Wyst: Alastor 1716 Read Online Free PDF

corner of my eye, something new and shimmering and wonderful waits
for me—if only I knew where to look!”
    His mother sniffed. “Really, Jantiff, you’re so fanciful.”
    Lile Ravensroke asked sadly: “Haven’t you any ambition for a
normal and ordinary life? No shimmering flapdoodle, just honest work and a
happy home?”
    “I don’t know what my ambitions are! That’s the entire
difficulty. My best hope is to get away for a bit and see something of the
Cluster. Then perhaps I’ll be able to settle down.”
    His mother in distress cried, “You’ll go far from here and
make your career, and well never see you again!”
    Jantiff gave an uneasy laugh. “Of course not! I plan nothing
so stern! I’m restless and uneasy; I want to see how other people live so that
I can decide how I want to live myself.”
    Lile Ravensroke said somberly: “When I was young I had similar
notions. For better or worse, I put them aside and now I feel sure that I acted
for the best. There’s nothing out there that isn’t better at home.”
    Ferfan said to Jantiff, “There’ll never be sour-grass pie,
or brunts, or shushings the way mother cooks.”
    “I’m prepared to rough it for a bit. I might even like the
exotic foods.”
    “Ugh,” said Juille. “They all sound so odd and rank.”
    The group sat silent for a moment. Then: “If you feel you
must go,” said Juille’s father, “our arguments won’t dissuade you.”
    “It’s really for the best,” said Jantiff hollowly. “Then,
when I come back, with the wander-dust off my heels, I’ll hopefully be settled
and definite, and you’ll be proud of me.”
    “But Janty, we’re proud of you now,” said Ferfan without any
great conviction.
    Julie asked: “Where will you go, and what will you do?’
    Jantiff spoke with spurious joviality: “Where will I go?
Here, there, everywhere! And what will I do? Everything! Anything! All for the
sake of experience. I’ll try the carbuncle mines on Arcady; I’ll visit the Connatic
at Lusz; perhaps I’ll drop at Arrabus and spend a few weeks with the emancipated
folk.”
    “‘Emancipated folk’ ?” growled Lile Ravensroke. “A twittering
brook of dilly-bugs is more likely.”
    “Well, that’s their claim. They only work thirteen hours a week, and it seems to agree with them.”
    Juille cried: “You’ll settle in Arrabus and, become emancipated
and we’ll never see you again!”
    “My dear girl, there is not the slightest chance of such a thing.”
    “Then don’t go to Wyst! The Transvoyer article said that
people arrive from everywhere and never leave.”
    Ferfan, who also cherished secret dreams of travel, said
wistfully: “If it’s such a wonderful place, perhaps we’d all better go there.”
    Her father laughed humorlessly. “I can’t spare the time from
work.”

Chapter 3
    Arriving at Uncibal on a rainy night Jantiff was reminded of
a paragraph in the Alastrid Gazeteer: “Across many years wise travelers
have learned to discount their first impression of a new environment. Such
judgments are derived from previous experience in previous places and are
infallibly distorted.” On this dismal evening Uncibal Space-port lacked every
quaint or charming quality, and Jantiff wondered why a system which for a
century had gratified uncounted Arrabins could not better promote the comfort
of a relatively few visitors.
    Two hundred and fifty passengers, debarking from the
spaceships, found themselves alone in the gloom, a quarter-mile from a line of
low blue lights which presumably marked the terminal building. Muttering and
grumbling the passengers squelched off through the puddles. [9]
    Jantiff walked to the side of the straggling troop,
thrilling to contact with alien soil. From the direction of Uncibal drifted a
waft of odor, oddly sour and heavy, yet half-familiar, which only served to
emphasize the strangeness of the world Wyst.
    At the terminal a droning voice addressed the newcomers: “Welcome
to Arrabus. We