Read Online Transgalactic by James Gunn - Free Book Online

degenerate descendants of the Machine builders, not the builders themselves.
    Or, the Machine builders had succeeded, and the galaxy Riley knew might be the realization of their plan. Perhaps the Machine builders were in their midst. Perhaps one of the species that made up the Federation was the Machine builders.
    But all that seemed unlikely and certainly irrelevant. What was relevant was his need to get to the ruined city and the structure that housed the red sphere before he was attacked by the carnivores who lacked Rory’s restraint. There was movement in the darkness, and behind him Rory roared. It was a warning to those following and waiting to attack. “I am your leader,” the roar said, “the son of a leader and the son of the son of a leader, and you will die in my teeth.”
    Riley had not cared if Rory followed. He did not relish abandoning Rory in the midst of the city he feared, using the savage to fulfill Riley’s need to escape this world and find Asha, and then leaving Rory to his angry tribe. But now he was glad that Rory had come along.
    He walked faster. Even in the darkness he could remember every step of the path they had taken, every fallen stone along the way. If they could make it to the city, their pursuers might be too terrified to follow.
    The outskirts of the ruins were only a few paces away when their pursuers attacked. They fought off the first group, Riley with his club and Rory with his fearsome head and teeth and his powerful legs. The pack retreated, leaving them bloodstained and wounded, and Riley said, “Quick. To the city before they attack again,” and he turned and ran toward the ruins, not knowing whether Rory was the source of the footfalls behind him or the carnivores who hungered after them.
    As he reached the edge of the ruins, the sounds of pursuit faded, and there was only the solitary noises of his own breathing and Rory’s heavy feet. When they drew near the structure Riley had come to think of as the museum of the red sphere, Riley turned. The yellow sun was coming up beyond the distant jungle tops, and Riley could see Rory’s wounds and what seemed like a broken arm. “I’m going to do something bad,” Riley said in Rory’s language, “and you won’t want anything to do with it. I don’t know what you’re going to do now. Maybe your people will accept you back after I’m gone”— if, indeed, I’m right, he thought—“at least I hope so. But it won’t do either of us any good if I stay.”
    He realized that he had come to think of Rory as a companion if not a friend. Rory looked at Riley with unblinking red eyes, and Riley wasn’t sure how much of his speech the other had understood in his mangled Rory-ese. In his own language, he said, “Good-bye, buddy. You’ve been far more of a help than I had any right to expect.” He resisted the urge to pat the monstrous creature on the head, turned, and entered the museum. The red sphere was already glowing with reflected sunlight. Riley moved around it, thinking about the exit from the place of the Machine receiver. He had not checked it; he had only assumed that the way back was permanently barred.
    Riley ran his hand along the surface of the sphere until he found a place where the surface suddenly gave way, and his hand disappeared up to his wrist. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and moved forward, feeling a cool tingling over his entire body as the light changed to a rosy glow and then something like day.

 
    CHAPTER SIX
    Asha’s handmaidens were still asleep, curled up at the foot of the bed, when Asha sat up, swung her feet to the floor, and stood. She moved quietly to the corner of the wall from which her handmaidens extracted the towels and had deposited the fancy clothing her suitors had brought. She had watched the motions with which her attendants had opened the wall, and the wall opened at her touch,