Read Online The Parallel Man by Richard Purtill - Free Book Online

Benton and did not mind being obliged to him. “All right,” I said reluctantly, “I’ll speak to him.”
    Benton was engagingly eager to do something for me and to prove himself a man of importance. He unlocked a small room full of gleaming machines and flashing lights, spoke to several disembodied voices and imaged faces, then turned to me and said with a smile, “We’re in luck. A startrader who owes our House a favor actually has a cargo going to Carpathia. You and Pellow will travel as special supercargoes responsible for that shipment. The ship is a little Independent carrying a variety of small shipments. But the captain is experienced and the ship is fairly new. She’ll lift day after tomorrow if that suits you, and you can go aboard tomorrow night.” He waved my thanks aside and plunged into plans for a boar hunt and feast the next day.
    Between the hunt and the feast I was in little condition to take much note of my surroundings when Benton’s flying pavilion carried me back to the city the following evening. The pavilion landed on a broad sweep of what looked like lawn, brightly lit by glowing globes on tall poles. When Pellow and I emerged from the pavilion, though, the stuff underfoot was not grass, but some slightly resilient stuff the color of grass. A tough, competent-looking man in dark, close-fitting garments met us and led us past immense mysterious structures to a great circular thing like a giant’s shield flung carelessly on the false greensward. A square opening in the edge of the thing was evidently an entryway; a light warmer than that of the globes spilled from it.
    I could see as we entered that the outer walls of this thing were immensely thick, made of some smooth dark stuff. Inside there was a sort of high desk occupied by a slender man with the look of a clerk. On the wall behind the desk the word “Argo” was written in golden letters and beneath it a stylized picture of a small sailing galley that might have sailed the Inner Sea. Standing beside the desk talking to the clerk-like man was a tall dark-haired woman of remarkable beauty, who had an air of absolute authority. She might have been a reigning queen. I was not surprised when my guide saluted her and said, “These are the two men from Degnan Freres, Captain.”
    She nodded and gave us a brief smile which lit up her dark eyes. “I’m Elena Petros,” she said. “Welcome aboard Argo. Your cargo is already sealed in Gamma hold. I’m not sure what point there is to sending you with it, but you’re welcome enough to the spare cabin.” Her eyes flicked over Pellow, then measured me with an approving look I might have resented from a woman less magnificent than this one. “You have the look of a Carpathian,” she told me. “I presume that you’re homeward bound.”
    A sudden feeling of uncertainty swept over me. “I hope so, Lady,” I said. Could it really be so easy as this, stepping onto this strange vessel and voyaging back to the place I had come from? Could Castle Thorn and the court of Carpathia exist in the same world as this place of enchantments? Young Benton had spoken as if a cargo to Carpathia was a commonplace enough affair, but surely nothing like this great dark disc had ever been seen in the skies of my homeland.
    Captain Elena Petros looked into my eyes. Her own magnificent dark eyes seemed to pierce my soul. “Will home be home when you get back?” she said softly. “Yes, it’s a feeling that starflitters know well.” She gave another of her brilliant smiles and turned to the clerkly man. “There shouldn’t be anything else coming aboard tonight, Tamma,” she told him. “You might as well seal the sally port and show these cits to their cabin.” The man saluted and slid down from his high stool. He touched a circle on the desk, and with a deep hum the ramp by which we had climbed up to this entryway lifted from the ground, pivoting on the threshold. It covered the doorway by which we had