[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
She frowned. "Floating?"
He hesitated. "Well, I think so. How should I know? And between the Crust and the Quantum Sea is
the Mantle the Air we breathe about six hundred meters deep." He looked into her face, a
disconcerting mixture of suspicion and pity evident there. "That's the shape of the Star. The world. Any
kid in Parz City could have told you all that."
She shrugged. "Or any Human Being. Maybe there was no difference once."
She wished Adda were awake, so she could learn more of the secret history of her people. She turned
her face to the window.
In the last hours of the journey the inverted Crust landscape changed again.
Dura, with Farr now awake and at her side, stared up, fascinated, watching the slow evolution of the
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
racing Crustscape. There was very little left of the native forest here, although a few trees still straggled
from small copses. The clean, orderly regularity of the fields they'd passed under to the North further
upflux, as she was learning to call it was breaking up into a jumble of forms and textures.
Farr pointed excitedly, his eyes round. Dura followed his gaze.
They weren't alone in the sky, she realized: in the far, misted distance something moved not a car; it
was long, dark, like a blackened vortex line. And like Mixxax's car it was heading for the Pole, threading
along the Magfield.
She said, "That must be thousands of mansheights long."
Toba glanced dismissively. "Lumber convoy," he said. "Coming in from upflux. Nothing special. Damn
slow, actually, if you get stuck behind one."
Soon there were many more cars in the Air. Mixxax, grumbling, often had to slow as they joined streams
of traffic sliding smoothly along the Magfield flux lines. The cars came in all shapes and sizes, from small
one-person buggies to grand chariots drawn by teams of a dozen or more pigs. These huge cars,
covered in ornate carvings, quite dwarfed poor Mixxax's; Toba's car, thought Dura, which had seemed
so grand and terrifying out in the forest upflux, now appeared small, shabby and insignificant.
Much, she was coming to realize, like its owner.
The colors of the Crust fields were changing: deepening and becoming more vivid. Farr asked Mixxax,
"Different types of wheat?"
Mixxax showed little interest in these rich regions from which he was excluded. "Maybe. Flowers, too."
"Flowers?"
"Plants bred for their beauty their shape, or color; or the scent of the photons they give off." He smiled.
"Actually, Ito grows some blooms which..."
"Who's Ito?"
"My wife. Nothing as grand as this, of course; after all, we're flying over the estates of Hork's court
now."
Farr had his face pressed to a window of the car. "You mean people grow plants just for the way they
look?"
"Yes."
"But how do they live? Don't they have to hunt for food, as we do?"
Dura shook her head. "Folk here don't hunt, Farr. I've learned that much. They grow special kinds of
grasses, and eat them."
Mixxax laughed bitterly. " 'Folk here,' as you call them, don't even do that,I do that, in my scrubby farm
on the edge of the upflux desert. I grow food to feed the rich folk in Parz... and I pay them taxes so they
can afford to buy it. And that," he finished bitterly, "is how Hork's courtiers have enough leisure time to
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
grow flowers."
The logic of that puzzled Dura, but understanding little she let it pass.
Now, suddenly, the queue of cars in front of them cleared aside, and the view ahead was revealed.
Dura heard herself gasp.
Farr cried out, sounding like a small child. "What is it?"
Mixxax turned and grinned at him, evidently enjoying his moment of advantage. "That," he said, "is Parz
City. We have arrived."
6
Muub arrived at the Reception Gallery shortly before the start of the Grand Tribute. He moved to the
front of the Gallery, so that he could see down the full depth of Pall Mall, and selected a body-cocoon
close to Vice-Chair Hork's customary place. A servant drifted around him for a few moments, adjusting
the cocoon so it fit snugly, and offered him drinks and other refreshments. Muub, unable to shake off
weariness, found the harmless little man as irritating as an itch, and he chased him away.
Muub looked down. Pall Mall was the City's main avenue. Broad and light-filled, it was a rectangular
corridor cut vertically through the complex heart of Parz from the elaborate superstructure of the
Palace buildings at the topmost Upside, down through hundreds of dwelling levels, all the way to the
Market, the vast, open forum at the center of the City. The Reception Gallery was poised at the head of
Pall Mall, just below the Palace buildings themselves; Muub, trying to relax in his cocoon, was bathed in
the subtly shaded light filtering down through the Palace's lush gardens, and was able to survey, it
seemed, the whole of the City as if it were laid open before him. Pall Mall itself glowed with light from the
Air-shafts and wood-lamps which lined its perforated walls; threads of the shafts, glowing green and
yellow, converged toward the Market itself, the City's dusty heart. The great avenue normally thronged
with traffic was deserted today, but Muub could make out spectators peering from doors and
viewing-balconies: ordinary little faces turned up toward him like so many flowers. And in the Market
itself all of five thousand mansheights below the Palace the Tribute procession was almost assembled,
as thousands of common citizens gathered to present the finest fruit of this quarter's labor to the
Committee. No cocoons down there, of course; instead the Market was crisscrossed by ropes and bars
to which people clung with their hands or legs, or hauled themselves along in search of vantage points. To
Muub, staring down at the swarming activity, it was like gazing into a huge net full of young piglets.
The Gallery itself was laced with ropes of brushed leather to guide those Committee members and
courtiers, Muub thought sourly, too poor to be simply carried to their cocoons. The Gallery's cool, piped
Air was scented with fine Crust-flowers. Vice-Chair Hork was already in his place close to Muub,
alongside the vacant cocoon reserved for his father, Hork IV. Hork glared ahead, sullen and silent in his
bulk and glowering through his beard. Perhaps half the courtiers were in their places; but they had
congregated toward the rear of the Gallery, evidently sensing, in their dim, self-seeking way, that today
was not a good day to attract the attention of the mercurial Vice-Chair.
So already the elaborate social jostling had begun. It would be a long day.
In fact thanks to the recent Glitch it had already been a long day for Muub. The latest in a series of
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
long days. He was principal Physician to the First Family, but he also had a hospital to run indeed, the
retention of his responsibilities at the Hospital of the Common Good had been a condition of his
acceptance of his appointment to Hork's court and the burden placed on his staff by the Glitch had still
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]