The spaceport was in a vast flat plain. Far across the plain Durham
could see the dark outline of a city. He stood at the edge of the
landing area, between two Senyan officers from the ship. He wore a
pressure suit from the lifeboat's equipment, and the wind blew hard,
beating and picking and pushing at the suit and the bubble helmet. It
was difficult for Durham to stand up, but the Senyans, braced on their
four sturdy legs, stood easily and swayed their upper bodies back and
forth like trees.
They were big. He had not really understood how big they were until
he stood beside them. He gathered that they were waiting for a ground
conveyance, and he was not surprised. Light air cabs were hardly suited
to their build.
He had talked briefly to Karlovic by radio, and he was impatient to get
to the consulate where Karlovic was waiting for him. The minute or two
in which they waited for the truck seemed interminable. But it came, a
great powerful thing like a moving van, and one of the Senyans said,
"Permit me?"
With his two lower arms he lifted Durham onto the platform. The two
Senyans spoke to the driver and then got on themselves. The truck took
off, going very fast in spite of its size. The Senyans held Durham
between them, because there was nothing for a human to hang to, and
nowhere to sit down.
They left the spaceport. Huge storage buildings lined the road, and
then smaller buildings, and then patches of open country, inexpressibly
dreary to Durham's eyes. High overhead the sun burned green and small
in a sky of cloudy vapor from which fell showers of glinting rain.
Poison rain from a poison sky. Durham shivered, and a deep depression
settled on him. Nothing hopeful would be done in this place. Not by
humans.
The truck roared on. Durham watched the city grow on the murky horizon,
rising up into huge ugly towers and blocky structures like old prisons
greatly magnified. It was a big city. It was a frightening city. He
wished he had never seen it. He wished he was back in The Hub, standing
on a high walk with the good hot sun pouring on him and no barriers
between him and the good clean air. He wanted to weep with mingled
weariness and claustrophobia. Then he noticed that little crowds had
collected along the way into the city. They shouted at the truck going
by, and waved their arms, and some of them threw stones that rattled
off the sides.
"What's the matter?" Durham asked.
"They are members of the anti-human party. Prejudice cuts both ways,
a thing our neighbors of Nanta Dik do not seem to understand. Human
and non-human are intellectual concepts. On the emotional level it is
simply us or not-us. You are not-us, and as such quite distasteful to
some. What I do not understand is how they knew you were coming."
"Morrison must have got his radio working. He's been using the
extremists here just like the ones on Nanta Dik, to make trouble."
"There are times--" said the Senyan grimly. "But then I make myself
remember that there are scoundrels among us, too."
The truck rumbled through the traffic of wide boulevards, between
rows of massive buildings that had obviously never been designed with
anything so small and frail as human beings in mind. There were Senyans
on the streets, apparently going about whatever business they did, and
Durham wondered what their home life was like, what games the children
played, what they ate and how they thought, what things they worried
about in the dark hours of the night. He felt absolutely alien. It was
not a nice feeling.
Presently the truck turned into an open circle surrounded by mighty
walls of stone. In one place bright light shone cheerfully from the
windows, and the Senyan said, "That is the consulate."
They set him off and showed him where the airlock was. Durham performed
the ritual of the lock chamber, frantic to get out of the confining
suit. When the inner door swung open he began to tear at the helmet,
and a man came in saying, "Let me help."
When Durham was free of the suit, the man looked at him with very
tired, very angry eyes. "I'm Karlovic. Jubb's waiting. Come on."
He led Durham down an echoing corridor that dwarfed them by its size.
The colors of the polished wood and stone were not keyed to the glaring
yellow light, and the rooms that Durham could see into as he passed
were not keyed to the small incongruous furnishings that had been
forced upon them. Somewhere below there was a throbbing of pumps, and
the air smelled of refresher chemicals.