Patrimony Read Online Free PDF Page A

corridor that led away from the Arrivals room. “We’re done here. Have a nice time on Gestalt, and I wish you the best of fortune with your research. If you don’t mind my asking, what are you researching?”
    “History,” Flinx told him.
    Understandably misunderstanding, Paya nodded. “This world has an interesting history, though a slim one. Humans have been living here for a fairly long time, though the immigrant population has always been limited.”
    “By the Tlel?” Flinx inquired as they started down the hallway.
    The official shook his head. “By choice. Gestalt is not a particularly hospitable world. This isn’t Kansastan, or Barabas, and it doesn’t offer new migrants the promise of a place like Dawn. Those who choose to settle here permanently are different from your typical colonist. It takes a certain singular mind-set not only to adapt to the planet, its limitations, and its climate, but also to live among the Tlel. Not everyone can handle it. Many of those who try manage for a few years, or five, or even a decade. Then they’ve had enough. The Tlel get to them, or the weather, or having to constantly keep an eye out for dangerous animals that on other colony worlds would be cleared from the vicinity of habitations.”
    “How about you?” Flinx teased genially. “Are you
singular
?”
    The silent emotions the official emitted suggested calm amusement. There was no indication of suppressed suspicion. He had accepted this new visitor’s definition of himself without hesitation.
    “My wife and kids think so. My ancestors would think I’m crazy for choosing to live on a world like this. They all made their homes in warm, usually humid places. They’d find Gestalt too remote, too cold, and too dry. I happen to like it.” He looked up at Flinx. “I also like the Tlel, in spite of the fact that they’re completely oblivious to their own potent body odor. That’s only natural, considering that they can’t smell it. Or anything else. Most of us can manage the downsides or we couldn’t handle living here. I hardly know you, but I have the impression that you’ll get along just fine. Just a feeling.” His tone switched from the familiar to the formal. “You have a place to reside?”
    Flinx shook his head. For a moment, he was simultaneously afraid and flattered that the administrator was going to invite him to stay with his family. While that would have advantages, he preferred the freedom that privacy would give him. Still, he felt slightly let down at Paya’s response.
    “There are a number of decent places to stay in Tlossene. Almost all are set up to cater to the needs of visiting business travelers. As I said before, Gestalt doesn’t draw the casual visitor. What’s your preference? Luxury, economical, something in between?”
    “In between,” Flinx told him. He wanted to add
anonymous,
but that was generally not a description one appended to a request for a hotel recommendation. “If my research goes as I hope, I’ll only be here for a couple of days.”
    The official eyed him closely. “I don’t know where you’ve come from, and in any event it’s none of my business, but it strikes me that anyone who’d go to the trouble of traveling between worlds to visit someplace just for a couple of days is either unconscionably rich, unutterably bored, or in a terrible hurry.”
    Flinx mustered a masking smile. “I’m neither rich nor bored, but I am in a bit of a hurry.”
And it is terrible,
he added, but only to himself.
    With a cheery wave and a last strobing smile, Paya escorted him to the opposite side of the terminal and saw him off.
    The small automated transport that conveyed Flinx into town was covered by the usual transparent plexalloy dome, allowing him to study his new surroundings in comparative comfort. Rolling off an accessway, the vehicle paused to concede right-of-way to what looked like a cluster of two-legged rugs. Ambling across the busy route in single file,