“Taxi!” Martell called.
None of the robocars budged from their line. Were even the robots haughty here, he wondered? Or was there something wrong with his accent? He called again, getting no response.
Then he understood. The Venusian passengers were emerging and crossing to the taxi zone. And, naturally, they had precedence. Martell watched them. They were high-caste men, un-like the passport man. They walked with an arrogant, swaggering gait, and Martell knew they would slash him to his knees if he crossed their path.
He felt a bit of contempt for them. What were they, anyway, but blue-skinned samurai, border lairds after their proper time, childish, self-appointed princelings living a medieval fantasy? Men who were sure of themselves did not need to swagger, nor to surround themselves with elaborate codes of chivalry. If one looked upon them as uneasy, inwardly uncertain hotheads, rather than as innately superior noblemen, one could surmount the feeling of awe that a procession of them provoked.
And yet one could not entirely suppress that awe.
For they were impressive as they paraded across the field. More than custom separated the high-caste and the low-caste Venusians. They were biologically different. The high-caste ones were the first comers, the founding families of the Venus colony, and they were far more alien in body and mind than Venusians of more recent vintage. The early genetic processes had been unsubtle, and the first colonists had been transformed virtually into monsters. Close to eight feet tall, with dark blue skins pocked with giant pores, and pendulous red gill-bunches at their throats, they were alien beings who gave little sign that they were the great-great-grandchildren of Earthmen. Later in the process of colonizing Venus, it had become possible to adapt men for the second planet without varying nearly so much from the basic human model. Both strains of Venusians, since they arose from manipulation of the germ plasm, bred true; both shared the same exaggerated sense of honor and the same disdain for Earth; both were now alien strains, inwardly and outwardly, in mind and in body. But those whose ancestry went back to the most changed of the changed ones were in charge, making a virtue of their strangeness, and the planet was their playground.
Martell watched as the high-caste ones solemnly entered the waiting vehicles and drove off. No taxis remained. The ten Martian passengers of the ship could be seen getting into a cab on the other side of the depot. Martell returned to the building. The low-caste Venusian glowered at him.
Martell said, “When will I be able to get a taxi to town?”
“You won’t. They aren’t coming back today.”
“I want to call the Martian Embassy, then. They’ll send a car for me.”
“Are you sure they will? Why should they bother?”
“Perhaps so,” Martell said evenly. “I’d better walk.” The look he got from the Venusian was worth the gesture. The man stared in surprise and shock. And, possibly, admiration, mingled somewhat with patronizing confidence that Martell must be a madman. Martell left the station. He began to walk, following the narrow ribbon of a road, letting the unearthly atmosphere soak deep into his altered body.
two
It was a lonely walk. Not a sign of habitation broke the belt of vegetation on either side of the highway, nor did any vehicles pass him. The trees, somber and eerie with their bluish cast, towered over the road. Their knifeblade-like leaves glimmered in the faint, diffused light. There was an occasional rustling sound in the woods, as of beasts crashing through the thickets. Martell saw nothing there, though. He walked on. How many miles? Eight, a dozen? He was prepared to walk forever, if necessary. He had the strength.
His mind hummed with plans. He would establish a small chapel and let it be known what the Brotherhood had to offer: life eternal and the key to the stars. The Venusians might threaten to kill him, as they had killed previous missionaries of the Brotherhood, but Martell was prepared to die, if necessary, that others might have the stars. His faith was strong. Before his departure the high ones of the Brotherhood had personally wished him welclass="underline" grizzled Reynolds Kirby, the Hemispheric Coordinator, had grasped his hand, and then had come an even greater surprise as Noel Vorst himself, the Founder, a legendary figure more than a century old, had come forth to tell him in a soft, feathery voice, “I know that your mission will bear fruit, Brother Martell.”
Martell still tingled with the memory of that glorious moment.
Now he strode forward, buoyed by the sight of a few habitations set back from the road. He was at the outskirts, then. On this pioneer world, pioneer habits held true, and the colonists did not build their homes close together. They spread sparsely over a radiating area surrounding the main administrative centers. The man-high walls enclosing the first houses he saw did not surprise him; these Venusians were a surly lot who would build a wall around their entire planet if they could. But soon he would be in town, and then—Martell came to a halt as he saw the Wheel hurtling toward him.
His first thought was that it had broken free from some vehicle. Then he realized what it was: no fragment of machinery, but Venusian wildlife. It surged over a crest in the road, a hundred yards in front of him, and came plunging wildly toward him at what must have been a speed of ninety miles an hour. Martell had a clear though momentary glimpse: two wheels of some horny substance, mottled orange and yellow, linked by a box-like inner structure. The wheels were nine feet across, at least; the connecting structure was smaller, so that wheel-rims projected around it. Those rims were razor-sharp. The creature moved by ceaselessly transferring its weight within that central housing, and it developed terrific momentum as it barreled toward the missionary.
Martell leaped back. The Wheel hurtled past him, missing his toes by inches. Martell saw the sharpness of the rim and felt an acrid odor sting his nostrils. If he had been a bit slower, the Wheel would have sliced him in two.
It traveled a hundred yards beyond him. Then, like a gyroscope running amok, it executed a turn in an astonishingly narrow radius and came shooting back toward Martell.
The thing’s hunting me, he thought.
He knew many Vorster combat techniques, but none of them were designed to cope with a beast like this. All he could do was keep sidestepping and hope that the Wheel could not make sudden compensations in its course. It drew near; Martell sucked in his breath and leaped back once again. This time the Wheel swerved ever so slightly.
Its leading left-hand edge sliced through the trailing end of Martell’s blue cloak, and a ribbon of cloth fluttered to the pavement Panting, Martell watched the thing swing around for another try, and knew that it could indeed correct its course. A few more passes and it would split him.
The Wheel came a third time.
Martell waited as long as he dared. With the outer blades only a few feet away, he broad-jumped—into the path of the creature. Earthborn muscles carried him twenty feet in the light gravity. He more than half expected to be bisected in mid-jump, but when his feet touched ground he was still in one piece. Whirling, Martell saw that he had indeed surprised the beast; it had turned inward, toward the place where it had expected him to be, and had passed through his suitcase. The suitcase had been sliced as though by a laser beam. His belongings were scattered on the road. The Wheel, halting once more, was coming back for another try.