Trouble on Triton by Samuel R. Delany

Author:Samuel R. Delany
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 1976-06-21T04:00:00+00:00

It was not exactly an adventure finding Sam again. But in the hour and a quarter it took him, he decided that whoever had laid out the village must have been certifiably insane. And while there were some jobs that the certifiably insane could do quite well, and while metalogics, as Audri occasionally used to joke at him, was one, city planning was definitely not:

There was a living establishment—the People’s Co-Op—and there, to its left, was some sort of shopping area; and around the corner from that was a small eating place. All fine. Wandering through the small streets, he found another collection of small shops: Was there an eating place around the corner to its right? No. Was there a living establishment—of any sort—to its left? No! He had been quite prepared to find the urban units arranged differently from those on Tethys, as Tethys’s were different from the units of Lux, or Bellona. (Indeed, Tethys employed seven different types of urban units—though for practical purposes you only had to be familiar with two of them to find anything you wanted in most of the city—and Bellona reputedly, though only one was common, employed nine.) After half an hour it began to dawn that there was no arrangement to this city’s urban units. Half an hour more, and he began to wonder if this city had urban units. The only logic he could impute to the layout at all—after having walked up some streets many times and been unable to find others at all that he knew he’d passed—was that most of the shops and eating places seemed to be in one area, within three or four streets of the central square. For the rest, it was catch-as-catch-can.

He found the street with the stone steps just by accident.

In the backyard of the guesthouse, Sam sat at a white enameled table, by his elbow a tall glass of something orange with a straw in it and green leaves sticking out the top. He was looking into a portable reader, his thumb again and again clicking the skimming lever.

“Sam, what is there to do around here at night?”

Click. “Look at the stars, smell the clear air, wander out along the wild hills and meadows.” Click-click-click. “That’s what I’m planning to do, anyway. If you’re stuck in the far reaches of Outer Mongolia, even in this day and age, there isn’t much to do, except figure out more and more interesting ways to relax.” Click-click.

“Do with somebody. I have to take someone out tonight.”

Click; Sam reached for his drink, missed it, got it, and maneuvered the straw into his mouth. Click-click. “The woman you went running after, after breakfast?” He put the drink back on the table (Click); the edge of the glass was just over the side.

Bron narrowed an eye, wondering if he should move it. “I said I would take her someplace exciting. Tonight.”

“I can’t think of anyplace you could—” Sam looked up, frowning. “Wait a second.” He moved the glass back on the table.

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.