The Fugitive Worlds Read Online Free

believe that he had been as much concerned with impressing her as with carrying out his duty.
    By the time he reached his ship a crewman was standing beside each of the four anchors and making ready for departure. He went up the rungs on the side of the gondola and swung himself over the rail, then paused and stared at Vantara's grounded craft. Its crew were busy detaching the gasbag and laying it out on the grass under Vantara's supervision.
    Lieutenant Feer came to his side. "Continuous thrust to Prad, sir?"
    If I ever get married, Toller thought, it has to be to that woman.
    "Sir, I asked you if—"
    "Of course I want continuous thrust to Prad," Toller said. "And bring Steenameert to my cabin—I want to talk to him in private."
    He went to his cabin at the rear of the main deck and waited for the skyman to be shown in. The ship felt alive again, its timbers and rigging emitting occasional creaks as the structure as a whole adjusted to the tensions of flying into the wind. Toller sat at his desk and toyed abstractedly with navigation instruments, unable to put the Countess Vantara out of his thoughts. How had he managed to forget meeting her as a child? He could recall being dragged against his will to the Migration Day ceremonies, at an age when he scorned the company of girls, but surely even then he would have noticed her among the giggling, gauzy creatures at play in the palace gardens. . . .
    His musings were interrupted when Steenameert tapped at the door and came into the small room, still brushing food particles from his chin. "You sent for me, sir?"
    "Yes. We were interrupted at an interesting point in our conversation. Tell me more about these empty cities. Did you see no living people whatsoever?"
    Steenameert shook his head. "Not one, sir! Lots of skele tons—thousands of them—but, as far as I could tell, the New Men no longer exist. Their own pestilence seems to have turned against them and wiped them out."
    "How far abroad did you travel?"
    "Not far—two hundred miles at the most. As you know, we only had the three skyships . . . nothing with lateral thrusters . . . and had to rely on the winds to get us about. But that was enough for me, sir. After a while I had an uncanny feeling about the place—I knew there was nobody there.
    "I mean, we first dropped down only a couple of miles out of Ro-Atabri, the old capital. We were in the heart of ancient Kolcorron itself. If there were any people living on Land, that's where they would be found. It stands to reason that's where they would be found." Steenameert spoke fervently, as though he had a personal stake in convincing Toller that his ideas were valid.
    "You're probably correct," Toller said. "Unless, of course, it is something to do with the ptertha. From what I've been taught, the worst of them infested Kolcorron, while the other side of the globe was comparatively free of them."
    Steenameert became even more intense. "The second great discovery we made is that the ptertha on Land are colorless—just like those on Overland. It appears that they have already reverted to their neutral state, sir. I suppose it was because the poison they developed for use against hu mans had done what was required of it; and now they are in a state of readiness to war against any other type of creature which threatens brakka trees."
    "That's very interesting," Toller said, but—belying his words—his attention wandered as the image of Countess Vantara's face began to swim before his mind's eye. I wonder how I can arrange to see her again. And how long will it take?
    "It seems to me," Steenameert was saying, "that the logical thing to do now is to mount a proper expedition. Lots of ships, well-equipped and carrying settlers, to reclaim the Old World—just as King Prad predicted we would."
    Toller had half-consciously noted earlier that Steenameert was unusually well-spoken for a ranker, and now it came to him that the man also seemed better educated than might have been