Pepin jerked his body off his stool and slammed the book shut. On the hushed world of Moon, he made as much noise as he could.
He limped, more evidently high-shouldered now that he was moving, towards the door section of his dome. He took down his helmet and fitted it on to his shoulders, activated the door section, and crossed the sharp, bright ground covering the distance between himself and the city. By choice, and to the relief of his people, he lived, outside the city.
On the surface, there was little to see of the city. Merely a storey or two, perhaps three in places. All the prominences were square and transparent, to absorb as much energy from the waning sun as possible.
Another door section in one of the buildings opened to him and he went inside, hardly realizing that he had left the surface.
He entered a funnel containing a disc-shaped platform and the platform began to fall downwards, slowing as it reached the bottom.
Here the light was completely artificial and the walls were of metal - plain, undecorated tubes twice the height of a tall, thin Moonite. Pepin was not typical of his race.
He limped along this tube for a short distance, until the floor began to move. He let it carry him through the labyrinthine intestines of the city until he came to the hall he wanted.
The hall was quite unpopulated until Pepin entered. It had a domed ceiling and was covered by screens, charts, indicators, conveying every item of information which a citizen might require to know in the day-to-day life of the city. Pepin went to the list, craning his head to look at it. He started at the bottom and followed the list of names up.
His name was at the top. He must go immediately to Ship Controller and apply for his ship. If he did not, his name would go back to the bottom, according to regulations.
As he turned to leave the hall, another Moonite entered.
His helmet was flung back, lying against his shoulder blades.
His golden hair was long and his thin face smiled.
This was G Nak, the greatest of the trader-pilots, and he did not need to look at the list, for he had a permanent ship of his own. The population of Moon was small, and G Nak knew Pepin as well as anyone.
He stopped sharply, arms akimbo, and contemplated the list.
'So you journey to Earth, P Karr. You will find it decadent and unpleasant. Take plenty of food-you will not like their salty grub.'
'Thank you,' bobbed Pepin as he left.
As if mutated by their constant contact with the mother planet, only the ships of Moon had character. They were burnished and patterned with fancifully wrought images. Ancient animals prowled along their hulls, gargoyles glowered from indentations created by heavily moulded figures of famous men, tentacled hands curled themselves over the curves like the arms of wrecked sailors clinging to spars, or else like the protective hands of a she-baboon about her young. The ships were so heavily decorated that in the light they looked like frozen lava, all lumps and gulleys in obsidian or brass.
Pepin, luggage on back, paused before he put foot on the short, moving ramp which would deliver him to the entrance of his allotted ship. He allowed himself time to study the raised images, then stepped upon the ramp and was whisked up to the airlock which opened for him.
The inside of the ship was very cramped and consisted mainly of cargo space. The cargo, which would go with Pepin and be delivered to an Earth-city called Barbart, was already stowed. Pepin lowered himself on to the couch where he would spend the journey. After Pepin and cargo had been delivered, the ship would return, as it had left, automatically.
A whisper of noise, hushed like all Moon sounds, warned him that the ship was about to take-off. He braced himself; felt no sensation as the ship rose on course for Earth.
The bright ship sped through the soft darks of weary space, a bold spark intruding the blackness. It flickered along its path until at length Pepin's screen picked up the growing globe of Earth-brown, yellow and white, turning slowly in the scant warmth of the dormant sun.
The planet seemed vaguely unreal, perhaps because it was imperfectly focused on the screen, yet the stuff of space seemed to drift through it as if the planet's very fabric was worn thin.
Pepin felt the hard metal rocket would not stop when it reached Earth, but tear through it easily and continue on into empty space where more vital stars pulsed. At one time, Pepin knew, the universe had been even thicker with bright stars, and even his own sun had possessed more than the three planets that now circled it.
Silently, the ship went into orbit, easing itself by stages into the atmosphere, down through the clear, purple sky, down into the brown cloud-banks that hung close to the ground, through the clouds until it had levelled out again and moved with decreasing speed across sluggish seas and wastes of dark yellow, brown and black, studded by great white patches of salt.
Much further inland, grey moss became apparent, and later the waving light green of the fragile fronds that marked what Earth's inhabitants called the Land of Fronds. In the Land of Fronds were two principal cities, two towns and a village. Barbart, the trading port between Moon and Earth, lay in a gentle valley. The hills, were covered in fronds that from above seemed like a rolling sea.- more sea-like than the salt-heavy waters far to the east.
Barbart was laid out precisely, in quadrangles, triangles and star-shaped plazas. The roofs of the low houses were of dark green and brick-brown, yet seemed brightly coloured compared with their surroundings. The ship passed over the huge red-gold machine which rose high above the other buildings.
This, Pepin knew, was called the Great Regulator and supplied necessary power to the city. Behind the Great Regulator, in the city's central plaza, was a cradlepad ready for his ship. It hovered and then dropped down on to the cradlepad.
Pepin shivered suddenly and did not rise immediately but watched his screen as people began to enter the plaza, moving speedily towards the ship.
Barbart was the city most like those he had read about in his books. It was considerably smaller than the Golden Age cities had been and resembled best a medieval Italian city.
From the ground, even the frond-covered hills might be a forest of oaks and elms if they were not looked at closely. Also Pepin knew that the folk of Barbart were quite similar to the ancient folk of Earth. Yet he could not convince himself, though he tried, that he had returned to the Earth of his books. For one thing the light was fainter, the air darker, the drifting brown clouds unlike any that had existed in Earth's past. Pepin was not as disappointed as he expected. Whatever deficiencies existed here, at least the planet was natural and Pepin placed much value on the naturalness of things.
The airlock had opened and the Barbartians grouped themselves outside it, waiting for the pilot to appear.
Pepin took up his luggage from beside the couch, swung his well-shaped legs to the floor and limped out of the cabin and through the airlock.
The heavy, brine-laden air half-choked him. The smell of salt was so marked that he felt faintly sick. He swung his helmet up so that it enclosed his head. He turned on his emergency oxygen supply, deciding to give himself time to adjust.
The merchants of Barbart stood around the ramp leading from the cradlepad. They looked at him eagerly.
'May we inspect the cargo, Pilot?' enquired a heavyshouldered man with broad cheek-bones and a flaking skin half-invisible beneath his thick, black beard. He wore a quilted coat, belted at his chest. This was a rusty black. A white stock was tied at his throat and he wore baggy yellow trousers tucked into furry boots.
Pepin looked at him, wanting to greet him in some manner that would convey the pleasure he felt at seeing a humanbeing of heavy build, with muscles and flaws on his skin.