I wore a light tropical suit and sunglasses, for the yellow sky had in it only a few orange-colored clouds and the sun beat waves of heat about me, and they broke upon the pastel pavements where they splashed and rose in a warm, reality-distorting spray. I drove my rented vehicle, a slip-sled, into the art colony of a city called Midi, a place too sharp and fragile and necessarily beside the sea for my liking--with nearly all its towers, spires, cubes and ovoids that people call home, office, studio, or shop built out of that stuff called glacyllin, which may be made transparent in a colorless or tinted fashion and opaqued at any color, by means of a simple, molecule-disturbing control--and I sought out Nuage, a street down by the waterfront, driving through a town that constantly changed Lolor about me, reminding me of molded jello--raspberry, strawberry, cherry, orange, lemon and lime--with lots of fruits inside.
I found the place, at the old address, and Ruth had been right.
It had changed, quite a bit. It had been one of the few strongholds against the creeping jello that ate the city, back when we had lived there together. Now it, too, had succumbed. Where once there had been a high, stucco wall enclosing a cobbled courtyard, a black iron gate set within its archway, a hacienda within, sprawled about a small pool where the waters splashed sun-ghosts on the rough walls and the tiles, now there was a castle of jello with four high towers. Raspberry, yet.
I parked, crossed a rainbow bridge, touched the announcement-plate on the door.
"This home is vacant," reported a mechanical voice through a concealed speaker.
"When will Miss Laris be back?" I asked.
"This home is vacant," it repeated. "If you are interested in purchasing it, you may contact Paul Glidden at Sunspray Realty, Incorporated, 178 Avenue of the Seven Sighs."
"Did Miss Laris leave a forwarding address?"
"No."
"Did she leave any messages?"
"No."
I returned to the slip-sled, raised it onto an eight-inch cushion of air and sought out the Avenue of the Seven Sighs, which had once been called Main Street.
He was fat and lacking in hair, except for a pair of gray eyebrows about two inches apart, each thin enough to have been drawn on with a single pencil-stroke, high up there over eyes slate-gray and serious, higher still above the pink catenary mouth that probably even smiled when he slept, there, under the small, upturned thing he breathed through, which looked even smaller and more turned-up because of the dollops of dough his cheeks that threatened to rise even further and engulf it completely, along with all the rest of his features, leaving him a smooth, suffocating lump (save for the tiny, pierced ears with the sapphires in them), turning as ruddy as the wide-sleeved shirt that covered his northern hemisphere, Mister Glidden, behind his desk at Sunspray, lowering the moist hand I had just shaken, his Masonic ring clicking against the ceramic sunburst of his ashtray as he picked up his cigar, in order to study me, fish-like, from the lake of smoke into which he submerged.
"Have a seat, Mister Conner," he chewed. "What have I got that you want?"
"You're handling Ruth Laris' place, over on Nuage, aren't you?"
"That's right. Think you might want to buy it?"
"I'm looking for Ruth Laris," I said. "Do you know where she's moved?"
A certain luster went out of his eye.
"No," he said. "I've never met Ruth Laris."
"She must want you to send the money someplace."
"That's right."
"Mind telling me where?"
"Why should I?"
"Why not? I'm trying to locate her."
"I'm to deposit in her account at a bank."
"Here in town?"
"That is correct. Artists Trust."
"But she didn't make the arrangements with you?"
"No. Her attorney did."
"Mind telling me who he is?"
He shrugged, down there in his pool. "Why not?" he said. "Andre DuBois, at Benson, Carling and Wu. Eight blocks north of here."
"Thanks."
"You're not interested in the property then, I take it?"
"On the contrary," I said. "I'll buy the place, if I can take possession this afternoon--and if I can discuss the deal with her attorney. How does fifty-two thousand sound?"
Suddenly he was out of his pool.
"Where may I call you, Mister Conner?"
"I'll be staying at the Spectrum."
"After five?"
"After five is fine."
So what to do?
First, I checked in at the Spectrum. Second, using the proper code, I contacted my man on Driscoll to arrange for the necessary quantity of cash to be available to Lawrence Conner for the purchase. Third, I drove down to the religious district, parked the sled, got out, began walking.
I walked past shrines and temples dedicated to Everybody, from Zoroaster to Jesus Christ. I slowed when I came to the Pei'an section.
After a time, I found it. All there was above the ground was an entranceway, a green place about the size of a one-car garage.
I passed within and descended a narrow stairway.
I reached a small, candle-lit foyer and moved on through a low arch.
I entered a dark shrine containing a central altar decked out in a deep green, tiers of pews all about it.
There were hundreds of stained glassite plates on all five walls, depicting the Pei'an deities. Maybe I shouldn't have gone there that day. It had been so long.
There were six Pei'ans and eight humans present, and four of the Pei'ans were women. They all wore prayerstraps.
Pei'ans are about seven feet tall and green as grass. Their heads look like funnels, flat on top, their necks like the necks of funnels. Their eyes are enormous and liquid green or yellow. Their noses are flat upon their faces--wrinkles parenthesizing nostrils the size of quarters. They have no hair whatsoever. Their mouths are wide and they don't really have any teeth in them, per se. Like, I guess the best example is an elasmobranch. They are constantly swallowing their skins. They lack lips, but their dermis bunches and hardens once it goes internal and gives them horny ridges with which to chew. After that, they digest it, as it moves on and is replaced by fresh matter. However this may sound to someone who has never met a Pei'an, they are lovely to look at, more graceful than cats, older than mankind, and wise, very. Other than this, they are bilaterally symmetrical and possess two arms and two legs, five digits per. Both sexes wear jackets and skirts and sandaIs, generally dark in color. The women are shorter, thinner, larger about the hips and chests than the men-- although the women have no breasts, for their young do not nurse, but digest great layers of fat for the first several weeks of their lives, and then begin to digest their skins. After a time, they eat food, pulpy mashes and seastuff mainly. That's Pei'ans.
Their language is difficult. I speak it. Their philosophies are complex. I know some of them. Many of them are telepaths, and some have other unusual abilities. Me, too.
I seated myself in a pew and relaxed. I draw a certain psychic strength from Pei'an shrines, because of my conditioning in Megapei. The Pei'ans are exceedingly polytheistic. Their religion reminds me a bit of Hinduism, because they've never discarded anything--and it seems they spent their entire history accumulating deities, rituals, traditions. Strantri is what the religion is called, and over the years it has spread considerably. It stands a good chance of becoming a universal religion one day because there's something in it to satisfy just about anybody, from animists and pantheists through agnostics and people who just like rituals. Native Pei'ans only constitute around ten percent of the Strantrians now, and theirs will probably be the first large-scale religion to outlive its founding race. There are fewer Pei'ans every year. As individuals, they have godawful long lifespans, but they're not very fertile. Since their greatest scholars have akeady written the last chapter in the immense _History of Pei'an Culture_, in 14,926 volumes, they may have decided that there's no reason to continue things any further. They have an awful lot of respect for their scholars. They're funny that way.