"Sign it, "yours affectionately, Riidi WW, Baron etc., etc." And get me a drink."

Chapter Thirteen.

It was autumn, Mother Mastiff bad closed up the shop, packed a lunch, and taken them both off to the Royal Parks. It was a cloudless day, which was why. Literally cloudless. On Moth this wasn"t merely a pleasant exception, it was an event. He could remember staring endlessly at the funny-coloured sky. It was blue, so different from the normal light grey. It hurt his eyes. The thoughts of the animals, the birds, were odd and confused. And the hawkers sat listlessly in their respective booths, cursing softly at the sun.

It had stolen all their customers. It was a softer sky, and softness of any kind was rare in Drallar. So everyone bad taken the day off, including the king.

The Royal Parks were a great, sprawling place. They had originally been created by the builder"s of the first botanical gardens to use up the s.p.a.ce left over from those great constructs. By some monstrous bureaucratic error it had been opened to the general public and had remained so ever since. The great f1ashing boles of the famous iron wood trees shot straight and proud to impossible heights over his boyish head. They seemed much more permanent than the city itself.

The ironwoods were moulting. Every other week the royal gardeners would come and gather up all the fallen leaves and branches. Iron wood was rare, even on Moth, and the sc.r.a.ps where far too valuable to be swept away. The guards in their lemon-green uniforms sauntered easily about the park grounds, there more to protect the trees than the people.

Children were playing on the marvellous gyms and tangles that an earlier king had setup. As long as the people had abrogated the park, he felt that they might as well enjoy it to the fullest. The kings of Drallar bad been greedy, yes, but not exceptionally so.

He had been too shy to join the giggling, darting shapes on the funchines. And they had all been frightened of Pip, silly things! There had been one little girl though ... all curls and blue eyes and flushes.

She had shuffled over hesitantly, trying hard to appear disinterested but not succeeding. Her thoughts were nice. For a change, she was fascinated by the minidrag rather than repelled by it.

They had been on the verge of making introductions in the simple but very correct manner that adults Jose so quickly, when a. great leaf had drifted down unseen and struck him fair between the eyes.

Ironwood leaves are heavy, but not enough to produce injury, even to a small boy. Only embarra.s.sment.

She had started giggling uncontrollably. Furious, he had stalked off, ears burning with the heat of her laughter, his mind frozen with her picture of hum. He had thought momentarily of siccing Pip on her. That was one of the impulses he had learned to control very early, when the snake"s abilities had been gla.s.s-gruesomely demonstrated on a persistent tormentor, a stray mongrel dog.

Even as he strode farther and farther away, the sounds of her laughter followed, ghostlike. As be walked he took vicious and ineffectual swings at the rust-coloured leaves floating down uncaringly about him.

And sometimes he didn"t even touch them when they dropped brokenly to the ground.

Chapter Fourteen.

Then the sky wasn"t blue anymore. Nor light grey. It was pastel green.

He stopped flailing his arms and looked around, moving only his eyes. Pip stopped beating his pleated wings against his matter"s face and flew off to cur] comfortably against the nearest bed-bar, satisfied with the reaction it had produced. The mi n id rag"s tough const.i.tution had apparently suffered few ill effects, Flinx didn"t know yet whether to curse it or kiss it.

He tried to sit up but fell back, exhausted by the brief effort. Oddly enough, his bones didn"t bother him at all. But his muscles! The tendons and ligaments too, all of the connective web that held the framework together. Felt like they"d been tied end to end, stretched out, rolled together into a ball, and pounded into one of Mother Mastiff"s less palatable meatloafs.

It was a trial, but he finally managed to sit up. The events of ... how long had he been out? ... came back to him as he rubbed circulation back into benumbed legs. As soon as he felt reasonably humanoid again, he leaned over and spoke into his shipmike. In case the others were in less positive shape than he, he enunciated slowly and clearly so as to besure to be understood.

"Captain? Captain? Control? Is anyone up there?" He could sense all the other minds but not their condition, as his own was too addled to focus yet.

"Rahisi, kijana! Take it easy. Glad to hear you" re back too." The trader"s voice was a familiar healthy boom but Flinx could read the strain on his mind. In another minute his picture flashed on to the small viewscreen. The blocky face had added another line or two, the beard a. few white hairs, but otherwise the craggy visage was unchanged. And although his body and mind looked wearied by the stresses they had undergone, the face reflected old enthusiasms.

"Wolf and I have been up, although not about, bymoyo Uzito , what an experience! It seems that our friend the hard-headed philosoph, who wears his bones inside out, stood it better than the rest of us. He"s been up here rubbing us poor softies back into consciousness."

The voice of the insect came over the speaker from some-where off-camera, but Fiinx could place the thranx from the strength of its thoughts, which were indeed better organized than those of its companions.

"If the rest of your body was as hard as your head. Captain, you, at least, would not need my aid."

"Je! Well,kijana , Tse-Mallory"s been up the longest of us poor humans, and I believe Der Bugg is just now bringing Atha "round... yes, bless her flintymoyo . We were going to send him in to see you next, Flinx, but I see that"s not necessary."

"Did we...?" but Malaika seemed not to hear and Flinx was too tired to probe.

"Mwanamumeandmtoto , what a buggy ride! Sorry, bwana Truzenzuzex. No offence intended. It"s an oldTerran saying, meaning "to go like blazes," roughly. I know only that it"s appropriate to our present situation. Perhaps it"s designed to invoke a friendly Mungu,je ? Metamorphosis! Fxlinx me lad, mekijana , memtoto , we went past that star so fast after hitting that field that our transversion "puter couldn"t handle it! The mechanism wasn"t built to programme that kind of speed, and I"d hate to tell you where the cut-off max is! If there were only some way this sort of thing could be done on a commercial basis ... owk!"

He winced and gingerly touched a hand lo the back of his neck.

"However, I must admit at the present time there appear to be certain drawbacks to the system.Uchawi !. I would have given much to have" seen the face of our friend the Baron when we shot off his screens,je ! Unannounced, as it were. I wonder if he ... but unwrap yourself from that webbing,kijana , and get thee forward. I"ve a bit of a surprise for you, and it looks even better from up front." Flinx could feel the tone beginning to return to his muscles He undid the rest of the harness and slid slowly off the bed. There was an awkward moment as he had to grab the wall for support, balancing himself on shaky legs. But things began to normalize themselves quickly now. He walked around the room & few times, experimentally, and then turned and headed for Control, Pip curled comfortably about his left shoulder.

Malaika swivelled slightly in his seat as Flinx appeared on the bridge.

"Well"? What"s the surprise?" He noted that Truzenzuzex had disappeared, but could feel the insect"s presence in another part of the ship.

Apparently Malaika noted his searching gaze. Or possibly he was becoming sensitive. He"d have to be careful around the big trader.

"He"s gone to try to help Sissiph. She figured to be the last to return,rudisha ."

That was undoubtedly true. Atha and Wolf he could clearly see busy at their instruments.

"Kijana, that big kick in the... boost we got shoved us far ahead of my antic.i.p.ated schedule ... on our prearranged path! I planned it that way when we were setting up the interception co-ordinates. No use wasting a brush with death if it can be utilized to profit also ... but I honestly didn"t link theGlory"s field could hold us that steady. How- ever, it did, and here we are."

"Which is where?" asked Flinx.

Maiaika was smug. "Not more than ninety minutes ship-mafasifrom our intended destination!" He turned back to his desk, muttering. "Now if there"s only some way to make it commercially feas..."

Flinx put together what he knew of bow far they"d come when they were intercepted by the AAnn warship and how far they"d still had to go at that time. The result he came up with was an acceleration he had no wish to dwell on. That"s great, of course, sir. Still, it would also be nice if..."

"Um? If what?"

If when we get where we"re going we find something worth getting there for."

"Your semantics are scrambled,kijana , but I approve the sentiment.Mbali kodogo , a little way off, perhaps, but I do indeed approve."

Chapter Fifteen.

The planet itself was a beauty. It would have been ideal for colonization if it hadn"t been for the unfortunate dearth of land area. But even the fact that ninety per cent of the land was concentrated in one large continent might not make such exploitations prohibitive. Oceans could be farmed and aimed, too, as on colony worlds like Dis and Repler. And those of Booster, as they had named it, were green enough to suggest that they fairly seethed with the necessary base-matrix to support humanx-style sea-culture.

Fortunately the chlotophyll reaction had proved the norm on most humanx-type planets found to date.

By contrast the single continent appeared to be oddly dry. Especially discouraging to Truzenzuzex, as the thranx would have preferred a wet, tropical climate. He confirmed this opinion by voicing it every chance he got.

As far as they were able to determine from orbit, every-thing was exactly as it had been described on the star-map. Atmospheric composition, with its unusual proportion of free helium and other rare gases, UV radicount (est, surf./ sq.mi./ki), mean and extreme, temperatures, and so forth. There was only one fact their observer had failed to note.

As near as their probes could estimate, at no place on the surface of Booster did the wind ever blow less than seventy kilometres sn hour. At certain points over the oceans, especially n e art he: equator, it was remarkably consistent. But it did not appear to drop below that approximated minimum. There was currently one gigantic storm system visible in the southeastern portion of the planet. The meteorology "puter guessed the winds near its centre to be moving in excess of 780 kilometres per hour.

Impossible!" said Malaika, when he saw the initial image-out. "Mchawi mchanganyiko!"

"Quite." said Truzenzuzex. "Definitely. Go fly a kite." The sceintist indulged in the whistling laughter of the thranx.

Malaika was confused, by the laughter as well as the referent. "Translation, please?"

"It means," put in Tse-Mailory over the insect"s laughter, that it is more than possible." He was gazing in complete absorption at the sphere turning below. The unusual silver-gold tinge to the atmosphere had aroused interest in his mind. "And there might be places, on the single continent, for example, where canyons and such would channel even higher velocities."

The merchant took a deep breath, whooshed it out, and fingered the small wooden image that hung omnipresent about his neck."Namna gemi mahaili?What kind of place? No wonder there"s nothing more than one little continent and a fewvisiwabovu . Such winds would cut down high places like chaff!"

He shook his head. "Why the Tar-Aiym would pick a place like this to develop their whatever-it-is I"ll not guess."

There is much we don"t know of the Tar-Aiym and their motives," said Tse-Maliory. Tar more than we do know. From their point of view it might have been perfect. Maybe they felt that its very unattractiveness would discourage inspection by their enemies. And we have no final evidence as to what they considered a hospitable climate. We don"t even know for certain what they looked like, rember. Oh, we"ve got a vague idea of the basics. The head goes here, the major manipulative limbs there, and so on.

But for all we really know they might even have been semiporous. A nice the-hundred-kilo-an-hour hurricane might have been as a refreshing bath to them. In which case I"d expect the Kiang to be some sort of resort facility."

"Please!" said Malaika. "No obscenities. If that were true, why haven"t we found such winds on any of the other planets we know the Tar-Aiym inhabited?"

Tse-Mallory shrugged, bored with the turn of the conversation. "Perhaps the weather has changed since then. Perhaps they changed it. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps I am crazy. In fact, there are times when my suspicions of the latter approach cert.i.tude."

I"ve noticed," said Truzenzuzex, unable to resist.

"Agh! If I knew all the answers," said the sociologist. I"d be G.o.d. In which circ.u.mstance I"d most certainly be outside this ship right now and not cooped up with the rest of you mental cases!" He returned his gaze to the screen, but Flinx could taste the humour in his mind.

"Captain?" broke in Wolf"s quiet tone. "Preliminary read-out from geosurv probes indicates that the con tinent has a basaltic base, but is composed on the surface primarily of sedimentary rocks, heavily calcinaceous, and with a high proportion of limestones."

"Um-hum. Figures. That would also tend to explain how the wind could knock down any mountains so quickly. In another million years, barring any rising of the ocean bed, there probably won"t be a plot of land sticking above the waters of this planet. Fortunately I do not have to worry about that, too." He turned from the screen. "Atha, go and ready the shuttle. And get set to take us down. It doesn"t appear that we"re going to need airsuits, thank Mungu, but make d.a.m.n sure the crawler is in good running condition. And see if you can"t turn up something for us to use as eye protection against this infernal wind.

So that we won"t have to use the suit helmets.Je ?"

She started to leave, but he halted her at the door, his face thoughtful. "And make sure we have plenty of rope. I"ve been on planets where the rain would eat right through a suit to your skin, if the fauna didn"t get to you first, if the flora didn"t beat the fauna out. But this makes the first one I"ve ever been on where my primary concern will be being blown away."

"Yes, Captain." She left then, pa.s.sing the arriving Sissiph on the way out. The two had recovered enough to glare at each outer meaningfully for a moment but, aware that Malaika"s eyes were on them, said nothing.

I don"t think we"ll have much trouble locating this thing of yours, gentlesirs - providing it does indeed exist. There don"t appear to be any canyons or other rugged areas where it could be hidden, and since your friend found it without seeming difficulty, I see no reason why we, with more sophiscated instrumentation, should not do likewise- Yes, we should get to it quickly, quickly.Afyaenu , gentlesirs.

Your health!"

He clapped those huge hands together and the report they made in the enclosed s.p.a.ce was deafening.

"He looks like a small child in expectation of receiving a new toy," Tse-Mallory whispered to Truzenzuzex.

"Yes. Let us hope that it is indeed of an aesthetic rather than a lethal nature."

The shuttle had its own balloonlike hangar in the bottom of the great cargo section. Sissiph, professing ignorance of manoeuvring the pullways, had to be helped down. But the way she snuggled into an obliging Malaika suggested motives other than incompetence. The powerful little ship was a complete s.p.a.ce-going vessel, albeit a far more streamlined and less s.p.a.cious one than theGloryhole . It was powered by rockets of advanced design and, for atmospheric suborbital flight, by ramjets. Being intended for simple ground-to-s.p.a.ce, s.p.a.ce-to-ground filghts, it had limited cruising range. Fortunately they had only a limited area of probability to search. Conducted from thaGioryhole it would have been more leisurely, but Malaika wasn"t going to restrain himself any longer than was necessary, despite the attendant inconveniences. He wanted down.

The fact that they wouldn"t need the flexible but still awkward airsuits would be a. great help. Atha had fitted them all with goggles whose original purpose was to protect, the wearer from heavy UV. While dark, they would serve equally well to keep dust and airborne particles out of everyone"s eyes. For Truzenzuzex she had managed a pair from empty polmer containers.

Off in a corner, Sissiph was arguing petulantly with Malaika. Now that the fun of her escorted trip down the pull way was over ...

"But I don"t want to go, Maxy. Really I don"t."

"But you will, mymwanakondoowivu , you will.Njoo , come, we all stay together. I don"t think our playful Aann friends will find us. I don"t see how they could, but I still fear the possibility. In the event of that obscene happening, I want everyone in one and the someplace. And I don"t know what we"re going to run into downstairs, either. We"re going into the ruins of a civilization dead half a million years, more advanced than us, and utterly ruthless. Maybe they have left some uncouth h.e.l.los for late drop-ins"? So every hand will be along in case it"s needed. Even your delicious little ones." He smacked the collection of digits in question with a juicy kiss.

She pulled the hand away and stamped a foot (her favourite nonvocal method of protest, but ineffectlual in the zero-gravity). "But Maxy ...!"

"Starehe! Don"t "Maxy" me. A definite no, pet."He put a hand on her shoulder and spun her gently but firmly about, giving her a shove in the direction of the shuttle"s personnel port.

"Besides, if I were to leave you on board all by yourself you"d likely as not erase the navigation tapes trying to order dinner from the autochef. No, you come with us,ndegedogo , little bird. Also, your hair will look so pretty streaming away in the gentle breezes."

Her caustic voice came faintly as they entered the lock. "Breeze! I heard you talking about the hurric...!"

Or, thought Flinx as he struggled with the gun and belt that Atha had given him, it is possible that our Captain hasn"t Forgotten how neatly the AAnn seemed to find us. Maybe he thinks dear, sweet, helpless Sissiph is not entirely to be trusted. He went quiet, sought within the mind in question for a hint, a relationship that might bear out the merchant"s possible suspicion. If anything was there, it was too deeply buried or well-hidden for him to seek out. And there were other things that seeped in aground the edges of his probe that embarra.s.sed him, even a sixteen-year-old from Drallar. He withdrew awkwardly. Let Malaika. Keep the load on his mind.

He was far more interested in admiring the gun. The handle was all filigree and inlay, a good deal fancier than the practical destroyers he"d seen in the barred and shadowed gun shops of Drallar. Unquestionably, it was equally as deadly. He knew what this model could do and how to handle it. In those same shops he had fired this and similar weapons with empty charge chambers while the owners had looked on tolerantly and exchanged patronizing comments with the regular customers.

It was beautiful. Compact and efficient, the laser pistol could cook a man at five hundred metres or a steak at one. It could weld most metals, or burn its way through any form of conventional plastic; barrier.

All in all, it was a useful and versatile tool as much as a weapon. While he hoped he wouldn"t need it down on the surface and Still had Pip with him, the streamlined weight felt ever so comfortable bugging his hip.

At Malaika"s insistence they had all also been issued a full survival belt. Even Sissiph, who had complained that the negligible weight distorted her Figure. This prompted an un flattering comment from Atha which Fortunately went un-heard by the Lynx, or they might have had an other minor cataclysm in the tiny vessel"s lock.

The belt was equipped and designed for use on planets which varied no more than ten per cent from the humnax norm. Besides hefting the mandatory gun, the belt contained concentrated rations and energy pills) sugar salt solution, their portable communicator units, a tent for two which was waterproof, conserved body heat, and folded to a package smaller than one"s fist, charges for both comm and gun, tools for finding direction, making nails, of planting corn, among other things. There was also a wonderfully compact minimiciofilm reader, with some fifty books on its spool. Among the selections were two staples: theUniversal Verbal Communications Dictionary(in seven volumes, abridged), and the Bible of the United Church,The Holy Book of Universal Truths, and other Humorous Anecdotes.

IF he had had his entire apartment and all its accoutrements from Drallar, he would have been less well off than he was with that single fabulous device encircling his waist.

The tremendous winds and jet streams that flowed unceasingly around the planet should have made their descent difficult. Under Atha"s skilful handling, however, it was almost as gentle as it might have been in theGloryhole . The only rough moments came as they pa.s.sed through the silvery-gold impregnated sections of the atmosphere. The natural layers of airborne metallic particles (there were two) seemed unusually dense to the two scientists, but as long as they remained on rockets, not dangerously so.

Unlike the luxury craft which had lifted them from Moth"s surface, this shuttle was equipped more For carrying cargo than folk, and so wasn"t provided with as many ports. Despite the small ness of the scattered plexalloy sections, however. Flinx still had some view of the land below. The one continent rambled from the north pole down to a point just below the equator. It was mostly red-yellow at this height, with here and there large splotches of dull green. Small rivers, faint and insignificant in comparison with the coppery blues of the planetary ocean, meandered lazily down among the low hills. Naturally there were no river canyons. Any such would have disappeared millennia, ago under the punishing onslaught of the untiring winds.

He had been momentarily worried about Pip, who had adamantly refused to be fitted with a tiny pair of make-shift goggles. Close inspection revealed that the reptile was equipped with transparent nict.i.tating membranes, which slid down to protect the eye. He"d never noticed them before, probably because he"d simply not looked. He berated hi in-self mentally for not realizing that an arboreal animal would naturally come built with some such type of natural protection against wind-carried objects. But then, neither of the two scientists had, either. Actually, Pip was more of a glider than a flyer. If he could master the winds down there he"d no doubt be more at home on Booster"s surface than any of them.

A small intercabin comm conveyed the voice of Malaika back to them from Control. The tiny piloting cabin barely had s.p.a.ce enough for the two pilots, and the big trader crowded it unmercifully. But he had insisted on remaining "on top of things." It was literally put.

They had been cruising on jets for only a short while when his excited cry broke the cabin"s silence. "

Maisha, there it is! Check out the ports to your right." There was a concerted rush to that side of the ship. Even Sissiph, her natural curiosity piqued, joined the movement.