The Sinners of Erspia

These could only be ‘Swirlites', practising their rogue magic upon the air, carrying a little piece of their whirlwind-ridden country with them as a flag or banner.

The whirlwind died as the riders reined in and jostled around Laedo. One dismounted and carefully unwrapped the ligature from around his neck. Then he drew a blade which was somewhere midway between a dagger and a broadsword, and with one deft slash severed the chain joining the handcuffs.

“Being nasty done to, oho? Not liking how you dingdong? Come swirl alongside."

With one leap the Swirlite was astride his horse. Reaching down, he pulled Laedo up behind him.

The troop cantered off the way it had come.

Laedo now had time to examine his rescuers. They were clad in makeshift garments, rags, or simply grass skirts. They seemed full of energy, chattering continually in clipped, disjointed phrases and ejaculations—a patois or slang which Laedo suspected they made up as they went along.

Most societies had their rebels who defied convention. It seemed the mood-mapped world of Erspia-4

had catered even for that.

Laedo wasn't much of a horseman, so he was glad when the Swirlites pulled up, dismounted and made camp. What followed was like an insane festival, a madcap round of capering, cavorting, yipping and hallooing, arms flailing over heads, air vortices bending this way and that, conjoining and separating.

The man whose horse he had shared, limbs bound about with bands, a brief cloth kilt hanging from his waist, his skin filmed with sweat from his exertions clapped an arm round Laedo and offered him a hunk of bread smeared with some foul-smelling cheese.

“You no straight, oho? No slave of Klystar's moods, oho? Like us, be you. Carry own craziness, oho?

Bond with us to Swirl. Mad-happy."

Politely Laedo bit into the bread. No wonder these Swirlites were feared and hated. They were heretics.

They rejected Klystar! Probably they failed to realize that their own mental outlook was not self-generated either. That, too, was dictated by Klystar's mood generators. An idiosyncratic state of mind was better able to maintain itself when crossing into other countries, that was all. Klystar had given Swirl all the advantages of lunacy.

Did the Swirlites have their own social outcasts, who lacked the vitality for a life of ceaseless partying and erratic behaviour? Laedo would certainly have been one of those. He ate the bread, then lay himself down a short distance away to get some sleep.

When he awoke it was dark and the Swirlites had finally tired themselves out. They lay sleeping, tumbled over one another, one or two draped over their horses. Laedo stole away by starlight and headed out in the direction he gauged the projector station lay.

It was not hard to find it. He knew when he had crossed the Neutralian border. Hot thoughts of killing entered his mind. He was in murder country. He found the canyon, then climbed up to his cargo ship.

What a relief it would be if he were to kill Histrina! No more keeping an eye on her, no more remorse for all the harm and killing she had done. No more having to think of her eventual welfare. Sometimes being ethical just didn't make any sense. He thought of what a pleasure it would be to choke the life out of her...

He forced the thoughts away and opened the cabinet. As he expected, she came at him with the strength of a madwoman, scratching, tearing and biting. Subduing her was difficult, but he did it by half-suffocating her. He dragged her into the projector station and tied her securely down to a couch, where she continued screeching her hatred once she recovered.

Wearily he spoke to the control board. “Take us to Klystar. Yet again."

Sedately the station rose into the star-speckled sky.

SIX

"Don't Love the Third One"

Before very long yet another Erspia worldlet glowed in the darkness, swelling until it almost filled the oval viewscreen. One could easily have imagined it to be a full-sized planet.

It displayed a new physical feature, though not one as bizarre as Erspia-3's. It possessed a moon.

The satellite was tiny, perhaps seven miles in diameter, and orbited just outside the shallow atmosphere.

A natural body that size would have been irregular in shape, but this was no asteroid. It was spherical.

Which meant that it had to be artificial, like its primary.

An equally artificial sun, occupying a wider orbit, lit both bodies. The projector station swooped towards the three-body formation, briefly fooling Laedo into thinking it was going to land on the moonlet. But then it veered aside and made for the planetoid.