The Star Virus полностью

At his command a score of ships surged into motion in a score of different directions to lose themselves amid the close-packed stars. The Stond now had a better than even chance of escaping unchallenged, and the same chance of being equally matched if she was challenged. The Streall had made a big mistake in giving him this brief breathing space. That was due, he was sure, to their miscalculation of the human mind. They had never understood that its workings were not forthright, as the workings of their minds were. They had expected that their first communication would produce results.

Redace broke into his musings. "We won't get much further with examining this gadget ourselves," he was saying. "We need to go where they really understand atomic physics. I think I know a place. There's a fellow there who's an absolute marvel."

Rodrone nodded. He was watching the rearward detectors. Behind them, the Streall fleet was chasing vainly after an already vanished quarry. Ahead, he hoped, lay knowledge.

V

The planet Kelever was the sixth orbital of a white, intense sun that baked its four innermost worlds beyond any possibility of life. Kelever itself lay in a position that in most solar systems would have been occupied by a gas giant, and indeed long ago it might have been a gas giant. Its atmosphere still possessed an unpleasantly pervasive ammonia-like tang.

Most of the time the surface was gloomy, roofed with cloud and drenched with rain. The Stond put down at a spaceground on the edge of a city five million strong. On the way down Rodrone had noted that the planet was industrially well-developed, busy transport belts conveying endless streams of goods and materials across its broad surface.

While the ship's computer argued with the ground controller over landing fees, Rodrone stared out over the rain-washed expanse, dotted with the humped shapes of spaceships. One worrying thought that had occurred to him was whether the Streall would be able to track him down here, too. But the possibility was slight. The Merchant Houses maintained no regular information service, and the Stond was just one ship among thousands.

Beyond the spaceground the city bulked gray and enormous, and thoroughly uninviting. It was strange that five million people consented to live in such a place, he thought. "Do you have an address for this man Sinnt?" he asked Redace. "Or do we have to go hunting for a needle in a haystack?"

"Unfortunately… no address," Redace answered. "But I can guarantee to find our man in a fairly short period of time. Kelever is a scientist's world, you see. They form clubs, societies. Some of them, I'm afraid are… well, a bit kookie. But there are a few silks among the rags, and Sinnt is one of them. He should be well known; we only have to ask around in the right quarters."

"Sounds like a rave," Clave commented sardonically. "Wild Science Rites on the Rain Planet. But supposing this character tells us to go and stuff our lens? It's a long journey just for a brush-off."

Redace regarded him quizzically. "My dear fellow, have you no idea what impels we scientific types? Sinnt will be forced to make an investigation of the lens, even if only because if he doesn't he knows we'll pass it on to one of the other kooks. He's much too jealous of his reputation to risk that."

"One of the other kooks?" Clave echoed in dismay. "I thought you said this guy was the silk among the rags?"

Rodrone ignored the exchange. Clave, of course, was not deeply interested in the lens and was only along for the ride, like all the others except Redace.

At length the shipboard computer finished its haggling with the ground computer and they were free to go into the city. To guard against the unlikely event that Jal-Dee might be trying to trace him through the Stond, Rodrone decided to take the lens with them, where they could lose themselves if need be in the endless drabness of Kelever's main town.

He, Clave and Redace took a runabout and soon were driving through wet streets thronged with traffic. Many of the streets were roofed, but even those leaked and incessant rivers ran along the gutters.

The favorite color on Kelever seemed to be red; but there was not very much even of that. Dull red neon outlined the low entrances lining the buildings on either side, burning sullenly in the gray atmosphere. Many of the entrances seemed to lead to underground cellars, for the city appeared to be as extensive underground as it was above, possibly obeying an unconscious urge to burrow away from the dismal, ammonia-laden atmosphere.

Kell, as the city was called, was one of the many pockets of relative isolation scattered through the Hub. It had decayed into a certain staidness in its fashions. Tradition would count for more than was normally the case elsewhere, and the flamboyant Redace stood out like the visitor from another planet that he was.