“For the hell of it, and it was a damned good outfit, too. I found plans in an old museum, and had the good sense not to improve on ’em. Always remember, boy, that something that really works can’t be improved. That’s why the submarine mechanism was adopted—not adapted—for space. The so-called ‘better way’ they’re building ’em today is simply a disguise for the fact that most of the gas is gone from our technology.”
“What happened to the submarine?”
“Oh, I traded it to a friend for some falcons. You interested in falconry by any chance?”
“Er, no. Can’t say that I am.”
“You will be,” Candle said prophetically, “you’ll succumb to every enthusiasm man has ever been deviled with. You’re the type. It’s a disease, boy, and the big symptom isn’t just curiosity, but the kind of intense curiosity that turns you inside out, devours you and ruins you for orthodoxy.”
Hansen had stopped listening. He was absorbed in trying to recall the pattern he had pressed on his radio belt—a pattern never taught to him—when the ship had suddenly turned upsidedown. Hesitantly, he played with the notion that he had been thinking of the ship traveling upsidedown at the time he impressed the novel pattern on the belt. Now, could that have possibly . . . ?
The man and the boy disappeared down the ceiling, running at top speed to catch up as the rapidly vanishing form of R’thagna Bar was dragged and pulled relentlessly toward the refrigerator in a tug of war between the ship’s wild, divided crew.
“Fascinating!” said Candle. His eyes, glittering with their own peculiar madness, remained riveted on the distant imperial belly. “Never saw anything like it!”
THE END