The Lani People | Page 8

never have guessed yesterday that I'd be here today," Kennon said as he looked down
at the yellow waters of the Xantline Sea flashing to the rear of the airboat at a steady
thousand kilometers per hour as they sped westward in the middle traffic level. The water,
some ten thousand meters below, had been completely empty for hours as the craft
hurtled through the equatorial air.
"We have to move fast to stay ahead of our ulcers," Alexander said with a wry smile.
"Besides, I wanted to get away from the Albertsville offices for awhile."
"Three hours' notice," Kennon said. "That's almost too fast."

"You had nothing to keep you in the city, and neither did I - at least nothing important.
There are plenty of females where we are going and I need you on Flora - not in
Albertsville. Besides I can get you there faster than if you waited for a company
transport."
"Judging from those empty sea lanes below, Flora must be an out-of-the-way place,"
Kennon said.
"It is. It's out of the trade lanes. Most of the commercial traffic is in the southern
hemisphere. The northern hemisphere is practically all water. Except for Flora and the
Otpens there isn't a land area for nearly three thousand kilometers in any direction, and
since the company owns Flora and the surrounding island groups there's no reason for
shipping to come there. We have our own supply vessels, a Discovery Charter, and a
desire for privacy. - Ah! It won't be long now. There's the Otpens!" Alexander pointed at
a smudge on the horizon that quickly resolved into an irregular chain of tiny islets that
slipped below them. Kennon got a glimpse of gray concrete on one of the larger islands, a
smudge of green trees, and white beaches against which the yellow waters dashed in
smothers of foam.
"Rugged-looking place," be murmured.
"Most of them are deserted. Two support search and warning stations and automatic
interceptors to protect our property. Look! - there's Flora." Alexander gestured at the land
mass that appeared below.
Flora was a great green oval two hundred kilometers long and about a hundred wide.
"Pretty, isn't it?" Alexander said as they sped over the low range of hills and the single
gaunt volcano filling the eastward end of the island and swept over a broad green valley
dotted with fields and orchards interspersed at intervals by red-roofed structures whose
purpose was obvious.
"Our farms," Alexander said redundantly. The airboat crossed a fair-sized river. "That's
the Styx," Alexander said. "Grandfather named it. He was a classicist in his way - spent a
lot of his time reading books most people never heard of. Things like the Iliad and Gone
with the Wind. The mountains he called the Apennines, and that volcano's Mount
Olympus. The marshland to the north is called the Pontine Marshes - our main road is the
Camino Real." Alexander grinned. "There's a lot of Earth on Flora. You'll find it in every
name. Grandfather was an Earthman and he used to get nostalgic for the homeworld.
Well - there's Alexandria coming up. We've just about reached the end of the line."
Kennon stared down at the huge gray-green citadel resting on a small hill in the center of
an open plain. It was a Class II Fortalice built on the efficient star-shaped plan of half a
millennium ago - an ugly spiky pile of durilium, squat and massive with defensive shields
and weapons which could still withstand hours of assault by the most modern forces.
"Why did he build a thing like that?" Kennon asked.

"Alexandria? - well, we had trouble with the natives when we first came, and Grandfather
had a synthesizer and tapes for a Fortalice in his ship. So he built it. It serves the dual
purpose of base and house. It's mostly house now, but it's still capable of being
defended."
"And those outbuildings?"
"They're part of your job."
The airboat braked sharply and settled with a smooth, sickeningly swift rush that left
Kennon gasping - feeling that his stomach was still floating above him in the middle level.
He never had become accustomed to an arbutus landing characteristics. Spacers were
slower and steadier. The ship landed gently on a pitted concrete slab near the massive
radiation shields of the barricaded entranceway to the fortress. Projectors in polished
dually turrets swivelled to point their ugly noses at them. It gave Kennon a queasy feeling.
He never liked to trust his future to automatic machinery. If the analyzers failed to decode
the ship's I.D. properly, Kennon, Alexander, the ship, and a fair slice of surrounding
territory would become an incandescent mass of dissociated atoms.
"Grandfather was a good builder," Alexander, said proudly. "Those projectors have been
mounted nearly four