Дэймон Найт - Orbit 12

“I’m sure we will,” Herbie said. “Thank you.”

“Shall I dilate your windows for you?” the machine said, not moving.

Nert whispered, “What does he want?”

“A tip. Extra money.” Herbie started to move toward his pool. “Pay him, will you? There’s some money behind the flap in my case.” He sighed with relief as he settled into the pool of muddy water that served as his bed.

“How much?” Nert asked as he picked through the change.

“I figure two credits ought to do it.”

“Two credits!”

“Would you like me to adjust the climate of your room for you? It can be changed to anything from a rain forest to Q-type ice flow. Choice of atmospheres include methane, ammonia, oxy-nitrogen—“

Nert dropped the money in the tray on top of the porter. It gurgled and stopped in midsentence. Then it swiveled one hundred eighty degrees, and as it rolled from the room it said, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you . . .” until the door finally slid shut behind it.

“We could have had a live porter, but it costs an extra two hundred credits a day,” Herbie said. He did not sound well. His voice had been growing weaker ever since they’d left the bar. Nert had asked him about it, but Herbie told him not to worry, that everything was under control. Nert was unconvinced, but he respected Herbie’s privacy.

Nert said, “Speaking of money, after three days here, well have to start drawing from our gerbis fund.”

Herbie had begun to thaw and soften as he had in the bar when he was drunk. He slowly spread to the circumference of his pool.

“Herbie?”

“Hmm?”

“I said we’re not going to have any money left.”

“That’s good.”

“Herbie. Herbie, listen to me. Are you sure you’re supposed to have that big bulge on your side? You told me not to worry, but I don’t know.”

“Everything’s fine. . . .” His voice trailed off into an airy whisper that Nert couldn’t hear. Then suddenly his voice was back again with nearly its usual strength. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right. I’ll be better if you just go out and have a good time.”

“But I can’t leave you like this—”

“You not only can, you must. It’s important that I be alone. I’ll have a surprise for you when you get back.”

“But the bulge-”

“That’s part of the surprise. Now please go.”

Nert stood silently for a few minutes, trying to make up his mind whether he should go, or if Herbie was just being noble and really needed him. “Herbie?”

Herbie didn’t answer. Nert prodded him gently once with a claw and his entire gelatinous bulk shivered. He was relieved to see that Herbie had stopped melting, and after a while he went out

The Galactica had both elevators and drop-shafts, to give it an atmosphere of anachronistic charm. The leisurely ride down in the elevator from the one hundred fifty-third floor gave Nert time to think. He shared the cubicle with a transparent pressure-sealed tank that held what looked like a sloppy knot of wildly writhing hemp rope, and an overweight Terran female who looked as if she were going to faint. At floor one hundred five, a large purple dracoid got on, crushing everyone else into corners. It rode with them to the ground floor.

Nert left the elevator and walked across the chrome-and-blue-fluff lobby and out into the synthetic parkland. If he hadn’t read the brochure left on the nightstand he would have thought it was real. Colors and smells from all across the galaxy surprised him with their variety at every turn. Overhead, the stars were beginning to peek out near one wall, and on the other, the sky was fading slowly from blue to deepest purple, to black. He walked, crunching along the wandering gravel pathways, and thought about what had just happened in the room upstairs.

Herbie had told Nert to have a good time, but for Nert that would be difficult, if not impossible. The main thing that bothered him was that hump, but he was also disturbed by Herbie’s attitude about their gerbis fund. The first night after Nert had saved his life, they’d gotten to talking about what they wanted to do when they got too old to space. Nert had told Herbie about how he’d studied gerbis farming on the home world and how he planned to have a farm of his own some day. Herbie thought that was a fine idea, and they’d put their money together so they could invest it later as equal partners. Maybe Herbie seemed unconcerned about the money because the swelling on his side made him feel sick and distant. It had been smaller back on the ship, but even then it had looked unhealthy to Nert. “Don’t worry about it,” Herbie had said, and had gone on to talk about something else. It was possible that having a bulge like that was natural for a Tramitodean, but maybe Herbie didn’t realize that it might be malignant. After all, diseases were natural too. Was it possible that Herbie was dying?

Dying?

It wasn’t like Herbie to keep quiet about a thing like that. He usually liked to air every problem he had. Nert remembered the time he had thought his cytoplasm was curdling and had sent to the captain to ask to be disposed of in free space when he died. The captain was agreeable, and when he lived Nert thought Herbie was disappointed. No, he wasn’t dying. It wasn’t likely, anyway. Maybe he was only changing sexes, as Nert’s own race did, and hoped Nert would be surprised at his new form. Nert liked that idea. And the more he thought about it, the more he liked it. And the more he liked it, the more he wanted to take Herbie’s advice and go out to have a good time. Nert decided he would be extraordinarily surprised for Herbie when he got back.

He ran across the park and through the lobby, using his back leg to push off from the ground and his two front legs to pull himself forward, and out onto the street where he joined the milling crowds. Yes, he thought he would be very surprised at Herbie when he got back.

There was no room on the slideway so Nert decided to walk. Besides, he didn’t know where he was going, and if he were moving too quickly, he might miss an interesting place. Following the crowd, he set off toward Amusement Central.

Not that he couldn’t have gotten almost anything within a few feet of where he stood. Grespel to drink, altrink to creeble with, a mate, even mittlebran. The entire planet was given over to recreation in all its forms, perverted and otherwise. The laws were necessarily lenient, because what might be wicked for one race might be perfectly acceptable to another, and physically impossible for a third. Even so, there were places on that world, in that town in particular, which had reputations for offering more spectacular pleasures than any other world. Nert clicked his claws in anticipation.

The buildings were alternately iridescent and lustrous black. One complemented the other, and strangely enough, the dark buildings, reflecting the glitter and glow around them, were sometimes more striking than their kaleidoscopic neighbors. The Galactica was not the tallest building, and the smallest was barely larger than a shack. Curious about what such a small place could offer, Nert was about to enter it when a sudden gust of wind pulled at his body and he was stranded in the eye of a small cyclone. As the wind blew harder, beings brushed past Nert unnoticed, and a nictitating membrane covered his eyes so that the lights dimmed, and a primal and uncontrollable fear grew like a weed strangling reason out of his mind. He lay flat on the ground, shivering. As suddenly as it had begun, the wind stopped.

Someone spoke very close to his ear. “I got something for you, friend.” The words burbled as if they were spoken underwater.

Nert got to his feet, using his claws like crutches, and slowly the nictitating membrane slid back up out of the way. He turned his head and saw a small grey-green feathered creature with a long, thin body wrapped around his arm, looking at him with black compound eyes.