waiting to take you up there right now. If you'll just follow me… your luggage has been collected and loaded already.”
They left the office by a rear door, walked a long, bleak corridor, through a metal firedoor and into the pleasant breeze of the early autumn afternoon. The fresh air was a welcome relief from the sterile, chilly air- conditioned tomb of the Alliance headquarters. A sleek, black grav car rested on its rubber cushion before them, its doors open like gaping mouths.
“By the way,” the rep said, fidgeting a bit, “the wife wondered if you might— Well, I have a first edition of this book here,
Davis autographed the book, climbed inside the car, waited for Proteus to enter through the other side, then cycled the doors shut with the proper toggle on the console. All the while, the Alliance man stood by, uncertain if they were parting on friendly or antagonistic terms. Since Davis was supposed to be writing a pro-Alliance novel, he wanted to be as gracious as possible. Pro-Alliance novelists were rare in the creative community. When the book appeared, Davis thought, the little bureaucrat would hate himself for being so gracious now. They'd send Davis a bill, surely, for all the cooperation they were offering freely now. But it was essential to delude them into believing his book was going to take a favorable view of genocide in order to get into the preserves of the winged people and do first-hand research on their architecture and probable lifestyle. He punched to put the car on its own recognizance, leaned back, and relaxed as the car lifted off the ground and purred away from the port city, away from the rep and the square, gray building of Alliance headquarters.
The big robo-car eventually left the concrete nothingness of the port and pulled onto a badly paved road which required the grav plate distance compensators to work overtime. They twisted through rolling hills and green-blue grass. Once, a carnivorous bird, much less menacing than the spiderbats, dove at the windscreen. Proteus flung out a psuedopod, slapped it against the glass before he realized Davis was already shielded. He retracted the plasti-plasma and brooded quietly the rest of the way.
Davis sincerely hoped he would not have to listen to yet another Alliance employee tell him that Demos was safe and heavenly. Was their reassurance about this “paradise” simply a psychological tool to help them justify the extermination of the native Demosians?
The car broke through into sparsely treed foothills and confronted the first of the Demosian houses. The dark stones seemed fitted together without, benefit of mortar, jutting to form a ninety foot tower, fifty feet in diameter. There were several round “doors” on the ground and at seemingly random intervals up the sides. Winged people would be entering, after all, while in flight. Davis turned to stare after the marvelous structure as their car fled onward.
At the thirty-sixth tower, the car pulled onto a dirt track and stopped, flung its doors open as the grav plates shut down and the body settled onto its rubber rim. Proteus was the first out, nervously patrolling the immediate area.
But there was nothing for him to kill.
Davis carried the first of the bags inside, Proteus still in the lead. The exterior of the place had been interesting — but the interior was stunning. The core of the building, which they had reached through a wide passage leading from the entrance, shot directly to the open-beam ceiling ninety feet above. Leading from this small core were portholes to rooms around the “rim” of the tube-within-a-tube structure. The architecture was one of bold sweeps and graceful curves, denying the ancient facade: the lines of men unbound by gravity, spoiled only by a set of rickety homemade stairs. He decided these must have been added by the sociological research team the rep had informed him of. What possible reason would winged men have had for stairs…?
When he had all of his luggage unloaded, he investigated the alien chambers. There were recreation rooms with game-boards pegged to the walls. He took down a few of these, well aware that he would have to decipher their rules in order to include them in his book. Other chambers were Demosian equivalents of kitchens, baths, lounges, and libraries. The bedrooms were hung with lavish tapestries and handwoven grass nets whose fibers formed pictures in the manner of embroidery; the beds were too low and wide, the mattresses thick and a bit too soft by human standards.
When he had explored only half of the forty rooms, he recorded his first impressions on his tapewriter in order not to forget the initial awe that possessed him at the start of this project. He also felt a heavy, restful air of peace, as if no harm could ever come to him in a place built by those long-dead people. Later, he tried all the kitchen devices, found them in working order as the rep had promised. There was apparently a grav plate stress generator somewhere in the building, tucked away where the sight of it would not destroy the naturalness of the house. The only thing missing was food.
Until
He had flopped on the bed to ponder the scene, his mind ablaze with images of alien art and structure. Her voice came on the hollow echo of the still, late afternoon air. At first, he thought it was a dream voice, for he hung on the edge of sleep. Then he realized it was calling his name. He pushed off the bed and went to the inner portal, stared down the well of the central core.
She was about to call him again, then saw him out of the corner of her eye and looked up…
He realized, as if he had stepped outside of his body and looked back at himself, that his mouth was hanging open rather stupidly. Yet he could not summon the willpower to close it.
Her ebony mane of hair spread about her cherubic face, which was further highlighted by the pitch of her eyes, the cunningly crafted sweep of her graceful neck. The hair curled down her light toga garment and encircled her small breasts.
“I brought food,” she said, holding up a paper bag and a thermos. “From the Keepers at the Sanctuary; Shall I bring it up?”
“Yes,” he said, finally able to move his mouth and speak.
She took three small steps on her toes as if beginning a ballet twirl, and she was airborne, rising toward him on soft blue wings. Amber light filtered through the membrane, softened into violet, and made each panel of the thin flesh into a flower petal glued between the fine struts of cartilage. There was a heavy flapping noise as the membranes folded, spread, folded — and she stood before him on the platform. She offered the food and thermos.
Proteus hummed beside him, gurgling frantically as he searched his flora and fauna banks to be certain she was not of a deadly species. Davis was glad he had taken time to rerelate the robot to Demos on the drive up from the port. Otherwise, the machine might already have disposed of her in a most unpleasant manner.
“That's just for tonight,” she said. “Matron Salsbury will send me in a grav car with provisions for a week. Tomorrow morning, if that suits you.”
“Yes, fine.” He stared a moment, unable to avert his eyes from her, then said, “Will you join me?”
“No thank you. I've eaten, Mr. Davis.” She smiled, amused by his confusion.
“Stauffer.”
She frowned. “I don't know that name, though I had thought I had mastered your language quite well.”
“You have. It's not a real first name, but a family name. A sadistic mother who was sorry she ever married my father. She managed to saddle me with her bitterness by labeling me with her maiden name.”
“Your people don't sound happy.”
“They're dead anyway,” he said. “And don't look sorry about
They stood, eyes dark to dark in the amber light, her wings drawn back and folded like velvet cloth so that they almost ceased to exist. “Well,” she said, “I have to go.”
Impulsively, he said, “I'm unfamiliar with Demos. Would you ask Matron Salsbury if you might be my guide for a few days — until I become acquainted?”
She hesitated. “Ill ask. But now I have to go, or she'll be angry.” She turned, stepped into the air, fluffed her wings and drifted down. Moments later, she was gone from the core, even the distant sound of her wings faded altogether.
Removed from her bewitching presence, his common sense returned like a tidal wave crashing across the beach of his mind, and he cursed himself for his stupidity. Certainly she attracted him, for she was undeniably beautiful. But he should never have made his interest so evident. To imagine her as his lover (as he had been doing) was sheer madness — sheer, deadly, stupid madness. The Supremacy of Man coalition had designed and enforced the strictest imaginable miscegenation laws; Earthmen who loved those of other races were made impotent, and the minimum prison sentence was twelve years. Once in prison, there would be little chance of
