The Colors of Space, page 30 by Marion Zimmer Bradley
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at, believe me. But if I did find my father and his friends, I don't want anyone tracing me. You'd only make the danger worse. The best thing you can do is stay out of it."
Tommy faced him squarely. "One thing's for sure. I'm not going to let you go off and never know whether you're alive or dead."
"I'll try to get a message to you," Bart said, "if I can. But whatever happens, Tommy, stay with the ship and go on to Capella. It's the one thing you can do to help me."
A warning bell rang in the ship. He broke sharply away from Tommy, saying over his shoulder, "It's all you can do to help, Tom. Do it--please? Just stay clear?"
Tommy reached out and caught his arm. "Okay," he said reluctantly, "I will. But you be careful," he added fiercely. "You hear me? And if I don't hear from you in some reasonable time, I'll raise a stink from here to Vega!"
Bart broke away and ran. He was afraid, if he didn't, he'd break up again. He closed the cabin door behind him, trying to calm down so that the Mentorian steward, coming to strap him in for deceleration, wouldn't see how upset he was. He was going to need all his nerve.
* * * * *
He went through another decontamination chamber, and finally moved, with a line of passengers, out of the yawning airlock, under the strange sun, into the strange world.
At first sight it was a disappointment. It was a Lhari spaceport that lay before him, to all appearances identical with the one on Earth: sloping glass ramps, tall colorless pylons, a skyscraper terminus crowded with men of all planets. But the sun overhead was brilliant and clear gold, the shadows sharp and violet on the spaceport floor. Behind the confines of the spaceport he could see the ridges of tall hills and unfamiliarly colored trees. He longed to explore them, but he got a grip on his imagination, surrendering his ticket stub and false papers to the Lhari and Mentorian interpreter who guarded the ramp.
The Lhari said to the Mentorian, in the Lhari language, "Ke