Angado by E. C. Tubb

Author:E. C. Tubb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 1984-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

This time it was different; instead of the bizarre landscape with the solitary figure of the Cyber Prime there was a vaulted hall, a dais holding three thronelike chairs occupied by figures adorned with legalistic robes. A tribunal seated as if in judgment, faces dimmed and blurred in the flickering light of flambeaux. But if the scene was different the shock was the same.

Avro drew in his breath and looked at his hands. Air filled his lungs and the hands were his own as were the feet, the arms, the robe which clothed his body. One now lying as if dead in his cabin on the ship resting on the surface of Velor.

What was happening to him?

Rapport was never like this and, since the time when he had apparently spoken to Marie, it had been as always. The contact, the exchange, the euphoria which yielded ecstasy and which resulted from electromagnetic stimulation of the pleasure center of the brain.

A thought which startled him—was it true? And why should it have come to him at all?

"Cyber Avro you may speak." The central figure lifted a hand, let it fall back to the arm of the chair, to grip it with long, spatulate fingers. "Your report?"

One which could have been transmitted with the speed of thought now having to be vocalized.

Avro was brief, ending with the finding of the grave. "The body was in the final stages of dissolution. Little remained but a skeleton and identification was impossible."

"The size?"

"Fitted the characteristics of both men dumped from the Thorn." Unnecessary detail—he had said that identification was impossible. Inefficiency compounded as he added, "The bones had been badly fretted but fitted the structure-scale relevant to the search. More could have been learned had we discovered the grave sooner."

"Obviously." The tone was dry. "Continue."

"The grave was on the site of what had been a camp. Radiated heat from the colony of scavenger beetles which had congregated on the spot registered on our instruments. The immediate terrain showed signs of having been stripped of fuel, and ash was found beneath a layer of sand. To one side, also beneath windblown sand, was found what could have been the landing spot of a vessel. Tests in the lower soil-strata confirm the size and weight of an object which could have been a ship." Avro paused, seeing again the glinting mass of chitin from the insects attracted to the water and food held in the body. The bones which first had seemed to be fashioned from tiny, mobile gems, turning gray and dusty as the scavengers fled from the light. The landing spot had been a ragged scar. "Tests revealed radiation levels in the local soil consistent with the generation of an Erhaft field."

"Your conclusions?"

"A vessel landed. A man was buried. The vessel departed."

It was not enough and Avro knew it but there was reason for his brevity. Before him the seated figure stirred, those to either side remaining as motionless as before. Were they nothing but

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