Star Bridge by James Gunn Page A

darkness, fell toward the narrowing center of the Tube until they passed it and began to slow. Only the golden bands that encircled them insured against a fatal contact with the invisible walls. The food of empire.
    The analogy can be extended, but analogies don’t bleed on the dissection table. Eron was more and less than a living thing.…
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    7
    THE DARK ROAD
    The lights roamed restlessly from artificial peaks, fleeing across the smooth pavement, illuminating for a second a dark form that turned its head away from unbearable brightness, jumping into the rocks, climbing the hills, crossing another beam like a giant sword, gleaming from the black flanks and golden bands of battleships with their own, roving cyclopean eyes.
    The changing, prismatic colors of the monument and the radiance of the golden Tube stretching starward from it made the center of the field bright with wonder and imagination. But the perimeter of the field was dark, and guards stood in the darkness like patient shadows, unmoving, waiting for dawn to give them rest.
    Among the shadow guards, a shadow moved; it was a little shorter than the others. A cloak and hood gave it a humped shapelessness. It passed from guard to guard, stopping for a moment and moving on.
    The great sealed ruins of Sunport were quiet. Elsewhere there was noise and life; here was only silence and shadows and the sweep of searchlight. The day’s thousands were gone, inspected, passed, shipped elsewhere, through the Tube at the domed base of the monument or through the older Terminal on Callisto. Only half the battleships remained around the edges of the field and the guards that were their complements. The only other ship was a small scout, insignificant beside the towering bulk of a battleship.
    The desert was stirred into a sea of climbing dust by ships and hunters; they soared over the mountains and toiled over the hills and probed the hollows. But here there was quiet. The assassin had escaped for the moment, but he would not get far. Certainly he would not return.
    â€œGuard!”
    The shadow stiffened as the shapeless shadow stopped beside him. It was a woman’s voice, low and soft.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œWhat have you seen?”
    â€œOther guards.”
    She was passing, but she stopped and peered up at his shadow face. It was too dark to make out features. The guard saw nothing but a pale blur under the shadow of the hood. A faint fragrance drifted to him; his nose wrinkled. His pulse quickened. He had never been so close to one of the golden women. He could reach out now and touch her, if he dared.
    He stood straight and still, staring ahead.
    â€œYou don’t think the assassin will come back?” the woman asked.
    â€œGuards aren’t paid to think.”
    â€œI’m asking you to think, now.” Her voice became reflective. “They laughed when I said he would be back. They said they would catch him on the desert.” She spoke to the guard again. “What do you think? Will he come back?”
    â€œIf I were he, I would come back.”
    She peered at his face again, curiously, futilely. “Your accent is odd. Where were you born?”
    â€œIn the Cluster.”
    â€œYou enlisted after the War?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThen you don’t know this area.”
    â€œA little.”
    â€œThen where did the assassin come from?”
    â€œThe desert.”
    â€œBut the hunting parties were out. There’s no food and almost no water.”
    â€œA strong man could do it. A clever man could get through.”
    â€œBut how would he get here? And how did he get away?”
    â€œBeyond the ship, there, is a tree. Behind the tree is a tunnel that cuts down through the mountain, down close to the desert. He never had to get closer than that.”
    â€œYou knew this? Why didn’t you say something?”
    â€œTo whom? I gave the reason before.”
    â€œGuards aren’t paid to