Glory Lane Page 11

  He didn’t have time to ponder the significance of this because Rail was leading them outside, where the profu­sion of alien sights and smells was overwhelming. Kerwin had always considered himself someone of broad imagina­tion. But it was one thing to deal with a couple of aliens like Rail and Izmir, quite another to emerge into a mon­strous hangar of unfamiliar design where members of doz­ens of different races were congregating. It was a measure of how far they’d come that whenever he noticed the neatly manicured green skull of another Prufillian, he ex­perienced a shock of recognition.

  There were no humans to be seen.

  Everything else imaginable, though, and much that wasn’t. The smallest of the port’s busy inhabitants stood barely eighteen inches high, while the largest topped out at over eight feet. These giants had skin like parchment that sloughed off at regular intervals. When the skin struck the pavement it dissolved like crystalized honey.

  There were mammalians and reptilians, insectoids and water-breathers compelled to move about clad in suits full of liquid. They jostled with methane breathers, everyone walking, gliding, sliming, slithering, scuttling or flip-flopping on their way to obviously important destinations.

  “Too much, man.” Seeth looked like he was in seventh heaven. “Hey, check that out.”

  He pointed toward a creature resembling a two-foot-tall rabbit, complete to oversized pink eyes and long incisors that overhung the lower jaw. The long ears pointed for­ward instead of straight up. Each was hung with a dozen jangling earrings.

  Seeth walked straight toward it. “Hey, Jack, where’d you get the jewelry? That’s neat stuff.”

  The leporine alien spat harsh bunny noises at the hu­man, then glanced past him and jabbered at Rail, who replied in something other than English. It appeared to satisfy the leporine, who hurried on by.

  Rail turned to Seeth. “He said that you were an imperti­nent hairless biped speaking an uncivilized tongue, and that if I couldn’t keep my pets under control they should be leashed.”

  Seeth’s eyes narrowed. “Did he now? Maybe he’d like a few more holes in those ears.” His switchblade appeared magically in his right hand.

  “Are you crazy?” Kerwin grabbed his wrist. “We’re already in the middle of one interstellar war. We’re not here two minutes and you want to start another one.”

  Seeth continued to glower, but allowed himself to be led away. Meanwhile, Rail’s eyes checked every recess and corner as they proceeded toward the downshoot.

  They saw several Oomemians, but none spared a glance for Rail and his companions. Civilians busy with their own activities. If they were official observers they were exceed­ingly subtle. But, as Rail reminded them, not every mem­ber of the Oomemian race was attached to police or military authorities.

  The downshoot was a transparent elevator. There was no cab, no container of any kind. Just an open cylindrical space twenty feet in diameter, containing a responsive repulsion field. Kerwin halted at the edge, staring dizzily down a hole several hundred stories in height.

  Rail demonstrated by stepping out into nothingness. Seeth smiled and executed a swan dive. Miranda simply stepped out as though she used the shoot every day.

  “C’mon, man,” Seeth taunted him. “You ain’t afraid, are you?”

  Kenvin swallowed again, then took a deep breath and leaned forward.

  A soft, invisible hand caught him and they began to descend together, Rail somehow controlling their speed. Izmir ignored the field as he transformed himself into a flat, almost two-dimensional form that was too thin to show more than his blue eye. He fluttered freely around them like a lost, highly-colored page from Audubon’s elephant folio.

  “You see,” Rail said, “he can defy a shoot field as well. That he is possessed of remarkable qualities there can be no question, but whether he can be of use to the Oomemians or anyone else remains in doubt. Of course, I am no scientist. It will be their job to figure out what he is good for, besides casual entertainment.”

  Brightly lit levels continued speeding past them. It would take years just to explore what lay within walking distance of this single dropshoot, Kenvin knew. And in a city the size of Alvin there must be thousands of similar shoots linking its hundreds of levels.

  “I can see him defying this field,” Kerwin called out to Rail, “but look at his body. How does he do stuff like that?”

  “I do not know. Perhaps he can readjust the composi­tion as well as the arrangement of his atoms. It would not surprise me if he simply vanished altogether.”

  They began to slow. Seeth shot ahead, drifted back to rejoin them, though whether he’d managed the trick him­self or with Rail’s connivance Kerwin couldn’t tell. Mi­randa came to a halt and walked out of the shoot without so much as a hair out of place.

  Down under, Alvin resembled nothing so much as an endless shopping mall. There was plenty of foot traffic and Kerwin didn’t see how a few humans and one Prufillian could be noticed among such an assortment of outrageously shaped creatures. That didn’t prevent Rail from hugging the walls.

  There were such things as hotels, and he quickly ducked into the one nearest the dropshoot, securing a room that was exactly that: a single large room. It was quite spa­cious, with furniture simple and straightforward enough to serve quite a variety of differently shaped torsos.

  One wall was occupied by a massive holographic pro­jection unit. It was programmed with a seemingly infinite variety of selections, which were controlled and adjusted by waving your hands over one corner of the wall. The hygienic facilities were hidden by part of another wall, which appeared as solid as all the others but which could be walked through as easily as mist. The barrier was sound and sight proof, for all that it was composed of nothing more than heavy illusion.

  “What about my shopping?” said Miranda, getting down to serious business.

  “That will have to wait.” Rail was heading for the door. “You should all be comfortable here. This is more than I can really afford, but I’ll find some way to justify the additional expense. I feel as if I owe you something. You probably did save my life.”

  “Hey, no probably about it, man.” Seeth was studying the holowall. “Those Oomyboomies would’ve wasted you in a minute if we hadn’t intervened.” Leaving the wall, he jumped on the second of the two large circular pads that occupied the middle of the room. It caught him half an inch above the actual surface and held him there, suspended.

  “This is something else. Sleeping on air.”

  “Relax.”

  The door materialized out of the wall as soon as Rail got within a foot of its actual location. “There’s a communica­tor between the beds. If you need anything, just call room service.”

  “How do we do that?” Kerwin wondered.

  “The unit will connect with a universal translator. This is a fairly sophisticated establishment.”

  “Can they translate foods? I mean, like your synthesizer? What happens if I ask for a well-done steak?”

  “The steak may not be beef, but it will be quite indistin­guishable from the actual thing, I assure you. But please do exercise some judgement.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Rail smiled gently. “Don’t order anything well-done.” The door opened for him.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Not shopping, I bet,” said Miranda cattily.

  “There are arrangements to be attended to, the repairs to my ship, and some contacts I ought to make as long as I am here.”

  “You really have to leave us?” Kerwin asked him.

  “It will be safer this way. Safer for you and safer for me. As I’ve mentioned, you are rather conspicuous.”

  “Us, conspicuous? On the way in we passed something that looked like a tarantula with spectacles and spats. And you say we’re conspicuous!”

  “You are primates. In the hierarchy of galactic races, primates are uncommon. They usually manage to extermi­nate themselves before they achieve a level of civilizati
on high enough to qualify them for admittance to the social life of the galaxy. Not always, but usually. I don’t want you getting into trouble. I couldn’t intercede on your behalf because that would mean revealing myself to local authorities, whom I’m sure the Oomemians have long since briefed. For all Nedsplen’s sophistication, I don’t think you’d find the local lockup any more amenable than those on your own world.”

  “Izzat so?” Seeth rolled over on air. “Lemme tell you, there’s nothing worse than the sheriff’s jail in Albuquerque. I mean, it’s full of wetbacks and dopers.”

  “Similar problems exist here.”

  “Yeah? What’s a Nedsplen wetback look like?”

  “There are several, depending on which water world they originated. For example—but why am I telling you all this? We are wasting time we don’t have. I must get the ship fixed and us away from here as soon as possible.”

  “You lied to me.” Miranda leaned up against the other bed and pouted. “There is no shopping.”

  Rail sighed, left the open door and spoke into a grid set into the wall. “There. I have opened a modest line of credit—modest, mind you—with a local general store. You can order via the communicator between the beds. Please be circumspect. No large jewels or anything like that.”

  She exhibited some real animation for the first time since Kerwin had seen her in the back of her boyfriend’s van. “Hey, I know how to shop. I mean, like, it’s kind of like my profession. How do I get started?”

  “Just speak to the communicator and say ‘shopping.’ Your purchases will automatically be credited to the room’s account. One other thing. I’m going to leave Izmir here with you.”

  The Astarach hovered near the ceiling. It had assumed the shape of a solid block of black granite lined with glowing white stripes. The blue eye moved from one side of the block to the other.

  “Guard him with your lives.” Rail exited rapidly.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” But Rail was already gone. Kerwin didn’t press the alien for two reasons. First, he was pretty sure Rail meant it when he said he had to move fast, and second, he didn’t have any idea how to open the door, which had become part of the wall once again.

  “Man, is this a great place or what?” Seeth stood and jumped as high as he could, landing on his backside on the bed. The thin suspension field caught him gently as a giant hand.

  Eminently practical, Kerwin mused. A field could adapt itself to any shape. Speaking of adaptability, Miranda had already managed to conjure up a procession of exotic attire on the holowall. He wondered how the store representative, be it alien or machine, had managed to figure out her species and size. No doubt the wall scanned as well as broadcast.

  As he stared, a portion of the screen seemed to leap out into the room to envelop her standing form in glowing red light that molded itself to her body. For the first time in his life he found himself envying a shaft of light. A moment later the light fled. Thereafter everything that appeared on the screen was exactly her size and shape. She was able to try on the various outfits simply by making a verbal request, whereupon a solid-looking, projected duplicate of the clothing in question would appear surrounding her form. The wall would then helpfully become a four-sided mirror, showing her how she looked in the attire from front, back and sides.

  “I wonder if it’s okay for her to submit herself to so many projections.”

  “Hey, leave the girl alone. Can’t you see she’s died and gone to heaven?” Seeth rolled on the bed.

  Kerwin sat and watched the show for quite a while before commenting. “Uh, remember what Rail told us. You don’t want to go over his limit.”

  “No sweat. Besides, he never said what the limit was. I bet I can keep ordering until we hit it and then the screen will just stop offering me stuff.” She turned to face him. “How about this one?”

  He stared. She was wearing what appeared to be a dress fashioned of thinly sliced rubies held together with ruby thread. The sliced stones varied in color from blood red at the bottom to a light pink near the neck. All of it no doubt artificial and whipped up as ordered. Such a dress made of real corundum would have been unbearably heavy. Kerwin had no doubt that the actual material was light and comfortable.

  Ruby being a semi-transparent stone, each section was like a little red window.

  “Your tongue’s going to crawl out of your head.” He blinked, saw Seeth leering at him. “Better watch it. I bet this joint’s got individual room cleaning. Suck your tongue right into the trash. Have one of these.”

  There was a small container atop the communicator. It held what looked like a basket of napkins, but as Seeth had discovered they were actually flat white containers of a delicious, ice-cold syrupy liquid. Having drained one, he dumped the empty container on the floor.

  The carpet rippled uncertainly for a moment. Then the individual fibers, like so many hands, began moving the debris to the right. Kerwin had to jump out of the gar­bage’s way, though it probably would have gone around him if he’d held his ground. When the debris reached the far wall, a hole materialized in the floorboard. There was a small suctioning whine and the empty container vanished into the opening.

  Kerwin looked uneasily at the substance beneath his feet. Was it some kind of charged or programmed material, or was it actually alive? The tiny fibers suddenly looked uncomfortably like green cilia. He walked over to sit down on the other bed, treading gingerly. The carpet didn’t protest.

  “Great place to party. Drop any chips and the floor cleans itself up.” Seeth sucked another of the white con­tainers dry and flung the empty aside. Once again the hundreds of tiny fibers shifted the trash toward the wall.

  He jumped off the bed and blocked its path. The carpet hesitated, began shifting its burden to the left. Again Seeth moved to intercept. Kerwin watched until he could no longer restrain himself.

  “Look, here we are on an alien world no telling how many lightyears from Earth. We’re the first of our kind to experience stuff like this, and all you can do is tease the carpeting?”

  “Whatever’s fun, man.” He finally stepped aside to let the floor complete its clean-up work.

  In the meantime, boxes that looked like giant, solid-sided baggies had begun to accumulate beneath an opening in the opposite wall. Kerwin saw the ruby dress inside one of the transparent containers.

  “Don’t you think you ought to get some ruby slippers to go with that?”

  Miranda considered. “No. I think maybe yellow. With a yellow something for my hair and something yellow for my wrist. That’d be sharp.”

  Obviously, she’d missed both his reference and sarcasm completely. “Tell me something. How do you manage to stay in school?”

  “Oh, I’m a B student. I guess I could manage an A average if I wanted to, but studying is like, a real drag, you know? I’m only in college because Mom and Dad posi­tively insisted on it. We had, like, a real fight about it, and I would’ve put my foot down but then they would’ve cut off my allowance and that would’ve been an even bigger drag. So I figured why not give it a try. Now I’ve only got a year left to go and they’ve finally quit bugging me.

  “Besides, I thought it’d be a great way to meet some cute guys.”

  “Have you?” He tried not to sound too hopeful.

  The anticipation was wasted. “Not yet.”

  “Oh.”

  “I mean, Brock was all right but he was like, kind of an airhead, you know?”

  “Why’d you chose UNM?” He was reluctant to end a conversation in which she was actually participating, it apparently being possible for her to successfully concen­trate on two things at the same time so long as one of them was shopping.

  “I like skiing. Besides, Houston, which is where I’m from, is so boring, and the weather there, well, it like sucks. I didn’t want to go too far from home, and we do have good friends outside Hobbs. They have the biggest ranch. I mean, it’s just awful for cattle but there’s oodles of oil under it, and Uncle Joe told me
he’d be happy to fly me back down to Houston anytime in his plane. So it’s not such a bum deal.” She pointed.

  “What do you think of that silvery thing, the one on the far left?” She was gesturing toward something fashioned from tin foil—or maybe it was woven platinum.

  “I can’t say. I’m not much for fashion.”

  She shook her head sadly. “Honestly! You boys. Some­times I just think you’ve no idea what’s really important.”

  “Is that so?” He was miffed and tired of trying to hide it. “Sure. Let’s find out what’s really important, okay?” He walked over and spoke self-consciously to the commu­nicator. “Hey, whoever’s down there! Can you answer a question?”

  The communicator replied in rough but quite good En­glish. “I have access to the city library. I can answer any question.”

  “All right then. I want to know what’s ‘really impor­tant.’ I mean the most important activity there is. Any­where. In the whole civilized galaxy. What really matters? What’s it all about. What’s life really for, anyway?”

  “One moment, please.” The neutered voice went silent. Kerwin wondered what it was studying, what ancient sources, what endlessly debated philosophical tracts. Gen­eral questions were always the most difficult to answer. He’d asked it almost in jest. Now he realized that a casual difference of opinion might result in him being the first human being to learn one of the great secrets of existence.

  The voice spoke again. “Your question has been pro­cessed. It has long since been determined that the most important thing in the civilized galaxy is—shopping.”

  Kerwin’s lower jaw sank toward the floor. Miranda simply smiled smugly. “See? Now, I want to try that silver thing on.”

  “Yes, miss,’ said the communicator dutifully.

  Slowly, Kerwin walked over to sit down on the other bed. Seeth eyed him pityingly.

  “Hey, don’t take it so hard, man.”

  “It can’t be. It’s a joke,” Kerwin mumbled to himself. “It’s got to be a joke. Rail’s got it programmed somehow. I never trusted him anyway.” Suddenly he brightened. “I know! She’s buying stuff like mad, so naturally the hotel or the store or both would want to encourage her to keep doing so. That’s why it answered the way it did. Yeah.”