Mounting the steps, they passed inside the machine. Here, there were long rows of padded seats along each side. Awed by the sheer size of everything, Kalam sat down and waited tensely. To Mara, he said, “It would seem that only a small number of us have been allowed to enter the Temple. For some reason, the Great God did not allow most of the others to follow.” He frowned, looking about him. “And only we younger people seem to have been chosen.”
Outside, once those who had been selected had passed through, the portal vanished and the wide aperture in the side of the gleaming shape closed soundlessly.
The voice came again, loud and urgent. “All those remaining in the chamber must leave the area immediately. You are in danger if you remain. Leave at once!”
Kalam and Mara heard nothing of this. All of the seats around them were now occupied and a different voice spoke. “You are the chosen ones. There is no need to be afraid. This ship is fully automatic. The Dejener engines enable it to travel far faster than light, otherwise the journey would take many more years than any of you have left.”
Kalam stiffened abruptly in his seat. A low, muted humming had begun, just at the limit of audibility. It rose swiftly until it was an ear-piercing shriek, then faded almost instantly as it passed into a range where his ears no longer registered it.
There was a faint lurch, a transition too swift to be taken in. Although he had no visual awareness of it, Ronan was gone, lost in the void. A curious twisting sensation gripped him briefly as if every molecule of his being had been turned inside out. He was aware only of Mara’s hand gripping his own as the starship, which had waited with an infinite patience for twenty thousand years, headed into the blackness, to return their race to the planet of their birth — a world waiting to be reborn.
THE DRAINPIPE, by Philip E. High
The Ilurine had been through a rough time and needed replenishment. She needed an area with the correct level of solar radiation as partially screened by atmosphere, and the nearest was a planet its inhabitants called Earth. She did not know it as Earth and a quick sense survey did nothing to endear her to it. She judged on emotional values and the general standards of the inhabitants were pathetically primitive. There were, however, exceptions. This youth approaching through the quiet woods was one of them. She lifted his age from his mind — twelve local cycles. Would he make twenty? She doubted it very much.
She realized suddenly that if he continued on his present route he would see her. In a normal state she could have rendered herself invisible but, at the moment, she lacked the strength.
His reaction, when he saw her, was a pleasant surprise. Shock, yes, nervousness, yes, but very little actual fear. The predominant reaction was care; he thought she was ill or injured. Again, when she was absorbing she shivered and he thought she was cold.
He frowned down at her. “You poor little thing,” he said, and, “I won’t hurt you, no need to be afraid, I won’t hurt you, honest.”
Then, very slowly, he took off his jacket, and laid it gently across her body. “Warm you up a bit, eh?”
Compassion! It lifted him far above the majority of his race and was the standard by which she judged all intelligence.… It made him vulnerable, his chances of reaching maturity very doubtful. Compassion generated compassion; she must move him to a word like his own with the same type of intelligences. However, it would take time and in the meantime something must be devised to protect him.…
The city utility services, generally known as the Clerk Of Works, dealt with every possible need of the city. Blocked drains, holes in pavements, maintaining highways, mending walls and countless other things which a community requires.
The organization’s offices are scattered round the city and, for reasons unknown, look very much the same. All are not quite sure if they are offices or workshops. Benches are often used as desks or desks as benches, most of them have nails driven into the walls from which hang clips holding written orders or printed instructions. Some are visibly yellowing with age but no one bothers to remove them.
The desks are not much better and Quentin had to push maps and instructions to the very edge of his desk to find the phone.
“Yeah?” He listened, his face darkening. “You having me on? Right, take it easy. Yes — yes — I know you wouldn’t — just run that past me again.”
He listened again, his face becoming puzzled rather than disbelieving. “Right, I’ll come out, but it had better be genuine. I’m very busy and I’m not happy about this business, not happy at all.”
Here placed the receiver and shook his head. “I’ll have to go out for a short while,”
Limerton, crouched behind a corner desk, said, “What was all that about?”
“To be honest, damned if I know exactly! That was Jim Page at the old sports ground.”
“Not drunk is he? He’s only classified as a laborer.”
Quentin, loyal by nature, slapped him down. “Page has been with the department for twenty five years. He may not be a great brain but he’s utterly reliable and completely honest.”
“Sorry, only reading from the Works List here. I’ve never met the man. What is the problem anyway?”
“I have to go because I can’t tell you. It’s a weird sort of story about a drainpipe if you can make sense of that.”
Quentin arrived at the old sports center twenty minutes later. The complex had become too small for the expanding city and a larger, more modem set-up was being erected elsewhere.
Page lifted the barrier for Quentin’s car to enter then stood unmoving while he got out. The man’s face, usually ruddy, seemed oddly streaked and inclined to twitch.
“What’s the trouble?” Quentin thought that Page looked frightened out of his wits.
“It’s one of them pipes, Mr. Quentin, you know, one them old fashioned metal ones what used to lead up to the changing rooms. There were four when I left at five o’clock, lying together near the West entrance. When I come in this morning there were only three. I found the other one later, right in the middle of the old sports field.”
Quentin was about to say ‘kids’ and changed his mind. The pipes were twenty-five metres in length; it would take a lot of very hefty kids to carry one that far.
“I think you said that the pipe was queer too.”
“Yes, Mr. Quentin but it’s something you’ll have to see, I can’t explain it properly.”
As they reached the edge of the sports field, Quentin frowned at the ravaged surface. “What the hell made all this mess? Think the pipe was dragged across by a tractor?”
“If it was, Mr. Quentin, they must have brought their own. Our two packed up within a day of each other, not expected back until the middle of the week.”
Quentin frowned and strode on. The whole damn business was turning into— Reasoning thought was cut suddenly and a huge no seemed to fill his mind.
He remembered the pipe was twenty-five metres long but he had forgotten the other measurements. He knew the pipe would not quite admit the normal clenched fist and he thought the outer casing was as thick as his — but there his memory stopped because there was a bulge in the middle of the pipe.
The bulge — or should it be a huge bubble? — was about five metres in length and measured at its widest point, around two to two and half metres both in thickness and diameter.
“You can’t do that, Mr. Quentin,” said Page, “you can’t put pressure inside that stuff to make it expand, it would simply splinter. It won’t swell outwards like heated glass, ’cause it ain’t proper metal like.”