Star Ways Poul Anderson

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"If they cost you seven, I'll eat tbem-2'
They haggled for a while, and finally settled for twelve credits-about one hundred percent profit.
Thereafter Joachim offered the Coordinator the extra bedroom at an only mildly exorbitant rental-along
with meals prepared by his housekeeper, for an extra consideration. Trevelyan changed into shorts while
Joachim happily counted his take.
"You might as well mooch around and get to know the ship," said the captain. He grinned. "Nic@s place
is number two seventy-four."
"Do you know everything that goes on?'
"Just about." Joachim chuckled. "Nield's a good sort, but not like the gossips say, so I wouldn't advise
making passes at her."
Trevelyan went down the corridors at an easy pace, hands in pockets and dark face turning from side to
side. Nomads stared curiously at him but none did More than nod a greeting. Apparently they were
satisfied if their captain was. Trevelyan moved between the muraled walls and the carved doors and
waiscots until he found the place he was looldng for. No. 274.
The door stood ajar, between two posts graven in the shape of vine-covered trees. Sean's voice floated
out: 'Come in, Cordy."
Trevelyan entered. There was a bedroom on either side of the door; at the farther side the kitchen and
bathroom
flanked the exit to the other hall, so that the main body of the apartment was cruciform. One arm of the
cross was given over to microbooks, music tapes, and some rataier good murals; the other was a
cluttered workshop. Sean sat polishing Ms spaces@t, and beside him, sitting at his feet, was the
Lorinyan girl whom Nicki had mentioned. She was, in truth, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
Nicki was beat over a table, shaping a clay vase. She looked up and smiled. "You were right, 'Lo," she
said.
"She's always right," said Sean. "She knows such tl-Angs."
"What did she know this time?" asked Trevelyan. Sean was in a good humor apparently bearing DO
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grudge, and Nicld was as friendly as before. Ilaloa-he wasn't sure.
"That you were cominL,." said Sean. "She senses you. Right, 'Lo?" His hand riaed the fine silvery hair.
"A telepath?" Trevelyan. He kept his manner casual, but under it his mind was suddenly taut.
She spoke in the voice that was like singing, so low he could barely hear it: "Oh, I cannot-it is not of me
to flow the words from the bound-in-darkness self. You are too lonely, all of you locked from each other
and from knowingness. Some wills I can tell-tbe sly little animal-thoughts. But you of humanity, no."
"Then wbat-oh. Of course." Trevelyan nodded. "You can sense emissions, and each of us has a
characteristic pattern.,,
"Yes, so." She was grave about it. Her look had become troubled now. "And yours is more-other-from
mine than tl,e Nomads'. You live more in your head than in your body, and yet it is not an inward sorrow
to you, as it is to the men of Stellamont, who do not know what they are. You know, and have accepted
it, and are strong in it-but never have I sensed sucl-i aloneness as is yours."
She lapsed into silence, as if frightened by her own word3, and huddled close to Sean. Trevelyan
regarded her for -i long moment, not mitbout pleasure. He saw a little shiver go under the lucent skin;
there was a deep fright and grief in her, too, and she clutched Scads knee.
Well, he thought, it's her problem. And Sean's, I suppose, She's too pretty for my taste.
He walked over to Nicki, answering her questions about his present status and intentions. The vase
taking shape had the form of two battling dragons. "Nice," be said. "Wbat'll you do with it?"
"Cast it in bronze and sell or swap it," she replied, not looking up. There was an earthiness about her
which was at Galaxy's end from Ilaloa, he thought.
"Glad to have you along," she continued. "Maybe. 'vvbat're your immediate plans?'
" Just to get acquainted and do so-me thinking. You know, I've been studying the Nomad art, and I'm
convinced it's a new idiom. I daresay your literature is unlike ours too,"
"We haven't got much, except for the ballads," she said.
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"That's enough. Look how different American folk music was from the European-" She glanced at him in
some puzzlement, then nodded. "I'd like to bear some when I get the chance."
"Well, I'll give you one right now," said Sean, putting away his spacesuit. He unslung a lorne from the
wall and thrummed his fingers across the strings. His voice lifed in a ballad, the immemorial theme of t,ie
faithless beloved
"-She said to me, 'O Nomad, see I cannot follow you.
The star ways were cold and dree where all the wild winds blew,
the winds between the stars, -my love the restless wander-call, blew low, blew high, into the sky, the
withered leaves of fall,
and we were blown, and all alone we flew from sunlit day into the waste where stars are sown and
planets have their way-2"
Sean grimaced, "I sl-iouldzt have picked that one.@
"Some other time," said Nicld. She turned to the Solarian, a little too q@ckly. "I di@t know you
concerned yourself
with things like that."
"In my work," answered Trevelyan, "everything is significant, and the a@ are often the most highly
developed
I ci-
symbolic form of a culture-therefore the key to understan ing it."
"Are you always thinking of your workf' she asked,
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bridling.
"Oh, not always," he smiled. "One has to eat and sleep occasionally." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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