“Comet! Comet!” she heard, and moaned, “Fools!” with the last pressure in her body before the blast exploded her.
Speech ended. Thought endured longer, enough for her to think: Had it not been for Awb … No, that’s unfair. When we escape to space those like him, poisoned by no fault of their own, must still be a part of us, because who can say what other poisons await us out there…?
Not Thilling; she dissolved into the dark, while steam and dust and shreds of what had been the folk and all they cherished set off on their stratospheric journey round the globe.
It was to last more than a score of years.
PART SIX
HAMMER
AND
ANVIL
I
“Your business?” said the house in a tone as frosty as a polar winter. Then followed a dull and reflex hiss as its vocalizing bladders automatically refilled.
At first Chybee was too startled to respond. This magnificent home had overwhelmed her even as she approached: its towering crest, its ramifying branches garlanded with countless luminants, its far-spread webs designed to protect the occupants against wingets and add their minuscule contribution to the pool of organic matter at its roots, cleverly programmed to withdraw before a visitor so that they would not be torn— all, all reflected such luxury as far surpassed her youthful experience.
But then her whole trip to and through this incredible city had been a revelation. She had heard about, had seen pictures of, the metropolis of Slah, and met travelers whom business or curiosity had lured hither. Nothing, though, had prepared her for the reality of her first-ever transcontinental flight, or the jobs she had been obliged to undertake to pay her way, constantly terrified that they would make her too late. No description could have matched the sensation of being carried pell-mell amid treetops by the scampering inverted fury of a dolmusq, with its eighteen tentacles snatching at whatever support was offered and its body straining under the weight of two-score passengers. Nor could anyone have conveyed to her the combined impact of the crowds, the noise, and the universal stench compound of pheromones, smoke from the industrial area to the west, and the reek of all the material that must go to rot in order to support the homes and food-plants of this most gigantic of cities. Never in all of history had there been one to match it, neither by land nor by sea—likely, not even in the age of legend.
From the corner of her eye she detected the house’s defenses tensing, gathering pressure to snare her if, by failing to respond, she identified herself as a mindless beast. Hastily she forced out, “My name is Chybee! I’ve come to hear the lecture! Never say I’ve missed it!”
Modern and talented as the house was, that exceeded its range of responses; she had to wait for a person to answer. Eventually the thorny barrier blocking the entrance drew aside and revealed an elderly woman wearing a stern expression.
“The professor’s lecture began at sundown,” she said. “It is now halfway to midnight.”
“I know!” Chybee cried, with a glance towards what little of the sky was visible through the overarching branches of this and other nearby homes. By chance the moon was framed by those and by a ring of thin cloud; it was just past the new, and its dark part was outlined by sparkles nearly as bright as those which shot continually through the upper air … a constant reminder, Chybee thought, of the rightness of her decision.
She went on pleadingly, “But I’ve come from Hulgrapuk to hear her! It’s not my fault I’ve been delayed!”
“Hulgrapuk?” The woman’s attitude softened instantly. “Ah! Then you must be one of Professor Wam’s students, I suppose. Come in quickly, but be very quiet.”
Injunctions to be quiet struck Chybee as rather silly when the hordes of the city made such a terrible droning and buzzing noise, sometimes punctuated by loud clanging and banging from the factories whose fumes made the air so foul, but she counted herself lucky not to have been turned away, and did as she was told.
Wondering who Professor Wam might be.