Read Sanctuary in The Sky for Free Online

more urgent than politeness—for survival’s sake.
    He had even tried to match her glacial calm. But he had failed, and given up the attempt. A lifetime of habit was necessary to achieve it.
    More: it called for intense, never-ending concentration. But it gave results, that was certain. When he first met Raige, he had been half surprised at what he saw; he had taken her for a mere girl of twenty, so smooth and unlined was her face, so graceful and unforced were her movements. Gradually he had understood that her experiences and ability could never have been gained so young, and that indeed her age must be at least twice what he had guessed at first. And her apparent youth was due to the preternatural calm she and the others of her people maintained from childhood up. Glaithe levelheadedness formed the fulcrum of the balance which they kept between Pag and Cathrodyne.
    Lang, Lang, Lang—the pattern of her questions dissolved and re-crystallized a hundred times, but always Lang was near the center of what she was hunting for. A resolution hardened in Vykor’s mind: Since Raige wanted to know more' about Lang, he would provide the information if he could.
    At last Raige closed down the recorder and set it on the padded arm of her chair, giving a wide smile. “Thank you, Vykor,” she said. "You have as usual been most helpful.”
    “But not nearly helpful enough,” Vykor objected. “I have given you very little that you did not know already.”
    The ghost-reaction which he had learned to read indicated that she was surprised, inclined to deny what he had said, but unable to because it was true.
    She shrugged, finally. “Yet more could not have been asked; not even I know what it is we really wish to discover. Thank you in any case. And I will see you again before your ship blasts off, with the replies to your group’s dispatches.”
    She rose to her feet and bent her body in a neat formal bow; Vykor tried to match it, aware that his version was clumsy and awkward compared to hers, and found himself almost without warning outside in the passage again. The elevator door opposite was dark, indicating that the car was at some other level—not surprisingly, since the visits it paid to these hidden premises must be very few.
    He reached out to touch the call button, and then drew back as a sudden surge of excitement raced through him. How long would it take to cover the twenty paces to the T- junctions at the end of the short, straight corridor he stood in? Three seconds? And then at least he would be able to look beyond the limits . . .
    He didn’t wait long enough to develop qualms, this time; he decided and acted and was noiselessly striding toward the left-hand intersection. At the comer, he stopped and craned his head round the sharp right-angle of the bulkhead.
    His disappointment was acute. There was merely another corridor like the one he knew—rather narrow, rather dim, lit only by the orange neon strips, with plain doors in its walls. It was the same in both directions.
    And once again, a T-junction blocked off his view twenty paces away.
    Reluctantly, he began to turn away, back to the elevator. And as he started to move, soft footfalls fell on his ears— light, brushing footsteps, made by a woman or a lightly built man in soft-soled shoes. He flattened himself against the wall and once more craned his head around the corner.
    And Lang walked across the intersection at which he was staring.
    It must be Lang. A hundred other people in Waystation might have his build, his gait, his type of clothing. But who else in Waystation would carry on his shoulder a black-furred pet animal?
    Vykor stayed frozen with astonishment for a long moment after Lang had disappeared, arguing with himself. If Lang was a stranger to Waystation, how had he so rapidly entered this area, which the Glaithes kept secret from all but a few outsiders? By mistake? By accident? Or from prior knowledge? The odds against accidental entry seemed