Earth thought it had achieved peace, said his mind grayly, and now this has bloomed again between the stars.
He entered and sat obediently down in a recoil chair. Joachim lashed him fast with a few turns of wire. “I’ll be going back to my lodgings,” he said, yawning. “See that, our boy is put under guard at the ship, Sean. Then you can come back here if you want to.”
He went out and the airlock sighed shut behind him. Sean’s hands moved over the control panel with the deft ease of a skilled pilot. There was a mutter of engines and the panel flashed a clearance from the spaceport robot monitor. The landing cradle moved out of the hangar until it was under open sky. Sean smiled and touched the controls.
Trevelyan relaxed against the thrust of acceleration and looked ahead, out through the forward viewports. In minutes the atmosphere was below them and they were in space.
Trevelyan had seen that vision more times than be could remember, and yet each time it blazed for him with the same cold and undying magnificence. The darkness was like crystal, clear infinite black reaching beyond imagination; and against it, the stars were a bitterly brilliant radiance, white and aflame across the limitless night.
“The heavens declare the glory of God,” be whispered, and the firmamennt showeth His handiwork.” Sean gave him a puzzled glance. “What’s that?” “An old Terrestrial book,” said Trevelyan. “Very old.” Sean shrugged and punched the computer keys. The flier mumbled to itself and swung about toward the Peregrine’s calculated position.
The Nomad ship hove into view and Trevelyan studied her. She was a big cylindroid, two hundred and forty meters long from the blunt nose to the gravitic focusing cones at the stern, forty meters in diameter. There were three rings
of six boathouses each around her circumference, holding spaceboats as well as fliers, and mounting a gun turret on top. Between each pair of boathouses was, alternately, a heavier rifle turret and a missile tube; and between the rings were the wide airlock doors of cargo-loading shafts. The vessel’s flanks gleamed with a dull metallic luster; and as he neared, Trevelvan saw that the hide was wom, patched, pitted and seared in spots.
Sean landed expertly beside one of the boathouses, clamping on, and a tube snaked from its small airlock to fasten over the -flier’s. Trevelyan felt a normal Earth weight pressing him from the hull.
“All right.” Sean freed the prisoner. “Come along.
A bored-looking Nomad on guard duty straightened when he saw the new arrival. “Who is that, Sean?”
“Snooper.” Sean’s tone was curt. “Hal says to brig him.”
The guard thumbed an intercom button and called for help. Trevelyan leaned against the metal wall and folded his arms. “It isn’t necessary,” he grinned. “I’m not going to make a fight.”
“Say-” The guard’s eyes grew wider. “You aren’t a Solman?”
“Yes, of course. What of it?”
“Oh-just never seen a Solman before, that’s all. I hope they don’t finish you before I get a chance to ask about
some things.”
-Several others arrived with sidearms in hand. They were a rather ordinary-looking bunch, if you excepted the earrings and tattoos of some. Trevelyan made absent, noncommittal replies to their questions and remarks, and was escorted off to his jail.
Under-gravitationally speaking, above-the ship’s skin, there was a five-meter space running almost the whole length of the cylindroid. On inquiry, Trevelyan learned that it contained public facilities and enterprises: the food plant and workshops, the recreational and assembly areas. A companionway took the party directly through this ring into the next concentric section, which had a three-meter clearance and was devoted to the residential apartments. The remainder of the ship was given over to control equipment and the great holds for supplies and cargo. Trevelyan was conducted down a hallway in the residential level.
He looked about him with an interested glance. The corridors, which intersected at frequent intervals, were about three meters wide, and lined with the doors of apartments. Underfoot the floor was carpeted with a soft springy material, dark green, most likely the produce of some world unknown to the Union. The walls were elaborately decorated with murals, or with panels of carved wood and plastic. Most of the doors were also wood or molded plastic, with ornamentation of hammered metal. Outside many apartments there were narrow boxes of soil, bearing flowers such as Earth bad never seen.