The Visitor at the Zoo

Начало книги

AS THE Flugbahn car began to slide away from the landing platform, the biped Fritz clutched the arms of his seat and looked nervously down through the transparent wall.

He was unused to travel. Except for the trip by spaceship to Earth, which he hardly remembered, he had lived all his life in the Hamburg Zoo. Now - although he was sure the suspended car would not fall - being so high, and surrounded by nothing but glass, made him want to grip something for security.

In the seat beside him, his keeper, a stupid man named Alleks, was unfolding the crisp parchment sheets of the Berliner.

The biped’s home was eighteen light years away - in space - but remoter still in the distances of the mind!

The breath whistled in his hairy nostrils as he gazed cow-eyed at the headlines. Down the aisle, the other passengers were all staring at Fritz, but being used to this, the biped hardly noticed it.

Below, Berlin was spread out in the morning sun like a richly faded quilt. Looking back, as the car began to fall with increasing speed, Fritz could see the high platform where the Hamburg rocket-copter had landed, and the long spidery cables of the other Flugbahnen radiating outward to the four quarters of the city.

Читать дальше →