The Colors of Space | Page 3

name, nothing! How do they expect us to do anything under those conditions? What I can't understand is how it ever happened, or how the man managed to get away. What worries me is the possibility that he may have communicated with others we don't know about. Those bungling fools who let the first man get away can't even be sure--"
"Do not speak of it here," said the old Lhari sharply. "There are Mentorians in the crowd who might understand us." He turned and looked straight at Bart, and Bart felt as if the slanted strange eyes were looking right through to his bones. The Lhari said, in Universal, "Who are you, boy? What iss your businesssses here?"
Bart replied in the same language, politely, "My father's coming in on this ship. I'm looking for the information desk."
"Up there," said the old Lhari, pointing with a clawed hand, and lost interest in Bart. He said to his companion, in their own language, "Always, I regret these episodes. I have no malice against humans. I suppose even this Vegan that we are seeking has young, and a mate, who will regret his loss."
"Then he should not have pried into Lhari matters," said the younger Lhari fiercely. "If they'd killed him right away--"
The soaring staircase swooped up to the top level; the two Lhari stepped off and mingled swiftly with the crowd, being lost to sight. Bart whistled in dismay as he got off and turned toward the information desk. A Vegan! Some poor guy from his own planet was in trouble with the Lhari. He felt a cold, crawling chill down his insides. The Lhari had spoken regretfully, but the way they'd speak of a fly they couldn't manage to swat fast enough. Sooner or later you had to get down to it, they just weren't human!
Here on Earth, nothing much could happen, of course. They wouldn't let the Lhari hurt anyone--then Bart remembered his course in Universal Law. The Lhari spaceport in every system, by treaty, was Lhari territory. Once you walked beneath the lightning-flash sign, the authority of the planet ceased to function; you might as well be on that unbelievably remote world in another galaxy that was the Lhari home planet--that world no human had ever seen. On a Lhari spaceport, or on a Lhari ship, you were under the jurisdiction of Lhari law.
Tommy stepped off a moving stair and joined him. "The ship's on time--it reported past Luna City a few minutes ago. I'm thirsty--how about a drink?"
There was a refreshment stand on this level; they debated briefly between orange juice and a drink with a Lhari name that meant simply cold sweet, and finally decided to try it. The name proved descriptive; it was very cold, very sweet and indescribably delicious.
"Does this come from the Lhari world, I wonder?"
"I imagine it's synthetic," Bart said.
"I suppose it won't hurt us?"
Bart laughed. "They wouldn't serve it to us if it would. No, men and Lhari are alike in a lot of ways. They breathe the same air. Eat about the same food." Their bodies were adjusted to about the same gravity. They had the same body chemistry--in fact, you couldn't tell Lhari blood from human, even under a microscope. And in the terrible Orion Spaceport wreck sixty years ago, doctors had found that blood plasma from humans could be used for wounded Lhari, and vice versa, though it wasn't safe to transfuse whole blood. But then, even among humans there were five blood types.
And yet, for all their likeness, they were different.
Bart sipped the cold Lhari drink, seeing himself in the mirror behind the refreshment stand; a tall teen-ager, looking older than his seventeen years. He was lithe and well muscled from five years of sports and acrobatics at the Space Academy, he had curling red hair and gray eyes, and he was almost as tall as a Lhari.
Will Dad know me? I was just a little kid when he left me here, and now I'm grown-up.
Tommy grinned at him in the mirror. "What are you going to do, now we've finished our so-called education?"
"What do you think? Go back to Vega with Dad, by Lhari ship, and help him run Vega Interplanet. Why else would I bother with all that astrogation and math?"
"You're the lucky one, with your father owning a dozen ships! He must be almost as rich as the Lhari."
Bart shook his head. "It's not that easy. Space travel inside a system these days is small stuff; all the real travel and shipping goes to the Lhari ships."
It was a sore point with everyone. Thousands of years ago, men had spread out from Earth--first to the planets, then to the nearer stars, crawling in ships that could travel no faster than the speed of light. They