The Fugitive Worlds Read Online Free PDF

interested in it—and I want you to show the planet to me tonight—but why should I feel any sense of alarm?"
    "Because ..." Bartan glanced at the sky as though seek ing inspiration. "Cassyll, it isn't right! It's unnatural ... an omen . . . There is something afoot."
    Cassyll began to laugh. "But you're the least superstitious person I know! Now you are talking as though this errant world has appeared in the firmament for the sole purpose of persecuting you."
    "Well ..." Bartan gave a reluctant smile, reclaiming his youthful appearance. "Perhaps you're right. I suppose I should have gone to you immediately. It wasn't until Berise died that I realized how much I depended on her to keep me on an even keel."
    Cassyll nodded sympathetically, as always finding it difficult to accept that Berise Drumme had been dead for four years. Black-haired, vivacious, indomitable, Berise had given the impression that she would live forever, but she had been swept away within hours by one of those mysterious, sourceless ailments which brought it home to medical practitioners just how little they knew.
    "It was a big blow to all of us," Cassyll said. "Are you drinking?"
    "Yes." Bartan detected the concern in Cassyll's eyes and touched his arm. "But not the way I was doing when I first met your father. I wouldn't betray Berise in that way. A glass or two of wryberry in the evening is enough for me these days."
    "Come to my house tonight and bring a good telescope with you. We'll have a beaker of something warming and take a look at it. . . There's another job for you—we'll need a name for this mysterious world." Cassyll slapped his friend on the back and nodded towards the arched entrance of the palace, signifying that it was time to go in for their meeting with the Queen.
    Once inside the shady building they went straight to the audience chamber through corridors which were almost empty. In King Chakkell's day the palace had been very much the seat of government, and it had usually been thronged with officials, but Daseene's policy had been to disperse general administration into separate buildings and to treat the palace as her private residence. Only matters such as aerial defense, in which she took a special interest, were considered important enough to merit her personal attention.
    At the door to the chamber two ostiaries, sweating under the weight of their traditional brakka armor, recognized both men and admitted them without delay. The air in the room was so hot that Cassyll had to snatch for breath. In her old age Queen Daseene continually complained of being cold, and the quarters she used were kept at a temperature which most others found unbearable.
    The only person in the room was Lord Sectar, the fiscal chancellor, whose job it was to control state spending. His presence was another indication that the Queen had plans to reclaim the Old World. He was a large and top-heavy man in his sixties, with a jowled face which was florid in normal conditions and in the excessive heat of the room had turned bright crimson. He nodded at the newcomers, pointed mutely at the floor and its buried heating pipes, rolled his eyes to express consternation, dabbed perspiration from his brow and went to stand by a partially-open window.
    Cassyll responded to the dumb-show with an exaggerated shrug which mimed helplessness, and sat down on one of the curved benches which faced the high-backed royal chair. At once his thoughts were drawn back to the mystery of Bartan's blue planet. It occurred to him that he had been altogether too casual in his acceptance of the reported phenomenon. How could a world simply materialize in the nearby regions of space? New stars had been seen to appear in the sky, and that being the case one could assume that stars sometimes disappeared, perhaps through explosion, leaving their reti nues of planets behind. Cassyll could imagine such worlds blundering through the darkness of the interstellar void, but the chances of one