two."
"Like what?" Kerwin asked uncertainly.
"Well, when we emerge from the threshold we could possibly break up.
For real this time."
Seeth began humming nonchalantly, "Breaking up is hard to doooo!"
*6*
Kerwin found himself moaning softly, finally couldn't stand it anymore.
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"Will you shut up! Didn't you hear what he said? We could all die." His
fingers tightened on the sides of the lounge seat.
"Nonsense." Miranda followed this completely confident assertion with
a very loud belch, looked embarrassed, and added, "We're not going
to die."
"Why not? How can you be so sure?"
She smiled over at him, radiantly beautiful, save perhaps for the slight
ketchup smear dribbling from the left corner of her sensuous mouth.
"Because I'm not ready to yet."
At which point the universe turned upside down. When it and Kerwin's
stomach had righted themselves once more, the view out the port was
dominated not by empty space but by the blue, white and brown of an
inhabitable world. You didn't need a degree in astronomy to ascertain
immediately that it wasn't Earth. The triple polar ring system, thicker
than that of Uranus, was evidence enough of that.
Just as he was starting to relax, the ship spun wildly. He closed his
eyes and swallowed, listening as Rail shouted a
string of alien obscenities into an audio pickup. More surprisingly, a
hidden speaker filled the room with a reply. The tone and words were
utterly unintelligible to Kerwin. It sounded more like a buzz saw than a
voice.
This exchange of interspecies insults rose briefly in volume before
halting completely.
"We're here. We've made it," Rail informed them.
"Where's 'here'?"
"Nedsplen. A neutral world and a most successful and prosperous one.
A pleasant place for those who live here as well as for the harried
traveler. You should find the atmosphere and gravity to your liking. A
very commercial people, the Nedsplenites. Their world is something of
a crossroads for this section of the galaxy. As it's a logical place for us
to visit, we should be on the lookout for Oomemian observers. Still, it's
so busy and active and crowded that, with any luck, we will be able to
lose ourselves for a while."
Kerwin tried to melt into his seat. The surface was rushing toward
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them at breakneck speed.
"No point in heading for one of the suburban ports." Rail seemed
awfully casual about making an approach. "As long as we've come to
an obvious world, we might as well land in the most obvious place."
Much to Kerwin's relief, they finally leveled off, skimming a long,
shallow sea that formed an enormous harbor or inlet. Then they were
flying over forests and agricultural regions and, soon after, an endless
metropolitan area in which buildings and structures looked like the
sucked-out carcasses of insects caught in the spider's web of
transportation lines.
"The capital city of Nedsplen," Rail informed them. "Alvin."
Kerwin frowned. "The capital city of this important world is called
Alvin?"
"What did you expect? Imperial Realm? Seat of Power?"
"I don't know. I just thought it probably means something important
in the Nedsplenian language, right?"
"As a matter of fact I don't think it means anything. I have no idea
why it's called Alvin." He bent over his instruments. "We won't land at
the central port. Too much traffic anyway, and there are plenty of
smaller ports scattered throughout the city where we'll be less
conspicuous setting down."
They came to a halt, hovering several thousand feet up in a parking
pattern. While Rail waited for clearance, Kerwin and his companions
were able to observe an astonishing variety of vessels and aircraft
zipping back and forth in front of the port. Off in the distance, towers
of metal and plastic and more exotic construction materials rose
toward the sky. Despite their already rarified height, several appeared
to still be under construction.
Rail spoke into his pickup and they began to descend. Slowly, this
time. Metallic canyons rose around them, shutting out the sun. Kerwin
had been down the Grand Canyon once. This experience was similar,
the walls gradually closing in around you until even the upper canyon
vanished. Except that these walls were artificial. A few minutes later
they touched down. Kerwin gratefully freed himself from the
restraining field.
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"Feels good to be back on the ground."
"But this isn't the ground. Merely the landing field for this particular
port. The actual ground lies far below us. Nedsplen's an old world,
quite built up. Much as new cities were constructed on the foundations
of older habitations on your own world, except that here the lowest
levels are still in use."
He didn't have time to ponder the significance of this because Rail was
leading them outside, where the profusion of alien sights and smells
was overwhelming. Kerwin had always considered himself someone of
broad imagination. But it was one thing to deal with a couple of aliens
like Rail and Izmir, quite another to emerge into a monstrous hangar
of unfamiliar design where members of dozens of different races were
congregating. It was a measure of how far they'd come that whenever
he noticed the neatly manicured green skull of another Prufillian, he
experienced a shock of recognition.
There were no humans to be seen.
Everything else imaginable, though, and much that wasn't. The
smallest of the port's busy inhabitants stood barely eighteen inches
high, while the largest topped out at over eight feet. These giants had
skin like parchment that sloughed off at regular intervals. When the
skin struck the pavement it dissolved like crystalized honey.
There were mammalians and reptilians, insectoids and water-breathers
compelled to move about clad in suits full of liquid. They jostled with
methane breathers, everyone walking, gliding, sliming, slithering,
scuttling or flip-flopping on their way to obviously important
destinations.
"Too much, man." Seeth looked like he was in seventh heaven. "Hey,
check that out."
He pointed toward a creature resembling a two-foot-tall rabbit,
complete to oversized pink eyes and long incisors that overhung the
lower jaw. The long ears pointed forward instead of straight up. Each
was hung with a dozen jangling earrings.
Seeth walked straight toward it. "Hey, Jack, where'd you get the
jewelry? That's neat stuff."
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The leporine alien spat harsh bunny noises at the human, then glanced
past him and jabbered at Rail, who replied in something other than
English. It appeared to satisfy the leporine, who hurried on by.
Rail turned to Seeth. "He said that you were an impertinent hairless
biped speaking an uncivilized tongue, and that if I couldn't keep my
pets under control they should be leashed."
Seeth's eyes narrowed. "Did he now? Maybe he'd like a few more holes
in those ears." His switchblade appeared magically in his right hand. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]