The Sinners of Erspia

Presumably it was built for space, without much by way of internal bracing. Still, it was of sturdy construction otherwise...

Histrina was cooing and mooing as if at a fireworks display. They had begun to dip into the forest, brushing through the huge, fleshy orchids, tearing through titanic petals, ripping through tangles of sunlit vines, becoming engulfed in colour. There was a sudden jar as the station struck the ground. On the screen was nothing but a flurry. Something had gone wrong; they were tumbling over and over, rolling through the jungle, snapping and breaking the apparently unresisting growths—even though the artificial gravity within the control room kept Laedo and Histrina sitting and standing calmly, undisturbed by the violent motions.

Fascinated, they watched as the tumbling spectacle slowed and became still. They had come to a stop.

Once at rest, the scope showed an expanse of close-cropped, light green grass among which were patches of moss. Laedo worked the cursors again. The spherical station had settled on its side—if the location of the drive unit could be taken to represent its underneath—in a large clearing. Wide mossy trails seemed to wander into the jungle. There was a glimpse of blue water.

And that jungle...

Actually it was not, as he had first thought, close-packed. One could have strolled through it with ease.

The place was like some alien Eden, a flower forest whose trees were giant blooms, whose huge orchids replaced timber boles and trunks.

And the colours! Nowhere did they clash, nowhere were they even glaring, but the total effect was breathtaking. Pale colours, yellows, ochres, cyan, lavender, sometimes glowingly transparent, shot through with stronger tones—scarlet, saffron, mazarine. For long minutes Laedo and Histrina gazed entranced, while Laedo slowly panned the cursor.

“Come on,” Histrina said eagerly. “Let's go outside!"

“We'll have to check the atmosphere first."

“We'll have to do what?” Mystified, Histrina stared at him.

He sighed. “I suppose it's bound to be all right, on second thought. This is one of Klystar's productions, after all."

“I've never seen this part of Erspia before."

“This isn't Erspia, Histrina,” Laedo said wearily. “I just tried to explain. It's another world, something like Erspia, only different. Do you understand that?"

“I suppose so.” She frowned, then brightened. “I wonder if there are people here?"

“So do I."

Getting out was easier than he had thought it would be. They walked the corridor to the hatch which was the only portal Laedo had found in the whole station so far. He opened it and poked his head out.

The sensation was peculiar. The hatch was about thirty feet off the ground, but it was on the under-curve of the station, facing downwards. The artificial gravity kept him standing on the floor of the corridor, but this was upside down to the ground, at an angle of about forty-five degrees, so that the landscape appeared to rear crazily over him. Once his head cleared the skin of the station, however, the planetoid's gravity took over and his head and his body were tugged in different directions.

He was pondering the problem of how to reach the ground when Histrina casually solved it for him.

“What do you think this is for?” she said, and pulled a lever behind him. Something rattled out from a slot below the hatch. It was a folding stairway which flapped, swayed and dropped, until it offered a steep but negotiable route to the floor of the clearing, complete with handrail.

He stepped down carefully, holding on to the rail. He could feel Histrina's tread behind him, urging him on.

On the ground they stopped to take in their surroundings. The air was delightful: light, invigorating, filled with delicate scents. Laedo saw that the glimpse of blue he had seen was a lake in a meadow or parkland, partly hidden by a fringe of the giant orchids. Only in that direction did the close horizon betray the small size of this world. Elsewhere, because of the way the jungle hid everything, they could have been on a full-sized planet.

Laedo looked up at the projector station, backing away to take it in. Evidently it was perfectly capable of coping with the stresses of normal gravity, though whether this was due to structural strength or help from the internal gravity field he did not know. It reared over the tops of the titanic flowers; but somehow, now that it was down on the ground, it seemed less bulky than it had in space. It was, in fact, about the size of a small passenger liner, or perhaps an interworld shuttle.

Large enough, he supposed, to be a miniature world in itself for the eight people who had staffed it.

It seemed to have suffered no harm from rolling through the jungle. His own ship, though, was missing. It had been torn off. No doubt it lay in the jungle somewhere.

Given time, he might be able to gain control over the station's drive unit. At least he'd better be able to do it, he told himself fiercely. Otherwise he'd be stuck here for good.