kroth: the rise

2: lured

You often hear about the magic of books, about how they can transport your mind into limitless universes of the imagination, and of course that transportation spell is one spell they can weave, but I, as an immigrant to Birannithep, made more use of their quite different muting spell: the way books have of displaying a fact at one remove, to make it seem less real.
    Geography textbooks, the drier the better, I soon took to devouring; never before had I derived such benefit from the gulf between a real phenomenon and its shadowy depiction on the printed page.
    My host Milt Sibboan promised me that within a few days I could be enrolled in the University of Mrakkastoom. Craxham College, where Oraggalee Stoom taught, would be happy to receive me. Meanwhile, could I be thinking about what course of studies to pursue? My answer came without hesitation. “Geography! Dan has shown me some of your books….”
    “Hes he, now? - Oh, those,” he said when I showed him the titles. “Hed to read those for my irrigation ingineering qualification. Pretty boring stuff.”
    I didn’t tell him that the boringness was precisely what attracted me. It shrank my universe to a kind of game where I could understand the rules and could trust to get by without any more unsettling or nasty surprises, and so, the more I thought about it, the more I was tempted to make a career as an irrigation nerd, like Milt Sibboan. There’d be an analogy with Earth engineering. Admittedly inverted – but any threat to my sanity from the inverted aspect would be trumped by the analogy: for example, take the statement that pipes are dug “up into the ground”: as soon as that began to tingle my spine I’d change the emphasis, “up into the ground”, so that “ground” with its old-fashioned comfort would spare me any further reminder of where I really was…. for as long as my nose remained stuck in the book.
    Next, irrigation led me on to land use and ecology. Here the danger that the illusion might slip was perhaps somewhat greater. But again the book-magic, the shield of a printed page with its smear of remoteness, tranquilised rampaging Reality. I could settle back and simply enjoy a good read and let my mind be boggled in a comfortable way, like I used to do when reading science-fiction. Hours went by and I virtually forgot that the room in which I sat reading a book actually dangled from the world which the book described. My subdued trance could be compared with that dim academic awareness I’d experienced in my school history lessons back in England. You read about someone like Henry VIII, but you don’t really realize that the air you speak into and the air Henry spoke into persist as one and the same shuddering atmosphere. No – the old monster is just a flicker of story in your head.
    In this muted fashion I eagerly absorbed data on the ecology of Hudgung. I got the feel of its principles. All systems are supposed to bring order and in this way they can invite analogy, comparison…. something must keep your feet on the ground, whether it be gravity or glue. Life under Hudgung had in many cases evolved with adhesive properties - understandably. This meant, for instance, that not nearly so many animals drop into the sky at death as you might think. A dying animal might either dig claws, or stick by means of Velcro pads, under the matted grass, and remain to dangle as carrion for vultures or other scavengers…. And what of people? My mind wandered to the subject of sure-fingered and sure-booted people, as they needed to be…. enough of that thought... my mind wandered further, to the topics of water and sewage… it all drops down and shines at night by the Nadiral Light… enough of that thought, too, so wander on... help, I’m going too far, I need an analogy… help, where’s an analogy… analogy, help, please… something to link all this to Earth…
    It came just in time: the minimization idea.
    Vegetation under Hudgung has evolved analogously to desert flora on Earth. Both are in the minimization business. Earthly cacti minimize losses due to evaporation; Hudgung’s Velcro flora minimise losses due to gravity.
    A perfect match, and what do I hear if I turn up the volume of my background thoughts? The incessant babble of the reassurance channel: you’re doing fine, Dunc, keep it up. Relax and contemplate the fertile plains of the Antipodes, the Velcro grasslands where the spidery omong roamed long ago, and still roam, between the occasional dangling cities of modern man. You’re doing fine, and just make sure the babble never stops. Because if it does –
    Squartcho.