World without Stars Read Online Free

Deep.” At the time I didn’t quite follow him, but since then I’ve read a little about the history
     of Manhome.)
    “Zara.” Rorn frowned. “I don’t quite place—”
    “Why should you?” Valland replied. “More planets around than you could shake a stick at. Though I really can’t see why anybody’d
     want to shake a stick at a planet that never did him any harm.”
    “It’s the same type as the Yonderfolk’s home,” I said. “Zara, that is. Cold, hydrogen-helium atmosphere, et cetera. They made
     contact with our factor because he was sitting in the only obviously machine-culture complex on the surface. They went through
     the usual linguistic problems, and finally got to conversing. Here’s a picture.”
    I activated my projector and rotated the image of a being. It was no more inhuman than many who had been my friends: squat,
     scaly, head like a complicated sponge; one of several hands carried something which sparkled.
    “Actually,” I said, “the language barrier was higher than Ordinary. To be expected, no doubt, when they came from such an
     alien environment. So we don’t have a lot of information, and a good deal of what we do have must be garbled. Still, we’re
     reasonably sure they aren’t foolish enough to be hostile, and do want to develop this new relationship. Within the galaxy,
     they’re badly handicapped by having to stay behind their rad screens. So they asked us to come to them. Our factor notified
     the company, the company’s interested … and that, sirs, is why we’re here.”
    “Mmm. They gave location data for their home system?” Valland asked.
    “Apparently so,” I said. “Space coordinates, velocity vector, orbital elements and data for each planet of the star.”
    “Must’ve been a bitch, transforming from their math to ours.”
    “Probably. The factor’s report gives few details, so I can’tbe sure. He was in too big a hurry to notify headquarters and send the Yonderfolk back—before the competition heard about
     them. But he promised we’d soon dispatch an expedition. That’s us.”
    “A private company, instead of an official delegation?” Rorn bridled.
    “Oh, come off it,” Valland said. “Exactly which government out of a million would you choose to act? This is too damn big
     a cosmos for anything but individuals to deal with it.”
    “There’ll be others,” I said fast. A certain amount of argument on a cruise is good, passes the time and keeps men alert;
     but you have to head off the kind which can fester. “We couldn’t keep the secret for long, even if we wanted to. Meanwhile,
     we do represent the Universarium of Nordamerik, as well as a commercial interest.
    “Now, here are the tapes and data sheets ….

IV
    T HE SHIP DROVE OUTWARD .
    We had a large relative velocity to match. The days crawled past, and Landomar’s sun shrank to a star, and still you couldn’t
     see any change in the galaxy. Once we’d shaken down, we had little to do—the mechs operated everything for us. We talked,
     read, exercised, pursued our various hobbies, threw small parties. Most of us had lived a sufficient number of years in space
     that we didn’t mind the monotony. It’s only external, anyhow. After a century or three of life, you have plenty to think about,
     and a cruise is a good opportunity.
    I fretted a little over Yo Rorn. He was always so glum, and apt to be a bit nasty when he spoke. Still, nothing serious developed.
    Enver Smeth, our chemist, gave me some concern too. He was barely thirty years old, and had spent twenty-five of them under
     the warm wing of his parents on Arwy, which is a bucolic patriarchal settlement like Landomar. Then he broke free and went
     to the space academy on Iron—but that’s another tight little existence. I was his first captain and this was his first really
     long trip. You have to start sometime, though, and he was shaping up well.
    Very soon he became Hugh Valland’s worshiper. I could see why.