Read Online Sanctuary in The Sky by John Brunner - Free Book Online

their trouble was here at Waystation I expect the Glaithes would have to disown us and pretend they never knew a thing about it. Maybe we could rig it indirectly, by having him invited to the Alchmid section; no one would be surprised to find dreamweed there, because half of the poor devils are only kept alive by what they can get of it . . .”
    He interrupted himself as the car stopped at their level. “You realize, of course, that all this is under the usual precautions of secrecy?”
    Stiffly, Vykor said, “I’ve done thirty-odd trips as a courier, and haven’t fallen down yet.”
    “All right, all right,” said Larwik good-humoredly. “No offense—just a reminder.” He ushered his companion into the elevator car and slid the door shut.
    “By the way,” he added, as they began to rise, “whatever you find out about Lang—we want to know, as well as Raige.”
    “I’ll do what I can,” Promised Vykor. But even as he said the words, he knew that he was going to find it difficult even to fulfil that half-hearted undertaking.
    There were a dozen incidental problems that could make life complicated aboard Waystation. Time, for instance. The Glaithe staff operated an arbitrary “day” which was in fact tolerable for members of all races here, and divided it into neither “night” nor “morning” nor “evening.” They had to work the clock round, by shifts.
    With fine disregard of everyone else’s convenience, the Pag staff insisted on using their own Planetary Mean Time— which coincided with the Glaithe Station Time about once in three hundred days. And somehow (no one had ever been able to see why) the three subject races—Majkos, Lubarrians and Alchmids—each seemed to have chosen a different shift of the arbitrary day to serve as “night.”
    Now it was nearly midnight here in the Majko section. In the Alchmid section bleary-eyed drug victims would be reaching out with shaking hands for the dreamweed extract which alone permitted them to face a new day. And in the Lubarrian quarters “dusk” was just setting in.
    To complete the chaos, the Cathrodynes mostly possessed a talent for cat-napping, and made do with a mere three hours’ sleep per “day”, catching up the rest at odd moments. As for the tourists rich enough to holiday here, they cared nothing for time and rioted on until they dropped with exhaustion.
    Neutrality and tolerance, Vykor said to himself in a fit of sudden weariness, had their points. But sometimes they bred confusion.
    Not being Cathrodyne, he needed regular sleep, and here in the Majko section it was getting dark—literally; the wall and ceiling illuminations were dimming everywhere, and would remain dim until eight hours hence. Vykor found himself yawning reflexively as he parted from Larwik and made his slow way to his quarters, head bowed in deep thought.
    Lang . . . Larwik had said that news about the arrival of someone from out of eye-range had gone round the station. One would normally expect a curiosity like this to be taken up by tourists in the recreation areas, feted, wined and dined and in general lionized. Vykor, though, didn’t think Lang would enjoy that sort of treatment. And he didn’t doubt the man’s ability to avoid it without seeming impolite.
    Nonetheless, he would have to look along the tourist circuit in the “morning.” As a stranger to Waystation (or was he?), Lang would certainly want to see that, at least. And moreover, that was the truly neutral part of the station; no one had any authority there, not even the Glaithes. It was to them a bottomless pool of money—Pag money, Cathrodyne money, and even Glaithe money.
    Nearest the hull: machinery. Incredible devices that turned incident radiation into energy in usable form—including matter. And, of course, dock facilities, reception halls, and the rest.
    Next: quarters, living facilities, offices assigned to the various staffs, service areas of all conceivable kinds.
    And in the