Clarion

CLARION 53

colony had taken root. The animals were small and docile, although none had been domesticated. Edible, too—but Paul wasn't surprised to learn that nearly everyone on Clarion was a vegetarian. That was typical on colonized worlds where Terrandescended livestock weren't bred. Humans had always been squeamish about eating alien flesh. Ogram had mentioned one thing that struck Paul as an oddity: the planet's entire population still lived in a city at the site of the original colony. The sector ship Vanguard had put them down two

hundred years ago, and they had never strayed in all that time. Clarion had never been mapped or explored.

Beep.

Paul looked over as Ogram pressed a combination of keys on the console. Luminous lines of figures built across the readout screen. After a moment he pressed another console key. Beep. The screen changed.

"Whoops."

Ogram pressed another key and the screen

changed again, accompanied by another tone from the console.

"Damn!" He leaned over to consult 'a sheet of stiff white paper that was clipped to the console beside him. Dark-lettered notes were scrawled across it.

"Trouble?" Paul asked. He realized suddenly how isolated they were. If something went wrong with the stasis drive or control system . . .

"Nothing I can't fix," Ogram muttered. He searched the keypad and punched another key, then grunted with satisfaction when the screen lighted with a new message. He glanced at Paul and shrugged his shoulders apologetically. "Guess I should've gotten more hands-on practice." Paul stared at him. "You should have—

practiced? Don't you know how to fly this thing?" 54 William Greenleaf

Ogram gave him a hurt look. "Of course. I spent a week studying the manual." He waved at the rows of data that still scrolled across the screen. "I may have missed some of the details, though." Paul realized with a sinking feeling that Ogram was serious. The flight from the surface of Fynnland to the skip zone had been rough, but Paul had attributed that to the condition of the aging scoutship. Now he wasn't so sure. Skipping through the stream was handled by the drive engines and navigation computers, but reaching the surface of the planet below would require piloting skills . . .

"You learned to fly from a manual?"

"Sure." Ogram grinned. "We had to translate from old Espana. Some of the pages were in pretty bad shape, but I think we got most of it." He searched the control panel, jabbed at something with a forefinger. "See, you push this blue button and wait for something called translation."

"Transition," Paul corrected. He had sat in the front with Dorland's pilot often enough to pick up some of the jargon. During transition, the stream driver switched control to the stasis system for atmospheric flight.

"Whatever." Ogram frowned at the console when nothing happened. He leaned over to consult the card beside the readout screen. "Oh yeah, this light has to be green. To make it green you push these three switches up." He demonstrated. "Now we have to wait for the computer to beep, then we'll be ready to go."

Paul turned around in his seat to look into the rear compartment. Borland's head rested against the back of the seat, and his eyes were closed. Possibly asleep—Paul knew the last few hours had taken a lot out of him. More likely he was meditating. That was Dorland's way of sorting out his feelings. Paul had learned soon after they met that Dorland was subject to wide mood swings. Now he