Northwest Smith by C.L. Moore

Author:C.L. Moore [Moore, C. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781682301111
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2015-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

Lost Paradise

Across the table-top Yarol the Venusian reached a swift hand that closed on Northwest Smith’s wrist heavily. “Look!” he said in a low voice.

Smith’s no-colored eyes turned leisurely in the direction of the little Venusian’s almost imperceptible nod.

The panorama that stretched out under his casual gaze would have caught at a newcomer’s breath with its very magnitude, but to Smith the sight was an old story. Their table was one of many ranged behind a rail along the edge of a parapet below which the dizzy gulf of New York’s steel terraces dropped away in a thousand-foot sweep to the far earth. Lacing that swooning gulf of emptiness the steel spans of the traffic bridges arched from building to building, a swarm with New York’s countless hordes. Men from the three planets, wanderers and space-rangers and queer, brutish things that were not wholly human mingled with the throngs of Earth as they streamed endlessly over the great steel bridges spanning the gulfs of New York. From the high parapet table where Smith and Yarol sat one could watch the solar system go by, world upon world, over the arches that descended by tiers and terraces into the perpetual darkness and twinkling, far-off lights of the deeps where solid earth lay hidden. In mighty swoops and arcs they latticed the void yawning below the parapet on which Yarol leaned a negligent elbow and stared.

Smith’s pale eyes, following that stare, saw only the usual crowd of pedestrians swarming across the steel span of the bridge a story below.

“See?” murmured Yarol. “That little fellow in the red leather coat. The white-haired one, walking slow at the edge of the rail. See?”

“Um-m.” Smith made a non-commital noise in his throat as he found the object of Yarol’s interest. It was an odd-looking specimen of humanity that loitered slowly along in the outer edges of the crowd surging across the bridge. His red coat was belted about a body whose extreme fragility was apparent even at this elevation; though from what Smith could see of his foreshortened figure he did not seem like one in ill health. On his uncovered head the hair grew silky and silvery, and under one arm he clutched a squarish package which he was careful, Smith noticed, to keep on the railing side, away from the passing crowd.

“I’ll bet you the next drinks,” murmured Yarol, his wise black eyes twinkling under long lashes, “that you can’t guess what race that little fellow’s from, or where it originated.”

“The next drinks are on me anyhow,” grinned Smith. “No I can’t guess. Does it matter?”

“Oh—curious, that’s all. I’ve seen a member of that race only once before in my life, and I’ll bet you never saw one. And yet it’s an Earth race, perhaps the very oldest. Did you ever hear of the Seles?”

Smith shook his head silently, his eyes on the little figure below, which was slowly drawing out of sight beneath the overhang of the terrace on which they sat.

“They live somewhere in the remotest part of Asia, no one knows exactly where.

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