a purple-blue dawn crept in through the two small windows, bringing strange bird-sounds with it. steve was stiff and chilled and he'd slept badly on the hard stone floor. the groans and frowns all around the room showed him he wasn't the only one. teejay slept like a baby, the cape wrapped about her, and she didn't arise until one of the men began to bang on the stone and metal door.
"is it morning?" said teejay, coming into steve's arms almost before she was fully awake. "i had the nicest dreams, darling!"
abruptly, steve whirled away from her. the door had begun to creak in ponderously on little-used hinges.
an anthrovac bent and came within the chamber, bearing a bath-tub-sized bowl of what looked like hot, steaming cereal. it was deposited near the table, along with a dozen or so stone spoons. foolishly, one of the men darted for the doorway. reaching out with a long, hairy arm, the anthrovac scooped him up by the scruff of the neck and flung him back inside. he got to his feet with a nasty gash on his forehead which teejay bandaged with a strip of cloth ripped from the hem of her black cape.
the spoons were passed around after that, and the men of the frank buck dug into the gruel with gusto. it had been fifteen hours since any of them had eaten and surprisingly, the gruel turned out to be quite palatable, with an appealing, nut-like flavor.
the anthrovac waited fifteen minutes, then lifted the huge bowl and departed with it. but the door didn't close fully.
charlie stedman came through it.
"good morning," he said. "we're a little late, and we'll have to hurry if we want to reach the bazaar in time for opening."
"are you sure we want to?" kevin demanded sarcastically.
and steiner suggested: "maybe you'd like to answer a few questions first."
"sure." this was teejay. "about a thousand questions."
it was as if the man hadn't heard them at all. "outside a vehicle awaits you. there is room for all, provided each man occupies one of the squares you will find marked off on the floor. let's go."
angry, sullen, but still thoroughly bewildered, the men trooped outside.
the vehicle was a sort of bus, although the noise of a gasoline engine or the purring of a fission engine would have shocked steve here on the world called uashalume. as it turned out, the bus started with a whining whistle which quickly climbed to the super-sonic and faded beyond the level human ears could reach. within the vehicle there were no seats, but the floor had been divided into two-foot squares, a thin white line marking off each box. when each man had occupied his square, the bus slipped away from the squat building and was soon streaking down the roadway at a good clip.
steve saw other buildings, most of them squat and shapeless. and now, with the coming of daylight, he could see some of the inhabitants of uashalume. he'd steeled himself for it. he hadn't expected human beings. any variety of six-legged, multi-tentacled, bug-eyed creatures would have been strictly in order.
he gasped.
he got more than he bargained for. hardly two of the creatures gazing in at them were alike! the differences were not those you might expect to find among the members of a particular species. the differences were extreme.
a furry thing hovered alongside the open-windowed bus on six gauze-like wings.
multiple eyes stared up at them out of a pool of amorphous protoplasm.
a bony, stick-like creature with four arms and one cyclopean eye covering almost its entire head peered at them.
an ecto-skeletoned monstrosity made clicking noises as they passed.
big horrors and little horrors.
steve found himself laughing harshly. what did all his knowledge of extra-terrestrial zoology amount to now? extra-terrestrial—that meant the solar system, one tiny, inconsequential corner of a great galaxy. but here, here on uashalume, denizens of a hundred solar systems might have been gathered.
why?
such utterly different creatures—each conforming to a particular environmental niche—would not be found together. unless someone had probed the depths of space for life-forms that might all be capable of surviving on uashalume, as, indeed, humans could survive there! but why? the question returned, taunted him. again, such a gathering wouldn't be out of direct choice. if each of the creatures seemed so completely strange, so horrible, so ludicrous to human eyes—they probably appeared that way to one another as well.
steve wondered how some of them might describe the obnoxious, featherless, hairless bipeds which walked upright on two limbs and carried two other limbs for more varied purposes than walking. bipeds which called themselves humans. and that, precisely, was the point. such a gathering stemmed from no natural cause. such a gathering had been imposed arbitrarily, but for what purpose? and what, if anything, did the bazaar have to do with it? a bazaar of the worlds, bringing together for trade, creatures of every form and size and color? steve doubted that somehow, for the bazaar would lack a universal means of exchange, and even if barter were resorted to, how could totally alien life-forms assess the value of completely foreign produce? they couldn't.
that left steve with nothing but a lot of half-formed questions and no answers at all.
he had a hunch he'd begin to get some answers when the bus reached its destination. as with the inhabitants of uashalume, he was to get more than he bargained for.
