The Shores of Death Read Free

her. He blew on the instrument and the carriage rose into the hot sky. Through its transparent floor, she saw the mass of brightly coloured flowers, some measuring twenty feet across, moving swiftly past.
    She said nothing, for she was busy composing herself. Andros probably noticed, because he didn’t look at her, but stared with apparent interest at the flowers until the carriage had found a space for itself among the hundreds of other carriages hovering above the Great Glade where that part of Earth’s society sufficiently concerned with the problem of intergalactic flight had met to debate. For a second she thought she felt Andros probing her mind. But she dismissed the idea, guessing that it came from her own abnormal mental state.
    “I can see you aren’t wearing a gravstrap,” Andros said, reaching under the couch. He handed her the thin, tubular belt and fitted a similar one under his arms. She copied him. They left the carriage and drifted down among the packed tiers until they found two vacant chairs and seated themselves.
    Below them, on the central dais, a man was speaking. He was a squat man with a pointed, black beard. He wore a purple headress, like a turban, a red, knee-length coat, open at the neck and flared at the waist, and flat-heeled, calf-length boots. Evidently one of the unfortunates who had to spend months or years away from Earth, supervising the agricultural or industrial worlds which supplied Earth and left space free for gardens like the Flower Forest.
    “Barre Calax,” Andros whispered, “Chief Controller of Ganymede Metals, born in space and a bit of deviation-ist. I think he even likes living on the Ganymede Complex,” he smiled as she looked a little surprised. “He’s the only man strongly opposed to the abandonment of the project.”
    She did not listen closely to Barre Calax until she had seen Marca, sitting with his arms folded, dressed in a dark red toga, listening intently to Calax from his seat in the first tier. Beside Clovis was Narvo Velusi, dressed as soberly as Clovis in a russett toga, his high-heeled black boots stretched out before him, his body bending forward slightly. Velusi had been Marca’s right hand man in the disbanded government. He had a thin, aesthetic face, veined but unwrinkled, a lot of white hair and sharp, almost black eyes that were alive with intelligence.
    In spite of the effort he was making to emulate the musical tones of the Earth people, Calax’s voice seemed harsh to Fastina. He was speaking urgently and bluntly.
    “I’m not ignoring the facts. I know all the arguments against making more flights. I know what they say happens to the crews and I agree that what happens is disgusting. But it doesn’t matter.” He paused to judge the effect of his words, he looked around at the polite, composed faces. He wiped his sweating forehead and breathed in heavily. His words seemed to have had no effect. He continued:
    “In two hundred years—maybe fifty more at the most —the whole race will be dead. Surely it’s better that we send something of ourselves out there—something that is going to be found, something alive that might breed on a new planet in a new galaxy, that might start the race again? Let’s keep trying. We haven’t tried everything, have we? New discoveries are made daily. I know all our conditioning and training is failing to date, but we’ve got to go on trying.” He paused again. “It’s a valuable human trait to go on trying...” Calax wiped his forehead and waited for the response. None came. “That’s all.” He went to his seat, obviously aware that the only response he had awakened was one of slight uneasiness.
    Narvo Velusi got up and looked at the mediator who sat slightly to one side of the dais. The mediator was a fair-haired young man who stroked his moustache continuously. He nodded and Velusi walked on to the dais.
    “I think we all sympathise with Barre Calax’s sentiments,” he said slowly. “But