Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

fine silky floss, they were streamlined, saddle-shaped creatures whose incurvate edges terminated in ten slender legs that were plainly meant for running. A cluster of alert-looking eyes had migrated to what had become, unmistakably, a front end on the Terran plan.
    “Sand-runners,” Bram said. “I’ve seen pictures of them. Long-range errand beasts, but they race them, too. Some people turn them into house pets.”
    Kerthin was not very interested in the sand-runners. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.
    “Just a minute,” Bram said stubbornly.
    Another passenger had trailed in, unnoticed in the hubbub stirred by the sand-runners. He was a tall, thin man with a pale face and a smear of beard. He kept looking in both directions as he advanced, scanning the place. A group of people—Bram thought that one of them was the man Kerthin had been talking to—surrounded him and, with a minimum exchange of words, hustled him out of the lobe.
    Kerthin was staring, wide-eyed. When she saw Bram looking at her, she jerked her gaze away from the group. “Are you ready to leave yet?” she snapped.
    “Did you know that man?”
    “What man? What are you talking about?”
    Bram gave up. Outside the terminal he left Kerthin standing by the entrance while he went off to look for transportation. He was lucky enough to find a two-passenger jaunting beast outfitted for human riders with a pair of back-to-back chairs and foot rests slung across the creature’s hump.
    When Kerthin saw him leading the jaunting beast toward her, she said, “Oh, no, I’m not getting on that thing. Can’t you find something with wheels?”
    “This is all there is,” Bram said.
    Grumbling, she mounted the conveyance. “This is no way for a human being to travel. They don’t have any trouble hanging on.”
    “You can’t fall off. And it’s a fine way to see the scenery.”
    “I like to face forward,” she said. “Not sideways.”
    The ride home was a silent one, with Kerthin’s tense, rigid back pressed against his shoulder blades and her knuckles white on the gripping knobs. Rocked by the steady, loping motion, Bram let his mind stray back to the scene at the spaceport, when the tall, pale passenger from Juxt One had come through while everybody was being distracted by the sand-runners. Bram kept picturing the way a small group of waiting people had moved with disciplined teamwork to encircle the pale man and hurry him out of sight. Bram had seen their faces only fleetingly, but one of them, he was certain, had been Pite.
     
    “Are you working again tonight?” Kerthin said.
    “I’m afraid so,” Bram said. “I could—”
    “No, no,” she said hastily. “Do what you have to. I’m sure it’s very important.”
    “It’s repetitive,” he said. “And boring.” He made a show of setting out gels and filters and arranging printouts in neat stacks.
    She bent over and kissed him lightly. “Don’t wait up for me,” she said. “I may be late.”
    He sat back, comfortably full of the meal that she had taken pains to prepare. His relationship with Kerthin seemed to have taken a new turn since the visit from Pite. She was solicitous of his comfort, took care not to ruffle his feelings, and was all sweetness and light. And, he noted wryly, she was paying him the courtesy of providing more plausibility for her mysterious excursions.
    “What is it?” he asked. “More sculpture?”
    “It’s a group work. Hok-kara says that collective art is the only kind that makes sense, because it reflects the shared aspirations of humanity. They’re doing some very exciting things in ensemble sculpture on Juxt One. Hok-kara’s coordinating the creative merger here, and he gave me a chance to be a part of it.”
    Kerthin’s old sculpture tools had suddenly appeared again, and an armature partially covered with clay now stood on a modeling stand in the center of the living chamber. She made a show of working on it every once in a while, but it had been there for several days now, and there was no progress that Brain could see.
    As soon as she left, he got up, put on his overgarment, and went out the door. He was not proud of himself for what he was doing, but he could see no other way.
    Kerthin’s tall, slim figure was ahead of him, already some distance down the thoroughfare. She was walking quickly, looking neither to right nor left. Bram hung back until she turned down a side lane, then darted out of the doorway after her.
    The lane