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.He focused on the platform next, until it too disappeared from sight—then on the cave rocktop itself, until it became indiscernible from its surroundings.The pod rose through rust red clouds, making it impossible to see straight down any longer.Through an opening in the cloudcover to the east, Prussirian made out large rock formations and wondered if any of them could be Appa Crown.It was impossible to tell.Crain’s music picked up in cadence, to a happy, folksy tune.Prussirian recognized it instantly as another he had played himself.Sudanna, Sudanna, Prussirian thought, feeling sun warmth in the pod.With the view below increasingly obscured by clouds and too distant to be interesting, Prussirian let Crain’s music dominate his sensor, to the detriment of his other senses.This temporarily reduced his vision, his sense of temperature and his sense of smell.He traveled in memory to a time long before on the planet Sudanna, when the breezes there played tunes in caves and high rock formations.The people listened and attempted to duplicate the sounds they heard with homemade, primitive flutes.These were constructed of petrified galoo at first, and then of metal.Soon the people were approximating breeze sounds, pushing air through the flute pipes with their own internal winds.Shortly thereafter they developed the stringed flute, adding a new, creative dimension to their music.It went beyond what they heard in nature, to a realm of songs accompanying stories told about their lives.All of life’s triumphs and tragedies were related in these story songs and were passed along to generation after generation.Traveling on the same occult wind with Crain, Prussirian watched technology take its natural course, bringing with it creature comforts and the threat of war annihilation.In a nightmare of reality, the once peaceful planet erupted in righteous fury from eight sides, each mistrusting the other.One group fled to Ut—the survivors who spoke to Crain and Prussirian now.Prussirian beheld no faces in the vision, but met many people in ways that meant more to him than their appearances.When Prussirian returned to the lesser awareness, he stood with Crain on the satellite’s launch platform.They wore odd galoo shoelike fittings on their boots, which Prussirian did not recall having put on.He knew they were needed to stay upright on the zero-G metal decking.Crain might have explained it to him—or maybe Sudanna voices told him this, too.Crain was verbalizing stories now, telling of the ancient times Prussirian had already seen in his vision.“I know those things,” Prussirian finally told him.“I traveled with you as you played.”“Sudanna, Sudanna,” Crain said.The planet Sudanna was partially visible to Prussirian against the black, star-covered expanse of space—apparent hours early because of the satellite’s altitude.Thick, black clouds partially obscured Sudanna’s crater-mottled surface.A bolt of lightning flashed, sending a jagged orange line across the planet.Prussirian knew other things.He understood how the platform worked, functioning as a base from which to hurl objects at the great planet.Tethers other than the passenger pod line were on this satellite, each capable of slinging objects at Sudanna with startling accuracy—objects encased in impact-bursting alloy cylinders that did not burn up in atmospheric entry.Prussirian made no value judgment concerning the havoc rained upon Sudanna by his ancestors.He was glad to be descended from the victors, forgetting for a moment about the subsequent U-Lotan conquest.After defeating their Sudanna brethren, Prussirian’s ancestors chose to remain on Ut, fearing someone else might take the high ground if it were abandoned.But Ut was barren and ugly by comparison, and the people longed to return to Sudanna.After a century, the difficult decision was made by many to return—and construction was begun on a fleet of ships to carry them there.The U-Lotans put a stop to this.Prussirian realized as he stood on the satellite platform that his people would outlast Mamacita.It was an inevitable thing, an insuppressible longing that would remain as long as one utperson lived.“Sudanna, Sudanna,” old Crain said, barely getting the words out.He crumpled to the deck, with his sensorlids constricted all the way over his sensor.He lay peacefully on the floor for several minutes, clutching his Zuggernaut.Presently and painlessly, sensory deprivation took him.Even in death, he did not release his grip on the instrument.Prussirian placed the old man’s body and his beloved Zuggy in a large alloy cylinder, then tether-hurled it at Sudanna.Prussirian remained on the satellite for many hours, strapped into a hard plastic control room chair.The small control room stood to one side of the launch platform, with tiny oval windows showing space outside—Ut in one direction, Sudanna with its braided ring in the other.Two parts in the jigsaw puzzle of his heredity.He could not see the wind or hear it from this place, but sensed its presence, with him as the third part.And the fourth, he thought.I am the fourth part.My physical being and everything I know.He considered many things, including whether or not he should hurl himself at Sudanna as a means of ending one life and beginning another.Or he could attempt to survive the trip in his present life state by designing a cushioned container that would not split on impact—one that would carry him safely to the new land.What about a flying craft? he thought.Wilt my Sudanna knowledge help me with that? I don’t seem to know how to do it, but maybe it will come to me.He tried to envision a container that would enter the great planet’s atmosphere without burning up and would then open in midair (or change in midair) to a craft that would sail to the surface.Or maybe just a means of getting out of the container at precisely the right moment, so that he could sail down on his own flat Uttian body.He would need windows, or altitude indicating instrumentation …This sounds pretty high-tech, he thought, and Crain said he couldn’t do metallurgy.I need to take a look at his shop anyway.Sudanna guide me!These things did not occur to Prussirian until late that night, when he sat in the reflected glow of the Sudanna moon.It was night as well on the black rock region of Ut, far below his geosynchronous orbital station.Moments later, he located the control room lights and used the improved visibility to set two switches on a control panel.Then he stood with his Zuggernaut on the satellite’s mass register.The orange glow came and went.Soon he was back inside the passenger pod, this time strapped into the high-backed chair with the instrument panel and foot pedal.He touched the correct buttons, and the thruster-boosted pod screamed Utward.Prussirian felt G-forces, but they did not bother him.His body was an utperson’s body, reputed to be one of the most durable encountered by the U-Lotans in their travels around the universe.Just above the moonlit surface of Ut, an airborne Shriek assault team proceeded toward the same black rock destination at a slower pace.In the lead police rotocruiser, with a spider-bodied Shriek in the transport compartment behind him, Robot Paleon watched the shadowy galooscape as it passed beneath, looking for landmarks that had been described in the laser tick’s special report.Robot Paleon did not need to be so attentive, for the coordinates had been programmed into his craft’s computer system [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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