“Oh? Where?”
“Why, along the river itself. Lulach alone holds many a merchant who has traveled widely over this planet, many a searcher for natural wealth who has adventured deep into the wildernesses. And beyond Lulach—Well, at any rate, I can convey you that far, and back again afterward if you discover zero there and decide not to range more widely. Would you like to inspect my vessel?”
“Where is it?”
“In the valley, at Paz de la Frontera, the head of navigation.”
Diana’s consideration was brief. If nothing else, she was sick of the cheap hotel where she and Axor had taken lodgings. At first she had enjoyed wandering around Aurea, seeing what there was to see and, as opportunity offered, asking about inexplicable structures. Now she had used those activities up, and had been sitting boredly in her room watching a teleplay. The latter end of this past couple of weeks had become wearisome.
In fact, she had begun regretting her refusal of Gatto’s offer. Her immediate reason for that had been the fact that here she and Axor were on Daedalus; once they left it, they would probably not be able to return for a long time, if ever. Why not stay and investigate as originally planned? She was confident that the commandant would still be willing to arrange berths, if Daedalus turned out to be a blind alley—though while she waited for a ship, she might have trouble fending him off. The past several days had almost brought her to the point of thus swallowing her pride and making her appeal. What a waste of time, when there was that unfinished expedition on Imhotep to start all over again!
Her second reason for staying had, as Gatto guessed, been the desire, against every reasonable hope, to learn what had become of Targovi. As the initial exuberance of freedom damped down, she had more and more felt anger and grief on his behalf gnaw at her. Here was a chance to forget them for a while, and maybe even accomplish something.
“Sure,” she caroled. “Just a minute.”
Having recorded a message for Axor, she skinned out of her clothes and into brief shorts and skimpy blouse. The lowlands were hot in summer. To her belt she attached purse and knife. She kicked her bare feet into sandals. “Let’s go, Joe.”
Air traffic was under pettifogging emergency restrictions, but a train system, built in pioneer days, still ran, and a station lay near the hotel. As the car they had boarded whirred up off the ground and started downhill above the guide cable, Diana and Shan U settled into a seat. She took the window side and kept her gaze outward, upon the landscape. Unoffended, he stuffed a pipe with dried leaves that smelled like warm saddle leather when he lit them, and conversed.
“The Highroad River has always been a main artery of travel,” he said in answer to a remark of hers. “It should become still more so in the present situation. Roads between the settlements along it range from wretched to nonexistent, and as for flight, why, now the very omnibuses are subject to endless, arbitrary inspections, delays, and other such nuisances. Boats remain free of this. Should you find that you do wish to go to Lulach, my Waterblossom is no speedster, I grant you, but the fare is modest, accommodations are comfortable, food is good, and the leisured pace will enable you to learn much about our planet en route—which is highly advisable if you would strike into its outback. You will also find yourselves in entertaining company. This trip it includes a live, traveling show.”
“What?” asked Diana absently. She was watching the mountains fall away in ridges and steeps that became jungled hills. Clouds loomed ahead, brooding rain; lightning flickered in their depths. The wind of its speed shrilled faintly into the ancient car.
“Another Cynthian, albeit from Catawrayannis rather than the mother world. She brought her tricks, together with a performing beast, to earn her keep while she toured Daedalus, as she had been doing elsewhere. Such restless individuals are frequent in my race.”
Wistfulness tugged at Diana. Maybe she could work up an act of her own and take it to the stars?