The Sinners of Erspia

And the colours! Nowhere did they clash, nowhere were they even glaring, but the total effect was breathtaking. Pale colours, yellows, ochres, cyan, lavender, sometimes glowingly transparent, shot through with stronger tones—scarlet, saffron, mazarine. For long minutes Laedo and Histrina gazed entranced, while Laedo slowly panned the cursor.

“Come on,” Histrina said eagerly. “Let's go outside!"

“We'll have to check the atmosphere first."

“We'll have to do what?” Mystified, Histrina stared at him.

He sighed. “I suppose it's bound to be all right, on second thought. This is one of Klystar's productions, after all."

“I've never seen this part of Erspia before."

“This isn't Erspia, Histrina,” Laedo said wearily. “I just tried to explain. It's another world, something like Erspia, only different. Do you understand that?"

“I suppose so.” She frowned, then brightened. “I wonder if there are people here?"

“So do I."

Getting out was easier than he had thought it would be. They walked the corridor to the hatch which was the only portal Laedo had found in the whole station so far. He opened it and poked his head out.

The sensation was peculiar. The hatch was about thirty feet off the ground, but it was on the under-curve of the station, facing downwards. The artificial gravity kept him standing on the floor of the corridor, but this was upside down to the ground, at an angle of about forty-five degrees, so that the landscape appeared to rear crazily over him. Once his head cleared the skin of the station, however, the planetoid's gravity took over and his head and his body were tugged in different directions.

He was pondering the problem of how to reach the ground when Histrina casually solved it for him.

“What do you think this is for?” she said, and pulled a lever behind him. Something rattled out from a slot below the hatch. It was a folding stairway which flapped, swayed and dropped, until it offered a steep but negotiable route to the floor of the clearing, complete with handrail.

He stepped down carefully, holding on to the rail. He could feel Histrina's tread behind him, urging him on.

On the ground they stopped to take in their surroundings. The air was delightfuclass="underline" light, invigorating, filled with delicate scents. Laedo saw that the glimpse of blue he had seen was a lake in a meadow or parkland, partly hidden by a fringe of the giant orchids. Only in that direction did the close horizon betray the small size of this world. Elsewhere, because of the way the jungle hid everything, they could have been on a full-sized planet.

Laedo looked up at the projector station, backing away to take it in. Evidently it was perfectly capable of coping with the stresses of normal gravity, though whether this was due to structural strength or help from the internal gravity field he did not know. It reared over the tops of the titanic flowers; but somehow, now that it was down on the ground, it seemed less bulky than it had in space. It was, in fact, about the size of a small passenger liner, or perhaps an interworld shuttle.

Large enough, he supposed, to be a miniature world in itself for the eight people who had staffed it.

It seemed to have suffered no harm from rolling through the jungle. His own ship, though, was missing. It had been torn off. No doubt it lay in the jungle somewhere.

Given time, he might be able to gain control over the station's drive unit. At least he'd better be able to do it, he told himself fiercely. Otherwise he'd be stuck here for good.

He turned back to look at the jungle again. Only now did the silence of the place strike him. There was no singing of birds, such as had been ever-present on Erspia. There was no buzzing of insects. In fact, no sign of animal life at all.

That air, though ... breathing in deeply, he felt his senses tingle. It was like wine, it was like ... where had he breathed air such as that before? He could only think of one of the pleasure houses back in civilisation, its air loaded with molecules to stimulate the appetite for food, sex or whatever.

Evidently Histrina was enjoying it, too. She gave a happy sigh. Then she sauntered towards the nearby orchids.

But suddenly she stopped, and stared like a stalking cat. “Look!” she hissed.

Laedo followed her gaze and caught up with her. Two figures had entered the jungle from the direction of the park-like grassland. They were tall, fair-haired and fair-skinned, though tanned by the sun. Silently, with graceful, light steps, they walked between the monstrous growths like fairies in a paradisical garden.

One was a man, one a woman. Both were completely naked, a circumstance which caused Histrina to giggle lickerishly. “Look at him,” she whispered aside to Laedo. “He's stiff!"

And so he was. Laedo stared at his feet, aware that the was probably about to witness an act the couple would regard as private. But what happened next removed his sense of reserve.

The two had reached the mouth of a fleshy orchid, a glowing pale lavender in colour. Reminding Laedo once more of fairies, they proceeded to climb through its thick petals and into the roomy bell, vanishing from view.