World Of Ptavvs   ::   Нивен Ларри

The Belt telescopes, unhampered by atmospheric distortion, were able to see planets circling other suns; and the interstellar ramscoop robots had been searching out man-habitable systems for nearly a century. If the F124 system had not yet been found, it was beyond the reach of terran ships, and he might as well decently commit suicide.

Amazing, how nearly alike were the F124 system and the solar system. There were the two habitable binary thirds, the giant fifths, the asteroid belts, similar in position if not in density, the correspondence of size and position of the first eight planets of each system, the ringed sixth it was almost too much to believe.

Oh, Powerloss. Kzanol/Greenberg sighed and cracked his knuckles, badly frightening himself. It was too much to believe. He didn't believe it.

Suddenly he was very tired. Thrintun was very far away in an unknown direction. The amplifier helmet, and everything else he owned, were probably equally unreachable in a completely different direction. His Power was gone, and even his body had been stolen by some terrifying slave sorcery. But worst of all, he had no idea what to do next!

A city rose in the distance. His car was making straight for it. He was about to steer around it when he realized it must be Topeka. So he put his head in his arms and wished he could lose consciousness again. The strength seemed to have leaked out of him.

This had to be F124.

But it couldn't be. The system had an extra world and not enough asteroids.

But, he remembered, Pluto was supposed to be a stowaway in the solar system. There was its queer orbit, and some mathematical discrepancy in its size. Perhaps it was captured by Sol before he awakened.

But in three hundred years? Highly unlikely.

Kzanol raised his face, and his face showed terror. He knew perfectly well that three hundred years was his lower limit; the brain board had given him a three-hundred-year journey using half the ship's power. He might have been buried much longer than that.

Suppose he accepted Pluto. What about the slave race, happily living where there should have been only yeast, covering the oceans a foot deep, or at most whitefoods, big as brontosaurs and twice as pretty, wandering along the shorelines feeding on mutated scum?

He couldn't explain it, so he dropped it.

But the asteroid belt was certainly thinner than it had been. True, it would have thinned out anyway in time, what with photon pressure and solar wind pushing dust and the smaller particles outward into deep space, and collisions with the bigger planets removing a few rocks, and even some of the most eccentric asteroids being slowed and killed by friction with the solar atmosphere which must extend well past Earth. But that was not a matter for a few hundred years. Or even thousands. Or hundreds of-

And he knew.

Not hundreds of years, or hundreds of thousands. He had been at the bottom of the sea while the solar system captured a new planet, and lost a good third of its asteroid belt, while oceans of food yeast mutated and went bad, and mutated again, and again… At the bottom of the sea he had waited while yeast became grass and fish and now walked on two legs like a thrint.

A billion years wouldn't be long enough. Two billion might do it.

He was hugging his knees with both arms, almost as if he were trying to bury his head between them. A thrint couldn't have done that. It was not the pure passage of time that frightened him so. It was the loss of everything he knew and loved, even his own race. Not only Thrintun the world, but also Thrint the species, must be lost in the past. If there had been Thrintun in the galaxy they would have colonized Earth long ages ago.

He was the last thrint.

Slowly he raised his head, to stare, expressionless, at the wide city beneath him.

He could damn well behave like a thrint.

The car had stopped. He must be over the center of Topeka. But which way was the spaceport? And how would he get in? Greenberg, worse luck, had had no experience in stealing spacecraft. Well, first find out where it was, and then…

The ship was vibrating. He could feel it with those ridiculously delicate fingertips. There was sound too, too high to hear, but he could feel it jangling in his nerves. What was going on?

He went to sleep. The car hung for a moment longer, then started down.

"They always stack me in the rear of the plane," Garner grumbled.

Lloyd Masney was unsympathetic. "You're lucky they don't make you ride in the baggage compartment- seeing as you refuse to leave that hot rod there alone."

"Well, why not? I'm a cripple!"

"Uh huh. Aren't the Ch'ien treatments working?"

"Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. My spinal cord is carrying some messages again. But walking ten paces around a room twice a day just about kills me. It'll be another year before I can walk downtown and back. Meanwhile my chair rides with me, not in the luggage compartment. I'm used to it."

"You'll never miss that year," Masney told him. "How old are you now, Luke?"

"Hundred and seventy next April. But the years aren't getting any shorter, Lloyd, contrary to public opinion. Why do they have to stack me in the rear? I get nervous when I see the wings turn red hot." He shifted uncomfortably.

Judy Greenberg came back from the rest room and sat down next to Lloyd. Luke was across the aisle, in the space made by removing two chairs before takeoff. Judy seemed to have recovered nicely; she looked and moved as if she had just left a beauty parlor. From a distance her face was calm. Garner could see the slight tension in the muscles around the eyes, in the cheeks, through the neck. But Garner was very old. He had his own, non-psychic way of reading minds. He said, as if to empty air, "We'll be landing in half an hour. Greenberg will be sleeping peacefully until we get there."

"Good," said Judy. She leaned forward and turned on the tridee screen in the seat ahead.

Kzanol felt a brand new and horribly unpleasant sensation, and woke up sputtering. It was the scent of ammonia in his nostrils. He woke up sputtering and gagging and bent on mass murder. The first slave he saw, he ordered to kill itself in a horrible manner.

The slave smiled tremulously at him. "Darling, are you all right?" Her voice was terribly strained and her smile was a lie.

Everything came back in a rush. That was Judy… "Sure, beautiful, I'm fine. Would you step outside while these good people ask me some questions?"

"Yes, Larry." She stood up and left, hurrying. Kzanol waited until the door was closed before he turned on the others.

"You." He faced the man in the travel chair. He must be in charge; he was obviously the oldest.