Crashlander   ::   Нивен Ларри

If Ausfaller was on Home, then there was not one tanj thing I could do to protect us. Carlos Wu must deal with him, for I could not. I told myself that Carlos Wu was a match for a dozen Sigmund Ausfallers.

Night came, and the air grew chilly. I waited until I was alone and presently pushed my Persial January Hebert identity through the safety web and watched it fall.

* * *



It was very like flying with Nakamura Lines as a passenger. The differences were all to the good: the breeze, the clean taste of the air, the lesser isolation. In case of disaster, help was hours away, not weeks or months.

I noticed a «recess» mentality I'd seen during spaceflight. This was not a real place. Breaks in discipline would not be paid for. Diets broke down. Couples paired off or split up for quick liaisons. Children ran wild; distance and the soft walls absorbed their shrieking. A few adults were trying out funny chemicals or flying by wire.

The people around me were mostly Shashters eager for company to while away the hours. Some of us squared off for computer-game competitions. Our numbers kept changing. Staying with the same people was difficult because jet lag was hitting us all differently.

I let conversation find me, doing very little of the talking. I didn't want anyone remembering a pale flatlander or ex-astronaut on his way to Shasht. I turned down some interesting offers — honest, Sharrol.

The vast reach of Fafnir's ocean passed beneath us. Two days passed very pleasantly before the long backbone of Shasht rose from the sea.

And then all the relaxed people around me began acting like children who have remembered their homework.

* * *



The terminal was on the ridge, perched on the spine of the continent. I had my choice of booths or a magnetic car or a footpath down through a rocky canyon.

I chose the footpath. Maybe I was being overcautious; maybe I just wanted the walk, or the tan, or some extra time before they froze me into something not much like a living man.

Nobody tried to stop me. An hour's walk brought me to the Outbound Enterprises office at Shasht North Spaceport.

Outbound was a smallish pillbox of a building surrounded by parldand. It reminded me a little too much of a certain park on Earth that had once been a burial ground. Like Forest Lawn, the Outbound building was a pocket of green surrounded by glass slabs of cityscape.

Within the glass wall was a circle of benches and an arc of transfer booths, six, with phones at either end. Ms. Machti ruled at the center.