Read Online The Many-Coloured Land - 1 by Julian May - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Julian May
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apparatus, tears running down his round cheeks.
"At last!"
The dachshund trotted sedately after her master. Madame picked up the parcel of books and placed it inside the lattice.
"Quickly, Madame! Quickly!" Richter clasped his hands in a paroxysm of exaltation.
"Listen to me," she said sharply. "When you have been translated, you must immediately remove yourself from the point of your arrival. Walk three or four meters away and take the dog with you. Is this clear? Otherwise you will be snatched back into the present day as a dead man and crumble to dust."
"I understand! Vite, Madame, vite! Quickly!"
Trembling, she moved to the simple control panel and activated the time-portal. The mirrored force fields sprang up, and the poet's voice was silenced as if by a broken teleview connection. The old woman sank down on her knees and recited the Angelic Salutation three times, then got up and switched off the power.
The mirrors vanished. The gazebo was empty.
Madame Guderian let a great sigh escape her lips. Then she thrifI'lly turned out the cellar lights and mounted the stairs, fingering the small slip of blue plass tucked securely in her pocket.
After Karl Josef Richter, there were others.
The very first gratuity allowed Madame to pay the inheritance tax and discharge all of her other debts. Some months later, after her mind had been fully opened to the time-gate's profit making potential by the coming of other visitors, she let it be known that she was establishing a quiet auberge for walking tourists. She purchased land adjoining her cottage and had a handsome guesthouse built. The rose gardens were expanded and several of her relatives drafted to assist with domestic duties. To the astonishment of skeptical neighbors, the inn prospered.
Not all of the guests who entered chez Guderian were seen to leave. But the point was moot, since Madame invariably required payment in advance.
Some years passed. Madame underwent rejuvenation and displayed an austere chic in her second lifetime. In the valley below the inn, the most ancient urban center in France also underwent graceful transition, as did all of the metropolitan centers of Old Earth in those middle years of the twenty-first century. Every trace of the ugly, ecologically destructive technology was gradually obliterated from the great city at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone. Necessary manufacturing establishments, service and transit systems were relocated in underground infrastructures. As the surplus population of Lyon was siphoned off to the new planets, empty shuns and dreary suburbs faded into meadows and forest reserves, dotted here and there with garden villages or efficient habitat complexes. Lyon's historic structures, representing every century for the more than 2000 years of its lifetime, were refurbished and displayed like jewels in appropriate natural settings. Laboratories, offices, hotels, and commercial enterprises were tucked into recycled buildings or disguised to harmonize with the ambiance of nearby monuments. Plaisances and boulevards replaced the hideous concrete autoroutes. Amusement sites, picturesque alleys of small shops, and cultural foundations multiplied as colonials began returning to the Old World from the far-flung stars, seeking their ethnic heritage.
Other types of seekers also came to Lyon. These found their way to the inn in the western foothills, now called L'Auberge du Portail, where Madame Guderian personally made them welcome.
In those early years, when she still regarded the time-portal as a business venture, Madame set up simple criteria for her clientele. Would-be timefarers had to spend at least two days with her at the auberge while she and her computer checked civil status and psychosodal profile. She would send no one through the gate who was a fugitive from justice, who was seriously deranged, or who had not attained twenty-eight years of age (for the great step demanded full maturity). She would permit no one
"At last!"
The dachshund trotted sedately after her master. Madame picked up the parcel of books and placed it inside the lattice.
"Quickly, Madame! Quickly!" Richter clasped his hands in a paroxysm of exaltation.
"Listen to me," she said sharply. "When you have been translated, you must immediately remove yourself from the point of your arrival. Walk three or four meters away and take the dog with you. Is this clear? Otherwise you will be snatched back into the present day as a dead man and crumble to dust."
"I understand! Vite, Madame, vite! Quickly!"
Trembling, she moved to the simple control panel and activated the time-portal. The mirrored force fields sprang up, and the poet's voice was silenced as if by a broken teleview connection. The old woman sank down on her knees and recited the Angelic Salutation three times, then got up and switched off the power.
The mirrors vanished. The gazebo was empty.
Madame Guderian let a great sigh escape her lips. Then she thrifI'lly turned out the cellar lights and mounted the stairs, fingering the small slip of blue plass tucked securely in her pocket.
After Karl Josef Richter, there were others.
The very first gratuity allowed Madame to pay the inheritance tax and discharge all of her other debts. Some months later, after her mind had been fully opened to the time-gate's profit making potential by the coming of other visitors, she let it be known that she was establishing a quiet auberge for walking tourists. She purchased land adjoining her cottage and had a handsome guesthouse built. The rose gardens were expanded and several of her relatives drafted to assist with domestic duties. To the astonishment of skeptical neighbors, the inn prospered.
Not all of the guests who entered chez Guderian were seen to leave. But the point was moot, since Madame invariably required payment in advance.
Some years passed. Madame underwent rejuvenation and displayed an austere chic in her second lifetime. In the valley below the inn, the most ancient urban center in France also underwent graceful transition, as did all of the metropolitan centers of Old Earth in those middle years of the twenty-first century. Every trace of the ugly, ecologically destructive technology was gradually obliterated from the great city at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone. Necessary manufacturing establishments, service and transit systems were relocated in underground infrastructures. As the surplus population of Lyon was siphoned off to the new planets, empty shuns and dreary suburbs faded into meadows and forest reserves, dotted here and there with garden villages or efficient habitat complexes. Lyon's historic structures, representing every century for the more than 2000 years of its lifetime, were refurbished and displayed like jewels in appropriate natural settings. Laboratories, offices, hotels, and commercial enterprises were tucked into recycled buildings or disguised to harmonize with the ambiance of nearby monuments. Plaisances and boulevards replaced the hideous concrete autoroutes. Amusement sites, picturesque alleys of small shops, and cultural foundations multiplied as colonials began returning to the Old World from the far-flung stars, seeking their ethnic heritage.
Other types of seekers also came to Lyon. These found their way to the inn in the western foothills, now called L'Auberge du Portail, where Madame Guderian personally made them welcome.
In those early years, when she still regarded the time-portal as a business venture, Madame set up simple criteria for her clientele. Would-be timefarers had to spend at least two days with her at the auberge while she and her computer checked civil status and psychosodal profile. She would send no one through the gate who was a fugitive from justice, who was seriously deranged, or who had not attained twenty-eight years of age (for the great step demanded full maturity). She would permit no one
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