“That’s a good point,” Bob, the teacher, said from somewhere behind. “See, kids, we’re getting something useful out of this trip already.”
“I don’t get it,” the girl said.
“It’s the reason why insects can walk up walls and lift many times their own weight,” Bob told her. “There’s nothing miraculous about it.”
“At such sizes, the gravitational force which dominates at our level of perception is insignificant,” Danchekker said, always ready to deliver to any audience. “One’s experiences would be shaped entirely by adhesion, electrostatic charge, and other surface effects. So if you were reduced to such a size and wore a coat, for example, you wouldn’t be able to take it off. Walking would be entirely different because of the negligible storage of energy in momentum. Hammers and clubs would be quite useless for the same reason.” He looked at Alan. “I trust you take my point?”
“Er… yes,” Alan said. “I guess we’d have to give that some thought.”
Hunt was sitting by Gina, who had been unusually reticent since breakfast. She seemed disturbed or confused about something.
“Some people do things in style,” he commented, although his attempts all morning at being sociable had met with little success. He put it down to a delayed reaction to the stress and the strangeness after three days of her not having a moment to think. “The first time I went on an extraterrestrial trip, it was just a hop across the backyard to Jupiter. You get to go light-years.”
A smile flickered across Gina’s face but didn’t stay put. “Well, you know us Americans: always going to extremes.”
They landed at the spaceport of Geerbaine, which adjoined a regular airport on the western outskirts of Shiban. The reality of actually setting foot on another world seemed to dispel whatever had been hanging over her, and her spirits revived. She said farewell to the two Thuriens who had escorted them down, and stood with Hunt for a while, staring back through a glass wall in the disembarkation ramp at the shining, half-mile-high tower of the Shapieron, which they had glimpsed from afar the day previously, through VISAR.
“Just imagine, that was traveling between stars before our kind even existed,” Gina said. “It’s one thing to read about it and see pictures of it. But to stand this close and know it’s really out there…”
She left it unfinished.
“You sound as if you’re feeling more yourself again, anyhow,” Hunt said. “I was starting to get a bit worried. Maybe there’s such a thing as i-space-sickness, not that I’ve ever heard of it… I don’t know.”
She sighed. “I suppose I have been a bit weird all morning. Everything’s all so new, I guess. I’ll get over it.”
Hunt looked around and across the arrivals area, where groups and individuals were milling around. Danchekker, Sandy, and Duncan were standing near the Florida school party, talking to two hefty, clean-cut, broad-shouldered men in gray suits who put Hunt immediately in mind of Dick Tracy. A short distance away, a woman in a maroon tunic with gold trim and buttons seemed to be collecting together a party that already included Alan and Keith from Disney World, the directors from the Denver corporation, a honeymoon couple that the UNSA team had met at breakfast, who were celebrating their third remarriage to each other, and the Russian psychologists. “I think that’s probably the woman from your hotel,” Hunt said to Gina.
Best Western hotels had displayed more of best American entrepreneurial initiative by acquiring premises at the core of what was rapidly becoming a Terran enclave at Geerbaine. Since Gina was not officially with UNSA and would have no obvious reason for going to PAC, she had made a reservation there under her own name as an independent journalist. She and Hunt would get together again somehow later.
Hunt walked across with Gina and made sure that her name was on the list that the agent from Best Western was checking, and that there were no problems. That completed the party, and the woman began shepherding her flock toward an escalator going up to what looked like a shuttle tube. Hunt turned away and began walking over to rejoin his own group, but was intercepted by Bob, the teacher from Florida.
“I just wanted to say so long and thanks for the company. I enjoyed our talks. Maybe we’ll bump into you guys again while we’re here,” Bob said. Through a glass exit across the floor behind Bob, Hunt could see the school party chattering and jostling as they climbed aboard a bus that was bright pink with green stripes. It was an odd-looking vehicle, running on balls half-contained in hemispherical housings instead of wheels. The center portion of its roof rose into a large, bulbous projection of just the right proportions to immediately suggest a female breast.
“Not staying at the hotel here, then?” Hunt observed as they shook hands.
“No. We decided to take the plunge straight in. A Jevlenese school that we got in touch with in the city offered to put everyone up, so we went for it. Might as well see what it’s all about here, eh? Hell, we can see the inside of a BW any day of the week.”
“Good thinking,” Hunt agreed. “Enjoy the sights.”
“You too. See you around, maybe, Vic.”
The two men who had come to collect the UNSA group were Americans, Hunt discovered when he at last joined them. There was no real reason why he should have been surprised, since the traffic of Terrans to Jevlen had been pretty free, but it wasn’t something he had been expecting.
One’s name was Koberg; the other’s was Lebansky. From their tight-jawed impassivity and overall bearing, they had to be military, Hunt guessed, and was proved right: both were U.S. Secret Service, formerly military police, currently attached to PAC security on Jevlen.
“Security?” Hunt looked puzzled. “I thought JPC turned that proposal down.”
“Yeah, well, that was for a UN force,” Koberg agreed. He gave the impression of being tactfully evasive. “I guess a few things have been happening on the quiet that maybe you won’t have heard about. You know how these things are: Some of our people kind of decided to go ahead anyhow, in a low-visibility way. You might call it a precautionary insurance.”
“Maybe the chief will explain it better when we get back,” Lebansky suggested.
They led the group out of the same exit that the school group had used, just as the pink bus was puffing away. A smaller ground vehicle was waiting for them, similar to a minibus, again riding on balls instead of wheels. Inside were two more men, Jevlenese this time, one in the driver’s station in front, the other seated by the door. Neither of them spoke any Terran languages, but the driver said something over a communications link that sounded like a confirmation that the party had been picked up.
“Today we travel the slow way,” Koberg said as they moved off. “There’s normally a fast-transit tube system into the city, but it’s not running.”
“Hell, what do you mean, ‘normally’?” Lebansky challenged. “The darn things are never running. This is normal.”
“Just when this side of the city’s going to be packed for a big rally that’s going on today,” Koberg said. “Purple-spiral loonies. Ever hear of them?”
“A little,” Hunt said.
“You’ll see plenty of ’em today,” Lebansky promised.
Jevlen had been developed as the home world of the Jevlenese within the Thurien civilization, and as such its layout reflected a human worldview rather than anything predominantly alien. Although Ganymean influence was inevitable, the geometry and architecture conformed to more familiar notions of style and consistency-which came as a relief to those who, after seeing the Vishnu, had prepared themselves for worse.
The metropolis was higher than anything that contemporary Earth had to offer, rising in the center to a monolithic fusion of towers, ramps, terraces, and bridges that dwarfed anything from home in scale and breathtaking concept; but the avenues passing amid the flyovers and disappearing into the central zone at various levels remained avenues, the levels remained levels, “up” meant the same thing everywhere, and surface and line in all directions extrapolated with reass
uring predictability.
At any rate, those were the qualities inherent in the city’s fixed, unchanging aspect: the imprint of its origin, stamped in the same way that the underlying rock strata impart fundamental character and form to a landscape. But the promise that had been written into the soaring lines and broad vistas was just an empty voice echoing from long ago. The vision of those who had conceived the city had not been fulfilled.
Everywhere had the same look of weariness and shabbiness, the signs of neglect and disrepair that Hunt and Gina had seen from PAC the day previously. One area they passed had flooded, leaving the shells of several derelict buildings protruding above the water like islands in a swamp. In another, children swarmed in and over lines of immobilized, partly dismantled vehicles that looked as if they had not moved for years. After the crisp, new look of everything inside the Vishnu, the sights were depressing. The Jevlenese in the rear of the minibus seemed indifferent when Hunt tried questioning him, with the Americans acting as not-very-efficient interpreters. He seemed unaware of how things could be otherwise.
The people hung around in listless crowds, wandered aimlessly in the boulevards and squares, or sat on the grass in the open spaces beneath the pale chartreuse sky. Since the shutdown of the major part of JEVEX, many of them had moved out of the city’s central zone and taken up a shantytown existence in the outer sectors. They could be seen sitting in doorways, bartering in noisy street markets that had sprung up off the major throughways, and cooking under makeshift awnings beneath lines of washing strung across passageways and alleys. All of them inert, leaderless, waiting for somebody to point a direction.
“The trouble that a few agitators could stir up out there doesn’t bear thinking about,” Sandy said in a sober voice as she stared out at the passing scene. “No wonder Garuth’s having problems.”
“Is this policy of his going to work?” Duncan asked. He sounded very dubious. “Can it work?”
“Aw, they have to find out what the real world’s all about,” Koberg answered. “It’s just that with some it takes longer than with others. The ones you’re looking at now are the slow learners. There’s others doing okay. The system has to sort itself out.”
“It’s gonna take time,” Lebansky said. “You’ve gotta stick with it. That Garuth has got nerve. I’ll give the guy that.”
“Right,” Koberg agreed.
The roadway became one of a multilevel system curving in toward the looming bulk of the city’s central massif. The view that had appeared on the screen in the cabin of the surface lander as it descended had been misleading, Hunt saw as they approached the metropolis proper. Ahead, between the structures flanking both sides, he could see parts of what was revealed to be a false roof with an artificial inner sky over that section of the city. In some places the cliffs of buildings rose to support it, dividing the space beneath into enclosed basins of varied cityscapes interconnected in the upper parts by vast corridors carrying streams of airborne traffic and transport tubes; in other parts, the blocks of architecture came together to form upthrusts of streets and precincts open to the natural sky, or elsewhere soaring towers projecting through the canopies. The combined result of all of them formed what had seemed from above to be the actual skyline of the city undisguised.
Farther on, they passed growing numbers of people wearing purple, gathered in crowds and walking in processions with banners showing a purple spiral on a black background. “Is this what you were talking about?” Sandy asked the Americans.
“Right, that’s today’s big event,” Koberg replied. “Their great guru is in town. There’s a new sports complex being opened today-you can see it now, on the right there-and they’re having a big-” The bus slowed suddenly. “Say, what’s this? What’s going on there, Pete?”
Ahead, the traffic was coming to a confused halt and tailing back, with vehicles stopping in disorder at all angles across the lanes. There was another traffic level above; those vehicles were passing through a complicated interchange of on-off ramps and flyovers. The vehicles ahead were clustered around a two-lane exit road that left the main throughway in a descending curve, flying high over the immediate surroundings and supported by slender pylons on one side-and then it stopped abruptly at a ragged edge in midair. Figures were climbing out of vehicles and clustering along the barrier, waving their arms and pointing down.
Lebansky moved to the front of the bus, muttering to the driver and motioning with a hand. The driver, who had been doing nothing, since the vehicle had been driving itself from Geerbaine, engaged manual and pulled onto the shoulder, nosing through the other vehicles that had stopped. “Looks like there’s been some kind of accident,” Lebansky threw back as the others crowded to the windows. “Jeez, look at that! A whole piece of it’s collapsed there!”
As the minibus moved closer to the barrier, they could see, below them, the wreckage of an entire span of what had presumably been a bridge, with the remains of at least two vehicles crushed beneath it. But that was not the only damage. In falling, the bridge had swung sideways and demolished two of the supporting pillars of the main throughway, causing a section of the innermost lane to tear away. It hung, buckled and twisted, projecting out into space like the deck of a ship that had broken in two. At the far end of the sagging section, which extended for perhaps two hundred feet, a truck had slewed across and stopped, grounded, on the edge with its front actually hanging over the drop. A smaller vehicle had run into it. Behind that, perched precariously on the edge of the rent where the lane had come away from the main roadway, fifteen feet or more above, was another, familiar-looking vehicle with its absurd, bulbous, pink conning tower amidships, and vivid green stripes.
“It’s the titmobile that was back at the spaceport,” Koberg muttered, staring ahead, his eyes moving rapidly to take in the scene.
“Oh, my God! Those kids!” Sandy gasped.
“What kids?” Koberg shot at her. Lebansky snapped something to the driver. The bus stopped.
“Ours-from Earth,” Sandy stammered. “They were on the Vishnu. A bunch of schoolkids from Florida.”
“They’re staying in the city somewhere,” Hunt said.
Something gave way, and the hanging section of road dropped another two feet. The truck that was balanced on the edge lurched visibly. Screams went up from among the crowd gathered outside. Two figures scrambled out of the truck’s cab and began making their way back up, moving awkwardly and off-balance on the sloping surface. Another tumbled out of the car that had tail-ended the truck. Somebody else inside the car seemed to be hurt. There was a screeching of sirens from behind as a vehicle with flashing lights came nosing along the shoulder. It stopped behind the minibus and disgorged men in yellow tunics and white caps, presumably police.
Koberg climbed out and engaged them. They were excited and waving their arms wildly. Koberg seemed to be trying to calm them down. In the front of the minibus, Lebansky was operating a panel alongside the driver and talking to a face that had appeared on a screen.
The road sagged some more, and the truck tipped and went over. The whole structure beneath the minibus shuddered, and the shouts from outside almost drowned out the sound of the crash. The pink bus was trying to back up; but its balls weren’t getting enough grip on the buckled, tilted surfaces, and it was slithering uncontrollably from side to side as if in a snowdrift.
“That idiot’s panicking!” Hunt yelled. “He’ll bring the whole bloody thing down! Stop him! Get those kids out of there! Get them out!”
Koberg dismissed the police with an impatient wave and ran down to take charge. Up front, the face that Lebansky was talking to was also an American from the sound of it. “How else does it look?” Hunt heard him saying.
“There’s purple freaks all over,” Lebansky replied. “Anything could happen. The police are here, but it seems we’ve got some flakes. Mitch has gone down to stop the jerk in the bus, but he’s gonna need help.”
“Stay there with him,” the face on the sc
reen said. “Heshak and Mu can bring the UNSA people back here. Check in with me again when it’s under control.”
“Roger.” Lebansky flipped off the unit and exchanged a few words with the two Jevlenese, who nodded. He came back along the bus and climbed out the door that Koberg had left open. Two of the yellow-uniformed police outside immediately began jabbing at him and flailing their arms. Lebansky showed a badge and shouted them down, then pointed at the minibus that the UNSA group were in and the other vehicles blocking its way back onto the throughway. The policemen faltered, then nodded and rushed away to begin clearing a way through. The other police, meanwhile, were running back and forth among the already excited crowd and seemed to be doing more harm than good. Above it all, in the background, came Koberg’s voice, roaring at the driver of the pink bus.
Lebansky stuck his head back in the door. “That’s all it needed. One of the cars underneath all that junk down there had their deputy police chief in it. Look, it’s all gonna get crazy here. These two guys will take you on to PAC. We’ll see you when we get there.” Without waiting for a reply he slammed the door and gave the side a thump to send the driver on his way. Ahead, one of the policemen waved them forward.
“I think it’s stopped,” Sandy said, peering back through the rear window. “Yes, it is. Some of the kids are coming out now.”
“That’s a relief, anyway,” Danchekker said, having sat tight-lipped throughout.
“The tour guide never said anything about this,” Duncan muttered. It was a reflexive attempt at bravado. He was visibly pale.
Around them, the structures and buildings of Shiban closed together and merged into a single, monolithic composition of levels and precincts penetrated by avenues and transportation ways, as the highway became a vast tunnel sweeping into the city proper.
CHAPTER TWENTY
There was nothing to be done, Hunt told himself. Accidents happen. Whatever would happen to the school party lay in other hands. He could do nothing but wait to find out the news when they got where they were going. He concentrated on absorbing the scenes outside and tried to put it out of his mind for the time being. The silence from the others in the bus told him that they were struggling with the same feelings.
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