Berserker 15 - Berserker's Star (Novel) by Fred Saberhagen

Author:Fred Saberhagen [Saberhagen, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2003-11-21T07:00:00+00:00

Bulaboldo only looked at him. It was perfectly obvious that the ship wasn't going to display any tendencies it hadn't learned from Harry.

It was late in the local afternoon when the train of cars, pulled tirelessly, if not very swiftly, by the cage of rolling spheres, drew near its goal.

On this last leg of their journey, signs frequently appeared at roadside, warning in several languages, of BREAKDOWN ZONES ahead. The signs here struck Harry as rather pointless, as the travelers had been largely in such zones since sometime yesterday.

At last there came an hour when the caravan emerged from a deep notch between tall, irregular landforms, each a different color, to confront a sprawl of the peculiar Maracandan buildings, and it was obvious that they had found their destination.

As the train of cars pulled up to a loading dock very much like the one it had departed from back in Port City, the lure lamp was shaded, and the massed spheres under their cage of basket-work rolled gently to a halt.

This was a bustling free zone, and the sounds and sights of high technology reached the travelers before they were close enough to get a good look at the town itself.

Tomb Town occupied a free zone almost a kilometer square. Unfortunately, the Maracandan sky above consisted of a solid dome of breakdown, preventing the establishment of any kind of spaceport, or even the erection of buildings more than three or four stories high.

Harry supposed that the difficulty of getting to these remote towns only made them more attractive to certain people. Occupying a slice of precious space at the rim of the Tomb Town free zone was a vast but inconspicuous recycling plant, a large-scale version of the system that produced gourmet wonders on Harry's ship. Harry supposed the plant was kept in steady operation. Hydrogen to keep its power lamps alive could be pried loose from the Maracandan substrate.

Even at first glance, Tomb Town radiated a crude energy that had been missing from Port City. The loading dock was bustling with traffic coming and going from Minersville, only a few kilometers away.

It seemed clear that this settlement was considerably smaller than Port City, but it showed signs of rapid growth, including heavy pedestrian traffic on the streets visible from the main gate. A map posted at the gate suggested that the town was laid out in an odd plan, doubtless to take advantage of as much of the free zone as possible.

The caravan only stopped here briefly, for partial unloading, and would soon be rolling on along the road to Minersville.

Actually, before the caravan had fully stopped, a small rush of men and women, traders and prospectors, were jumping off the moving wagons. The object of the rush was to get as quick a look as possible at the latest version of a map showing what lands were still considered available. Dealers in land had sprung into existence, and with the blessing of the public office were subdividing lots.

Bulaboldo

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.