The Earth Gods Are Coming Read Free

indicated lane, flashed his ident cipher and switched over to auto. He locked the manuals and leaned back, taking out a green cigar and lighting up; the first today.
    Somewhere in that plastic and glass colossus a robotic brain was charting all the myriad fliers, buzzing merrily in and out, sorting them into lanes, bringing them in to then-correct landing stages, channeling them out and handing over to other traffic controls in the city. Inglis waited until his flier touched down, in quiet composure. Any man who spends much time in space grows accustomed to waiting.
    There was a uniformed human attendant at the landing stage; a slip of a girl in smart uniform that showed rather too much leg for razor-sharp discipline. She didn't smile, checking the vehicles in. She'd probably been on duty for about an hour and was already heartily sick of it.
    She directed Inglis' flier into a garage and Inglis to a reception room. Here another young girl who might have been the third of the triplets he had seen that morning told him to wait in a comfortable lounge.
    Despite his own phlegmatic acceptance of procedure, Inglis began to wonder. After all, the Solarian Culture Dissemination Bureau was an extremely powerful organization in the hierarchy of ministries, departments and bureaus administering the Solar Commonwealth of Stars. If they wanted to bother their heads over a relatively insignificant colonel —no, why bother to cavil? A completely insignificant colonel of Marines; then, if they were interested in him, he would have expected a much longer run around than this. No forms, in quintuplicate, for instance.
    Inglis allowed himself to become a little excited.
    The receptionist looked up. She was listening to her instruments. Then, without smiling; but with perfect courtesy and politeness, she said, "Would you go through door fifteen, please, Colonel Inglis?"
    "Thank you," Inglis said, rising. Door fifteen took him into a corridor with another door opposite. He went through. Through that door was another. He went through.
    A very large, very silent, very craggy man in total black, cradling a small hand machine gun, felt Inglis' clothes, grunted and indicated that he was clean and could go ahead.
    By this time Inglis didn't know whether to be extremely annoyed, extremely frightened or to laugh.
    The last door took him into a vestibule. Soft lights and a thick carpet reassured him, giving him the information that he was back in civilization once again. He walked forward into a wide, high-ceilinged room. The walls were covered with what he recognized as maps even though they were security blanketed. Scattered about were a few welcoming armchairs, a table or so with drinks carelessly standing. A communications panel covered the end wall, in front of which stood celestial globes which were not at that moment alight—and the outstretched hand and beamingly fatuous face of Dick Myrtle.
    "Roy! You old landlubber! How are you?"
    "Dick! I thought they'd pensioned you off years ago. How are you, you busted drive tube, you?"
    Inglis was genuinely pleased to see Dick Myrtle again. They'd been shipmates scores of times, and yet in the odd way these things always go, since they'd parted company from the old Sappho they'd never even tried to contact each other.
    "Married?" Myrtle was saying. Oddly, some of the welcoming gleam went out of his face. But he was still the same old fooling, never-serious Myrtle as he turned to the room's only other occupant.
    "Sorry, Gus. Old shipmates, you know."
    "That's okay, Dick. Gave me a chance to size up your recommendation."
    "Recommendation?" Inglis said, shaking the proffered hand. Gus was burly, his dark blue uniform giving added bulk to the figure, and his face had a scrubbed, raw-beef look that showed many tiny blue veins like marbling. His eyes were deep-set and shrouded; he was wearing a very small jewel in his left ear.
    Only after all that registered did Inglis become aware of the enormous weight on the