Sanctuary in The Sky Read Free Page A

inspect the relics—”
    “And quite right, too. They’d take it as an excuse for wholesale spying operations,” the Pag officer declared.
    “Please!” cried Ligmer. “I’m trying to explain this to our distinguished traveling companion.”
    Lang blinked and waved a hand. “Distinguished?” he murmured. “Really?”
    "Oh yes!” said Ferenc. “You’re from out of eye-range, aren’t you? The chief mate said you were.”
    “Eye-range?"
    “Yes; you’re out of sight of your home sun, isn’t that so?” Lang laughed. “Well, as a matter of fact I am, and have been for some time. But I don’t see that that’s any special mark of distinction. Is it?”
    “It only makes you unique among this ship’s passengers; in eighteen hundred trips they’ve never had anyone on board who was out of eye-range.”
    “You don’t say,” murmured Lang, and stroked the back of the little black-furred animal that dozed in his lap. “Well, well—but you were kindly explaining about. . .?”
    “Oh, yes.” Ligmer gathered his thoughts with a frown. “I was saying that there are relics on Pagr which indicate a space-flying culture there some ten thousand years ago, but it isn’t clear why such a culture—if it was capable of building Waystation, as the Pags claim—should have decayed again to a pre-spaceflight level. It must have done so, for by the time Pag ships came out again to Waystation, the Glaithes had been in occupation for twenty-odd years, and had succeeded in reactivating practically all of it.”
    “What happened to bring us down from our former glory is well attested by our legends and traditions,” said the Pag. “Decadent men were our leaders then, and their grip was too weak to hold what they grasped. It was not until women established a firm rule that it proved possible to contain the vaulting Pag spirit.”
    “And the Cathrodynes?” Lang asked gently. “Do they not have legends?”
    “Everyone along the Arm has legends about star-traveling gods,” shrugged Ligmer. “This is why reputable archeologists disregard all claims to a final solution of the enigma.”
    “Noble dames and sirs!” said Vykor, clearing his throat loudly. “Please return to your cabins during the period when we match Velocities with Waystation. Disembarkation may commence as soon after matching as you desire.”
    Mrs. Iquida leapt to her feet and hurried back to her cabin. The priest, Dardaino, who had been sitting aside from the discussion with a disdainful expression (the origin of Waystation, of course, was explained beyond question in the mythology of his cult), followed her, more slowly because of h i s greater bulk.
    The Pag had remained frozen for a long time after what Ligmer had implied about her race’s archeologists. Now she began to raise a bony fist, glaring down into Ligmer’s face, her own lips drawn back snarlingly.
    Ferenc got to his feet and darted to her side. Tall as he was, he was ^overtopped by inches when he stood there. "Be careful,” he said warningly. “You will have me to answer to.” White-faced, Ligmer was shaping his mouth to speak, when Lang’s velvet voice once more stroked their ears.
    “Please!” he said. “Accept my apologies, and excuse me— I am after all an ignorant stranger, unaware of your local susceptibilities. It was unforgivable of me, of course, but if I might nonetheless beg your pardons . . .?”
    Puzzled, the Pag and Ferenc both turned their stares on him. He smiled, and rose to his feet with a little bow, cradling his black-furred pet in the crook of one arm. Automatically, the others moved forward toward the door with him, and he bowed and gestured for them to precede him. They did so quietly.
    Lang hesitated a moment when they had gone into the corridor, his eyes hinting at mystification. Before he himself followed them, he turned and beckoned to Vykor.
    “Steward! Are they permitted to settle this argument by force when they get aboard Waystation?”
    "No,