The Colors of Space - Page 76/108

As they went along the corridor, Ringg turned to Bart, apology and

chagrin in his eyes. "Look--I never meant to get the Bald One down on

us," he said, but Bart kept his face resolutely averted. It was easier

this way, without pretense of friendship.

* * * * * The light from the small captive sun grew more intense. Bart had never

known anything like it, and was glad to slip away and put the dark

contact lenses into his eyes. They made his eyes appear all enormous,

dilated pupil; fearfully, he hoped no one would notice. His arm smarted,

and he did not speak to Ringg all through the long, slow deceleration.

When the intercom ordered all crew members to the hatchway, Bart

lingered a minute, pinning the yellow radiation badge in a fold of his

cloak. A spasm of fear threatened to overwhelm him again, and

nightmarish loneliness. He felt agonizingly homesick for his own

familiar face. It seemed almost more than he could manage, to step out

into the corridor full of Lhari.

It won't be long now.

The hatch opened. Even accustomed, as he was, to Lhari lights, Bart

squeezed his eyes shut at the blue-white brilliance that assaulted him

now. Then, opening slitted lids cautiously, he found that he could see.

A weirdly desolate scene stretched away before them. Bare, burning sand,

strewn with curiously colored rocks, lay piled in strange chaos; then he

realized there was an odd, but perceptible geometry to their

arrangement. They showed alternate crystal and opaque faces. Old Rugel

noted his look of surprise.

"Never been here before? That's right, you've always worked on the

Polaris run. Well, those aren't true rocks, but living creatures of a

sort. The crystals are alive; the opaque faces are lichens that have

something like chlorophyll and can make their food from air and

sunlight. The rocks and lichens live in symbiosis. They have

intelligence of a sort, but fortunately they don't mind us, or our

automatic mining machinery. Every time, though, we find some new lichen

that's trying to set up a symbiote cycle with the concrete of our

bunkers."

"And every time," Ringg said cheerfully, "somebody--usually me--has to

see about having them scraped down and repainted. Maybe someday I'll

find a paint the lichens don't like the taste of."

"Going to explore with Ringg?" Rugel asked, and Ringg, always ready to

let bygones be bygones, grinned and said, "Sure!" Bart could not face

him.

Vorongil stopped and said, "This your first time here, young Bartol? How

would you like to visit the monument with me? You can see the machinery

on the way back."