The Dark Lady

and, not wishing to cause further difficulty, I ordered a drink composed of the crushed pulps of fruits from Charlemagne's tropical zones. Immediately two columns appeared on the screen, the first a list of races who would find the drink physically harmful (three of them— the Domarians, the Sett, and the Emrans— were warned that this particular blend of fruits would be potentially fatal to them), the second a somewhat smaller list of races who would not undergo any ill effects but whose metabolism was such that the drink would act as an intoxicant.
    Since the Bjornn appeared on neither list, I verified the order, was served almost immediately, and spent the next quarter hour sipping the drink and enjoying the feeling of warmth and security that emanated from the mass of nearby patrons. Finally I decided that it was time to leave, so I fed Abercrombie's credit number into the computer, waited until it was confirmed, and returned to the shuttle dock.
    Once there, I was again struck by Charlemagne's complexity. Most of the human worlds I had visited had one or, at the most, two major cities, for Man had assimilated so many planets so quickly that he had barely begun to populate them. Successful colonies usually began as small cities which continued to spread as more and more Men emigrated to them; unsuccessful colonies began and ended as mere outposts. But while I had heard of Deluros VIII, with its seventeen billion Men, and other major worlds such as Earth, Spica VI, Terrazane, and Sirius V, I had never actually experienced any planet where Men covered more than the tiniest percentage of the surface.
    Now, however, I was deluged with information about Charlemagne. There were perhaps twenty lines of various colors running across the polished flooring of the dock, and passengers were instructed to follow the color to the shuttle which would transport them to their destination: red to Centralia, purple to Blackwater, gold to New Johannesburg, orange to the Eastern Frontier District, and so on. My information was that Valentine Heath lived in the city of Oceana, and I followed the appropriate line to the proper shuttlecraft.
    The craft itself was compartmentalized like any other spaceliner of the Oligarchy, with a first-class cabin containing perhaps three dozen comfortable seats created for the human figure, and, further back, the second- and third-class sections, divided into oxygen and chlorine environments, and filled with a miscellany of seats that could accommodate anything from a six-ton Castorian to a diminutive Tretagansii.
    As I prepared to make my way back to the second-class section, however, I noticed that a Canphorite was sitting at the very front of the first-class cabin, and that a trio of blue-tinted beings who had entered ahead of me were in the process of seating themselves in the cabin as well.
    I turned to a uniformed woman who was directing traffic within the craft.
    “Excuse me, Great Lady,” I said.
    Yes?” she replied.
    I indicated an empty seat just ahead of me. “Is it permitted?”
    “Is what permitted?”
    “Am I allowed to sit here?”
    “Of course,” she said. “In fact, once we start the engines, you're not allowed to stand.”
    “I was referring to the first-class cabin, Great Lady.”
    “There are no classes on shuttle flights,” she replied.
    “But the structure of the cabin is such that— ”
    “The shuttle was built for use in the Spinot system,” she explained. “We recently purchased it, and we haven't renovated it yet. Just take any seat you want.”
    “Thank you, Great Lady,” I said.
    I walked up the aisle and looked into the second-class section. It was quite crowded, and ordinarily I would have immediately entered it and sought out a seat, but although the first-class cabin was less than half full, I decided that this one time I would ride in it, just to experience what human passengers experienced. My decision made, I walked to a seat and strapped myself into it, making sure that the webbing was spread evenly across my body and wondering what Abercrombie and my Pattern Mother would say if they could see me now.
    The brief trip to Charlemagne's surface was uneventful, and a few moments after landing I stood at the disembarkation gate, looking for Valentine Heath. I couldn't find him, and finally I approached a computer terminal to ask if he had left a message for me. He had not.
    I decided that the best thing to do would be to register at my hotel and then