Sanctuary in The Sky Read Free

certain. And it’s so enormous, and so complex, that no one believes it was merely a waystation, although we call it that. It must have been either a gigantic interstellar ship, capable of carrying the population of whole planets, or a kind of permanent trading base for another race which inhabited the worlds of the Arm before mankind evolved.”
    Lang nodded. “It’s impossible to date, then?” he suggested. “Virtually impossible. The entire vessel is self-renewing, drawing on the radiation from the local suns and converting energy direcdy into every material element that is required. It had certainly been here for more than a thousand years before the Glaithes actually came out of their system and visited it, because it had been observed telescopically—both from Glai and from Majko—over that long a period of time.” The Pag officer got to her feet with a slight clanking sound that indicated she had loosened her sword in its scabbard and forgotten to thrust it tight home again. She was a magnificent figure of a woman—with red-brown skin under which muscles rippled like waves in oily water, her lean legs lifting her powerful body and neck so high that her shaven head almost brushed the ceiling.
    “You’re a stranger,” she said to Lang in what passed for a kindly tone among Pags. “Better warn you—never pay heed to what a Cathrodyne tells you. Chances are better than even that it’s a lie.”
    “Were we not approaching the neutral zone, madam,” said Ferenc thickly between his teeth, “I’d take pleasure in pushing that remark up your other end.”
    The Pag grinned, showing that her front teeth had been filed to sharp points. “If you were capable of that, Cathrodyne, I’d submit to you with pleasure, but neither you nor any other of your weakling race could manage it. To continue, stranger,” she pursued, bending her savage-looking smile on Lang again, “there certainly wasn’t another race. There was the ancestral strain of Pagr, more than ten thousand years ago, and they could have built Waystation. The Majkos couldn’t”—she glanced around and jerked her chin toward Vykor where he stood discreetly near the wall—“as you can
    see if you look at that specimen over there. They’re fit to be servants and laborers, like the Lubarrians and the Alchmids a nd, come to that, the Glaithes. One thing I can appreciate about the Glaithes: They’re honest enough to admit that they couldn’t have built Waystation.”
    Vykor was aware of an itching desire in his right foot. He wanted to bring his boot up—very hard—against the Pag’s shapely posterior as she leaned on the back of Lang’s chair and expounded her race’s official propaganda. As she was standing, her thigh-boots and tunic afforded her no protection in that area.
    But Pags could insult him till doomsday, and it would be no skin off his nose. They had the Alchmids to lord it over. It was the Cathrodynes that Vykor and all Majkos hated; Pags were incidental.
    "All right,” the Pag went on. “Rule out all these; rule ’em out on self-evident facts. Who does that leave? The ancestral Pag strain!” She straightened triumphantly. “Clear?”
    By some remarkable trick that Vykor could not follow, Lang managed to give Ferenc a deprecating smile—to show that he had not swallowed the Pag’s nonsense—without letting the Pag see it. There was a pause. Then Lang asked Ligmer again, “And archeologically, does that ring true?” “Hah!” said the Pag. “Catch a Cathrodyne archeologist admitting to the truth even when his nose is rubbed in it!” Ligmer glanced at her. “One of these days, madam, I hope someone will succeed in explaining the scientific method to you. I abide by it. Therefore I will say that it is a possibility-”
    Ferenc almost exploded, and Ligmer gave him a pleading glance.
    “A possibility,” he emphasized. “It’s true—so I’m told, because the authorities on Pagr won’t allow Cathrodyne students to