It seemed unsafe, insecure, as if about to collapse beneath them, to break up like a rotten melon.
'Follow the scarlet vessel,' said the voice on the intercom.
Then Asquiol, Willow and Talfryn had vanished and only Renark was in the ship moving down once again into the red fog of the planet.
Where were they?
Desperately he quested around him with his mind, but the madness of disordered space and time was all about him - a whirlpool of wrongness. Talfryn reappeared.
Renark said: 'Where were you - what happened?' Then Willow reappeared, and Asquiol reappeared.
And suddenly they were back over the surface of the planet again.
'Follow that scarlet vessel,' the voice instructed.
This time they noted a sardonic quality. Asquiol smiled, sensing that out there was a fellow spirit, as malicious as himself.
Willow had been seriously affected by the phenomenon, particularly when she had found herself momentarily alone in the ship. How many ships had there been in those few moments?
The scarlet vessel was at the point of the phalanx of slim, round, squat or square spaceships surrounding them. It broke away from the main fleet and headed across the planet in a south-westerly direction. Renark turned his own ship after it. The scarlet vessel slowed and Renark adjusted his speed. There was a break and for a few seconds the ship travelled backwards then lurched and was moving forwards again after the scarlet ship. Ahead of them now they could make out the towers of a city.
The whole situation was taking on the aspect of a confused nightmare. Whether it was illusion or some physical distortion of reality, Renark simply couldn't tell.
Even the outline of the city ahead did not remain constant but wavered and changed.
Perhaps, Renark guessed, these hallucinations or whatever they were, were the effect of adjusting to the different laws which applied to the Shifter system. Their senses had been thrown out of gear by the change and were having to adapt.
He hoped, for the sake of his mission, that he could adapt.
'Entropium,' said the voice on the laser.
The scarlet craft arched upwards until it was vertical over the planet, and began to shudder downwards on an invisible repulsion field. Renark followed its example.
Cautiously, he nursed the ship towards the ground, still not sure that the planet would not suddenly disappear from around them and they would be once again in the thick of battle with the alien ships. The experiences of the past half-hour had shattered his nerves, almost sapped his confidence. 'They landed on a mile-square field which was bare but for a collection of small buildings at its far end.
'What now?' Willow said.
'We disembark - we got here comparatively safely and we were aided. They'd be unlikely to go to all the trouble they did if they wished us harm. Also I'm curious to find but about the people of "Entropium".' Renark pushed his big frame into a space suit and the others followed his example.
'What happened back there?' Talfryn said a trifle shakily.
'I should imagine we experienced some sort of spacetime slip. We know nothing of this system to speak of. We must be prepared for anything and everything - we can't even be certain that actions we make here will have the results and implications they would have in normal space-time. We could, for instance, walk forward and discover that we were one step backwards, could jump and find ourselves buried in rock. Be careful, though - I doubt if anything as drastic as that will happen here, particularly since human beings seem to inhabit the world and have built a city here. But we must go warily.'
THREE
The scarlet spacecraft was the only other ship on what was obviously a landing field. They wondered where the rest of the fleet had gone. As they cautiously disembarked, they saw that the crew of the scarlet ship were doing the same. Some of the figures were human.
And, for the first time, they were seeing alien and obviously intelligent life forms.
Renark checked his wrist gauge. 'Looks as if we don't need suits,' he said, 'but it's just as well to be careful.'
He was tense as he walked across the charred ground towards the other group. He studied the aliens mingled with the human beings.
There were two sextupeds with four arms each and completely square heads containing a row of tiny eyes and beneath them a small mouth; several hopping creatures similar to kangaroos but obviously reptilian; a long-legged creature who towered over the others with a body proportionately smaller, a round body supporting long, swinging arm tentacles and a round head.
The leader of the six human beings was young, smiling, fair and dressed in a style which had been out of fashion in the galaxy for two hundred years - a loose blue shirt, baggy trousers tucked into green gaiters, and with mauve pumps on his feet. Over the shirt was a pleated coat fanning out from his waist and dropping to his calves. His weapons included an unfamiliar pistol and a rifle slung over his shoulder. He swaggered.
'Move high, you load,' he said in a peculiar accent. 'How strong goes galaxy - same?'
'It's changed,' replied Renark, recognising in the youth's archaic slang a patois once used by the old CMG - the Criminal Musician's Guild which, two hundred years before, had been composed of men outlawed because they refused to play the specific kinds of music deemed 'healthy' by the music censors.
But, two hundred years ago, the Shifter had been unheard of and Migaa not settled. Renark was curious. He could understand that two centuries hadn't passed as far as the young man was concerned, the flow of time being different here. Yet there was something wrong.
'You're after me, aren't you?' the young man said. 'I blew the long note around two-twenty W.W. Three. You?'
'This is now four hundred and fifty-nine years after World War Three on Earth,' Renark said. 'We use a new reckoning, though. How did you get here? Mankind had only just reached the Rim when you were around.'
'Accident, com. We were on the run - chased by Geepy ships - ran straight here. Found strange mixture, man - I inform you - and everyone from future. You're the farthest into the future I've met Kol Manage is my name. Let's go.'
'Go where?'
'Entropium.' He pointed at the city. 'Come on, it's a long blow.'
The city could be seen about two miles away, scarring the skyline with a peculiar assortment of massive structures, some horribly ugly. But at least its outline now seemed firm and definite.
'Haven't you got ground transport?' Talfryn asked.
'Sometimes, com - not today. We scrap it all. Too square…'
'Why was that?'
'It palled, you know - we build something different sometime.'
Renark fumed inwardly. This casual attitude was aggravating when he needed clear, definite answers to the questions concerning him.
There was little time to lose. Now they were here he wanted to get started on his investigations. Yet the careless attitude of the Entropites threatened to slow him down, even though they didn't deliberately try to curtail him.
'Who runs the planet?' he asked Kol Manage as the group began to straggle towards the city.
'We all do. I guess you'd call Ragner Olesson boss. That's where we're going now - he wants to see you. He likes to see all newcomers.'
'Can't we get there faster? I'm in a hurry.'
'Well, stop hurrying, man - you've come to the end of the track. Ease up - there's nowhere to hurry to.'
'What do you mean?' Renark's tense mouth was grim.
'What do you think? You didn't like it there - you'll have to like it here. Simple.' And Kol Manage refused to answer any further questions.
They reached the suburbs of the city and were watched incuriously by some of the inhabitants, human and unhuman.