The Unreasoning Mask Read Free Page A

but this, too, was thrilling. Cold burned in beauty.
     
     
"Kala!watha! Kala!watha!"
     
     
The murmurs flowed around him. Kala- indicated "person" or "sentient"

or "speech." -!watha was as close to "Earth" as their language permitted

them to approach. The Terrans could not pronounce at all the buzzing

consonant designated by ! in the phonetic transcription used by the

Terran linguists.
     
     
Here and there arose murmurs of p + hawaw!sona. Double-mask. Earthpeople

here wore masks to strain out the psyche-deligenic spores. Also, no matter

how expressive or uninhibited his or her features seemed to the other

Terrans, to the Kalafaian the Earthperson was masked with slow-flowing

concrete.
     
     
Ramstan stepped past the sign which bore the ideogram warning the natives

to go no further. He went down the ramp to the bottom of the depression

and up the nine stone steps to the slab on which al-Buraq sprawled.

Normally, the stone was gray. Now it seemed to blush lightly. A moment

later, it blushed deeply.
     
     
The ship panted red light through the semiopaque hull. The lower part

of the disk-shaped body and the five arms bulged out against the slab,

like a behemoth pressed down by its own weight.
     
     
Ramstan halted before the two masked marines at the port, gave the password

-- though both recognized him, of course -- held out his right hand so one

could read through UV glasses the code printed on the palm. He entered the

port, air under pressure blowing from it, and went down a short corridor.

The bulkhead before him smiled; he stepped through the lips. For about

seven seconds, he stood still while supersonic beams disintegrated spores

that had been killed in the corridor.
     
     
A whistle sounded; the bulkheads flashed red. He removed his mask, folded

it, and stuck it into an inner pocket of his jacket. He went on into a

corridor twice as tall as he, round, and curving toward the center

mess hall for the third-level crew. The floor was cartilaginous and

springy. Round and lozenge-shaped shining plates alternated along both

sides of the corridor. Opened or closed irises were spaced at irregular

intervals along the corridors. The light was white within the ship;

Ramstan moved shadowless. The glow on the circle to his right dulled,

then became a mosaic of partial views of operational-important places in

the ship. Eight triangles, separated by a thin black line, composed the

circle and showed him three slices of the bridge, the chief engineer's

post, chief gunnery officer's post, two laboratories, and the chief

medical officer's office.
     
     
"Cancel V-1," Ramstan said, and the mosaic died out in a burst of light.
     
     
A whistle shrilled. A lozenge on the right bulkhead showed the face of

Lieutenant-Commodore Tenno.
     
     
"No orders now," Ramstan growled. "Cancel A-1."
     
     
Tenno disappeared in a glory of light. That was one of the disadvantages

of replacing metal and plastic with protoplasm, cables with nerves,

computers with brains. Like a dog wriggling and fawning with frenzied

love at her master's return home, al-Buraq was overexcited at seeing

him after his long (ten-hour) absence.
     
     
The chief bioengineer, Doctor Indra, was working at the inhibition

of al-Buraq. At least, he was thinking about the problem or should

be. Ramstan had seen Indra squatting cross-legged on the floor, immobile,

even the eyes unblinking, one skinny brown arm extended to the bulkhead

and holding a mentoscope against a sensor plate.
     
     
Ramstan left the corridor for an elevator passageway.
     
     
At its end was a port which became a hatch as he neared it. He stepped onto

the gray disk which rose up through the hatch, said, "One-three. C-C,"

and waited. An iris opened in the bulkhead, the disk moved into the iris,

carrying him with a motion which he could barely feel. The bulkheads

rounded to form a shaft, the disk rose, the flesh-colored bulkheads

glowing, and then stopped with a