Big Planet by 1952

Author:1952 [Ismeretlen]
Language: hun
Format: epub

“How expensive?”

The head porter blinked, raised his black eyebrows the faintest trifle. “Perhaps an ounce a week . . . The Traveller’s Inn and the Fairmont are likewise expensive, but something quieter. . . .”

“What is a good inn of moderate rates?”

The head porter clicked his heels. “I recommend the Hunt Club. This way, sir, to the carriage.”

He led them to a landau mounted on four elliptical springs of laminated golden wood. There were no zipan-gotes hitched to the front, in fact the carriage appeared innocent of motive power.

The head porter swung open the door with a flourish. Cloyville, in the lead, hesitated, looked quizzically back over his shoulder. “A joke? After we get in, do you walk away and leave us sitting here?”

“No indeed, sir, by no means.”

Cloyville gingerly climbed up the two steps, lowered himself into the soft seat. The rest of the party followed.

The head porter closed the door with exquisite finesse, signalled. Four men in tight black uniforms stepped forward; each clipped a strap to the front of the carriage, tossed it over his shoulder, and the carriage was underway. Wooden planking rumbled below the wheels, the hangar-like buildings were behind, they drove over granite flags through the heart of the city.

Kirstendale had been laid out with an eye to striking vistas. It was a city clean as new paper, bright with polished stone and glass, gay with flowers. Towers rose everywhere, each circled by a staircase which spiralled up to meet the onion-shaped bulb of the dwelling.

They approached a cylindrical building in the middle of the city, large as a gas-storage tank. A lush growth of blue-green vine with maroon trumpet-flowers, rows of large windows gave a sense of lightness and elegance to an otherwise heavy building.

The carriage passed under a marquee roofed with stained glass, and the Big Planet sunlight, passing through, puddled the flags with gorgeous color. A sign on the marquee read, “Hotel Metropole.”

“Hm,” said Cloyville. “Looks like a nice place . . . After the—well, inconvenience of the journey, I could stand a week or two in the lap of luxury.”

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