“That is an old advertisement. Call some other day, if you will.' The telephone screen went blank.
T. Dytzen told Glawen: “I expected nothing more. Still, for the sake of perseverance I will call Sky-waft.” She touched telephone buttons. There was no response whatever.
“Sky-waft appears to have closed for the day,” said T. Dytzen. Tomorrow I will ask why its advertisement reads: ‘DEPENDABLE! VIGILANT! ALWAYS ON THE JOB!'.' She ruminated. “Perhaps your best recourse is the provincial Mail Service at eleven o'clock during the forenoon. It makes a number of stops, as many as seven or eight, and arrives at Moonway about noon local time — which is to say close on thirty-seven or thirty-eight o'clock.”
“Are there no other aircraft? What about private vehicles? Or freight services? There must be someone making deliveries around the outback.'
“So there are,” said T. Dytzen. She looked in a directory. “Most of the offices will be closed at this time.”
“There might be a schedule of departures at the port.”
T. Dytzen gave a noncommittal nod and tapped the call buttons. She spoke, was transferred to another office, spoke again, waited and spoke to a third individual. After a brief conversation, she turned from the telephone to Glawen. “You are in luck. All-world Cargoes is making deliveries in the Moonway sector. The carrier departs Bay 14 at the spaceport in about half an hour. I spoke with the pilot; he says he will take you out for twenty sols. Is that satisfactory? It's about what you would pay on the Semi-Express.”
”I’m agreeable to the price, but when does he arrive?'
T. Dytzen spoke a few words into the telephone, then turned back to Glawen. “Arrival is an hour or so later than Semi-Express time.”
“Sign me aboard.”
T. Dytzen spoke a few more words, then turned away from the telephone. “Go directly out upon Bay 14 and stand by the front of the carrier. Don’t be conspicuous or tell anyone what you are doing. The pilot will approach you. My fee, incidentally is five sols.”
Glawen returned to the Novial Hotel, where he found the clerk once again at his post. He checked out, to the clerk’s indignation. “Have all our meticulous efforts gone for naught?”
“I don’t have time to explain,” said Glawen. “But two facts are certain. Pharisse will rise in the morning and you will never see me again.”
Glawen went at best speed to the spaceport. At the canteen he bought packets of biscuits, cheese, salted fish, pickles, and four flasks of imported beer, then went out upon the freight dock. He found Bay 14, where a cargo carrier of medium size had been loaded and made ready for departure. He went to stand in the shadows near the control cupola.
Five minutes later a tall thin man wearing a short-sleeved work suit came down the dock, walking with a loose and easy stride which Glawen thought might indicate a correspondingly easy temperament. He looked to be about Glawen’s age, with cropped flax-yellow hair, guileless blue eyes, features of no particular distinction. He halted in front of Glawen. “I am Rak Wrinch, and I drive this vehicle. Do you have something for me?”
'Just some money.”
“That will do nicely.”
Glawen paid over twenty sols.
Wrinch looked up and down the dock. “Jump up into the cab, and keep out of sight.'
Five minutes later the carrier lifted from the spaceport and started up through the night toward its cruising altitude. Overhead drifted the moons of Nion, lambent globes of many soft shades and sizes, sometimes eclipsing, sometimes seeming to race, sometimes rollicking like happy children. Glawen thought that it might be easy to attach mystical meaning to their interplay.
Wrinch verified what Glawen had already assumed: that he was an off-worlder from Kyper Clty on Sylvanus. He looked sidelong at Glawen. “You've never been there?”
“Never,” said Glawen. “Sylvanus is one of the many worlds I know nothing about, except that it is somewhere in Virgo.”
“True. It’s not so bad a place, as worlds go. Every year the Bang-bird Festival draws in tourists from everywhere.
You must have heard of the Bang-bird races.”
“I'm afraid not.'
“These creatures are called 'birds' only out of politeness. Mix up a dragon, an ostrich and a devil and you have a bang-bird. They stand twelve feet high, walk on two legs, with long necks and tall heads; they are vicious unless treated carefully when young, and are not stupid. Still, they are useless for anything but saddle-animals, and every year they run the Grand Champion Races at Kyper City. The riders are a special caste and religious, since they are almost always killed by the birds in the end. But the rider who wins the Grand Race becomes a great celebrity, with much money, and never rides again.”
“The races must be quite a sight.”
“Indeed. There are always two or three riders thrown, and then there is turmoil while the birds stop to kill the riders, whom they hate, so the tourists always go away in awe. Where is your home?”
“Araminta Station on Cadwal, at the back of Perseus.'
“I never heard of Cadwal either.” He refused Glawen’s offer of food. “I ate before departure.”
“What time will we arrive at Moonway?”
“You are in a hurry?”
“I would like to arrive before the Semi-Express, if possible.'
“Out of the question, I must put down at Port Klank to discharge three pumps for the water system. After Port Klank, by rights I should make for Yellow Blossom, then Moonway, but I suppose I could call at Moonway first and then cut north to Yellow Blossom. That would save an hour or two.”
“And time of arrival?”
“About fourteen o'clock. How is that?”
“It will have to do.”
Wrinch looked curiously at Glawen. “Have you been there before?'
“No.”
“It is a fascinating place. The Standing Stones are sometimes called monuments to ancient heroes, but they are more; they represent the ancient heroes themselves: personalities which have never died. During certain lunar patterns they come out and play the old games again. Tourists who are caught out among the Stones at these times are killed at once, though ordinarily the Shadowmen are a quiet lot, without much to say. The moons control their emotions. If the tourists fail to follow the rules which are posted for them, their throats are cut.”
Glawen found his eyes growing heavy; he had missed much sleep. At the back of the cab were a pair of settees; Glawen stretched out on one and, after checking the auto-pilot, Wrinch laid his long frame down on the other. The two slept, and the carrier flew alone through the night. Glawen was wakened by a jar and a thud; he raised himself to find daylight outside and Pharisse several hours high. The carrier had landed upon the spongy surface of a small plateau. To the west, north and south spread a wide landscape of other such plateaus, rising above the intervening sea bottom. To the east, and near the carrier, a dozen concrete buildings stood in a line, facing what appeared to be experimental plots of off-world vegetation.
Wrinch had already jumped down from the cupola, to see to the delivery of his freight. With three other men he went to the rear of the carrier; the doors were opened, several items of cargo were unloaded with the help of a small lift-truck; then the doors were slammed shut and, after a moment of conversation, Wrinch climbed back into the cupola. He made marks on his manifest, adjusted the auto-pilot, and once again the carrier took to the air.
“That was Port Klank,” said Wrinch. “Some agronomists from Earth, either visionaries or madmen, are trying to grow terrestrial flora on a soil which is essentially pure pold. They claim the chemistry is right; that no toxic metals are present, only the macro-molecules typical of metamorphosed pold. So they use bacteria to break down these molecules, along with the viruses of Nion and experimental soil conditioners. They claim that in ten years each of these plateaus will look like a forested island instead of what you see today.”
“What about water?”
