Read Online City of Pearl by Karen Traviss - Free Book Online

consonant. His shapeless tunic and pants were all of the same buff material. “I’ll drop the samples off first and then I’ll take you to see Josh Garrod. He’s getting ready for the holiday, so he’s busy.”
    â€œHoliday?” she asked. Don’t put yourself out, I’ve only been on the road for a few decades . Discretion prevailed again. This was not an interrogation. “What holiday?”
    â€œChristmas,” he said, emphasizing both syllables as if it were a foreign language. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
    The autumnal landscape was alien enough, but Christmas in spring jerked her back out of what little familiarity she was beginning to establish. “Still sticking to the old calendar?”
    â€œYes. It’s slipped out of sync with this place over the years.”
    â€œI don’t suppose you thought of tying it in with the natural cycle.”
    â€œYou want to work a nine-day week?”
    â€œI’m not sure I’m even ready for the thirty-hour day.”
    â€œSome things we can’t reorder. Besides, the Lord labored for six days and on the seventh He rested. You’ll be glad of that.”
    All the way along the route to Constantine, the fresh foliage on the huge cycad-like plants was hot with cyanide compounds. She would have liked to pause and wander among the ridged orange trunks. But she made a mental note to travel this road again in her own time. The cycads thinned out one by one, and they were suddenly on a plain of shimmering gentian blue. Her monkey-brain tried hard to put familiar labels on the utterly alien, telling her heather, bluebells, lavender. But it was nothing of the sort. The flying creatures she could see skimming the vegetation weren’t birds; and the odd opalescent patches that flared up behind them defied any classification.
    Sam drove on in silence. Around them, the plain gave way to gently rolling hills carpeted with what looked like gray ferns. Shan wondered why he wasn’t staring at her, or at least showing some sign of curiosity at seeing someone from another world. But he kept his eyes ahead of him as if she were regular cargo, nothing especially noteworthy. It occurred to her that he might be trying to avoid getting into conversation with an outsider.
    â€œHere we are,” he said, and began slowing the ATV.
    She couldn’t see anything resembling a settlement. The vegetation had become sparse and silver, but that was all. Sam steered the vehicle slowly, as if he were negotiating invisible obstacles, and then the track dipped and enveloped them, and they were suddenly driving down a tunnel with a brilliant white light at the end. It blinded her. She couldn’t help thinking how much it looked like a neardeath experience.
    They were underground.
    â€œWe park here,” Sam said. “No vehicles beyond this point.”
    He jumped down from the ATV and let her struggle out of the cab unaided. She stared around her; her eyes adjusted to the light and she realized she was standing in a large vaulted chamber like the cellars of a vineyard. There was a patch of bright bluish light at the far end, and Sam was walking towards it. She followed him.
    â€œJosh is in the church,” Sam said suddenly, and it made her start. “Have you ever been in a church?”
    â€œNo,” Shan said. It wasn’t strictly true: she’d visited churches as architecture. She’d walked through the flooded ruins of Chichester cathedral. But she knew that wasn’t what he meant. “I’m a Pagan.”
    Sam paused noticeably. “I’ll take you there first, then.”
    The pool of light at the end of the vault turned out to be a doorway, and she stepped through it into a vision of long-destroyed Petra. The settlement was carved out of the rock, Nabataean style.
    Terraces of buildings stretched out on either side of her, but instead of the gloom of caves she walked in diffuse sunlight.