Sanctuary in The Sky Read Online Free PDF

partner as regards financial support and the maintenance of a home. A peculiar reversal of the system common to the other worlds of the Arm—and, so it appeared, of worlds further in-galaxy.
    “Oh yes,” said Ferenc. “Oh yes. I’d forgotten. Well, I wouldn’t have expected more self-restraint from one of your persuasion, anyway. All right.”
    He turned away, catching sight of Mrs. Iquida as he did so. Under the smiling supervision of a pretty Glaithe girl, she was climbing aboard a conveyer-chair, her eyes bright with excitement.
    Behind Ferenc, the priest was sighing loudly with relief. Ferenc spat, deliberately and conspicuously, to symbolize his cumulative disgust: with the Glaithes at the way they had made the Cathrodynes eat dust in the Iquida case, with Dardaino and his sensual, self-indulging religion, with Ligmer for his lack of proper patriotism, and lastly with himself for failing to make the Pag officer respect him.
    Well, he had business to attend to—in the intervals of pretending that he was on furlough. He found that the elevator car he wanted was waiting, and stepped into it. His last look back across the reception hall showed him that Lang, still in conversation with Ligmer, and stroking his pet animal, had his eyes on him.
    “Your—uh—compatriot didn’t seem to approve of your remarks,” Lang suggested. Ligmer shook his head.
    “Ferenc is an example of something we Cathrodynes would do better to rid ourselves of,” he said. “I’m afraid his type is all too common—although,” he added with virtuous planetary loyalty, “we’re far better off than they are on Pagr. I suppose people like Ferenc had their place when Cathrodyne was expanding; it was his kind who got us our empire on Majkosi and Lubarria. But their automatic contempt for everything that isn’t Cathrodyne is out of date, I think.”
    He gestured with a hand full of papers, to indicate the severe but impressive hall in which , they stood. “It became out of date when Waystation was discovered, you might say. When it became perfectly obvious that things Cathrodyne were not superior to anything else, because Waystation is so incredibly far in advance of everything else we know.”
    “It is very remarkable,” Lang agreed, glancing around.
    “On Pagr, of course, they reacted quite characteristically. They said—as you heard from that officer we shipped with— that since everything Pag, in their view, is superior to all the rest, Waystation was built by Pags. Perfect logic! It’s their official propaganda, but luckily some few of them are intelligent enough to be able to shake themselves free of such rubbish.”
    “You’ve been here before, I take it?” Lang asked. "You know Waystation well?”
    “Nobody knows Waystation well except the Glaithes themselves,” Ligmer said with a rueful expression. “Oh, they’re very reasonable and co-operative in most respects; their only stipulation is that archeologists like myself and other investigators must not pry too closely into technical matters. Mark you, that’s a handicap in itself, because so much of Way- station’s hidden history must be bound up with technical questions—like the master memory banks, for instance. There’s knowledge in the banks that the Glaithes can’t use themselves and which they daren’t, simply daren’t, let loose indiscriminately. I suppose one can’t blame them; they know that given a free hand both we Cathrodynes and the Pags would try to seize Waystation for themselves.”
    "Yes, I already gathered that.” Lang frowned, and lifted his little pet on to his shoulder.
    “What is that thing of yours?” Ligmer inquired. “I never saw one before.”
    “Oh, it’s a creature that’s popular as a pet on some planets further in-galaxy, beyond the Arm.” Lang r ubbed his head against the pet’s with a grin. “I call him Sunny. He’s company for me.”
    Ligmer was aching to ask the all-important question— where Lang actually hailed