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  “A small formality.” His tone was apologetic as he indicated that the visitor should stand within the platform’s circumscribed center. “This will just take a moment. You won’t feel anything. Try not to move, please.”

  Flinx nodded knowingly. “I’m familiar with the procedure.”

  Stepping up, he moved to the middle of the circular dais and turned to face the port official. He was careful to keep his hands at his sides and did his best not to blink as a soft light swept over him. This was accompanied by a deep humming of short duration. Less than a minute after it had commenced, the Arrivals documentation procedure was over. It had recorded his height, weight, approximate age, bone density, retinal pattern, brain-wave configuration, number and location of internal organs, presence and type of any prosthetics, the nature of the devices and instrumentation he was carrying on his person, and a good deal more, in addition to ascertaining the general state of his health. In even less time, it had done likewise for Pip.

  Flinx could have found a way to slip into the city without submitting himself to the procedure. It was something he had accomplished successfully before, on other worlds. But his purpose here suggested that he might need to make use of official channels, or to speak with government representatives. Where and when possible, it was always better to operate and move about as an officially registered visitor. By the time anyone might by chance or curiosity happen to find themselves intrigued by certain unusual aspects of his presence and express a desire to put forth the effort to dig further into his background, he should be long gone outsystem.

  Stepping down off the platform, he loosened the soft-seal at his neck. After the encounter with the kasollt and the walk to the terminal, the heat inside was almost stifling. Waiting nearby, the diligent Paya was studying the three-dimensional readout his communit was projecting into the air between them. Looking up, he smiled affably “Says here you’re in extraordinarily good health.”

  Flinx indicated the device. “Bioanalyzers don’t always show everything. As just one example, I suffer all the time from severe headaches.”

  The administrator sighed. “I’m a bureaucrat who deals regularly with the general public. I can sympathize.” Raising an arm, he gestured down the corridor that led away from the Arrivals room. “We’re done here. Have a nice time on Gestalt, and I wish you the best of fortune with your research. If you don’t mind my asking, what are you researching?”

  “History,” Flinx told him.

  Understandably misunderstanding, Paya nodded. “This world has an interesting history, though a slim one. Humans have been living here for a fairly long time, though the immigrant population has always been limited.”

  “By the Tlel?” Flinx inquired as they started down the hallway.

  The official shook his head. “By choice. Gestalt is not a particularly hospitable world. This isn’t Kansastan, or Barabas, and it doesn’t offer new migrants the promise of a place like Dawn. Those who choose to settle here permanently are different from your typical colonist. It takes a certain singular mind-set not only to adapt to the planet, its limitations, and its climate, but also to live among the Tlel. Not everyone can handle it. Many of those who try manage for a few years, or five, or even a decade. Then they’ve had enough. The Tlel get to them, or the weather, or having to constantly keep an eye out for dangerous animals that on other colony worlds would be cleared from the vicinity of habitations.”

  “How about you?” Flinx teased genially. “Are you singular?”

  The silent emotions the official emitted suggested calm amusement. There was no indication of suppressed suspicion. He had accepted this new visitor’s definition of himself without hesitation.

  “My wife and kids think so. My ancestors would think I’m crazy for choosing to live on a world like this. They all made their homes in warm, usually humid places. They’d find Gestalt too remote, too cold, and too dry. I happen to like it.” He looked up at Flinx. “I also like the Tlel, in spite of the fact that they’re completely oblivious to their own potent body odor. That’s only natural, considering that they can’t smell it. Or anything else. Most of us can manage the downsides or we couldn’t handle living here. I hardly know you, but I have the impression that you’ll get along just fine. Just a feeling.” His tone switched from the familiar to the formal. “You have a place to reside?”

  Flinx shook his head. For a moment, he was simultaneously afraid and flattered that the administrator was going to invite him to stay with his family. While that would have advantages, he preferred the freedom that privacy would give him. Still, he felt slightly let down at Paya’s response.

  “There are a number of decent places to stay in Tlossene. Almost all are set up to cater to the needs of visiting business travelers. As I said before, Gestalt doesn’t draw the casual visitor. What’s your preference? Luxury, economical, something in between?”

  “In between,” Flinx told him. He wanted to add anonymous, but that was generally not a description one appended to a request for a hotel recommendation. “If my research goes as I hope, I’ll only be here for a couple of days.”

  The official eyed him closely. “I don’t know where you’ve come from, and in any event it’s none of my business, but it strikes me that anyone who’d go to the trouble of traveling between worlds to visit someplace just for a couple of days is either unconscionably rich, unutterably bored, or in a terrible hurry.”

  Flinx mustered a masking smile. “I’m neither rich nor bored, but I am in a bit of a hurry.” And it is terrible, he added, but only to himself.

  With a cheery wave and a last strobing smile, Paya escorted him to the opposite side of the terminal and saw him off.

  The small automated transport that conveyed Flinx into town was covered by the usual transparent plexalloy dome, allowing him to study his new surroundings in comparative comfort. Rolling off an accessway, the vehicle paused to concede right-of-way to what looked like a cluster of two-legged rugs. Ambling across the busy route in single file, they appeared to lope in slow motion. Some were tall enough to have stood eye-to-eye with a fascinated Flinx—assuming he would have been able to locate any eyes beneath the blanket of long, flaccid quills that completely covered the creatures’ conical bodies. Splayed feet sporting multiple digits provided support that was probably equally stable on snow or pavement.

  A few of them turned in his direction as they crossed. He strained to make eye contact where no oculars could be seen, yet from the primitive animal emotions he was perceiving it was evident that they were aware of his presence. Or at least that of the transport craft in which he was riding. If they could not see it clearly, could they detect its faint electrical field? As he struggled to decide, he felt that he was overlooking something. It was a question he could have put to the helpful port official. Now it would have to wait until he could strike up a conversation with another equally knowledgeable local.

  Proving the truth of Paya’s word, the tolerant hired vehicle reflected the native concern for the welfare of Gestaltian wildlife by waiting until the last of the creatures had wended its way safely across the transport lane. Only then did it resume its course, taking him deeper into the city.

  Tlossene was a city of eggs. Or rather, egg shapes. Without a flat or sharply angled roof in sight, the comparison was unavoidable. The use of bright colors somewhat diluted the initial impression. Apparently, there was no compunction against coloring the curving, interconnected buildings everything from robin’s-egg blue to a startling mix of swirling fuchsia and teal.

  While the majority of Tlossene’s human inhabitants made use of the spaghetti-like network of sealed, climate-controlled tubular walkways that connected each building to its neighbors, enough citizens were out on the open pedestrian walkways to give Flinx a good overview of the population. These passing encounters also provided him with his first glimpse of Gestalt’s indigenous species.

  Short, resilient, and stocky of build, the Tlel were decidedly nonhumanoid. Patterns i
n their dense silicaceous fur ranging in color from beige all the way to blue-black distinguished one individual from another. In place of more familiar gelatinous, single-lensed individual eyes, each Tlel sported a glistening horizontal ocular that formed a semi-reflective crescent across the front of their skulls. What sort of images this unique vision organ conveyed to the Tlelian brain Flinx could only imagine, though they were obviously more than adequate.

  In the absence of teeth, wide mouths were lined with interlocking layers of some hard keratinous substance. Tall oval ears curved sharply upward from the rear of the flattened, disc-like head. Beneath the area a human would have thought of as a chin, a cluster of a dozen centimeter-long black-and-white tendrils writhed and flexed, as if massaging the cold air. Cruising by in the transport, Flinx could not tell if these appendages were purely decorative or had some practical use. Perhaps they were the electrically sensitive organs to which the helpful port administrator had referred. Or maybe they were used in bringing food closer to the narrow jaws.

  Air was taken in and exhaled through the mouth. Bearing in mind what Payasinadoriyung had told him about the natives having no sense of smell, Flinx was not surprised at the absence of anything resembling nostrils. Reaching all the way to the ground, a pair of thin, attenuated upper arms terminated in an anemone-like clutch of strong, grasping cilia instead of bony fingers or tentacles. He could not see whether the two legs ended in feet, pads, hooves, or something else because they were concealed in brightly colored leggings that spiraled up each native’s lower limbs like striped candy.

  In fact, every example of Tlel attire he saw was vivid and varied in color, design, and material. In addition to leggings and foot coverings, they wore loose-fitting vests, many of which were transparent in full or part. A few individuals sported specialized fabric coverings over their grasping tendrils. Perhaps, he thought, the bright shades and sharply defined patterns helped them identify one another when traveling through the pink-tinged snows that prevailed at higher elevations. Many also wore simple one-piece poncho-like garments that, like the vests, were largely transparent.

  As with any new species, Flinx was looking forward to meeting some of them. Reaching down, he checked the translator that formed part of the otherwise purely decorative necklace he wore. Gestalt being part of the Commonwealth, its indigenous language was well researched. The Teacher had programmed the dominant tongue together with applicable dialects into the translation device as soon as he had identified that world as their next destination. He would not face the kind of communications problems here that he had on Arrawd, for example. In any event, he reminded himself, records indicated that a large number of Tlel now spoke at least some terranglo. A preponderance of any such linguistically talented locals was most likely to be found in a cosmopolitan urban center such as Tlossene.

  A single brief snow flurry momentarily obscured the view ahead. Then it was gone, in a pink puff and a smothered sigh, a Gestaltian welcome no less idiosyncratic than that which had been proffered by the port official. Or by the ravenous kasollt, Flinx told himself as the transport pulled into the welcoming lobby of the hotel that had been recommended to him. As the vehicle slowed to a halt, a translucent flexwall flowed shut behind it, sealing out the wind and the cold.

  The room he took, on the top floor, had a view through the curving transparent wall not only of shorter egg-shaped structures but of the mountains beyond the city as well. In the far distance even higher peaks could be discerned. Thanks to Gestalt’s unpolluted atmosphere, their ragged outlines were perfectly sharp and clear. If only Clarity had been with him, he could have relaxed and truly enjoyed the view.

  Spectacular as it was, he spared it only a glance. He was here in search of answers, not relaxation.

  Still, knowing that his mind would be clearer, his thoughts sharper, he made himself wait until the following morning before starting in. He had waited his whole life to learn the truth of his origins. Apocalyptic revelations were always better contemplated on a good night’s sleep.

  Using his personal communit he could have accessed the planetary Shell from his room, or anywhere within the hotel, or even out on the street. He chose not to. Even with strong security wraps in situ, even with sweeper tics emplaced on the unit that would shadow his searching and shield it from any monitoring external source, he could still leave a trail. Making use of a simple, free public terminal while taking care to leave absolutely nothing in the way of personal markers behind would ensure that any curious probers would be able to trace his lines of inquiry no farther than that same terminal.

  Further seeking to preserve maximum anonymity of purpose, he made it a point to explain to the hotel’s human concierge that he was interested in seeing some of the local sights, whatever they might be. After spending half an hour asking enough questions to mark him as an interested but not particularly bright visitor and collecting sufficient information to convince any inquisitive parties of his unambiguously touristic intentions, he exited the hotel. Deliberately spurning automated transport, he elected to walk.

  Outside, he felt no additional warmth through the boots he had chosen as the most suitable footwear for the chilly world of Gestalt. In the current absence of snow, the layer of thermotropic paving passing beneath his feet remained temperature-neutral. Should snow or hail begin to fall, the sensitive material would respond by outputting stored heat to melt it.

  He could have chosen a route covering the modest distance to the municipal hall that would have taken him through climate-controlled aboveground walkways. Instead, obliged as he was to spend weeks at a time sealed within the self-contained environment of the Teacher, he took the opportunity to revel in walking outside beneath the clear, clean, open sky. His view of cloud-swept blue was occasionally marred by the passage of a private or heavy cargo skimmer. Higher still, suborbital aircraft left occasional streaks in Gestalt’s upper atmosphere. Far fewer of these were to be seen than on most inhabited worlds.

  Despite being one of only two large cities on Gestalt, Tlossene still had more than a touch of the frontier about it. Some of this was no doubt due to the absence of any structure higher than half a dozen stories. Another reason lay in the penchant for Tlel-inspired architecture. Though he was not alone on the streets, the paucity of human pedestrians further reinforced the feeling of being on a world far outside the mainstream of Commonwealth commerce and communication. A perfect place, Flinx thought, for an organization such as the outlawed Meliorares to sequester secrets. A world where a visitor might look straight at something of significance and still manage not to see it. Like a certain long-sought-after paternal personage, for example.

  While humans were scarce on the city’s streets, the Tlel were not. Observing that there never seemed to be more than four of them together, Flinx wondered if there was some prohibition against them traveling in larger groups, or if four was simply considered some kind of optimal number for an outing. Perhaps in the presence of more than four of their kind it became difficult for them to distinguish individual electrical fields. Several times he saw them in conversation with local humans. At least a couple of the latter appeared to converse fluently without the aid of mechanical translation devices such as the one he wore around his neck. Once, he also saw a tall, lone Quillp ambling along, its elongated skull retracted downward toward its body as far as its flexible neck would allow. Other than fellow humans, it was the only non-Tlel he encountered in the course of leaving the hotel behind.

  Of thranx he saw none. While humankind’s closest allies would have found Gestalt’s dense atmosphere appealing, its cold climate would scare off all but the most determined—or possibly masochistic—of that tropic-loving species. No thranx would visit this world willingly, he knew. To be posted or sent here, a thranx would have to have offended more than propriety.

  As he neared Tlossene’s municipal hall, he encountered representatives of yet another of the Commonwealth’s sentient races. More naturally suited to the local climate tha
n either Quillp or human, a pair of ever-active, bundled-up Tolians disappeared through its main entrance. Gestalt was one world, he reflected, where being born with a fur coat was an advantage rather than burden. He prepared to follow them.

  Approaching the entrance, he observed several Tlel making minor repairs to the building’s decorated exterior. Utilizing a patchpaster of unmistakably humanx origin, they were busy at work halfway up the side of the five-story structure. He paused outside to watch, captivated by the fact that they employed neither lift packs, scaffolding, safety harnesses, nor anything other than their cilium-tipped arms. Apparently useless for climbing, their legs and blocky, legging-concealed feet dangled freely over the street. The strength in those long, thin arms was clearly considerably greater than he had initially estimated.

  As he looked on, they swung easily from one location to the next, carrying the patchpaster with them while continuously adjusting its spray. On further reflection, the seemingly unbalanced alien anatomy made sense. Broad splayed feet were for walking on snow and mud. Long, sinewy arms were for going over higher, rougher impediments, perhaps by swinging through vegetation. If he had the time and the inclination once he had fulfilled his purpose here, he decided, it would be interesting to spend a few days out in the backcountry closely observing the Tlel in their natural habitat. But not too closely. The malodorous body odor that emanated from them was more than merely conspicuous.

  Taking into consideration different senses and what they revealed about others, he found himself wondering what his personal electrical field “smelled” like to a being capable of detecting it. As someone who possessed a unique sense of his own in the form of the ability to perceive the emotions of others, he felt a sudden kinship with the Tlel who were at once blessed by the possession of such an inimitable facility while being cursed by the absence of a much more common one. When humans among them spoke of how things smelled, of odors and aromas and scents and stinks, how could the olfactory-deprived Tlel possibly respond other than with bewilderment?