The Book of The Ler by M A Foster

Author:M A Foster [Foster, M A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101118429
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Han expected to be met off Chalcedon with suspicion and requests for detailed identifications, what with the recent raid; they were bound to be suspicious. But as they approached the planet, there was no response on any frequency. Nor were they being tracked by any detection system which used electromagnetic waves. Liszendir was unconcerned. She thought that if you came to someone’s house, and there were no lights, you could at least knock on the door. They couldn’t see you otherwise in the deeps of night.

Han, however, was inclined to look at things in detail before doing anything rash. So they let the preliminary orbit they had established carry them around to the night side. There, it was more informative, but only slightly more active. With the screen at full magnification, and the instruments at maximum gain, they could see and hear the signs of a civilization in its early technological stages: illuminated towns below on the surface; some light radio traffic, most of it point-to-point, for Chalcedon didn’t have much of an ionosphere; and also in the radio bands, faint popping or tapping sounds which indicated internal-combustion engines.

But after several passes around the planet, which was about ten thousand miles in diameter, they believed what the ship’s senses told them: Chalcedon was early in the colonization stage, and only one continent was inhabited to any degree. And not being near any known line of commerce, the locals below were proceeding at their own rate, which was the slow-time of almost complete isolation. They decided to land at what their charts indicated to be the capital city.

As they settled to their landing site, which was an open field some distance from the capital, they were neither hailed nor intercepted. It gave Han an eerie feeling; they had flown over the city, which was not large, so he knew whoever lived in it could see him, but they didn’t seem to care. He had been trained for space flight in an area where ships were monitored every instant. But with no one to tell him not to, he hovered momentarily, then settled and grounded the ship. They shut it down, and debarked to an empty field. Apparently there were no customs procedures either. So they locked the ship and started walking in the direction of the capital, which could be easily found by noting a plume of dust above the trees.

As they walked down a dusty road which did not seem to be heavily traveled, he said, “It gives me a strange feeling to come as far as we have, all to walk down a country road at noon, as if we’d never even seen a spaceship. And so unprotected! You’d think they would be alert as bees after someone robbed the hive.”

Liszendir answered by flinging off her soft boots and turning a cart-wheel in the road. Then she dusted herself off, retrieved her boots, but did not put them on, and said, “I care only now that I have honest earth under my feet again.

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