Erick
looked around the compartment, but there wasn't much to look at. There were
two bench seats set opposite one another and there was nothing else but gray,
drab walls, floor and ceiling. There were no windows and Erick knew it wouldn't'
have mattered if there had been since they were traveling underground. The surroundings
soon bored him and he decided to sleep, hoping that his dreams would be more
interesting.
"Erick, wake up," broke into a dream of
Erick gliding over the Swiss Alps. He opened his eyes to see Samuel standing
over him, gently shaking him.
"I'm awake.where are we?"
"Nairobi.Kenya. Now where to now?"
Erick sat up and took a few moments to let
the cobwebs clear from his brain.
"I'd like to run out on the highlands nears
Mt. Kenya. Can we take an aircar out to Nanyuki?"
"If you like." Samuel consented. Erick stood
and gathered his stuff and followed Samuel out of the shuttle. He now noticed
the new attire that Samuel was dressed in loose-fitting white pants and shirt
covered with a dust-colored cloak. In his left hand was a cane that Erick perceived
to have been fashioned from a stout and gnarled oak branch. I knew he carried
a staff of some kind, Erick thought as they made their way through the Nairobi
GTS depot.
They didn't speak as they continued through
the underground concourses. Erick had long thought that the Institution had
the monopoly on size, but that theory was destroyed on the walk to picking up
the aircar. He and Samuel walked down long corridors of clean gray steel floors
and whitewashed walls.
