The Sinners of Erspia

Highbreeze shook his head. “No, it is not possible to fly that high. The gnomes, who have no wings and cannot fly at all, manage it because they are expert engineers. They hurl themselves away from their world by means of catapult machines, and once past the midpoint parachute down to us. They are not content with one world. They want two."

Laedo thought to himself that it might be interesting to visit the gnomes’ world. They might have metal-workers who could make a better job of casting a transductor for his spaceship than had Hoggora's mechanic on Erspia-1.

“How do the gnomes get back home?” he asked curiously.

“They don't! We see to that!” boasted Highbreeze. “Except in the beginning, when we accorded them the status of guests and allowed them to build catapult machines for the return journey. Now that they are enemies all who come here have been killed or captured."

Having said that, he eyed Laedo thoughtfully. Laedo hastily reassured him.

“We have no unfriendly intentions towards you,” he said. “We have lost our way and wish to go home, that is all. You must judge for yourselves whether we most resemble the gnomes or yourselves."

“It is true that you look like us, but on the other hand..."

Highbreeze rose and strolled to where the projector station rested. He touched the stairway, then stroked the silver-grey metal of the bulging hull.

“Fairies do not make metals,” he said simply. “That is something gnomes do."

There was a stirring among the militiamen on hearing this.

“There are many worlds, with many different kinds of people,” Laedo said hurriedly. “Many of them make metals. You can learn to do it yourselves if you wish. I can teach you."

While saying this he was measuring the distance to the projector station's entrance. The air marshal shook his head, then came back and sat down again.

“We are happy with our way of life."

The others relaxed.

Laedo said slowly, “Have you ever heard of someone called Klystar?"

No, the fairy folk had not heard of Klystar. Like the inhabitants of Erspias 1 and 2, they had no real knowledge of their origins.

It was the second day of their sojourn on the split planetoid. Laedo and Histrina lounged on the grass in front of the projector station, eating fruit the fairies had brought them.

A large insect, resembling a dragonfly, but three or four times the size, hummed past. Watching its shimmering wings, Laedo thought of the miraculous mutation wrought on the local humans. The design of their wings was somewhat like that of a dragonfly or damselfly. They did not beat as fast, of course—one could clearly see their sculling motion. Neither was there an ugly hump of muscle to power them, as one might have expected: just a tendon-like triangle near each shoulder blade which was barely noticeable.

By now he had been able to discern something of the mechanics of this world. Like the other Erspias it kept to a day of about twenty-eight hours, but unlike those, it had two suns, sharing the same orbit in diametric opposition to one another. That orbit was tilted with respect to the planetoid's sundered diameter, meaning that both suns shone through the gap at the same time, but from opposite directions.

They also ‘set’ and ‘rose’ at roughly the same time, again in opposite directions.

The arrangement was neat. The prime reason for it, as far as Laedo could see, was that the suns were not visible at an elevation higher than about twenty-five degrees, and if there were only one of them there would always be long shadows. Presumably this was displeasing to the split world's designer. As it was, long shadows appeared for a short time in mornings and evenings, since the higher sun remained in line of sight for a brief period after the lower sun had set.

On the approach to Erspia-3 he had noticed that life was restricted to the two flat surfaces, and had not spread to the outsides of the hemispheres. That probably meant that they were bare to the void. The inertial fields which kept the hemispheres poised a few miles apart also hemmed in the air.

It was a tribute to ‘Klystar's’ ingenuity that the whole arrangement continued to work after a fairly long period of time. People spoke with slightly different accents on each of the three Erspias Laedo had visited, and from that he deduced that the worldlets had been set up at least a hundred years ago.

Just how many Erspias were there? And what was the reason for such an eccentric piece of world construction?

“Are we going to stay here?” Histrina asked lazily, tickling herself with a stalk of grass. “It's nice here, isn't it? And there are such pretty people."

“We may have to stay for a while, Histrina."

Until I figure out how to take control of the projector station's drive, or to fix my spaceship, he told himself in aggravation. He was going to have to keep close tags on Histrina. The flying folk were not the helpless children the people in the orchid forest were. They would retaliate if she harmed any of them.

He got to his feet. Over the gargantuan treetops a group of flyers came in sight. This time they carried no weapons. They glided gracefully down into the clearing, their wings sculling the air as they pulled up to set their feet on the ground with perfect skill.