New Celebrations: The Adventures of Anthony Villiers Read Free Page A

happened there was a quarrel and a death and a Navy ship came to investigate the circumstances. Ever since, the extra space suits have been locked in a basement room and used even more rarely than before.
    Inside Star Well are, of course, the well-lit and comfortably furnished public sections where persons in passage eat, drink, smoke, sleep, gamble, and are entertained. There are the quarters of those who serve them. There are any number of corridors and tunnels, warehouses, attics and basements. There are two landing ports. Nonetheless, inside a hunk of junk the size of Star Well, there are nearly two thousand cubic miles, and most of this dead rock remains dead rock, though there are rumors that after the advent of Shirabi there were changes. The story goes that if you are absolutely silent and touch a bare wall at exactly the right time, you can feel the secret work being done down in the bowels of the rock. Secret tunnels. Secret rooms. Shirabi has long been gone from Star Well, but the stories continue—which goes to show the impression that Shirabi made on people. A certain sort of man simply looks as though he would dig secret holes, have leg irons in his basement, and leave greasy moisture on your palm when you shook his hand. (But go ahead anyway—touch the rock, barely breathe, listen. . . . There .)
    There may actually be something to the secrecy story. In Shirabi’s own time, a passenger somehow introduced himself into the tunnels and became lost. It was some time before his absence was noted and then a search was mounted. He was found at last, dead, apparently from exhaustion, shock and starvation, and possibly frustration, as well. Now that sounds unlikely, but again the Navy investigated and that one passed inspection, too.
    In any case, there is no doubt that if you took all those sitting rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, salons, dining rooms, casinos, kitchens, halls, reception rooms, offices, living quarters, hydroponics rooms, tunnels, corridors, warehouses, landing ports, (secret rooms) and (secret tunnels), and laid them in a row, end to end . . . well, as I say, they’d stretch out for quite a distance.
    * * *
    There were two ships on their way to Star Well. One was the Orion , the ship from Morian whose adherence to schedule had been confirmed by poor Josiah. (Don’t think too hardly of Josiah, by the way. Running a Flambeau table can be deadly dull. Adding a touch of wit and imagination to the mechanical bore of randomness, doing more with the possibilities of control than merely taking an occasional well-funded idiot for one or two big bets—both of these should have been applauded as creative gestures. I don’t blame Levi. He was merely an instrument. But Godwin—sometimes it’s hard to sympathize with someone so lacking in the appreciation of artistic invention.) The ship from Morian was scheduled to lay over for eight hours, to exchange passengers and cargo, to leave mail, and then to continue on to Luvashe, the planet from which Villiers had just come. The Orion was on course and in firm hands, except for a third officer who sat like a lump in a corner of the chart room, befuddledly chewing on a cud of Fibrin. But this was his usual condition, overlooked because his uncle was Baron of Bolaire. It was said that as long as he could be stacked in a corner and forgotten, he would continue to be paid and promoted, and in fact he did become senior captain of the line, still sitting in the corner and chewing to the end.
    The Bolaire Line emphasized economy in all things at the cost of comfort. The main passenger cabin, included as a grudging afterthought by old Bolaire, measured twelve feet by fifteen. This was the largest passenger area on the ship. A double cabin offered a choice to its occupants: either both could lie in bed, one above the other, or the beds could be folded away and both could sit if they minded where they put their feet. There were seventeen passengers aboard ship, among