The Terrorists of Irustan Read Online Free PDF Page B

wheel. The men still laboring jeered good-naturedly. Jin-Li drove the cart through the cool darkness beneath the ship and back out into the glare, moving slowly. Down the length of the shuttle, around the tail and beneath the thrust engines, then across the field to the gate, the little electric motor growling with its load.The guard at the gate gave a mock salute. “More careful now, I see, Johnnie.”
    “Right. See you!”
    The cart moved around the port terminal and out into the road leading away from the port. The port director, an Irustani, handled the distribution manifests for medical supplies. Jin-Li turned left, up a wide, smooth road to a sprawling two-story sandrite building.
    The building was tiled and cool, bringing gooseflesh to Jin-Li’s sunwarmed skin. The entry and lobby were open to the roof, soaring to a ceiling of thick tinted glass. Jin-Li took off the dark glasses and slipped them into a breast pocket, pulling out a tiny reader with the notated list of supplies. A clerk at a desk in the entryway stood up, touching his heart with his right hand.
    “Kir Chung,” he said, smiling. “I thought you’d be here today. I heard the shuttle come in.”
    Jin-Li mirrored the gesture, hand to heart, and smiled back. “Kir Dinos, good to see you again. Can you take this list up to the director’s office and ask if there’s a manifest for me?”
    “Right away.” Dinos signaled to an assistant to come and man the desk while he trotted across the lobby to the stairs.
    Jin-Li greeted the assistant, then wandered away to make a lazy circle around the enormous abstract sculpture that rested on a whitewood platform in the center of the lobby. There was no enclosure, no impediment to the observer. The sculpture invited the hand to touch it, to caress its sandrite curves, to let the texture and shape of it guide the fingers. Jin-Li put one brown hand on an inner slope of the shape, following the path it made.
    “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” came a deep voice.
    “Oh, hello, Director,” Jin-Li said, turning, smiling.
    Samir Hilel was dark-skinned, with thick brown hair. He touched his heart and then shook Jin-Lis hand with a firm, cool grip. “Kir Chung,” he said. “It gives me pleasure to know that an Earther can appreciate Irustani art.”
    Jin-Li shrugged and gave a deprecating chuckle. “Well, I try, Director. Your sculptors don’t make it easy.”
    Hilel put his hand to the flowing shape before them. Jin-Li saw the sensuous way he stroked it, following its path up, in and out, up again until his hand came away in the air. Hilel gave a slight sigh. In a moment he said over his shoulder, “What do you think it means, Kir Chung?”
    Jin-Li said carefully, “This is a test I’ll probably fail.”
    Samir Hilel chuckled. “1 wouldn’t test you! You know more of our customs than I do of yours, I’m sure. I’m only interested in how this piece strikes you.”
    Jin-Li looked up at the sculpture, following the folds, the rolling waves of stone. “The stone is lovely, of course, that silvery gray sandrite. But it seems to me—perhaps—that I see the artist guiding both hand and eye to the Maker, pulling them both irresistibly to heaven.”
    The port director inclined his head with a grave smile. “You honor the artist,” he said. “And I’ll tell him what you’ve said. He will be moved to know that his work spoke to you so clearly.”
    “Thanks, Director. Please do tell him for me.”
    Hilel regarded Jin-Li for a moment. They were almost the same height, though Jin-Li was narrower of shoulder and probably thirty years younger than Hilel. The director had an appealing grace, a poise earned through intelligence and experience.
    “Johnnie Chung,” Hilel said, as if trying out the name. “You’re different from your colleagues.”
    “It’s Jin-Li Chung, actually, Director. Port Forcers are fond of nicknames. And I suppose I am a bit different.”
    “Yes. From time to time 1 meet other