Sanctuary in The Sky by John Brunner Read Free Book Online Page B

eye-range,” said Ferenc, sweating as he sat down again, trying to subdue his fury (which was more against himself than Temmis). "Where exactly he does come from, I was unable to find out in spite of persistent inquiries, both indirectly from himself and directly from the crewmen who might have pieced two and two together to give me a line on him.”
    “Very disappointing, Ferenc. How long was the trip? Ten days? Twelve? and you did not succeed in establishing his origin?”
    “He is a skilled practitioner in verbal camouflage,” said Ferenc with sudden stubbornness. “I had no opportunity to observe him in unguarded situations; there was always a third party present, and Lang’s ability to turn the subject of conversation without making it obvious suggests that he has had considerable experience with the theory of committees and related disciplines. I did, however, establish that he is from further in-galaxy than Etra.”
    “That’s in eye-range, so the deduction is not remarkable.” Temmis swung his chair half round and looked at the map hanging on the wall at his right. It showed the Arm—the galactic prominence of nine suns scattered along a line of some twenty-eight light-years, nothing beyond the end of the line until a small companion cluster too far away for man to reach. Etra was thirty systems in-galaxy from the root of the Arm, as shipping lines went. Further than people from the Arm systems cared to venture. What was the point? There were problems enough for one lifetime along the Arm.
    “And something else, too,” frowned Temmis. “It costs to travel. What does he use for money? I suppose he spent a while on Cathrodyne before he came out aboard your vessel. I should have thought that the arrival of someone out of eye- range would have rated at least a few moments in at least one news bulletin.”
    "He doesn’t advertise the fact that he’s so far from home.” “But even you found it out,” said Temmis, heavily sarcastic. “A reporter might be expected to discover it also. Is he thinking of going on beyond Waystation—to Glai, or the Pag systems?”
    “He didn't voice any intention of going on at all,” Ferenc said. “He seemed merely to want to see Waystation; he’d heard rumors of it as far away as Etra, and wanted to visit it for himself. I don’t see him being permitted to visit Pagr, even if he wants to.”
    “True. All right, Ferenc, you’ve been here long enough. Go and say hello to your former colleagues, but be quick about it, and then get to your quarters and memorize your instructions. Dismissed!”
    But the first thing Ferenc did on reaching his cabin was not to read his instructions. It was comprehensively to curse every Pag, male as well as female, here or on Pagr, into the blackest depths of intergalactic space.
    After that, he felt better.
     
     
     
    VII
    Vykor had often reflected that Waystation was like a living organism—in a dozen different ways. For one thing, it was virtually self-running, self-repairing, self-programming. It had attended to all its own wants for no one knew how many thousands of years before the first tentative explorers from Glai had come out here in slow ion-drive ships, before they developed faster-than-light drive. It was largely chance that had given the Glaithes their precedence here. They had been within a mere half light-year of Waystation when they achieved space flight, and although the Pags and Cathrodynes had both launched their first man-carrying ships at about the same time, they had had to wait for hyperdrive before they could come this far along the Arm.
    Waystation resembled a living creature in another respect: It had a kind of metabolism, in which the part of corpuscles was played by human beings. Sometimes an injection from outside—a new Carthrodyne general with aggressive tendencies, a new loud-mouthed Pag—threatened to upset the delicate balance, and a kind of fever resulted. Then the Glaithes, the white corpuscles of