But in the end he had to admit that getting home was no longer his sole motive. He had seen five experiments in social engineering where human beings were treated as though they were ants in a formicarium.
He wanted to know what it was all about.
“All right, Histrina,” he said, “do you want to visit the Heavenly Mansion?”
Eagerly she agreed. “If the Festival of Light was so good, think what the Mansion of Pleasure must be like!”
“Don’t count on it,” he told her. “That was a bribe, one good enough to persuade people to give up their children—with some religious propaganda thrown in.”
The first problem was to secure the projector station during their absence, though he imagined the villagers would be too polite to enter it uninvited. The portal had no manual locking mechanism on the outside. Instead, as he had ascertained during his first encounter, it responded to a radio code. He and Histrina transferred to the cargo ship. He lifted from the surface of the station, descended until the hatch came in view, and transmitted a brief burst. The hatch obediently closed.
Laedo again touched the controls. The cargo ship ascended into the sky on its manoeuvring engine, quickly traversing the atmosphere. The stars appeared and the tiny sun blazed hard without the softening effect of the air blanket. The moon, which on take-off had been heading for the horizon, lay ahead, glowing in the light of the sun and three quarters gibbous, a mellow, yellow-white globe.
Still using the manoeuvring engine, Laedo flew close to the tiny world. Its atmosphere, visible as a radiant nimbus, appeared to be deeper than the atmospheres of the Erspia worlds themselves, but then he realized that this was an illusion produced by the moon’s smaller diameter. The air had to be deep enough to have a breathable density at ground level.
“The Mansion of Heavenly Pleasure,” Histrina breathed, her eyes shining. “I can’t wait!”
“I told you not to anticipate things, Histrina,” Laedo rebuked. “Whatever’s down there won’t be what you expect. Haven’t you learned that by now?”
“Oh, you always want to spoil things.”
They entered the atmosphere and descended in a shallow dive. A curved landscape showed itself.
Features appeared: low rolling hills, isolated valleys and canyons. Mostly, though, the moon consisted of a level plain, dull yellow in colour. Laedo got the impression it was coated with yellow moss.
Oddly, he saw no open water. No rivers, lakes or seas. Cloud was rare, a few wispy streaks. Neither did he see any growing crops or herds of animals. If there was any sizeable population it did not appear to support itself by farming or hunting.
There was a population, however. The cargo ship came in sight of what could only be described as a set of fabulous palaces. Histrina oohed and aahed as they circled the complex from the air. Pavilions, domes, classical frontages, all sparkled in the air.
Then Laedo spotted something which had been hidden from him at first, partly by the curvature of the landscape and also because it was concealed in a declivity. It was an enormous long shape lying on its side. Steering so as to hover over the object, Laedo was startled. Though old, battered and dented, its metal skin scored, stained and pitted, the structure was still recognisable.
It was an interstellar passenger liner. But how old? One century? Two? Dropping lower, Laedo managed to read the worn, patchy name on the liner’s flank.
IFS Excelsior.
It took him a few moments to remember where he had heard the name. “The Excelsior, ” he murmured.
“Didn’t a ship of that name disappear en route , early last century? They never did find her, did they?”
He shook his head in irritation with himself. He was absent-mindedly asking Histrina questions she knew nothing about. She was gazing blankly at the image of the liner. After the wonders she had seen lately it made little impression on her.
Even though, if Laedo was guessing correctly, her ancestors were among the Excelsior’s passengers and crew. A vital question had been answered.
The missing starliner must be the source of Klystar’s original human stock.
He was about to move off when a slight movement caught his attention. A figure had emerged from the hulk and was waving frantically up at the cargo ship.
Laedo immediately took his vessel down and landed a short distance away. “Wait here,” he said. “I’m going outside.”
In seconds he was standing on the surface of Erspia-5’s moon. The air smelled fresh, with a faint tang of lemon. As he had thought, a springy yellow moss was underfoot, but there was no time to examine it more closely. The man from the starliner ran up to him.
“Thank God you’ve come at last!”
Laedo stared at the stranger, who like himself wore a dark-coloured utility suit. He was stocky, with intense brown eyes, his broad face fringed with black hair and a black spade beard. His demeanour was agitated. It struck Laedo that his cast of face was not at all like that of Erspians generally.
Narrow yellow stripes adorned the shoulders of his suit. A badge of rank, most likely.
“My name’s Garo,” he gasped. “I’m the Excelsior’s purser. How many others are coming? Is there a warship on the way? Tell me, for God’s sake!”
Laedo swallowed. “Calm yourself,” he mumbled. Then he cleared his throat and spoke up.
“I’m sorry, but no one else is coming. I am a Class CCC cargo carrier, but I am stranded, like you. My main drive has a cracked transductor.”
The other’s shoulders sagged. He groaned and turned aside. “Will rescue never come?”
Laedo had a question. “Did you say you are the ship’s purser? Excuse me, but the Excelsior vanished long ago. How are you still alive?”
“That’s simple enough. I’ve spent the time in a stasis cabinet. I’m the only one to have escaped Klystar’s clutches.”
“Then there is a Klystar?” Laedo’s eyes widened.
“Oh, there’s a Klystar all right,” Garo confirmed bitterly. “You’ll find that out. He took all the others and used them for breeding stock. I spent five days hiding in a sewer conduit. When the ship was empty I came out and took to the cabinet. He knows I’m here but he leaves me alone—after all, I’m almost never around. I come out and take a look every few years, and I’ve an alarm rigged to detect any ship that arrives. Rescue must come some day.”
Laedo considered this. A stasis cabinet was a by-product of the star drive. It could slow down time within it. The past century and a half could have been only weeks or days to Garo. Events of long ago would seem of recent occurrence to him.
“Is Klystar here?” he asked. “On this moon?”
Garo reacted nervously to the question. “Yes, he’s here.”
“Can’t you use the Excelsior to get home?”
“No, Klystar saw to that. He junked the star drive and pretty well everything else. I’ve enough power to run some lighting and the stasis cabinet. And I’ve food to last. But that’s all.”
“Tell me about Klystar.”
“What is there to tell? He’s a monster! But you’ll see for yourself. There’s nowhere for you to go.”
Garo shot a sudden glance over Laedo’s shoulder. He went pale. “Here he comes now. I’d better make myself scarce.”
Laedo turned to look. A tall ‘something’ had appeared over the nearby horizon. It walked on two long, thin legs, themselves as tall as a man. The body was stubby, the head cylindrical.
Garo was running for the Excelsior. Laedo hesitated. Should he return to his ship and stick with Histrina?