From the Ocean from teh Stars Read Online Free PDF

wondered blankly, would be terrified of taking a window seat in an ordinary aircraft? All his gloomy premonitions about his new assignment, which had been partly dispelled during their earlier conversation, came crowding back with renewed vigor.
    The city and the sunburned coast dropped below as the lifting jets carried them effortlessly up into the sky. Franklin was reading the paper with a fierce concentration that did not deceive Burley for a moment. He decided to wait for a while, and apply some more tests later in the flight.
    The Glasshouse Mountains—those strangely shaped fangs jutting from the eroded plain—swept swiftly beneath. Then came the little coastal towns, through which the wealth of the immense farm lands of the interior had once passed to the world in the days before agriculture went to sea. And then—only minutes, it seemed, after take-off—the first is lands of the Great Barrier Reef appeared like deeper shadows in the blue horizon mists.
    The sun was shining almost straight into his eyes, but Don's memory could fill in the details which were lost in the glare from the burning wa ters. He could see the low, green islands surrounded by their narrow borders of sand and their immensely greater fringes of barely submerged coral. Against each island's private reef the waves of the Pacific would be marching forever, so that for a thousand miles into the north snowy crescents of foam would break the surface of the sea.
    A century ago—fifty years, even—scarcely a dozen of these hundreds of islands had been inhabited. Now, with the aid of universal air trans port, together with cheap power and water-purification plants, both the state and the private citizen had invaded the ancient solitude of the reef. A few fortunate individuals, by means that had never been perfectly
    clear, had managed to acquire some of the smaller islands as their personal property. The entertainment and vacation industry had taken over others, and had not always improved on Nature's handiwork. But the greatest landowner in the reef was undoubtedly the World Food Organization, with its complicated hierarchy of fisheries, marine farms, and research departments, the full extent of which, it was widely believed, no merely human brain could ever comprehend.
    "We're nearly there," said Burley. "That's Lady Musgrave Island we've just passed—main generators for the western end of the fence. Capricorn Group under us now—Masthead, One Tree, North-West, Wilson—and Heron in the middle, with all those buildings on it. The big tower is Administration—the aquarium's by that pool—and look, you can see a couple of subs tied up at that long jetty leading out to the edge of the reef."
    As he spoke, Don watched Franklin out of the corner of his eye. The other had leaned toward the window as if following his companion's running commentary, yet Burley could swear that he was not looking at the panorama of reefs and islands spread out below. His face was tense and strained; there was an indrawn, hooded expression in his eyes as if he was forcing himself to see nothing.
    With a mingling of pity and contempt, Don understood the symptoms if not their cause. Franklin was terrified of heights; so much, then, for the theory that he was a spaceman. Then what was he? Whatever the answer, he hardly seemed the sort of person with whom one would wish to share the cramped quarters of a two-man training sub. . . .
    The plane's shock absorbers touched down on the rectangle of scorched and flattened coral that was the Heron Island landing platform. As he stepped out into the sunlight, blinking in the sudden glare, Franklin seemed to make an abrupt recovery. Don had seen seasick passengers undergo equally swift transformations on their return to dry land. If Franklin is no better as a sailor than an airman, he thought, this crazy assignment won't last more than a couple of days and I'll be able to get back to work. Not that Don was in a great rush to return