Free 05. Children of Flux and Anchor by Jack L. Chalker Page A

entitled to be the exception.
    "I understand you're not going home," he noted.
    She gave a weary smile. "No, I'm sort of repeating history. Mr. Ryan's an old friend and his family are also old friends. Odd, though. It's almost like history coming around once more. I'm going to a carnival, then I'm going off and out of Anchor with a stringer—retired, at least." It was more than even that. She was going off with the same stringer who'd hauled her into Flux that first time, and she was going without regret because she was just as much an outsider and an oddball as she had been back then. "I hope it's a more uneventful and relaxing trip this time, though," she added.
    "I dare say. Is this your first time back here since the Invasion?"
    "No. I came back fifteen or twenty years ago—time doesn't mean much to me anymore, I'm afraid—over in the Bakha District with Jeff and some of his people to do some horse trading. Not in the city, though, and not for very long."
    Vishnar looked at his watch. "Still three hours until the opening, two until I have to get over there. What say we walk over, through the city, and I'll show you a little of the town?"
    "I'd be delighted."
    "Would you like to freshen up or change before we go?"
    "Do you think I should?"
    "Oh, no, my dear. You look absolutely wonderful. Well, then—we'll have to go off the back way, here. I have to stop by the lab and check on something. Do you mind?"
    "No, not at all. Do you want me to wait here?"
    "Oh, no! Come along! Considering your background, you may be the only girl in New Eden who would be really interested in this."
    She got up and followed him, curious and also flattered that he would permit her near his private preserve. She began to suspect that he was going to put the make on her sooner or later. She might be just different enough from these vapid girls to seem somewhat exotic to him. At any rate, he certainly seemed to be going out of his way to impress her.
    The building proved more formidable looking up close than it had from afar, although if anything even uglier in the midst of all this beauty. The entry door was, like the building, thick and solid as a vault, and had an electrically encoded panel to gain entrance. She didn't know what would happen if you pressed the wrong code on the pad, but she suspected it wouldn't be nothing at all.
    The place was huge, and almost entirely open, with just a few plasterboard offices around the base. That open area, however, was filled with an object she had never seen in person but which she recognized instantly.
    "It's the ship!" she gasped. "The Samish ship!"
    "One of the three," he responded. "Not the mother ship. That's being worked on down in the capital. This is the flying top, the part that caused all the damage beyond the gate. Useless to us as it was, of course. It was designed for those hellish creatures, not us, and also designed to be used in conjunction with their own master computers which are burnt out and not of any logical design we can find, anyway. Some of the best minds from all over World have been working on it and its two twins up north. Two different projects, really. We have always tried to find out how the damned thing could fly. No rockets, no apparent major power source like big engines, and it's as aerodynamic as an oak tree. But fly it did—and in ways even a creation of Flux could not."
    She nodded absently. "I know. I remember."
    He seemed slightly embarrassed for a moment. "Yes, of course you would," he coughed, then took a deep breath. "Well, the second thing was the weaponry. It carried an impenetrable and widening shield with it and it shot beams of something that was lethal to everything it touched. It's vital we understand them, in case we ever have to face them again. Even you will admit that we were lucky the first time."
    Her expression was grim, remembering. "Yes. Very." But she wasn't thinking of a new encounter with the Samish. No one might ever know what had become of