Free The Five Gold Bands by Jack Vance

either had seen before, like nothing imagined.
    The yellow light of Alpheratz was toned to an old gold suffusion, a tawny light that changed the landscape below to an unreal hazy fairyland. Underneath them was a great valley with hills and dales fading off into golden murk. To the left loomed the great cliff of Kolkhorit Island, rising up and out of sight above. Fay followed the cliff till it jutted out, fell back.
    “There’s North Cape,” she said. “And there on the little plateau—that’s exactly the right spot.”
    Paddy said in a subdued voice, “Yes, by all that’s holy, you seem to be right for once.”
    “Look,” said Fay. “See that thing like a sundial? That’s what we want.”
    Paddy said dubiously, “How’re we to get it?”
    She said angrily, “In your space-suit, of course! And hurry! They’ll be after us any minute.”
    Paddy gloomily let himself out through the space-lock, stalked across the plateau. Bathed in the eerie golden light he advanced on the pedestal. On its face was inlaid a red and gold pentagram.
    He tried to lift—nothing happened. He pushed, felt a quiver, a wrench. He put his shoulder down, heaved. The pedestal fell over. In a little lead-lined cavity was a brass cylinder.
    Badau lay below, an opulent blue-green planet with a thick blanket of atmosphere.
    Paddy pinched Fay’s calves, felt her thighs. She jerked, turned to him a startled glance.
    “Now, now—I was merely testing to see if you might be fit to walk on the planet,” explained Paddy. “You’ll be monstrous heavy, you know.”
    Fay laughed ruefully. “I thought for a moment you were making love Skibbereen-style.”
    Paddy screwed up his features. “You’re not my type. It’s the cow-girls of Maeve for me with all their upholstery. Now—as I’ve just discovered—you’ve hardly enough flesh to keep the air away from your bones. You’re so pale and peaked. No, for some you might do but not for Paddy Blackthorn.”
    But he was smiling and she laughed back and Paddy said, “In truth, sometimes when you’ve got that devil’s gleam in your eye and you’re showing your teeth in a grin, you’re almost pretty in a puckish sort of way.”
    “Thank you very much. Enough of the blarney. Where are we going?”
    “It’s a place called the Kamborogian Arrowhead.”
    “And where’s that, I wonder?”
    Paddy studied the charts. “There’s no mention of it here. It sounds like an inn or hotel or something of the sort. Once we land we’ll be able to find out for sure. And you’ll be frightful tired, for the gravity’s strong as a bull here.”
    “I’m not worried about the gravity,” said Fay. “I’m worried whether or not the Badou police have received our description yet.”
    Paddy pursed his lips. “Badau’s a popular place with Earth tourists, gravity or none. Though why they come surpasses my understanding, since it’s nothing but insults and slights and arrogance they get from the Hunks, the conceited omadhauns.”
    “It’s a very beautiful planet,” mused Fay. “So gentle and green-looking with those million little lakes and rolling valleys.
    “There’s no mountains,” said Paddy, “because the water tears them down as fast as they’re pushed up.
    “What do you call that?” Fay pointed to a tremendous palisade flung across the countryside.
    “Ah, that’s a big segment of land being pulled down ,” said Paddy. “With so much gravity there’s these great movements of the crust and these great cliffs. The Badaus build dams across all the waterfalls and make use of the power. Then the water doesn’t tear a great gully into the land.”
    “Land, land, land,” said Fay. “That first Son of Langtry was a glutton for land.”
    “And the Langtry clan still owns all Badau. It’s a feudalism or so it says in the book. Langtrys own the big estates, rent out to lesser noblemen, who rent out again, and sometimes there’s another subletting and another until it’s the little farmer