uranian throne
- episode six


the infrastructure throbs

by
robert gibson

[For the story so far, see: 1: Dynoom; 2: Hyala; 3: the nebulee; 4: Exception;  5: the lever of power]

[ + links to:  Glossary - Timeline - Survey of Ooranye - Plan of Olhoav -
guide to published stories ]


The talented side of him welcomed the challenge.  Dismal though the outlook seemed, it brought a prospect of action: and his imagination clasped that vista with the mindful intensity required by his office.

The likely high price of wading into a mess did not daunt him.  Necessarily adept at statesmanship, a Noad must take joy in nudging, braiding, stitching life's currents.  You may remark that this amounts to a definition of statesmanship anywhere in the cosmos, not just for a city on Ooranye.  We would not argue that point except to remark that the stakes are higher here; that a Uranian Noad, if faced with failure, is exposed naked to the judgement of history; for here on the Seventh World a leader who fails is unable to spread the blame.  Nen cannot plead entanglement or obstruction by written laws, of which we have none.  Nen is responsible alone.

Barlayn Lamiroth had an inkling that some political abyss might lie ahead, for the ominous placards, the disquieting rumours of the past few days, were suggestive of a social cancer against which he knew of no defence.  Not only to himself but also to the scholars, historians and planetographers whom he had hastened to consult, the moral darkness spreading through Olhoav was of an unfamiliar type; all they knew was the bare fact, that some manipulator of emotions had ignited backgrounder resentment, as a tactic for the stoking of revolution. 

No history or folklore gave any hint of how to deal with this.  The problem could hardly even be discussed, so strong was the taboo against using the words "backgrounder" and "foregrounder" in polite discourse.  Except, that is, with Dynoom - it was acceptable to talk about such things with the city brain.  But that, it seemed, would do no good: for the Noad had just learned that he could not expect the decisive measures he wanted from Dynoom.  

Barlayn concluded that he himself would probably have to kill the rebel leader, the mysterious "Weigher". 

As the city's rightful Noad he would be within his rights to take a life for reasons of State, though never before, in his six-thousand-day reign, had he needed to exercise such dire responsibility, and his heart was heavy at the thought.  To be in the right was mere bleak consolation. 

To cultivate his own morale, he might 'plant', in one mental 'pot', a snarly attitude towards the Weigher, or better still a sprig of contempt, to aver that this Dempelath person was nothing special, a mere pest whom it might not even be necessary to kill...

Ah, if only everyone could calm down and allow him to rule a sane city!  If only backgrounders could recover their common sense and see they were being deluded!  Noad Barlayn Lamiroth frowned as he tramped the steel floor of Olhoav, physically enacting his need to stay in touch with the urban fabric and its people.  And metaphorically speaking he would keep his boots on firm metal even if few others did...

Close to where a helical tower's up-slanting walkway began, he spotted a placard.

WORDS ARE USELESS
THE FORGS WON'T LISTEN
SHOVE THEM ASIDE

Divisive stuff!  Barlayn glanced about.  About a dozen other walkers were closer to the sign than he was.  Two of them - only two! - were in the work-trance.  The others were fully awake.  The wakeful ones had seen the notice.  Some of them also saw him, the Noad, whereupon they gave him duly respectful nods and saluting gestures.

Then, however, they hastened their steps away.  As if they were anxious to avoid an exchange of words with their Noad...  Whiffs of wrongness... 

Grimly lengthening his own stride, Barlayn Lamiroth rounded a kidney-shaped plaza, where, under an overhanging thicket of walkways and globular mansions, he almost bumped into another placard:

SEIZE THE SPOTLIGHT
FROM THE FORGS -

HENCEFORTH
IT'S YOUR STORY!

He took a back-step and again glanced around.  This was a busier area.  Here, as many as twenty pedestrian workers were within hailing distance.  Fifteen of them were carrying boxes under their arms: not surprising since this precinct was the economic umbra of Olhoav's major phial-factory, the Eneglor.  Yet oddly, no more than three of those burdened backgrounders strode in the smooth gait of the work-trance.  The other twelve were far looser, less firm in their step - they were rambling, indecisive, awake... and they outnumbered the trancers four to one!  What was this epidemic of wakefulness?

Perhaps better not use the term "epidemic", thought the Noad; nevertheless four-to-one was a severely anomalous wake/trance ratio for the Eneglor area -

And then he saw the hook-armed, clenched-fist salute of some "wakies" who had stopped to read the placard.

As if sensing his stare on their backs, they looked round guiltily and hurried on. 

He took a step after them and stopped.  What would be the use of pursuing, pretending bafflement and demanding an explanation of what he'd just seen?  The manifestations were sadly comprehensible to Barlayn Lamiroth.  Out of them he was able to sift his own dire "regress report" on Olhoav. 

Clearly, the work-trance must dissolve as backgrounders became more status-conscious, more apt to brood wakefully upon the category to which they belonged, and less willing to relax into their daily few hours of unconscious co-operation. 

Thus a new alertness would prevail, at the expense of the smoothly traditional, harmoniously productive, instinctive mode, which had evolved over aeons with incalculable benefit to all.  And so that mode would die. 

Consequently everyone would have to work harder and longer, and suffer more boredom, being forced into conscious attention to tasks which were formerly accomplished in a state of effortless dream.  The prospect was one to make any foregrounder sick at heart.  Backgrounders, too, would eventually loathe the waking drudgery - but not at first.  For a while, their egos incited by Dempelath, they would be sustained by the false promise of plot-stardom for all.  (The deluded fools!  As though there was room for every citizen to be a Noad, a Daon, an omzyr or a vigilee...)

A metallic sound interrupted Barlayn's reflections.  The faint grind of heavy steel... 

He turned - and the old secure pride, in which he was accustomed to stroll the streets among his people on a normal day, was revived by what trundled into view, at walking speed, around the curve of the steel alley.

It was a six-wheeled cylindrical tanker, painted in glowing blue.  It had a silver roof-rack extending fore and aft.  A banner was slung down its length.  "Welcome the New Daon", the flapping cloth proclaimed, lifting the Noad's mood.  In short, this leisurely juggernaut was an example of the traditional inaugural float.  It was a seyyo, a customary-car, by which the populace signalled their rejoicing at a new appointment to the dayonnad

A most welcome sign of healthy political survival!  Barlayn wondered if Daon Sunwa Nerren had yet seen it.  Probably not: she had yet to encounter it, for it was proceeding in her direction, rather than coming from there.  Well, when she did encounter it, she'd be most touched...

A dozen figures were standing upon the roof-rack of the seyyo.  They were waving to the spectators, who - including the Noad - waved back.

One person, seated up front, his forearms on the float's prow-rail, did not wave.  He was a thick-set man whose boots dangled and clunked against the metal nose of the vehicle as it lurched onward. 

Barlayn recognized the fellow: a senior factory hand, the sort who could be termed an upper-grade backgrounder, which is to say, someone risen sufficiently above the faceless category of the general population, to earn mention by name in some tale.  A stalwart class of character.  A type who - the Noad hoped - would most likely remain content with his lot.  Resistant, therefore, to the blandishments of the Weigher -

As the float came alongside him, the Noad greeted this person by name.  "Smevedem!"

Smevedem grinned widely.  He lifted one finger.  While the Noad inwardly shrugged over this puzzling gesture, a worse startlement supervened: an unbelievable convulsion of the float!  It tilted from side to side as though playfully pretending to be battered by waves!  Suppressing his dismay at this unnatural ebullience Barlayn bent his gaze to see how it was done: he was able to note that although the wheels, first on one side and then the other, were pushed up for an instant as if jacks had been placed under them, in actual fact it was the floor of the alley itself that had jerked like a twitch of irritated skin.

This happened three or four times in rapid succession, like an infant's gleeful bobbing in excess of energy.

The effect betokened an astounding control of city infrastructure, not to mention an expenditure of power at which the Noad shook his head; still, perhaps, on a day like this, high spirits were worth paying for...  Anyhow, he reassured himself, they weren't overdoing it.  After those few insane twitches the pavement had reverted to smoothness.

He stood and watched the float pass him at walking speed.  Then he decided to follow it. 

What he had just seen, sparked the cheerful thought that the Weigher was not having things all his own way.  A celebratory custom was being faithfully observed.  The good old institutions of Olhoav were sufficiently robust and deep-rooted, that Dempelath could not bypass or dispense with them.  Not yet, anyhow.

The view widened as the float swung out of the alley.  It rolled onto a section of Rullud Avenue.   Hereabouts that avenue formed a local boundary, so that the Noad, as he followed, had the district of Occoz on his left and that of Jihom on his right. 

A sprinkling of the populace of each area had turned out to line the sidewalks.  A few kept step along with their ruler.  The scene would have "smelled" perfect if only these celebrants had been greater in number, and less subdued.  He might then have been able to trust that things were as they ought to be...

Don't trust, the Noad advised himself.  But grab what good there is.

He was not warned by any preliminary sound, when of a sudden the air on one side of him was sliced by a windy hiss.  A fifty-yard-long glassite pane thrust up alongside him. 

The pane rose within seconds to its full fifty-yard height.  Towering squarely, it severed its length of way from the structures of Jihom beyond.

During the same drastic moments an identical barrier shot up on the avenue's other side.  This one blocked off the adjacent structures of Occoz.  And with dwindling staccato lisps more distant panes shot into place on both sides, swish swish swish down a further and further length of perspective, transforming Rullud Avenue into a closed canyon lined by glassite walls.

If this had happened at a more normal time the Noad would have assumed that it was a drill.  Calm weather had been reported for several days, with no gneh-ou within three hundred miles.  During such a lull, the defence against that species of malevolent cloud - internal barriers which channelled their fury so that they roared harmlessly through Olhoav - need only be erected for practice drills.  Today, then, might be a day for a drill.

As things were, the Noad was unsure how far to trust to this logic.  But in any case he ought to do what the others who'd been caught out in the open stretch were doing - that is, get off the Avenue.  Only - hmm, what was this?  Folk were tugging in vain at the exit notches on the Jihom side. 

The faint hand-grips in the glassite barrier, which should swing out into apertures for escape, appeared to be sealed.  "They aren't opening!  None of them are opening!" cried a woman close to him; "Noad B-L, what do we do?"  Glaring wildly, she answered her own question, "Try the other side!"  For if this were not a cloud-defence drill but a reaction to a real, unforecasted attack, then the last place anyone should wish to be would be here in the glass canyon...

Barlayn turned and saw, with infinite relief, that the pedestrians on the Occoz side were having better luck.  Those exit-doors were not fastened - thank the skies.  They were being wrenched open by the people who had already been strolling on that side and also by those who now surged across in rebound from the Jihom barrier.  So the malevolence, maybe, was only in the Jihom direction. 

One of the last pedestrians to exit through the Occoz panes turned to look back and saw that the Noad, apparently lost in brooding thought and oblivious of risk, was still standing in mid-avenue, gazing across the newly bared vista of metal surface.  "Get out of the open, Noad B-L!" the citizen shouted at the grey-cloaked figure.

"In a moment," Barlayn Lamiroth shouted back. 

He was intrigued by the fact that Smevedem's "Welcome the New Daon" float, strangely unaffected by the panic and commotion, had not ceased to trundle on its steady way.  Rullud Avenue had emptied around it, yet the tubby vehicle was continuing to recede as though nothing unusual had happened.  Such exaggerated tranquility was a wrongness, Barlayn knew, although he himself was apt to set a high value on not being hurried while sizing up a scene.  As surely as renl ever demanded that he listen to the message of a street-view, he had better attune to this one. 

Within moments, his attention earned its wage.

Slyly, a ripply thing introduced itself behind a fifth-floor bay window which obtruded some hundred yards further down the avenue, on the Jihom side.  For a moment or so the apparition amounted to mere motions of coloured light.  Then it blurred into the form of a swollen human head.  Apparently, someone, almost but not quite too large to be human, was standing at that window.  

Barlayn's instinct was to investigate close-up without delay.  He had been expecting confrontation and this might well be it - the battle of wits which he must not shirk.  But if he aimed to collar the thing he would have to go a long way round, since all vehicular and pedestrian access had been blocked off on this side of Jihom District.

On the other hand he could do something else first: if he climbed to some equally high-placed window on the Occoz size, he could "face the Face" across the avenue.  Then he'd be able to stare at the starer and see who blinked first... 

That would be the quicker and the safer opening move and yet even so, his instinct might well be wrong and he might be heading into some kind of trap.  The thought failed to deter him.  Uranian rulers - the Noads or "foci" of their cities - are confident people.  Without being rash they are boldly convinced of their own ability to steer lremdly through a crisis.

Admittedly, their public smoothness often appears grainy to their private selves, since they see it under a private magnification shot through with bright and dark flecks of hunch and doubt, with every winning streak liable sooner or later to crash into some up-ended slab of defeat.  But this, if you're a Noad, only makes you more opportunistically keen, while the going is good, to push success for all its worth. 

Barlayn could tell that he had gained credit with his people by his visibly calm response to the glass barriers.  Momentary credit might mean momentary extra power with which to move against a target: and fate just now was handing him a target in the form of that glowing face.  Notwithstanding a horrid sense - like something out of a bad dream - that the thing was waiting for him, he must head that way.  Moreover, since this was a war of allegiance, he would recruit some bystanders.

Right here, someone hurriedly held open the nearest glass door as he strode to the Occoz avenue-edge.  He nodded thanks, went through... and found himself amongst a knot of backgrounders on the sidewalk.  To a score of respectful stares, he announced: "What's happened may look like a regular gneh-ou defence drill, but I'm sure it is not."

His eyes and tone demanded a response.  Fortunately, before too many seconds dragged by, an obliging young man duly asked, "Does that mean, Noad B-L, that you can tell us what it is?"

"It is action by the rebel, Dempelath."

Murmurs of "What?" and "Why?" formed the reactions to that blunt statement. 

Barlayn raised his voice and continued:  "Glassy walls!  Strongly suggestive, are they not?  Our enemy appears to be fortifying himself beyond a barrier.  Evidently he knows he's not strong enough to take over our entire city, which is why he plumps for a part of it only.  An admission that he's a loser!  However, we aren't simply going to wait for his movement to collapse; we're first going to make him more nervous still."

He got the more positive murmurs he wanted from this. His next step must be to make committed companions out of this cluster of folk, most of whom he knew by name. 

The one who had held the glass door open for him was an eyabon ["restaurateur"] by name of Gstatt.  An elderly man, Gstatt was a bit portly in Uranian terms, though you readers may be assured that he would have cut a fine enough figure on Earth.  He belonged to that high-grade-backgrounder class (Smevedem the float-rider being another exemplar) which has been termed the backbone of the body politic.

On the other hand Barlayn Lamiroth was less pleased to note the presence of the lone foregrounder in the bunch: Bizzid Folomm, a smart young woman but a character whom the Noad, in the present instance, could have done without.

Here, we translators are compelled to be unfair.  It's a recurrent problem for us in our interplanetary story-telling: the necessity to "bad down" our portrayal of Uranian characters, to shrink their mental and moral stature by a scale factor which renders them comprehensible to a Terran audience. 

With apologies to Bizzid, then, we have to record that the Noad viewed her as a silly woman.  The youngish brassy-blonde alapatea [think "anecdotalist-socialite-poet-reporter"] was, by Barlayn's standards, an airhead.  Ordinarily he would have shrugged this off with equanimity.  Indeed he shrugged now, but without the equanimity... 

Meanwhile his companions were being affected by the apparition that glowed in the fifth-floor bay window a hundred yards down the street.  The sight was close enough to appall with a threat of direness, yet far enough to blur in a veil of creepy doubts.  Gstatt quavered, "Noad, that thing - "

"We're going to see it up close," nodded Barlayn.  "We're going to 'open the envelope'." 

By employing that figure of speech, which we Uranians use for 'to make the unknown known', he aimed to inspire their natural eagerness for action.  A springiness was what he hoped to see, rather than the drooping shoulders he did see. 

Had they been sapped by events?  Did the ordinary folk of Olhoav lacked the resilience of yore?  Perhaps, yet I must continue to believe in my people.

"Our foe," he continued dryly, "calls himself - as you may have heard - the Weigher."  Saying this with quirked lip, the Noad still hoped for some flippant snickers in response.  He did get some.  However, most of his audience were yet too quiet for his liking.  A dismal suspicion grew in him, that their loyalty could not be taken totally for granted.  "It's time," he shrugged, "that we did some 'Weighing' for ourselves.  Those who are free of other tasks: come with me, please, to the fifth floor of - " he looked up to judge which of the buildings on this side was exactly opposite the Face on the Jihom side - "the Oxpeihon.  Let's take Fate by surprise: let's run."

He turned to lead the way at a hastening trot before they could have second thoughts.  And - they followed. 

If they had not, what then?  He could hardly afford to think about that.  Yet, suppose Dempelath's propaganda had made inroads among them?  Well, if they're discontented backgrounders, the Noad snappily reflected, if they crave the spotlight, they ought to welcome the prominence I'm giving them now...

Upon reaching the Oxpeihon he hurtled through its lobby and began to mount its stairs, his followers clattering up behind him.  They were, he hoped, drawn by the powerful, deep-seated loyalty of citizens to their Noad.  Aware nevertheless that Fate had given him support of average quality, from which he had better not expect miracles of devotion at this dubious time, the Noad at each bend of the staircase glanced back to assure himself that he still led the group of men and women whom chance had appointed to swirl in his wake, be they backgrounders or foregrounders; whichever - they were all Olhoavans, for goodness' sake...

Actually the whole "back-and-fore" idea roused doubts in him at moments like this. For example, Gstatt was regarded as a backgrounder, Bizzid a foregrounder, but the heft of the one compared to the other suggested how misleading those categories were... 

Never mind - the issue faded away as he told himself that they might all be rushing on a fool's errand if the Glowing Face was not still visible by the time they reached the fifth floor window.

But no, it was more than a safe bet, it was a million little bursts of insight in summation shouting that their target would be waiting for them, to stare defiance at them. 

Ascending the last steps to the fifth level, the Noad saw how right he'd been not to worry about an anti-climax.

Dempelath behind the panes

The fifth floor was wide, and its furniture scant.  Open-plan spaces were the rule up here.  Barlayn started forward, intending to lead his little crowd towards the out-thrust bay window. 

Each step, however, became a drag against a weight of reluctance.  The motions of his body were inhibited by the Face that shone through that window - shone now directly at them - from across the way.

He could sense behind him the equally gluey manner in which the others shuffled.  The voice of Gstatt rasped, "We'll out-stare him, Noad B-L."  Creditable, that; but no one else said anything.

Barlayn realized his mistake in bringing so many witnesses with him.  As he glanced over his shoulder he noted with sad disappointment, from their darting, evasive eyes, that they simply weren't up to seeing that Thing out there. 

To take the best example: Gstatt, as the Noad well knew, had in his younger days accumulated a solidly creditable Wayfaring record, such as none but the brave can earn; if even he were so edgy now, the Noad must have made an error of judgement in bringing this bunch up here to be locked into a staring match with the Face.  Always a bad idea to be locked, stuck, petrified... this "Weigher" might arrange for them all to be taken in some sort of flank attack while they were thus immobilised.  Why, though, was it working this way?  Why was the sight of that Face with its crawling lights so awful? 

Barlayn forced himself to stare analytically at the thing.

The apparent distension of that luminous head: it must, no doubt, be an optical illusion, a merely apparent swelling, caused by the coloured glows which swam across it - or was that too glib?  Barlayn had sudden doubts about his own excuse-grabbing wits.  Maybe at such a crux no dodge would suffice - 

The disquieted Noad needed plenty of spunk to get him through the next quarter of a minute.  His inner defences swayed, teetered, but fortunately did not all collapse simultaneously, and he was able to steady them with one philosophic prop after another, all variations on the theme that underpins Uranian life, the precept that wisely insists: you do not need and should not expect to understand. 

- But really, come, this was ridiculous!  This childish staring-contest - utterly absurd!  Eyes locked with the Face and neither person being able to afford to be the first to look aside - come on, this was the wrong game to play!  We'll out-stare him, Gstatt had just said, but there must be more to it.  Some practical blow was surely being prepared.  It stood to reason that Dempelath must even now be arranging for some flanking movement or other; that was what the Noad himself would have done, by giving instructions to Dynoom, were it not that this room happened to lack any line of communication with the city-brain.  Flunnd, what a blaping misfortune that was.  If only this were a room fitted with Ghepion connections.  Of course, Dynoom could project nenself anywhere in the city, but, as bad luck would have it, Barlayn could not contact the Brain on his own initiative from here. 

One of the crowd behind him dared to interrupt his thoughts, pleading, "Perhaps we ought to... er... postpone all this, Noad B-L."

Those words made him realize: only a few seconds had passed!  Time had slowed almost to a stop as Barlayn, struggling for breath, replied: "You mustn't miss this great moment."  Now to make the tone cutting and dry: "Behold the shining form of the great Weigher!  I know it is he, because, of course, Dempelath would not permit such dominance to anyone else.  Now, did I hear someone say 'postpone the clash'?  Sorry, can't do that.  But postpone the understanding, yes, by all means!  Let's make sure we beat him first!  And then, if you're still keen on understanding what's wrong with his skin..."

He intended to say, "Well then, when the trouble's over, anyone who wants to muck around in it all to find an explanation for his swimming glow-patches... anyone that dedicated to knowledge can spend time and attention on it for all I care.  I'll have better things to do."

For a moment he felt like a pilot who had successfully skimmed between fangs of rock.

Then, to his exasperation, that woman Bizzid Folomm had to put in her phial's worth:

"If we're going to beat him, shouldn't we find out what's wrong with him?" she demanded brightly.

In the hope that one flat syllable would discourage her, the Noad responded: "Why?"

"Normal people don't look like that... and normal people don't raise rebellions."

Barlayn hung his head.  The woman had defeated him.  Steer... a Noad must above all else know how to steer.  Make decisions from insufficient data, then abandon those decisions in the face of further insufficient data... on and on, to weave around the waves.

But he'd have to be quick now.  It was needful to tackle this subject without further delay.  It had to be brought into the realm of the bearable, the explicable, instantly.  For those shining lobate patches of glowing colour which swam over the skin of Dempelath in eerie uneven motions did, after all, require an acceptable explanation.  The woman was right to that extent: some stuff was so outrageous you had to find answers for it, to avoid a shriek of the mind.  Allowing his opinion to swing about, Barlayn took up and wielded the mental spade.  Explain, describe and belittle the enemy's power.  Dig deep and hope -

So beseeched the Noad.  His silent utterances were framed to fire his own will and simultaneously to invoke the sympathy of the World Spirit.  But instead of relief, a further offensive event just then became visible, though this one was from a long way beyond the Face, in some distant street along the same line of sight: the indecently rapid growth of a spike of gleaming metal, sprouting moment by moment.  Was the city's fabric itself going mad?

At this point we had better correct an impression we have made on the minds of our Terran readers.

When we use the word "avenue" you probably picture a wide street lined by block-like buildings.

Indeed, some lower reaches of Rullud Avenue are like that.  Any radial road in a Uranian city is apt to attract quite a few square-fronted edifices, for this is a practical way to maximize the use of available space.  However, if you look higher than their third or fifth storey, your view changes.  The rectangular roof-tops are over-bulged by other designs.  This is where our typical irregular urban lattice takes over.

Therefore, the vista from the fifth floor of the Oxpeihon was no mere line of rooftops but a metalloid jungle of weblike walkways, globular palaces and helical towers, looming and arching over the avenue; and what the Noad witnessed in that eerie moment could have been a reasonable addition to that tangle of shapes.  It was not the form but the speed of the new spiky tower, huge and distant, visibly pushing up beyond the architecture of Jihom District, beyond even the landmark dome called the Menestegon which lay in the same line of sight - it was the speed that was abhorrent.  Pushing up by the second!

Gazing at the new tower, Barlayn could almost imagine he was watching a time-lapse film of the growth of a giant vegetable stem bearing sickle-shaped leaves.

Then his eyes snapped back to focus upon a closer event - for a change was coming over Dempelath's face.  Several of the crawling lights on the Weigher's skin had coalesced.  They now formed a yellow dagger-pattern which flowed from chin to forehead.  Shortly this latest pattern dissolved, back into the previous medley of colours and forms... but the Noad had seen enough. 

Understanding had come: the answer for which he had prayed.

"...He's a hybrid monster, part-man, part-Ghepion.  He displays on his skin - the poor fellow can't help it - his resonances with the physical networks of the city."

Tremendous was the relief which the Noad then felt, for having formulated some neat words, and not only neat but probably true: for those swirling glows on the Weigher's face most likely did signify direct power-connections between the would-be tyrant and the infrastructure of Olhoav. And the dagger-pattern resonated with the appearance of the spiky tower.

Yes, it was good to find something to say, but the implications were frightful.  Whatever that spiky tower might be, the expenditure of energy to produce it must have devoured a chunk of the reserves of Olhoav.

Yet since the Noad had at least loosened his own tongue, had found words to speak that were worthy of a leader, he felt a certain spring in his spirit.

Someone else in his group whispered, "But why is the face just standing there, staring at us?"

"Trying to out-stare," replied the Noad with a knowing shrug, and fluently continued, "Rebels are necessarily boastful.  They must compensate for their lack of legitimacy.  Look at him gloating at us from behind his wall and trying to say: 'Today, Jihom; tomorrow, the city entire' - thus assuming that Time is on his side, whereas," Barlayn went on, glancing around at his audience, his tone preparing them for a sardonic comment, "Time is, in actual fact, a public utility." 

Hesitant chuckles mingled with doubtful looks... 

He swung round again to confront the baleful glow of the visage across the avenue.  It would be easier, now, to get out of the staring contest.  Honour was satisfied insofar as the Noad had spoken some wisdom to his people...

A rasp like wind-blown tin fragments whispered in his ear.  "You wished for news of Dempelath."

No mistaking that confidential voice-projection. 

Irritated yet appreciative, the Noad murmured back, "I found him myself, Dynoom.  Like you predicted I would."

"Nevertheless may I show you my own finding?"

"Go ahead," said Barlayn, adding with calculated recklessness, "and since I'm out on this limb, you may as well make it public." 

More loudly he addressed the company: "Stand back: we're about to see a holo-report from Dynoom." 

Obediently fast, backward steps cleared the necessary floor space, on which the group's attention was immediately focused. 

A pale mound of light, like the top of a ghostly sphere rising out of the floor, sifted into a sharp, cinematic rendering of a city scene.  Not a distant one, either.  Perhaps a few hundreds of yards away -

For the image revealed the blue float, with its celebratory banner welcoming the new Daon, still moving along at walking speed, down the deserted avenue.

*

...Or, the not-quite-deserted avenue.

Some barrier doors on the Jihom side were now being opened.  From within.  First, a few folk who had been shut away inside that district were now venturing onto the avenue floor, and, gaining confidence, others followed.

Increasing numbers streamed to surround the float, causing it to roll to a stop.  No, actually - thought the Noad as he watched - it wasn't so much the float that interested them.  It was enwrapped by the crowd but it wasn't what they were focussed upon.  Rather, what attracted them was another, convergent arrival.

It was the Daon herself, it was Sunwa Nerren, strolling into view out of an alley on the Occoz side, and causing all eyes to switch to her.

With gracious gestures she hailed them all - the folk who had surged around the blue vehicle, and the riders upon it.  Vivaciously she opened wide her arms as if to accept anything that they might ask of her, any pleas, any questions or demands. 

The watching Noad had his own plea: let what seems, be true.  Let her be in a state of enjoyment.  And therefore let me be reliably glad of the job I pushed her into.  Away with the perpetual tussle between the way things ought to go and the way things are; let there be no reason why this should not turn out to be a fine, normal, meet-the-Daon public session, as is traditional in sane times. 

And why not?  The crowd seemed suitably eager.  Folk at the back were straining to glimpse the Daon, yet a decent restraint was evident.  But then, heads turned from the Daon back to the float - to the seated rider on the prow. 

That individual fixed his gaze upon the blue-cloaked woman as her steps took her closer to him.  "Skimmjard, Daon S-N!" he called down at her from his vantage.

No one else spoke. 

"Tell us, Daon S-N," he continued: "all those times when you were stuck in your Wayfaring routine, did you not dream of this day?"

With each second that ticked by, it became more evident that he, Smevedem, had the role of interrogator with priority.

Daon Sunwa Nerren took no umbrage at this.  She chuckled, "You mean, is this the fulfilment of my dreams?"

"Ah!  Vital, isn't it, to have dreams!  Didn't you always trust," Smevedem continued with rising intensity, " - that you would amount in the end to more than mere fodder for the cartographers' stats?  Was it not essential for you to believe that to be fodder was not your role; that you would not remain in obscurity for the rest of your life; that would become the privileged super-forg you now are?"

The words roared more harshly; the listening Noad's heart sank.  Backgrounder resentment was being starkly, albeit tortuously expressed, and surely the Daon must have caught the hostility; yet her face was showing no strain as she simply agreed, "I most certainly did always hope for more."

That sweet reply appeared to win hearts in the crowd; admiring eyes turned back to her.

"And my hope was granted daily," she continued in a voice that rang with lyric purity.  The audience straightaway sensed that they were about to hear a shining conclusion, and they all froze, mid-breath -

"For my old profession of Wayfaring," she went on, "like every calling, is always more than itself.  Every one of us - be nen the most obscure of wirrips or the most famous of Sunnoads - equally feed the cosmic statistics, that grand summation, which, over the history of the universe, will welcome every life.  No act wasted, no life lived in vain, wirrips or forgs, essential fodder we all are."

The crowd were captivated by the speech's aura of perfection, as if it were too perfect for real life - they would have gone on listening for hours, as would Barlayn and his group watching Dynoom's holograph of the event on the floor of their high room in the Oxpeihon.

However, the spell was broken when the float began to shake.  Because the vehicle was tightly surrounded by people whose attention had been drawn away from it, its sudden movement shocked them.  Some staggered; some were knocked over.

We do not relish this part of our tale...

*

It is one of those rare occasions when we almost envy the Terran simplicity of soul, a simplicity denied to us Uranians who have, in our distant past, sinned in a manner beyond the capacity of lesser or retarded folk. 

If we look back towards the early morning of our history we are reminded that the wealth and power of the Phosphorus Era - much of which has been transmitted down the subsequent ages - was gained at a terrible moral price.  You men of Earth may lament the environmental damage caused by your predecessors, but you don't have to feel guilty about the plunder of an entire universe.  When we sucked the energy of Chelth for our own use, we committed a crime for which there is no atonement.  That door is now closed, and ever since then we have had to live with what we have done.

Usually we manage to cope with our consciences.  After all, the plunder of Chelth happened scores of eras, thousands of lifetimes ago.

However, on the occasions, since then, that we have been presented with manifestations of the murkier laws of physics, we are apt to get queasy.

Thus, any peculiar phenomenon may provide us with an unwelcome reminder of what our long-gone ancestors did.

*

The people in the vicinity of the float could not understand, but they ran. 

The vehicle had shaken like a fever-maddened living creature and it had hit several people at chest level.  Small wonder that the crowd scattered.  Noad Barlayn Lamiroth meanwhile, watching the image of all this, nodded to himself grimly.  Whereas those folk could not be expected to understand anything at all about what had hit them, he knew better.  Though he had no evidence, his integrative faculty swiftly linked what he saw to the other appalling event of the past few minutes: the growth-spurt of the distant tower.

That hunch became stronger when the retreat of the crowd revealed the portion of city-floor beneath the float.

That section of the metal avenue was quivering.  As the Noad watched, it rose in a sort of viscous spiral.  It slithering plastically around the float, and up its sides to obscure it, completely to cover it; then there was a sucking, tearing sound as the new covering, with the vehicle enwrapped, detached itself from the avenue floor and began to roll. 

The float had become an armoured vehicle.

The sheer strangeness, the nightmare incongruity, was what made the crowd flee further, causing many of them to shriek as they looked back.  Perhaps none of them had the melancholy comfort possessed by the Noad.  He, from his store of city-lore, had identified the local acceleration of time, the sort used on a few historical occasions to squash a long feat of engineering into a few seconds.  Not the kind of thing that need be feared often: too fantastically expensive.  But he wished it had never been done at all.  It annihilated the trust which one normally felt for one's built environment. It mocked one's intellect with shady, dishonest physics.  Rational explanations can blur when Ghepion science is at workRun, Sunwa, the Noad prayed. 

Useless - she would not run.  She could not, after she'd made that wonderful concluding speech.

Then came the hurled spear of light.  Smevedem and the other riders on the float were now hidden beneath the vehicle's armour, so it was impossible to say from which individual the shot came.  All that could be seen was the sudden hole in the prow and the beam that lanced forth from it, to cut the Daon down. 

Then the wails of the crowd, the crunch of the retreating wheels, and the despairing thump of the Noad's own heart were all that remained for the city's ruler to hear.

No one behind him spoke.  Were they waiting for him to pronounce some plan? Probably not, at this moment; they, like he, were stunned.  The loss was so dreadful that the Noad had scant need to ponder its consequences: it was starkly obvious that the balance of power had shifted away from the civilization he knew.  Two successive Daons murdered within hours of one another: the message, as clear as could be, was that the appointment of a third would merely set up a third victim. That step he would not take.  Thus henceforth he must remain without an heir.  His own single life was now all that stood in the way of a constitutional dark age. 

Even that was probably too cheerful a summation.  Whether he lived or died, time was on the side of the Weigher.  In fact, that title "Weigher" was, Barlayn now saw, more appropriate than he had previously realized, in that it aimed to outweigh that of 'Noad'.

...Across the way, the face of Dempelath began to shift at last. 

It revolved, to appear now in profile, while the garish lights continued to crawl across cheek and jaw.  The hybrid creature began to walk, towards the exit from that room whence he had stared...

Now that his proxy deed was done, Dempelath disappeared from view.

I get the point, Weigher, muttered Barlayn. You could not have killed Sunwa, for I was watching you all the time.  The shot came from the float and not from you.  Perhaps you did not kill Dari either.  You don't have to do all your own dirty work.  You have an effective following, in the form of a murderous army of biddable backgrounders ready to oblige you. 

Nevertheless, though lacking a plan or rational hope, Barlayn Lamiroth was simply not capable of envisaging defeat.

CONTINUED IN

Uranian Throne Episode 7:   

The Claw Extends