uranian throne - episode eighteen

the rash down-payment

by
robert gibson


For the story so far, see:

volume I: the terran heir
1: Dynoom; 2: Hyala;
3: the nebulee; 4: Exception; 
5: the lever of power;
6: the infrastructure throbs; 
7: the claw extends;
8: the brain-mist writhes; 9: the last card;
10: the londoner; 11: the terran heir;
12: the city cracks; 13: the validator rips;
14: the heartland beckons; 15: zyperan

volume Ii: the golden cloak
16: confluence at ao; 17: the scared logician

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

1

If you visit Oso, curiosity will lead you to the Bleftal Frustum.  You will linger pensively on the broad steps of that edifice, which, with the surrounding Octagon, forms one of the city's most popular spaces. 
    The attraction of the place is due partly to its convenient closeness to the urban hub, but most of all to its unique historic importance.     
    Rimmed by overhanging porches (which are covered with what to a Terran would seem like toppings of icing sugar), the Frustum betrays its survival from the short, violent Tin Era.  Never to be forgotten, the ravening ordeal of those two hundred and fifty-four days, which won Oso its unenviable reputation as the Mad City!   
    It is peaceful enough now.  You may brood undisturbed upon the drooping whitenesses of those porch-toppings, which look as though they about to flow and drip onto the pedestrians below.  In reality they are as hard as rock; they, the frozen melts of the vlomboz, motionless for all the long ages since the heat of their fusion during the City's disastrous last stand.  That was about one hundred and eighty million Uranian days ago, so don't worry.
    Other well-preserved examples of vlomboz exist at other points in Oso, but the most complete set is here at the Bleftal Frustum.  Centred upon this spot, catering for sightseers has become a business.     
    A hollow-cheeked, unsmiling young man stood at the top of the steps, counting heads.  His eyes from their deep sockets roved over a knot of chattering tourists assembled on the level below.  Presently, satisfied as to their number, he descended to meet them.   
    "I am Raldl Otehr," he introduced himself to his eighteen clients.
    He obtained their attention without effort, as he moved with the practiced smoothness of an experienced tour guide to take his position at the point of departure. 

    Professionally amiable, he continued his introduction:
    "You've all paid your ticket-fees for the Bozmur Trail.  That sounds definite, but I'll be honest with you: we can't be sure, after thirty-nine eras, of the exact route taken by the Thing whom we Osonians prefer not to mention."   
    That was the first hint of the dread that these folk had come to enjoy.  As a successful guide, he knew just how to thrill the curious from foreign cities.  They came for a miniature wallow in the scene of his city's ancient crime; what had once been a peril that shook the world was now a plaything of the emotions. 
    "Now what do I mean by that?  I mean, that at no one step can we be certain...       
    "And yet, be of good cheer," he went on sardonically; "whether we know it or not, at some point or other we can't fail to trace those paths, whether we can prove it or not.  And when that happens, perhaps, who knows, your own nerves may sympathetically twang."   
    It went down well.  Some of the chucklers looked a trifle nervous, which helped maintain the desired atmosphere.  Raldl Otehr secretly laughed at them while building his professional rapport.  No tour was ever quite the same as another, but today's job looked like it was going to be one of the easy ones...   
    At this point, we storytellers are moved to mention, not for the first time, the problems we face.  We must make our narrative readable by Terrans, but at the same time we wish to keep it true.  How to portray the tourists in Raldl's group?  Literal description won't do.  Uranians are so good-looking that you would be bound to think, if we described the gathering faithfully, that it was a bland bunch of model types.  Differences visible to Raldl would not be noticeable by readers from Earth.  So we must magnify those gradations, blow them up till contrasts appear.  That way, we shall allow opposing terms like "plain/distinguished", "handsome/ugly", "fat/thin", and so on, to gain meaning in the Uranian context.  And so -   
    Raldl noted the predictable ones, such as: the portly middle-aged couples with the cube-recorders round their necks; the gaunt spinster who had simpered the loudest at the mention of nerves; the adolescents trying not to look impressed... and he made his usual calculations, such as, at what stage it might be best to pause, and whence the shrieks were likeliest to come. 
    However as always the group included some who were not in the predictable classes....  Broken Skies!  Look there!  The girl slouching with her fists in the pockets of her cloak!  Yes!  It was Lyan Zett, none other. 
    Raldl's heart constricted, but then he thought: oh, well.  Her presence was not by any means going to put him off his stroke.  In fact, he decided, she was welcome.  Yes, yes, came the satisfied thought: this actually was a priceless opportunity to show her, by his relaxed demeanour, how little she had disturbed him; or at any rate how swiftly he had righted his emotional equilibrium from his last meeting with her.   
    "The first stage," he declared to the group, "ought to take us a little more than an hour.  After that, we'll stop for something to eat and drink at the Nezzen, half way along the Srangalom.  Then in part two we'll pursue the skimway round by another route to finish here at mid-ayshine.  Any questions?  Right - off we go."

2

They followed his stride, up the ramp to the gallery which lined the Bleftal Octagon, then from that convenient height along the walkway over Psed Arch, then round the globular Palace of Trewewpel, and deeper into the typical airy maze of a large Uranian city.  Visitors to Oso generally agree that it mostly seems like a normal place that easily stands comparison with the other twenty-four great disc-on-stem cities of Syoom.  Its citizens have their modern life to live, after all.  To someone who did not know of the ancient events that have made the place notorious, Oso would hardly seem at all peculiar. 
    However, virtually everybody does know, at least in outline, of that macabre crux of history.    
    The scene of ancient nightmare never fails to draw crowds.  They come from all over Syoom... and Raldl admitted to himself that in their place he would probably do the same. 
    Yes, if I didn't live here, I myself would most likely end up in one of these groups of gawpers.  Playing with safely extinct terror just like they do. 
    And that should remind me, it's not only foreigners that join my tours.  Lyan Zett, for example; she's my fellow-citizen, as I know to my cost - 
He went through some bitter old thoughts of the girl with whom he'd quarrelled, and who nevertheless was here now, in the group, subtracting from his peace of mind.  
    For any lesson worth learning, one has to pay. 
    Heaving that topic aside, Raldl Otehr concentrated upon the job at hand. 
    He had now led his group as far as the 'elbow' of the Srangalom.  Here that skimway avenue reaches a point of inflexion in its curve around the district of Thyss. 
    He help up his hand; the group flowed to a halt around him.   
    "I hope I've timed this right," he said.  "Look, see the so-called 'fingers' up there?"  He pointed and, for the benefit of the slower-witted, waved and pointed again.  "Jutting from either side of the gap, between the Srangalom and the Trij.  (Sorry, I'm in your way, Moragga; can you see now?  Good.)  Now it is undoubtedly true, as you will all (I hope) see in a minute or two, that not all of the reflexes of the Mad City are dead... ah, here it comes."  (OOOOH....EEEEE!!! came cries from the group, as a gob of light appeared, sliding along the skimway rail.)  "Don't worry, it is merely galvanic, not real survival...  It's really quite all right!" he reiterated in a deliberately unconvincing tone of reassurance.  (AIEEE! - came another shriek of pleasurable fear when the dazzling blur spurted across the gap between the greater avenue and the secondary.)   
    Raldl smiled around while his customers wiped their foreheads.  One and all, they must be getting their money's worth.  Only the teenager, Zlodid, had outwardly kept all his nerve.  One of the others, elderly Moragga Zneen, had flinched but had then been quick to jerk her cube-recorder into position.      Then came a flood of questions, which Raldl answered to general satisfaction.  Where necessary he reminded them (by remarking that he did not need to remind them) that any complex city must have a central co-ordinating maintenance computer; at which point he was drawn in to discuss what nature such a thing may have.  What could look after an entire city?  His reasonable reply: "Possibly, though not necessarily, a Ghepion, a machine that has evolved into sentience."  In answer to a querulous inquiry from Moragga's husband Vormazat, he remarked: "For long ages our present central computer, which we name Hlorr Humma, was just a dumb though clever machine.  Even now, its limited conversational powers suggest, at most, a very limited awareness, hardly counting as thought - though its functioning is technically faultness."   
    "Then those jumping lights just now - what were they?"   
    "A product of Oso's power-distribution cycle.  A routine that's equivalent to an instinctive process."   
    "But might they be more akin to real thought-flashes?"   
    "You mean, might our Hlorr Humma now count as a full-blown Ghepion?  Has it woken?  Well, if it has, we still don't need to worry.  You see, if, unknown to us, our present machine has become properly sentient, we can nevertheless be sure, from the experience of ages, that the consciousness of the 'Mad City' has not been passed on to it."
    "But how do we know that?"
    "We know it because reincarnation is for human beings only.  That's one thing we've learned from history.  Dead Ghepions don't come back."   
    Having got his little crowd past the "Fingerpoint" power-leap, Raldl was pleased though not surprised to find that the rest of the tour's first half went equally well.  A few other noteworthy sights and reflections brought them to the promised break: the interval for lunch at the Nezzen Zoalsh.     
    Apart from its ornate banqueting capacity the Zoalsh also has an open colonnaded area which serves outdoor snacks.  "We set off from here in half an hour," Raldl said.  Out of the corner of his eye he looked for Lyan, but she, apparently, was one of those who had chosen to scatter during the break.  Probably just as well, Raldl thought.  I have found the right cloak of studied indifference but it's easier not to have to wear it...   
    He was joined at his table by four of his clients.  One of them was the apparently imperturbable teenager, Zlodid.  [Note to Terran readers: "teenager" is our translation of medebberan, or person between 4000 and 5000 Uranian days of age; in terms of your years, from between about thirteen and a half to just over seventeen.]   
    Zlodid leaned forward across the table and said:   
    "Sponndar, what I don't get about this Mad City business, is, what was in it for that old evil Ghepion?  Why did it start such a war?  Surely it must have known it was going to lose?"   
    "You'd think so," agreed Raldl.  "But then often you'll find, in history, that an idea so stupid that it could only happen once, does happen once."   
    Reflectively the lad crunched some klast.   
    "Go study the reolues, Zlodid," intervened an attractive woman of about 9000 days named Detsi Grelonn.    
    The reolues - the 'dancing rocks' - were the epitome of long-accepted mystery.  Thus the woman's message, uttered with soft serenity, was: go study the reolues, lad, in order to accustom yourself to questions which are impossible to answer.   
    Zlodid swallowed and looked at Raldl and said, "I have another, more modern question.  If you have time for it, sponndar tour-guide."   
    "Certainly," said Raldl with studied equanimity.   
    "That well-timed flash we saw: had you arranged beforehand with Hlor Humma?"   
    It was expressed with a bit of a sneer, a you-haven't-fooled-me tone, which drew protests from Detsi Grelonn and another woman named Plennor, who tutted at the lad and shook their head.
    "It could be," replied Raldl easily.  "If so, I wasn't cheating - any of us can make our requests to the Brain."
    This little exchange got Raldl thinking about future tours.  Ideas crawled into his mind.  How he'd like to probe more deeply into questions of ego-expansion, of lust for power.  Why not invite his audience to empathise with the Mad City, just enough, at any rate, to be able to shudder at the fears it must have had?  Let them imagine being Oso when Oso was being out-manoeuvred and constricted into that state of terror which must have sent the thing mad.  Such brush-strokes upon the canvas of the imagination, when added to the bleak landscape of paranoia, could really put a scare into these gawpers.     
    In addition to it being good for business, he might, that way, get back at those tourists who thought themselves superior.  He could thus quieten their patronising chortles... stun their tittering complacency... while at the same time he'd attract more hordes of those who wished to show themselves tough... and they'd flock here, only to find themselves forced to change their minds about who really was tough!

3

Lyan Zett distanced herself during the break.  She was not "playing hard to get", for only a minor part of her had as yet realized how deeply the image of her had dug into the feelings of Raldl Otehr.  Rather, the job she had to do enjoined retreat - just far enough to get out of sight of the tourists and their leader.    
    She turned a corner and rested for a moment against a bulwark of the adjacent Studafol building.  Leaning there, she might have reminded a Terran onlooker of a swaying tulip, sky-purple yet solid with determination as she pressed a stud on her transceiver.   
    "Operative Lyan Zett."   
    A sweet voice issued from the instrument:
    "Well, what's your view now, Lyan: is he good?"   
    Lyan winced, even though she was familiar with the melodies of Trellem, the Secret Service Chief.
    She replied:  "I won't vouch for him in all ways as a person, but as a tour guide he's certainly good."   
    "In that case what I want to know," the older woman said, "is, is he too good - for instance, at running more rings round you?"   
    Lyan had budgeted in advance for this mockery.  In no position to answer back, she hedged:  "I should like more time on this case."   
    Pitilessly her Chief replied, "You wish to prolong your contact with Raldl Otehr because of your previous... entanglement with him."   
    "And yet, sponndar, it could prove useful."
    Clsarmwa Trellem sighed.  "I'm inclined to take a chance on you, Lyan.  You, better than anyone else on my staff, may be in a position to judge how much danger the man represents and what, if anything, we can do about it.  Tell me now - suppose you had to summarise him in one sentence...?"   
    Recklessly the girl replied, "He's a bit of a gommor, if you know what I mean.  A bit gnopey-tropey."   
    "No, sponndar-Agent, I do not know what those slangy terms mean.  Kindly refrain from such colloquialisms when you are on this circuit."   
    "Sorry, sponndar," apologized Lyan, though she felt that slang had been the safer option.  Formal words might have sounded too evasive.  But she had to say something.  "I'll put it this way: Raldl is besotted with the past.  That's what I mean by gommor.  And by the other term I mean that he's likely to follow whatever line of action impresses him with its grandeur."   
    A sound like a cough came over the transceiver.  Probably it meant that the boss was impressed.  Then:    
    "What's your next planned move?"   
    "Have dinner with him this evening.  Try to head him off his track."   
    An unmistakable chuckle.  "Sounds like you've got yourself a challenge, Lyan.  Especially if he guesses whom you work for."   
    "He already knows, sponndar.  That's what spoiled the 'entanglement' last time."

4

Raldl spent the last half of the tour virtually on autopilot, in an inner daze, and all because of a swift and quite unexpected exchange of words with Lyan Zett.    
    It happened, this amazing thing, just before part two of the guided walk.  Afterwards he managed, during that walk, to keep spouting his usual commentary, rolling it out from habit, but underneath he kept amazedly wondering, Did it really happen?  Did she, Lyan, really stroll up to me just then and say what she said?      
    Yes, she really did, casual as you please.  "Haven't seen you for a while, Raldl.  My turn to treat you; how about dinner at the Whith, say hour two of evenshine?"  And what did I do but accept?  Well, what else could I have done?  The way she asked me, within earshot of others, I couldn't say no.          Round and round, he replayed it all as though the inside of his head were a turn-table, while outwardly he continued his job, giving out comments about the Mad City's neurotransmitter, such as, "We think the bozmur raced along this route", and "Some attempt was made to stop it, at that junction you can see up there..." and so forth.  When the tour was over he was vaguely aware that it had actually been one of his best performances. 
    Yes, his audience had enthusiastically followed his anecdote-studded guidance!  The way he'd taken them - as he'd dramatically put it - "along the reach-routes by which the Sinister Sentience wrought its ancient havoc" - they obviously appreciated that he knew his stuff.  Really, he himself was quite impressed at how he'd been able to reel off the old saga even while suffering some modern havoc of his own.
    Now for his own clanging question: what was that girl after?  It was time to find out.  His steps guided him to the Nezzen's most romantic hall.  The array of restaurant cubicles known as the Whith had not been one of his usual haunts for quite a while; he smiled at his own little heart-flutter as he approached the entrance.    
    She, too, was prompt.  Well, this is it, thought he.  Hoping for the best, he waited for suave words to flow from his tongue.  He'd been glib enough during the guided tour; shouldn't it be easier to deal with just one person?
    In the massed glow from the puckered spheres that dangled above each booth, the girl appeared adorned in a gentle blue glory.  The scene defeated him, for it made inevitable that he recall the way he used to look at her.     
    ...Which had always been somewhat unsteady; her figure seen through the undulant veil of his treacherous emotions.     
    Absurd, the effort demanded from him, the cost of merely starting the chat...
    As it happened, he didn't have to; she annexed the opening.  "You're right to look pleased with yourself, Raldl," she said; "the tour went well.  I enjoyed it."   
    "I'm happy to agree," he found himself grinning.   
    "Yes, it's a good start."  They passed the luminous sign and entered the cosy blur wherein an attendant showed them to a booth, took their order and left them to recline.
    Lyan carelessly sat with her back to the opening.  Raldl, opposite, leaned against the flap that abutted the partition.     
    He opted for a sort of blunt gratitude.
    "It's good of you, after all that went wrong between us, to suggest we meet in this civilized way."   
    "I know the past can't be wiped, but," her eyes twinkled, "it can be... reinterpreted." 
    A mild dig, a humorous borrowing from my style of historical commentary, thought Raldl.   
    He dug back: "A shame that we can't go so far as to 're-interpret' the facts out of existence; particularly, the fact that, all along, you were working for Them." 
    She retorted coolly, "I'm sure you haven't told me all the important facts about yourself, either."   
    "Perhaps there aren't any."
    Ignoring that, she went on: "Anyhow, there's nothing more honourable for an Osonian to do, than what I do: work for the Ipitsi Yeen, keeping watch on stirrers.  You of all people, Raldl, should understand, from your perspective, that our old, soul-shaken city needs a quiet life."   
    "But," he tried to insist, "you shouldn't object to the minor stirs.  The safe, relatively quiet, internal things!  Reflections which are nothing but thoughts; mere historical memories."   
    He was being disingenuous, provoking her, and he saw the result in the pursing of her cute button mouth.   
    "'Mere' - !" she echoed with scorn.  "As my boss has rightly said, memories can be overdone."   
    "Ah - an Ipsi Yeen dogma revealed.  Secret until now, one of the policies pursued by Them.  'Distrust memories'."
    Lyan banged her fork down on the table.  "It's common sense," she snapped.  "Memories can rot the reputation of Oso.  Reputation is, for us, particularly important.  Vigilant care for it makes good sense for a citizenry like ours who need to live down an atrocious episode in a long-gone era.  That's why my department - 'They' as you call them - don't like you."   
    He countered, "But perhaps our reputation is best safeguarded by frankness, by open interest, by not being afraid.  I do my bit for that.  By my tours, I help to show the world that we can face the truth.  And after all, the Mad City was thousands of lifetimes ago."   
    "You have a point there, of course," she sighed. (At this concession he felt a surge of affection; he had not wished to tease her; a pity he kept doing it...)  Lyan went on, "I've been putting to you Their point of view.  It's not quite the same as mine, but, well, you did challenge me."
    "I did, sort of," he agreed, surprised at how calm his voice had gone.
    By rights, he reflected, he had been the aggrieved party when they arrived here this evening.  She, after all, was the one who had made a fool of him when pretending to closeness while concealing the fact that she was an agent assigned to spy on him.  And yet here they both were, having a meal together, and beginning to relax after one squall of disagreement.   
    Above all, thought Raldl, I have avoided the sulks.  Nothing's more humiliating than to be the fellow who sulks. 
    And now she has signalled that she agrees, or partly agrees, with my take on Oso's reputation.  But further hurdles lie ahead... 
    Pleasant though this is, I'll do better to win free of a woman whom I can never trust again.    
    The plates of smoking klasts arrived.  Raldl and Lyan for a while did justice to the crackly meats amid the snugness of the zoalsh.   
    The idyll of a shared convivial meal, so supremely important to the Uranian mentality, might have mellowed Raldl further; yet insofar as it was a reminder of how things ought to have been, it was more apt to edge his thoughts back towards bitterness.     
    He thought back to the time of trust that could never be recovered; he was determined not to be fooled again.
    Somebody switched on the music box and the currently popular song soothingly permeated the hall, "The richness of the way / Candle-bright thought / Myyix and bejeh / Plorl-orm..."   
    He remarked out loud:    
    "You know, Lyan, I'm sick of that song.  I'd amend it as follows:

Hatred of the wave
Mangling every thought
Maiming all bejeh
Plorl-orm...

    "That's drastic," remarked Lyan.  "Hatred of the wave!  Why?"    
    "And why not?  Why shouldn't I hate what lets me down?"   
    "It's because you tend to think that things must go right for you.  And if they don't, then the line you take is: 'so much worse for the wave'."
    Infuriatingly perceptive summary of the way his mind functioned!   
    Raldl stared in exasperation at the woman.  She surveyed him languorously, chin on fist.     
    Let her conclude, thought he, that she has sufficiently bombarded him with her charm, to liquidise his grievance.  And then let her listen to this.   
    "To return to our main bone of contention, Lyan, let me reassure you that I am full of theoretical esteem for your work.  I freely admit (in the abstract) that it has to be done.  A city needs an intelligence service.  Therefore some people have to dirty their hands with that sort of stuff."   
    She smiled, "So long as it isn't you."
    "At first," he went on, "I thought it possible that you had invited me here this evening to warn me that your Authorities really do think I may risk re-igniting the bozmur and thus re-awaken the Mad City.  Absurd though the accusation would be, I dare say they'd be mentally capable of believing it.  But now you've made it plain that they are merely worried about the reputational effects of my tours.  They are just anxious lest I mar the city's public image.  Well, it should be easy enough to set their mind at rest about that.  You can just report to them all the innocuous stuff you've heard me say to the customers."   
    "I shall.  That, and more.  You've heard, I don't doubt, of the nuznong," Lyan said.
    "I have."  He blinked.  "I wouldn't be doing my job if I hadn't."  The nuznong: the thought-suppressant which the Mad City had used at the outset of its bid for power. 
    The nuznong, during that terrible time thirty-nine eras ago, had ensured that the folk of Oso simply were not able to think the thoughts which might have saved them.   
    "Hey," added Raldl, suddenly interested, "are you scared that the nuznong might be working now?"   
    "Why not?  It's a possibility."   
    "Oh, absolutely," he grinned.  "That's to say, absolutely un-disprovable!  It will always be possible to argue that whenever our minds are missing something it's because we're being made to miss it.  Come on now, Lyan!"   
    "You may think it funny," she said, "but I think it's time I told you the strongest reason why I invited you here.  It's not because my superiors are worried; it's because I am."   
    As she spoke she tilted her chin and Raldl noticed something traditional: that the puckered spherical lamp above their heads, which bathed their cubicle in its almost tactile glow, was blanketing them with a warm, caressing tint of blue.  He sensed an offer of happiness.  What did it matter whether (as legend had it) this kind of lamp was a genuine reflector of emotion, or whether (as common sense would aver) the wave of togetherness merely flowed from natural propinquity amid comfort and ease?   
    What was important to him, was that he could seize upon Lyan's statement, tthat she was worried about him.  It could be his deliverance from shame.  If she was telling the truth, he might not have been made a fool of after all.  Although she might still have been merely pretending to love him, back in those deceptive days of unfounded trust, nevertheless to the extent that she was now revealed to have been playing a lone hand rather than following orders to pretend, he might hope...
    "You haven't told Them this worry of yours?" he asked softly.   
    Mischievous smile:  "You could say, I work for Them because I'm inclined by nature to secrecy.  Which means, I can keep secrets from Them too."   
    "If only I'd known..."  As a matter of fact I still don't really know for sure that I can trust you, Lyan, but still, the possibility has soared into view.  I now see that the course you tried to get me to take, on the occasion of our quarrel, might bear another interpretation than the one I placed upon it that sad day.    
    Never would he forget that occasion, when she had tried to persuade him to give up being a tour guide.  Her idea had been, he should repudiate his obsession with the drama of the long-gone Era 50, and perform an ideological about-turn by making a visit to the Torh, the Crystal Grove.  He could spend some peaceful days in that spiritual retreat, and re-think the course of his life.
    In truth it was an attractive opposite to his current lifestyle.  Spiritual renewal!  In his mind the vision swelled.  It magnified its allure now that that he might opt for it of his own free will, seize it without being tricked into it; seize it as his own idea.  Yes, he actually might, without sacrificing his self-respect, learn to steer free of his present currents, in consultation with the Crystal Grove and the Spurner of Waves.

5

"...And so I did it," Lyan spoke into her transceiver.  "He'll keep his word, I've no doubt of that.  As soon as he's given notice about the tours, he'll be off.  Probably before the end of morningshine."    
    "Well done, Agent," crackled the voice of Clsarmwa.  "I had thought that he was too hard-headed a type to fall for the Grove idea..."   
    "You don't know him at all," declared Lyan.  "You should have seen his eyes when I clinched it.  When I held up the holocube I'd brought with me and uttered the proverbs, 'wishing is a form of travel', and 'where the mind goes the body must follow' - "   
    "And it was a particularly smart move to mention the nuznong," said her boss.  "Gives you a blanket excuse.  So, we have a breathing space, until he returns."   
    "We can hope he'll be more amenable then," Lyan suggested.   
    "He had better be," said the voice from the transceiver.  "On the other hand, if we're both spectacularly wrong, it won't be the first time that a world-shaker has emerged from a Torh."     
    The communicator clicked off. 

6

From city to grove - from Oso to the Torh Yhrviy - the one hundred and forty miles can be skimmed in about three quarters of an hour, in normal weather, if one's vehicle is raced at top speed; and top speed is feasible where no rugged topography or forests interrupt the open plain, no enemies bar the route and no storms churn the air.     
    With his hand steady and light upon the steering lever, Raldl was freed to daydream by the smooth ride.  It was a most welcome and spacious rebound from what he now considered to have been the narrow obsession which had governed him during his time as a tour guide. 
    Now, by contrast, he could hope to be headed for an altogether different way of life. 
    Not that he was sure about abandoning his former career entirely, but he was definitely tempted by the notion of a clean break, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the skills - the dangerous skills - he had accumulated in his line of work.  Throw it all away, was the commandment he felt like giving to himself.  Renounce the old ways, in favour of a new golden track to - somewhere, something; to whatever it might be that he was hurtling towards at two hundred miles per hour, six yards above the mauves and browns of the streaking plain; a velocity of colours and sensations that flooded him with joy and hope. 
    Besides, was it not rational to suspect that a visit to the Grove might be a good move for him, since the advice to make it had come from a source melting with the powerful glow of love?  Love was admittedly unreliable, but the possibility must be allowed that it had played a good part even if it was all over.  The emotional star, even if it winked out, had done him a good turn.  And what if the outcome was better still; what if the radiance continued to shine?  Could he balance ambition and the love of a person?  Ride a wave that combined both?  Or -
    This whole business of waves of fate: he found himself radically wondering if one could perhaps chuck the concept.
    No matter how ingrained it was in Uranian life, was one really forced to view events as strung along in that way?  Could one not, instead, just atomise life's doings into separate phenomena?
    Do that, he thought, and then you will be able to dispose of whatever hits you, one thing at a time; events would no longer appear in those chains or arcs of destiny that sweep you towards your doom. 
    Could that be what he was about to learn at the Torh?  Vertiginous idea!
    Anyhow, he told himself, things are as they are, and what consoles me most of all right now is that Lyan did invite me to that zoalsh meal: that is fact.  It suggests she's interested in me.  Don't see why; but if she is, all well and good...   
    His thoughts gradually faded into inanity while around him extended history's enormous stage, the limitless backdrop of the Uranian plains.  Out here the troubles of one man naturally merge into the vaster story-web, the overarching saga of the giant and ancient planet, and Raldl's mind enjoyed a bathe in this relaxing awareness, awaiting whatever awaited him: so calm was the air, he could imagine that his skimmer floated stationary while the world slid beneath to bring the Crystal Grove towards him.    
    Over the horizon ahead, a point of fiery blue edged into visibility.

7

At first the Torh Yhrviy was too far off for him to discern the forms of the fobbrakna - the flutterers - who wink their wings in a halo around the grove or roost in its branches; then as he decelerated over the last furlong he and they, according to their different natures, became interested in each other: he the visitor, and they the defenders of the crystals.
    The defenders numbered several score; some with triangular wings, some with oval.  Two compound eyes glittered at him from the sides of each narrow head.  Between those pairs of eyes shone the third eye, the ruby laser.   
    Raldl slowed to a trustful stop, and faced the hovering insectoids.     
    He believed that they were calm in their own power and would not react hastily.  His historical studies had not revealed a single instance where the peace of a crystal grove had been disturbed by mistake.  If the defenders had been a human organization, doubtless the long ages of unbroken success, of lack of challenge in their task, would have bred some degree of carelessness, but these creatures never varied their steady vigil, never declined in their concentration.   
    Raldl alighted from his skimmer.  He bowed to the guardians of the grove.  Then he ventured across the boundary between the dark gralm of the plain and the lighter soil of the Torh. 
    Wings beat above his head: the fobbrakna, having eyed him, were settling back into their former poses.  He refrained from any irregular movements but continued to advance amongst the gleaming trunks and the blue, bladelike crystal leaves.   
    He was enjoying it already, the atmosphere of strong, deserved, invulnerable peace.  The spiritual glow which went with the serene colours of the grove and the fragrance from the leaves, physically warmed him.   
    Reaching the central glade, where stood the Keepers' huts and the guest huts, he saw three parked skimmers.  Now whose would they be?  One would be for the longstanding Keeper, Fraydsten Nahi, and one for his fairly recent bride, Herivot Whemm. 
    As for the third skimmer - well, apparently Raldl had happened to arrive at the same time as another guest.
    He began to walk around the huts, seeking the main front door. 
    Before he reached it he stopped at the sight of a figure sprawled on an outside bench.  The man was wrapped in a tan cloak blotched with windborne stains.  His unconscious face was lined, exhausted.  Evidently, this was a traveller sodden with weariness.  Raldl was in the act of stepping around the dozing fellow when he heard a dreamy murmur.    
    "Splendidior vitro..."    
    What language was that?  It had a polished sound to it.  Doubtless some smooth ancient tongue brought to light by this travel-stained vagabond.  The man was smiling as if remembering something pleasant, or selecting a quotation to express the happiness and peace which he had found here.  It would be a pity to wake such a needy sleeper.  Raldl edged past him and knocked at the hut door as gently as he could.      
    He waited, listened in vain, and knocked fraction louder.  A throat-clearing behind him caused him to start, turn and note that the guest had propped himself up.  Flunnd, I've woken the fellow.      
    The man drawled, "Another visitor!"
    "Skimmjard, sponndar," said Raldl.  "Have the Keepers shown themselves today?"   
    "Earlier, yes."  The man nodded at the door.  "Fraydsten Nahi entered the hut, some hours back.  I hope he's still there."   
    "Why 'hope'?"   
    "Because," the stranger said, "I like to think of myself as a light sleeper."      "I'm the same, in most places," Raldl remarked, understanding the point, that this fellow didn't like the idea that the Keeper could have slipped out past him without his knowing.  "But if this Grove is what it's claimed to be, I should imagine you can lie safe while dead to the world."   
    "Point taken," replied the stranger; "only, I wouldn't want it to become a habit, to lose one's alertness.  Not a good plan on a world like this."    
    A world like this.  Raldl let the phrase pass without comment though it gave him a peculiar twinge.  "Plans might not be called for anyway, while you're resting here."
    A sudden scrunch of footsteps told him that somebody was treading around the gravelly purlieu of an arc of bushes.  Next he knew, a thickset woman tramped into sight, one brawny arm holding an enormous kettle.  Misty puffs sprayed from the spout.  Briskly she said, "I'll be right with you.  I'm almost finished." 
    The men watched her as she aimed the spout at one leafy cluster after another: puff, hiss, puff, hiss. 
    Not only did the leaves tremble in the gentle current thus created; the stems of the plants quivered, discernibly, suggesting that this bustling woman was a favourite with the grove.     
    This, realized Raldl, must be Herivot Whemm, wife to the Keeper and, by now, surely a Keeper herself.
    Presently she rested the kettle on the ground, paused to recover breath, and sized up the two new arrivals.  She summarized, "You'll be wanting Fraydsten.  His supply of tips.  Waves, directions, and such.  As for me, I'm finished with all that, I'm glad to say."   
    Momentarily unsure what best to say, Raldl looked to the stranger in case he had something...   
    The fellow began, "In that case, sponndar - "   
    "You need not call me sponndar," said the woman.  "I am unarmed." 
    Her lack of a weapon was indeed plainly evident; she was attired simply in blouse, trousers and boots, with no cloak that might have concealed holster or tube.  "And never again shall I bear sponnd," she added, causing amazement in Raldl, who had never heard an adult Uranian permanently renounce the practice of carrying a laser.
    The wanderer, likewise surprised, was prompted into some obscure dialect ejaculation that sounded like "Gdevans!"   
    Raldl found his own voice and said, "We'll talk to Fraydsten, if you'll tell us how to make an appointment with him."   
    "You'll have to wait a while," the woman replied.  "My husband is on a trance-journey and cannot greet you until he returns.  Might be a few days.  Meanwhile, make yourselves at home."  She waved at the guest huts.  "Well stocked.  Feel free.  I meanwhile am going to clean up."  She slapped at the dust on her clothing.  "Call me if you need anything."  She tramped away.   
    The other visitor said to Raldl, "No formality here, it seems!  She didn't even bother to introduce herself!  Anyhow - my name's Yadon; a Wayfarer with no fixed abode.  And yourself?"   
    "I am from Oso; my name is Raldl Otehr; previously I was a tour guide."      "Whereas now you are...?"   
    "That's what I'm here to find out."   
    Yadon mused, "It may turn out the same for me.  I have heard that a stay in one of these Crystal Groves is supposed to have such a restorative effect, that visitors are never the same again."   
    "One way or another," nodded Raldl, "I expect that's true."   
    In the lazy days that followed, friendship grew without strain between the contented hostess Herivot, the enigmatic wanderer Yadon and the former tour-guide Raldl.  They accepted each other without bothering to try to find out much about each other. 
    On no occasion did Yadon relate much detail about his adventures, extensive though they must have been; evidently this was a typical wanderer, a mere sponger of experience, who gave nothing back except for the route-statistics of his survival; thus (Raldl judged) typical of the backgrounders whose lives and deaths bubbled to sustain the foamy under-weft of civilization... 
    "Well," reflected Raldl, "this amiable drifter seems just the kind of acquaintance that suits me best during the planless trough between my past and future goals."
    After all, who could guess the future?  The history-mind Osonian could not fail to reflect that it was in a group of crystal groves such as this one that the great Hyala Movoun 1 - the First Sunnoad - had grown to maturity over eighty eras ago.  Truly that had been a trough before a wave of greatness.   
    In the colossal span of time between then and now the groves must have changed, yet apart from one obvious difference - that in the long-gone days of the First Sunnoad they had not yet evolved any insectoid fobbrakna to guard them - in their essential function they remained the same oases of peace, outside the rush of events and the currents of fate, that they had been in Hyala's day.
    "You fellows," remarked Herivot one evening while they reclined on picnic mats, "are becalmed.  You're just floating in a gorup."  A stretch of life with no fate-wave. 
    Yadon's smile was cagey, while Raldl - thinking to detect connotations of stagnant futility - objected, "Is that quite fair?  We don't know the end of the story."     
    "You think," said Herivot, "that I'm accusing you of wasting your time.  But you needn't worry - you can afford to 'waste' some time!  That's the point of being here."   
    "True," replied Raldl.  "After all, I'm still on my first life."   
    "And all lives contain false starts."   
    Yadon said, "Herivot, you're becoming a sage in your own right.  I thought you were leaving that to Fraydsten."   
    "Yes," chuckled a man's voice behind them, "be careful, chremn."    
    They all turned and looked up at the Keeper who had emerged from his bout of seclusion: Fraydsten Nahi, who had won renown as the Sjaggalom, the Spurner of Waves.   
    Like his wife, Fraydsten Nahi wore no cloak and no laser.  He was not a big man, about the same size and build as Herivot, and yet his vague expression bleared as if he were surveying other people from a height that made them hazy.  However he was amicable enough as he sat down with them and asked why Yadon and Raldl had come to the Grove.   
    Yadon explained, "Coming from an outpost in the far wilderness - where, it matters little - I found myself overwhelmed by the sights of Syoom.  I heard about the Torh Yhrviy and thought to myself that the Grove would be the place of rest I needed.  Which has proved true.  I didn't come to consult anyone, and I'm about ready to go on my way."   
    "Whither?"   
    "That depends.  Any ideas, anyone?"   
    Raldl said, "Go see Oso.  The notorious Mad City.  Former Mad City, I mean."   
    "Sounds interesting enough!  I'll give it serious thought," Yadon said.   
    "And you, Raldl Otehr?" asked the Keeper.  "Your reasons for coming here?"   
    "All kinds of reasons," Raldl replied.  He thought:  If I were a simple wanderer like Yadon, who can rest awhile and then move on the same as before, I too would be ready to leave now... but for better or worse, I insist that I am an achiever.  Aloud he said, "I came for a private consultation." 

8

They sat facing each other in the Keeper's study: Fraydsten and Raldl, and no one else.      
    The Keeper, having listened to Raldl's story, said kindly, "You have been under some nasty pressure, sponndar."   
    "Thank you for seeing it that way," sighed the Osonian.  "I was afraid you would not believe that some people in authority really are scared of me.  It's hard enough for me to believe it myself: that they really do fear that I might revive the Mad City, merely by tracing the pattern its thoughts made."   
    "Well, try to look at it from their point of view, and maybe you'll concede that the way their minds work is understandable," soothed the Keeper.  "Because thoughts function as wave-patterns, and to trace a pattern is to reproduce it, the question of revival is bound to be asked.  Come to that, it's not clear how one might explain to a nervous layman that the Mad City could not happen again.  Make allowances, Raldl."       
    It was firmly said, alerting Raldl to scrutinize the other's face, which wore a sympathetic but serious expression.
    "I realize," Raldl replied with care, "that I have alarmed people unnecessarily in some of my tours.  On the other hand" - justification came in an easier flow - "I have also worked to get people to merge their little worries into a perspective larger than themselves.  That's the value of it, and they know it, which is why they bother to come."   
    "Commendable," said Fraydsten.  "To become preoccupied with something bigger than oneself, so that one may eventually borrow its bigness FOR oneself - "    
    He's leading up to something, realized the Osonian with alarm.
    Don't send me back to where I was, whatever your plan may be, he wordlessly beseeched, don't send me back to where I was -    
    It was as if Fraydsten had read his guest's mind:  "I know a cure for your feeling of being let down, of being made a fool of."    
    Now how did he jump to that?     
    Continuing, the Keeper said: "Your fate-wave ran into a trough of muough, did it not?"   
    Muough: a word which Raldl so far had not dared to use.  Cosmic evil, mockery of nature, flouting of natural law. 
    To connect all that with a failed love-affair seemed like an absurd piece of verbal inflation!  However, if the Keeper of the Grove encouraged the idea -   
    "Your cure, Keeper F-N?"   
    "I advise," said Fraydsten, "that you go and see the reolues."   
    The dancing rocks.  A taken-for-granted natural wonder. 
    "Go," repeated Fraydsten, "and get your answer from them."    
    But why?  Why the reolues?  Why that particular freak of landscape?    
    All right, they were a sight one ought to see, some time in one's life, and, as it happened, they are situated at no great distance from the Grove. It wouldn't be a long journey.
    "Oh," he suddenly said, "I get it.  To relax one's perspective, get things in proportion, go see the inexplicable things that make all else seem easy to grasp."   
    At this point some narrators put a sinister gleam in the eyes of Fraydsten; others put it there the following morn, as he and Herivot wave goodbye to Raldl Otehr; we, however, have portrayed the Keeper as a good man, without guile, and guilty only of an appalling mistake.

9

It was pleasant to be engaged in an easy, possibly useful mission; pleasant to follow a piece of advice which ought to make sense. 
    To cure his former discontent, what could be simpler, thought Raldl, than to go see the reolues?  Nature's trouble-spot must surely shrink his own conundrums in perspective!   
    Actually the trip might be superfluous, since he rather felt that his stay in the Grove had already gained him sufficient perspective.  Still, no harm in an extra boost of enlightenment.  Some might deem it possible to get too much, but to Raldl, right now, to get more of a good thing, or an additional brand of it, could hardly fail to profit him.  So now, speeding once more across the open plain, having imbibed a good dose of inner stillness, he welcomed its counterpoint in the wider, clamant silence of the giant planet.  Somewhere ahead of him the tempting cry of the beyond lured him towards that ever-untamed horizon which forever tugs the adventurous mind.  On this vast globe, exploits await the adventurer in every direction, and Wayfaring - a restless urge in the blood of all the Nenns of Ooranye - is the career to which other careeers must at times succumb.  No matter what particular occupation may employ the majority of one's days, Wayfaring is the basis of them all. 
    Between the Grove and the reolues stretch about one hundred and eighty easy miles.  Raldl would cover them in less than two hours.  After that, having seen the so-called "dancing rocks", he'd return equipped (if the Keeper of the Grove was to be believed) with a better outlook.  A more decisive mood.   
    What that might entail, he did not yet need to know.  Let the future frown its mystery for another two hours!  Afterwards, thought Raldl, when I'm ready, I'll decide about my career and about Lyan Zett.   
    I can tell, meanwhile, what has been wrong with me.  The piece of unwanted dust or grit in my head, is the stupid, disproportionate fear that I had been made a fool of.  It's high time that I became man enough to reject such an obsession.  Let fools - real fools - worry about such junk; it's unworthy of me.
    Again the thought occurs, that I don't need to undertake this journey at all; I could turn round and head back to Oso right now.
    On the other hand, why not finish what I've started?  If for no other reason than out of respect for Keeper Fraydsten Nahi of the Torh Yhrviy, who advised me to go, I ought to press on.  The trip won't take up a lot of my time, and it will be interesting to see the reolues.  Never, in my journeys so far, have I yet observed any such singularity with my own eyes.   
    Not that it will be at maximum when I get there.  Fraydsten emphasized that it hardly ever is.  Most of the time, it's a torpid singularity.  Only a very few spectators have witnessed the dancing rocks' full outrage; to avoid disappointment I'd better keep that in mind.  On those rare occasions when all scientific propriety is eclipsed, so that you get the full gaping delirium of distilled madness, then you get the rarest show; but even if I'm not that lucky, maybe I'll see enough to pop some of the 'grit' out of my head.   
    ...The odometer on Raldl's skimmer showed that the distance travelled was about right, and sure enough he noted a furlong-wide splotch of grey on the plain a mile ahead; he decelerated and rode his skimmer cautiously to within a few yards of the area of subdued colour.  Here his spine began to tingle.   
    We who tell this tale, and who hope to do it moral justice, wish to be fair.  While evoking sympathy for bewildered voyagers, and proud though we are to be Uranian, we also wish to avoid over-statement.  Rather than take this opportunity to proclaim our world's uniqueness, we shall quote the Terran proverb:  "If it isn't hurting, it isn't working" - a principle which, we suspect, applies to any planetary culture.    
    Raldl advised himself with a phrase of that sort as he queasily suffered the sight of the churning gralm.   
    Like lumps that seethed in boiling stew, the rocks in the gralm were partly visible, maybe not "dancing" but surfacing and diving and swimming about on a level with the plain's granular surface.  Or (a worse way to look at it) those rocks were shuffling.  I must not think such plok, thought Raldl, mopping his brow. 
    The spectacle grated on him more harshly than he had expected.  "Please, can I go now?" he heard himself mutter.  Surely all this was non-relatable to his life.  Surely, for him it was a merely adventitious, meaningless, purposeless encounter.  The best thing he could do would be to go.  Get out of sight of the shufflings; don't remain an instant longer; the sight was NOT doing him any good.  Certainly he had no need to remain with regard to his supposed need for perspective, to obtain extra wisdom and experience in order to get rid of his silly old grit of obsession.  Why, he could deal with that issue himself, perfectly well. 
    No, wait -    
    It was true, the trip here had worked.  Admit it, Raldl!
    For, come to think of it, his mind was clear.  All the wisdom in the world could not have cleared it so smartly.  All those self-centred previous complaints about being made a fool of were of absolutely no importance in comparison with the shriek of violated natural law cavorting now in front of his eyes.  The scene offended, but in so doing it had cured his mind!     
    So, all right, job done!  He could retreat with honour from this dismal place!  He reached for the starting lever.     
    His hand froze on the way to it.   
    The unspeakable had been waiting for him.  The rocks gave voice, while the parcel of obsession, the blob in his head, capered in response to their call.  Muough, ...muough, ...muough -  with swelling tone they rose out of the gralm in concerted formation.
    It was the law-breaking summons, the anti-nature wrongness that was answered by the wrongness within Raldl, the side of him that collaborated, that hailed the rearing mass.  He gazed at it with that sense of recognition by which evil answers to evil.
    Now the rocks at last did begin to dance, no longer merely surface-shuffling but wheeling in the air: slabs which weighed scores of tons cavorting in revolting disregard for the limits of the possible. 
    By permission it was enabled, by the Adversary of rightful order, who made the rocks swoop and soar in slow churn-churn-churn to matched the churning within Raldl, who guiltily listened: "HwaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAaaaaa..."     
    Nothing figurative about the wail.  With his own physical ears he heard its reverberating sheets of sound. 
    Hwaaa - sym-pa-thy - at - last - 
    "Let - me - go!" panted Raldl. 
    The wail became louder.
    HWAAAA - you - are - not - all-ow-ing - your-self -    
    True, true, he was not allowing himself to depart.  That was because the worst in him did not wish to.  The traitor side of him could not tear himself away.  He gasped in a cracked voice: "What do you want of me?"   
    HWAAAA - I - in-tend - to - do - some-thing - HWAAAA - for - you - HWAAAA - you - know - who - I - am - I - the - World - Spirit - Thremdu - HWAAAA   
    If that was the truth, then the truth was a despair-lined hole.  But it was not the truth.  It couldn't be.  Raldl instantaneously knew he had to give it the lie.  Out loud.   
    "No you're not Thremdu," he managed to say.  It was the bravest thing a mortal could do, to stand before the Singularity and deny its claim.
    You - quib-bler - HWAAAA - I - am - a - frag-ment - of - Thremdu -     
    "Ex-fragment, you mean!  You are Xolch!"    
    An etheric cackle retorted gaily:   
    I - am - proud - to - be - no - longer - bound -
    It helped, that Raldl Otehr, erudite antiquarian, well knew the mythic fact of Xolchunnur the Vutchar, the rejected Fragment, the prehistorically cast-out portion doomed for all the subsequent aeons never to regain its oneness with the planetary intelligence of Ooranye.  Yet scolarship and erudition were not essential here.  Even somebody who knew no history would not have been deceived for an instant into believing the lie that here was the presence of Thremdu the Entire, the Uranian World Spirit.  A far lesser man than Raldl would have discerned the truth.  Raldl's credit was to have found the courage-of-the-moment to blurt it out.  He thus, in the long run, saved himself from complicity.
    Nevertheless the thing had not finished with him.   
    I - can - show - you - how - to - better - your-self - Raldl - my - friend -   
    Perhaps the thing did possess possibly usable powers.  Raldl reflected that Xolch, having split away, might indeed have retained or even increased some capabilities which, by now, might even surpass in some respects those available to the World Spirit. 
    After all, I've never heard of Thremdu juggling rocks like this.    
    As though welcoming the flippancy of this thought, an especially massive cuboidal rock, the size of two large wardrobes, left the circling swarm and glided over to Raldl, to hover about ten yards from his head.
    Vibrating in the breeze from the other rocks, it hung tremulously, a pensile fruit from an invisible tree of power. 
    "All you need do" - a smoother speech, now as if spoken by the boulder, fondled Raldl's ears - "is to make a small down-payment, and you will be richly rewarded.  In the coin of understanding, pay with your commitment, and you will see the worth of my offer."   
    A backward wrench of memory then forced Raldl Otehr's mind's eye to suffer a re-play of the scene which he most longed to be erased from his past.  If only I hadn't let her see the way my face fell!  It had happened in her lounge.  It had been her turn to cook a meal for both of them.  Afterwards, in an armchair, she had said, "I've been thinking about you.  Thinking," she added as her eyes twinkled at his melting look, "about what to put in my report."   
    I COULD NOT STAND THE NOTION THAT SHE COULD PUT ME IN ANY "REPORT".   Disastrously, my face fell.  I thus let her see how I'd been hit.  I couldn't help the reaction, couldn't save face, couldn't manage to be the slightest bit suave...     
    "And that was it, wasn't it?" said Xolch.  "A moment, and all was ruined.  Something must be done about such unacceptable fate-lines, don't you agree?  It's the same for both of us, Raldl.  For let me tell you, I can vouch for similar unacceptable phenomena in my own existence.  What has been allotted to us is simply not good enough, eh?  But we'll solve it, you and I."   
    Lulled towards this wish-fulfilment dream, Raldl's half-drowned rational self cried, "But look here, we can't create our own fate-lines.  If we could have what we want with a snap of the fingers, fates would not be fates."   
    "Bahhh!" Xolchunnur hissed, "though we cannot 'create' the lines, we can select them."     
    Raldl had to listen.   
    In intimate confidence the voice continued to explain, insist, persuade.  The voice now was close and level, utterly reasonable in tone, no matter how momentous its claims.  "We can choose at will out of the infinity of lines.  Pick whichever you like, seize your right to dance among them all, side-stepping, evading, grabbing what's best for your dignity and well-being, and thus you'll assert your right to a decent fate.  - Which brings us," continued the voice after Raldl had still found no words, "to the down-payment."   
    Recovering his own voice at last, the Osonian quavered: "In what currency must you be paid?" 
    "Commitment!  Did I not say so?  You make the payment to yourself," was the silken reply, "thus glueing yourself to the exercise of that freedom which my power reaches out to offer to you.  Then no longer will you be limited to whatever humiliations destiny may dish out.  With my hand of power to support you, you will straddle all the lines, putting your weight where you choose."   
    Feebly, Raldl cried: "I don't believe it." 
    The air chuckled around him.  "Too good to be true?  That's what Thremdu thinks.  Thremdu, the World Spirit, who does nothing except exist as a sort of thermostat of the world's balance.  Balance!  All right for those on top!  But for those trampled underneath, for those of us kicked around by the currents, it's not so good, is it, Raldl my friend?"   
    Terrible temptation gripped the man.  He could only flail against it with a crazy insult -
    "This straddling, Xolchunnur, what has it done for you?  Tell me, O straddler-of-all-the-lines, what have YOU been able to do for yourself apart from perform a rock-dancing trick?"   
    Exhausted after these words had left his mouth, he half expected the leading rock to precipitate upon him and crush him to the ground.  Once again, though, the Vutchar sounded certain.
    "The action of the rocks has the one merit, that it affirms that I am unsubdued.  A bleak achievement, true, but I am always on the look-out for more."   
    "And I am the 'more'?"   
    "You say that in a tone of wonder, you small-voiced human.  Consider, is it not reasonable that you will help me by helping yourself?  Not vastly, just an inchy bit further towards retrieving my greatness by achieving your own.  Greatness is my food, and I must cultivate it in others.  If I fail to do this, I suffer pangs, pangs inconceivable to your merely protoplasmic stomach.  The reolues?  The dancing rocks?  They barely keep me alive.  From my merger with this rock-wheeling singularity I do no more than dance defiance at that World Spirit who cut me off.  That is nothing to the uproar I would gladly cause, and which I may yet cause if you, Tyoyg-man, assist me - "
    Tyoyg - collaborator with darkness - but -
    Raldl acquiesced in the dream-come-true. 

10

From behind a desk, the Noad eyed the four figures seated in front of him, whom he had summoned to the palace.    
    He thought: by Thremdu, they'd better have guessed why I have called them here.
    In recent days Noad Arlok Sed of Oso appeared to have aged.  His weathered skin matching the grey fabric of his cloak, and now he impressed his people not with the dynamism of yore but with the rocklike stolidity of his presence. 
    "Sponndarou," he began, "hard though it is for me to admit this, I have to some extent lost touch."   
    As he spoke his eyes flashed to fix upon the glossy Clsarmwa Trellem, head of the Secret Service.     
    Rightly taking this to be an accusation as well as a confession, Clsarmwa flashed back: "I admit the same - otherwise you, Noad, would know more."      With a heavy nod the ruler continued: "As for the crisis concerning which I have summoned you, we can skip any 'briefing'; agreed?"   
    They murmured assent.  This was one test they passed.     
    "I called it 'crisis'," the Noad continued, "and yet we appear to have kept it below that level so far.  My one concern is to keep it that way.  The pot may simmer for all I care, so long as it does not boil over."   
    "You may need to knock it over," opined a deep voice.   
    Veering rightwards to the figure at that end of the row, the Noad's gaze came to rest on the craggy visage of fleet commander Adaan Merreb.  "Regrettably, omzyr A-M," the Noad agreed, "it may indeed come to the use of pre-emptive force."   
    That was a condition of the post he held.  During the thousands of days of his reign he had never failed in his trust, and to keep that record pure he would if necessary take lethal action; and the omzyr, he well knew, would back him up against an internal threat as loyally as he would against an external foe. Utterly devoted to the maintenance of order, Adaan Merreb was a pillar of the State.  In fact many people had wondered why the Noad had not selected this formidable commander as his heir.   
    At the other end of the row sat the contrasting figure of a flouncy woman, suited in garish green under her blue cloak: the adventuress whom, to the amazement of many, was the Noad's actual choice of successor.  Now he addressed her:     
    "Daon Kedin, you look like you have not a care in the world."
    Adaan Merreb chipped in with, "I expect she's about to tell us that the situation is not as bad as we fear it to be."   
    The woman, with a tilted side-glance at the omzyr, replied: "You shan't need to unleash the omzyr's forces, Noad Arlok.  That's my guess anyway; although, of course, if there's widespread panic, then yes, you'll have to clamp down.  What we must do is prioritize the avoidance of panic.  We can surely do that merely by telling the truth."   
    "Really?" demanded the omzyr.  "Truth will put everything right?"   
    "In the long run, yes."   
    "In the very long run," the omzyr sneered.
    "Clsarmwa?" demanded the Noad.
    "Yes, sponndar Noad?" replied the Secret Service chief.
    "What stage have you reached?"
    "Here," and Clsarmwa rested her hand on the shoulder of the girl to her left, "is the Agent you asked me to bring, sponndar Noad.  She knows the culprit personally.  She believes in him."   
    "And does that mean we should worry more, or less, than Daon Kedin advises?"   
    "My agent is able to give us some reassuring facts, which corroborate the Daon's view."   
    The eyes of the Noad now rested upon the girl-Agent, Lyan Zett, who flushed at her big moment, knowing that if she played her part well on this occasion the Service might live up to its name: the Ipitsi Yeen, the "Misgivings-Eraser". 
    Dry-mouthed, Lyan began:   
    "Eighteen days ago, on 10,543,837 Ac, the tour guide Raldl Otehr returned to Oso from his stay at the Tor Yhrviy where he had stayed for a few days to consult the Keeper of the Grove, Fraydsten Nahi..."   
    The Noad intervened: "Do we know why he went there?"   
    "I visited the Grove and questioned the Keeper about his purpose," the girl said, "and it seems Raldl just wanted to ask advice about how to cope with pressure - the pressure of disapproval - " her tone tautened - "that's to say, his feeling of being hated or snubbed or condemned by those who don't like his tour-guide activities." 
    "Pressure from us, in other words," said the Noad grimly.   
    "Deal with that point, Lyan," urged Clsarma.   
    "Fraydsten the Keeper told me he sympathised with Raldl," said the girl, "but that his advice to him had been to put up with the way things were, and to rise above it all.  It should be no surprise - the Keeper had explained - that Raldl's guided tours, though well-meant, roused fears: the nightmare era of the Mad City being such a sensitive subject.  Fraydsten finally urged Raldl to gain a peaceful perspective on his personal wrongs, by paying a visit to a far vaster natural wrongness, namely, the singularity of the reolues."   
    Nodding at this speech, the Noad said, "And it remains for us to decide whether we share the Keeper's view.  Now, Clsarmwa, tell me: What are the objective conclusions of the Service, concerning the rumoured risk that this Raldl Otehr might revive the Mad City?"   
    Finally, the blunt question had been asked.   
    No one in Oso was fully immune to the fumes of panic that might arise from such bluntness, but each of those present possessed a mind capable of wielding derision to blow back the descending pall of fear.   
    Clsarma said firmly:  "We've sifted all that, time and again.  No such danger exists."
    "So the intelligence of the Mad City is dead beyond recall?" the Noad asked to make sure.
    "Yes.  To revive it is simply not possible."   
    "Fine," said the Noad; "only I like to hear the reason."   
    "Entropy.  You can't revive a dead Ghepion any more than you can unscramble an egg."   
    "You mean," said the Noad, "that though all the physical ingredients may still be in existence, the vital ingredient was the pattern, and that was destroyed.  Forgive my insistence upon this question - you see," the Noad went on, "we ourselves, we humans, every time we sleep or die, lose our pattern of conciousness and yet we return afterwards..."   
    "Ghepions don't sleep, nor do they reincarnate," Clsarmwa riposted.   
    "All right, so we'll take it as settled."   
    With that, the Noad looked round the room, sensing a relaxation as if, inanely, the statement of a truth made it more "truly true".     
    "Next we must additionally decide," the Noad went on, "to what extent we should make allowances for what the people may think.  Fears have their own reality.  They are facts in themselves, no matter how ill-founded.  I'll confess that I myself am not immune: I am far from easy about what Raldl Otehr has been doing since his return.  Historians may tell us that Ghepions can't reincarnate, yet rumours still spread of an imminent revival, a new bid for domination to be launched by a re-awakened Mad City, and the worst dread is that this time, having learned from the mistakes it make in its last life, it will win.  That's the story now doing the rounds of our city.  I have no idea how or why that tour-guide has been planting such seeds of terror, but it is for us to decide what to do about it."   
    The omzyr said, "Can we not simply... sequester this person?"   
    "A tempting move, Adaan Merreb," replied the Noad, "only, I suspect we may have left it too late for that."   
    "What?" spluttered the fleet commander.  "Why 'too late'?"
    "I might not have needed to call this meeting," smiled the Noad, "if I were sure of the answer.  Raldl Otehr has got something, whatever it is, and my political instincts tell me that he has it on a hair-trigger."   
    "And my instincts tell me," the omzyr smiled grimly, "that if he dared to make a fight of it, we'd win."   
    "It could be a costly win.  Which is why I wish to avoid any crude move by us that could push him to a disastrous action.  But if you insist otherwise, omzyr A-M, you're welcome to take my place."   
    "No thank you, Noad!"
    "Then over to you, Daon Kedin Kanad," said the ruler, turning to his heir, and remarked:  "It's time we all knew what's 'in the folds of your cloak'."
    She began, "We must use our human resources."   
    "Portentous, Kedin!  Come then, flourish your find."   
    Like some sacred burglar who has been given impunity to swagger off with sackfuls of loot in broad daylight, Kedin was apt to steal attention and sway onlookers to approve her every reckless plan -
    "I'm gleaning more and more," she began, "from the section of the public that goes on Raldl's guided tours, ideas which could mean, not that the Mad City is about to return, but that something quite as bad is about to be grafted onto our history.  For instance - some youngsters are re-defining the adjective 'mad' as a compliment - "   
    "Pranks.  Jokes."  Adaan Merreb was dismissive.   
    "No, they're not being funny; they mean it."  She gazed around the room.  "I sense that nobody here feels like laughing, either."   
    "Any other evidence?" asked the Noad.   
    Kedin shook her head.  "Just the fact that Hlor Humma is a public utility that can be accessed by anyone; no study has been made of how far it may be possible to - as one might say - co-operate creatively with the Brain."
    "All right," sighed the Noad, "give us your suggestion, Kedin.  Earlier you said, prioritise the avoidance of panic.  Now tell us how."   
    "Fight popularity with popularity.  Set one exceptional individual against another."   
    "You have that pleased look," said the Noad.  "You've netted someone."        "I've bagged a living legend, who is waiting outside."   
    "Bring him in, Daon."   
    Kedin sauntered to the door, opened it, beckoned and ushered into the room a man of middle age, tall and rugged, with the easy stride and the far look of a seasoned voyager.  A fine sight, but then, Uranian society is replete with such men in the dignified prime of their adventurous lives; however, this one's 'far look' was further; in some indescribable sense it cloaked him with an extraordinary aura, prompting the Noad to recall certain recent outgrowths of popular legend.   
    "You are Yadon, the Starsider?"   
    "I am," came the soft-spoken reply.   
    "Do you know why you have been brought here?"  A spark of hope was kindling in the Noad's mind.
    "From what your Daon has told me, it is to do with the clamour surrounding Raldl Otehr." 
    The tone that mantled the words was one that conveyed patience and ease.  Here was a man who could learn anything and worry about nothing.  To listen to his voice was to feel mysteriously relaxed and hopeful.   
    Daon Kedin added: "Yadon has already met our problem tour-guider Raldl Otehr.  They were both at the Grove."   
    "Starsider," said the Noad, "your folkloric fame has preceded you, and my Daon, who has brought you here, is wearing a triumphant look; you haven't been in Syoom for more than a few hundred days but already you are a hero of fantastic tales.  And yet words are cheap, and plentiful."   
    Yadon shrugged, "It is as you say."
    "But what do you say?" persisted the Noad.  "What do you say about what people say about you - that you have slain a monster city, spoken with the World Spirit, defeated an invasion from the Ringed Planet..."
    "I say," said Yadon, "that it all amounts to further demands on me."
    "At any rate," smiled the Noad, "given the current state of affairs in Oso, I reckon you should be invited to our counsels.  What do you say?  Will you help us?"   
    "You're considering," guessed Yadon, glancing from Noad to Daon and back, "whether to arrest Raldl Otehr?"   
    "We are - but we hope it won't come to that.  We dislike having to trammel a crowd-puller.  Besides, perhaps in this case we no longer dare."   
    Yadon nodded.  "Suppression might add further resonance to his cause."   
    "That's often the way, isn't it?  Especially when the past flexes its muscle."
    "A case of anamnesis?"   
    "Remembrance of details from a previous existence," agreed Noad Arlok, raising his brows in further respect, "can be a potent source of trouble.  But the situation is more serious still.  Actually we can rule out anamnesis here, since Raldl is a first-lifer: and without previous incarnation he can't have developed any resonance with the Mad City."   
    "Then what's the danger?" asked Yadon bluntly.  "What are you worried about?"   
    The Noad's fist crashed onto the desk.  "Broken skies!" he ejaculated, "can't you sense it?  Do you require a volumetric analysis?"   
    "I perceive the stress you're under," the Starsider said, calm as ever.   
    Mopping his brow, the Noad said, "Sorry for the outburst.  We're faced with a rurrup."  Hard word to say - bound to be hard, to mention a something-that-should-not-be-inquired-into - but somehow Yadon's presence made it easier.   
    "I'll see what I can do," replied the man from Olhoav. 
    Turning with a relaxed sigh to his Secret Service chief, the Noad then said, "I must now borrow your Agent"; and to the girl herself he said, "Lyan, you will go with Yadon on the next guided tour."   
    With the order given, the Noad sat back, a peaceful expression overspreading his face.  "We've made a start," he said.

11

Lyan Zett awoke next morning unable to remember ever having felt so good.      
    She enjoyed the afterglow of a fascinating dream in which she had had the freedom to float, bodiless, inside a giant computer.  She and it had conversed in a fluent exchange of popular slang!  It must have symbolised, she supposed, the better sort of Ghepion: the opposite of the Mad City.  An excellent sign, this, and quite understandable in view of what was scheduled for today.   
    Her limbs fairly twitched with eagerness as she sprang out of bed to greet the morning, which was due to roar ahead with the Great Show.  Broken skies! she felt as lively as a ten-tentacled murcling gnadd.  From the window she could see knots of folk whose gestures and springy stances told her it was not just she, it was the entire city that rejoiced at the lifting of a cloud of fear.
    For good reason.  The tour fixed for today, 10,543,856 of the Actinium Era, was to be more than a tour.  The most lavish historical reconstruction ever organized by Raldl Otehr, it was billed as a final assurance.     
    The announcement had come hard on the heels of the Noad's crisis meeting and had been greeted with huge relief.  Permission had been given - gladly given - for the kind of colourful, innocuous, popular pageant, the promise of which must waft relief throughout Oso's atmosphere.  The pressure-front of that sense of relief had surged over and smothered all the unease which, in the hearts of many (Lyan Zett included), had previously shadowed their thoughts of Raldl's plans.  Whether the smothered concern retained some vestige which might re-surface when its moment came, or whether it had dissolved for good, Lyan neither knew nor cared: now was enough of a marvel.
    She'd better get ready so that she could set off early enough to walk to the Bleftal Frustum.  Chances were, the crowds would be too immense to allow her a place to park a skimmer, so it would be better to walk. 
    Next she remembered that she would have to walk in any case, because she was supposed to be calling for the Starsider, Yadon, on the way.     
    Ah yes, Yadon.  Mustn't forget the fellow.  No matter that the situation had been transformed by the reassurance which Raldl had given the authorities; the Noad's instruction remained explicit.  "Lyan," the ruler had said, "you will go with Yadon on the next guided tour."  She clicked her tongue.  Entirely pointless, now, to bother with the wandering stranger.  Yesterday, at the palace conference, it had seemed a great coup to produce him, but since then his presence had become redundant.  Oh well - she shrugged - an undertaking was an undertaking.  She and Yadon would attend the Show together.  Thus she would have kept her word; and besides, Yadon was a man whose company, in normal circumstances, she'd have found quite absorbing.  Only on a day as momentous as this would her attention most likely be drawn away from him.     
    Twenty minutes later she knocked at the Olhoavan's lodgings.  He answered the door straightaway; he, too, must have been ready early - but not (to judge from his relaxed demeanour and polite smile) either from haste or from excitement.  "Skimmjard, sponndar L-Z," he greeted her.
    "Come on, Yadon, it's the big day!" fizzed Lyan.   
    The man's rugged features remained calm.  "I'm still not too clear why the Noad expects that I may resolve this business."   
    "Oh, forget about all that," replied Lyan.  "Today there's nothing left to resolve.  All's sure to be all right now."   
    "Well, thank you for coming to fetch me anyway," said Yadon, falling into step beside her.  "Where exactly are we going?"   
    "Where everybody's going!  The Bleftal Frustum."   
    Still in his soft-spoken way, the Starsider remarked:  "Not everybody's going straight there, it seems."  In more than one direction an increasingly audible tramping of boots, with the developing undertone of a chant of voices, surrounded Lyan and Yadon as they emerged from the lodging-house alleys.     
    Now into wider streets, overhung by palatial globes which dangled from the walkways that bellied like hammocks, and which in turn were connected to longer bridge-spans and aerial skimways, came both pedestrian and airborne processions, headed along various routes which did not all look as though they led to the Bleftal Frustum.   
    "It's city-wide," Lyan explained.   
    Yadon was looking up and from side to side, doubtless trying to observe how the processions interlaced.  "What does it all mean, I wonder."   
    "Ask this one," suggested Lyan gaily.  "Look, this is Sehartix, coming our way."  A company of about thirty youngsters was marching to funnel into the same route she and Yadon were on.  The beat of their chant grew heavier and became verbally recognizable:

Patterns of greatness
Sliced the air...

Patterns of greatness
Sliced the air...

As they repeated the words, they wheeled their arms in gestures which might have been exaggerations of those used by Raldl Otehr to indicate points of interest on his tours.    
    Lyan matched her step to his to that of the youth named Sehartix who led the march.  He and Lyan greeted each other with the same triumphant, sing-song tone.  "Brinty-flim, Sehartix!"  "Brinty-flim, Lyan!" replied the marcher, his smile fixed in petrified good-humour.   
    "'Brinty-flim'?" queried Yadon.   
    Sehartix peered at him over Lyan's head.  "You are a stranger in Oso?"   
    "This is Yadon the Starsider!" bubbled Lyan.  "Yadon, brinty-flim is the watchword for today's Show."   
    "And it means...?"   
    Sehartix intervened, "It's our slang for argue either way.  We can't lose."  
    The procession began to snake upwards along a ramp which threaded between a line of towers.  Sehartix resumed his chant, joined by Lyan.  Yadon alone kept quiet.  Lyan glanced at him in momentary concern, but one look at his thoughtful face assured her that he was by means bored...

12

...Yadon surveyed the urban vista from the ramp's ascending vantage.  More and more chanting lines of people came into view.  Just for him alone they formed a picture that was secretly comparable, in his Terran memory, to caterpillars crawling in their myriads along the branches of a shrub, though here they 'crawled' along streets and walkways and skimways. 
    He next began to note, between the towers of those walkways and skimways, and the vertices of buildings, lights that flashed and leaped in time with the rhythm of the chants.  These hypnotic phenomena had scant appeal to either of his identities, Olhoavan or Terran; he shook his head at them and wondered about that odd term 'Brinty-flim' - 'Arguing either way'.  So far, he'd heard no argument voiced at all.
    However his ear did begin to catch a variation in the chant.  Patterns of greatness / Sliced the air...   sometimes became rearranged with "slice" - in the present tense - instead of "sliced".     
    "You're switching to the present," he remarked aloud to Sehartix.   
    "Vivid, vivid!"   
    Was that supposed to count as a helpful response?  Yadon firmed his lips; what was the point of asking questions?  His long time on this world had taught him the fatalistic, the Uranian way of acceptance, the surrender to inevitable mystery.     
    On the other hand he had not forgotten that yesterday the government of this city had asked him for his help; which meant that some people did think you could do something about stuff.     
    The chanting caterpillar-formations were now being funnelled into a much larger general shape, an illusion of a city-wide amphitheature.  This had been created from selective illumination of other structures, augmented by bright persistence-of-vision scudders across gaps.     
    Yadon peered down at the focus of it all, now coming into view: an octagonal space which surrounded a truncated pyramid. Lyan ceased her chant long enough to say, "That's our destination, the Bleftal Frustum.  Look, see the vlomboz!"   
    "What - those frozen..." drips like icing-sugar, he silently finished the sentence in English.     
    Lyan excitedly specified, "Yes, the historic meltings.  The relics of the catastrophe of Era 50.  What better place for the Show?"  She blinked at him, puzzled by his apparent lack of enthusiasm.   
    "And has the Show, the real Show, started?"   
    "Well, what do you think, Yadon?"   
    "I suspect it has not yet really begun."  He pointed downwards at the lone, central figure standing on the steps of the Frustum.  "The chanting will have to stop first.  Otherwise there's no way that he will be heard."
    Lyan Zett, instead of tartly answering the moody Starsider, bade a gayer farewell to Sehartix:  "This is where we leave your procession.  See you later, maybe."  Sehartix gave a casual wave and he and his procession marched on past to pursue their widening spiral, while Lyan took Yadon's arm and swerved onto a ramp that led down towards the Frustum.   
    Yadon asked, "Won't there be a crush?"   
    "No, we're better organized than that.  Look, see: Raldl's not being mobbed.  He's the pivot, the fulcrum; we'd be stupid not to allow him his space." 
    "Hmm.  Before you start chanting again, Lyan, can you explain..."
    "Can't you tell," snapped the exasperated girl, "this is a clean-up!"  Yadon's politely quizzical expression spurred her to additional efforts.  "We're going through the Mad City's motions, to mock them!  To show that the pattern can be made by our will!  That's our defiance of the old shame."
    To her relief, he nodded, "I get you.  It's your modern side of the brinty-flim.  Your argument, this time."   
    "At last!  About time you got it!"   
    "However..."   
    "And before you say it's dangerous, remember, the Mad City's brain was scrambled, it's dead and gone.  No copying can revive a dead thing, so relax and enjoy our celebration, Yadon... oh, you still look as though you want to say something."   
    He shook his head, but then he said it.   
    "I fear you've been had."   
    "What does that mean?  I don't know that language."   
    Switching back from English, Yadon with a mild grimace said, "Don't mind me.  I'm new here."  Lyan scowled back, and let the matter go, and once more joined with the general chant:

...patterns of greatness / slice the air -

    Amid a dense crowd they reached the city floor.  United with the chanting multitude (except that Yadon kept his mouth shut) they at first moved along one of the disciplined, dignified, well-spaced lines of people.  Then, however, Yadon quietly diverged, to weave inward towards a quieter central region, towards the eye of the cyclone.
    Lyan, after some hesitation, and deciding she'd better keep an eye on him, followed.
    In the inmost zone, the hundred or so folk who occupied the floor were not chanting, but silently shuffling, while Tour Guide Raldl Otehr gazed down at them from the central steps...

13

...Raldl's awareness blazed with hallucinatory alertness to the rush of time, the minutes hissing past like air against the cowl of a speeding skimmer.  Unstoppable, the countdown!  Destiny's approach-velocity!  Inevitable, the resolve that seeped up through the soles of his boots: the sure comfort bestowed by the city's well-loved Ghepion Brain, Hlorr Humma, to persuade everyone to embrace the city's fabric and its people in one throbbing pageant.
    Doubtless the legs of the shufflers in the inner ring surrounding Raldl Otehr enjoyed similar support pumping up through flesh and bone, although the Tour Guide himself, whose privilege was to stand still, had to be allowed the calmest dose of surety. 
    Perhaps the shuffling inner-ringers were not quite completely happy; perhaps it was to be expected that the intelligentsia would suffer some itchy anxiety.  Nevertheless, whatever unease they might have, Raldl had picked them all for their roles; they were his selected components for the cerebral administration of the new order.     
    Except - who was this?  A dusty-cloaked lounger?  Leaning against a pillar: a fellow whom he had not picked.
    After a moment, Raldl recognized him.  It was the wanderer whom he had befriended at the Crystal Grove.     
    Carefree, that jaunt!  Thinking back to it, for a few moments of odd sadness Raldl squeezed his eyes shut, regretting the unlikelihood of a return to the Grove.  His future held no more promise of such peace.  Never mind!  Who knows, perhaps this Yadon fellow might be recruited!     
    With that idea in mind, Raldl sent a pulse of his thought - or imagined he did so - down through his own boots and into the sub-floor maintenance grid.  Rightly or wrongly he felt himself to be in touch with a communications cluster under the Ghepion's control.  Mentally he requested that his message bounce back and up through the boots of the Starsider.      
    Join us, Starsider Yadon, in the great work.    
    Then, promptly, in what seemed to be proof that the procedure was real, Yadon shifted his lank frame and walked forward: this was looking good; apparently he'd got the message!     
    Reaching the base of the steps, Yadon tilted up his face and spoke a greeting.  "Skimmjard, Raldl!  Your tour-guide business has certainly expanded!  Are you still charging a fee?  If so, you must now be a rich man."   
    Taken aback and even a bit chilled by such cheeky humour, which rather ran to acid, Raldl flicked a glance around and noted that the other folk in the inner zone were frozenly attentive, a sure sign that reports of this encounter were going to get around, and he had better not risk any banter but instead make sure that his response fitted the occasion: not chit-chat but the clang of fate.     
    "Rich, you say?  Rather than that, today we're aiming beyond price," Raldl reproved.  "Our goal is quietus for the victims of ancient shame."   
    "Provided you don't bring more shame," amended Yadon.
    "That sounds like a stale hint, to the effect that I might be about to revive the Mad City; as usual my answer to the accusation is: scrambled patterns are dead beyond recall."   
    "I'm sure that's so," Yadon replied, "but what's to stop you creating another?"      
    The air was rent by a woman's cry and the crowd wheeled to look.  They picked out Lyan Zett, she who had been so happy this morningshine, so sure that all would be well, but who had now remembered something crucial.  Two syllables tore from her throat:  "NUZ-NONG!"
    It meant something to the crowd, realized Raldl as other voices shrilled: "NUZNONG!" - "Aaaaargh, it's out!" - "Yaaaark, the grime, the outrage!" - "Forget all the assurances - a new woe, that's what we've triggered, that's the effect of these cursed tours!"   
    "QUIET!" cried Raldl Otehr, holding both fists aloft, and then he performed a wrenching gesture and boomed, "LISTEN!"
    To eye-witnesses it looked as though their young tour-guide were dilated from within by some shadowy power, some more-than-human intensity, which was enough, by and large, to prompt them to obey.
    "You have just heard it suggested," he went on, "that a thought-suppressant nuznong has been employed against us.  And you must be thinking that its aim is to hide from you a new and evil plan.  Not the Mad City come back, but a modern force let loose, different from but equivalent to the Era Fifty madness.  Such is conclusion to which you have leaped.  Well now, just stop and think.  Consider our modern-day Ghepion.  You all know that Hlorr Humma is our beloved city-maintenance Brain, indispensible to our prosperous way of life."   
    Some of the people hung their heads, reflecting upon the valuable and developing tradition that Hlorr Humma was more than a machine, was now alive, indeed an infant Ghepion.  Affection, not suspicion, was what they therefore ought to feel.   
    Raldl's voice drove at them: "Feel nen's beat, feel the personal warmth that pulses up through the floor; every moment, Hlorr Humma is assuring us that nen is just as anxious as we are to wipe the shame of the past.  Hlorr Humma is on our side."   
    Many heads nodded at that, some eagerly, while doubtful faces turned in hope, not towards Raldl but towards Yadon, for they had heard about this stranger.   
    Loudly the Starsider remarked in support of Raldl, "One would indeed expect the second time to be different."
    Lyan Zett shoved herself in front of him and seconded his words, but in a tone that charged the atmosphere:
    "Oh y-e-e-e-s, oh YES, Raldl Otehr - different routes to the same end!"   
    The shock of her fury caused Raldl's his tongue to twist in his mouth, and out came a gargle, a retaliation with reciprocal rudeness:   
    "Is this the best you can do, wirrip?"      
    "Whaaaaaat?" blanched Lyan, her hand reached for her holster.   
    "Wait," the Olhoavan restrained her arm, "you're not really hearing Raldl; and besides, he is being told off, himself."   
    She gasped, "What do you mean?"   
    "Before he spoke just then, he was trying to say 'sorry' - eh, sponndar Raldl?" he finished loudly; "only the word would not come out!"   
    No answer except a sigh, for Raldl had made the down-payment some days ago and now he must go through with the rest of the purchase.  That awkward customer, Yadon, had evidently guessed.  The others would soon see:    
    In speaking to the human form they see as Raldl Otehr, they are speaking to a mouthpiece.    
    Well, let it be so; let Xolch make his case through me. 
    "Osonians," came the cry from the tour guide's lungs, "you can pick, you are freed, freed from your past, no longer obligated, no longer constrained at all, for as from today, from this moment, you can CHOOSE your blame-free futures, which promise to shower back onto your present with approval.  Pick from the bundle whatever fate-line you fancy: pick, preen it, brandish and ride!"    
    During this harangue Raldl's own will had sunk so far, he could only listen passively to what issued from his mouth, but the many grinning folk who liked it did not know that the words were not really his; in their swift recovery from the nuznong-suspicion they greatly fancied what they heard: as Xolchunnur well knew, the people of Oso had long had a hankering for the guilt-free, restraint-free, conscience-free life.
    Meanwhile some wondered: what was Yadon doing now?  The fellow had moved a step or two, so as better to frame the rest of the gathering in his field of view.  Then, loudly:   
    "You're saying, Raldl, that we can hop at will from one fate to another?"   
    "Yes," came from Raldl's mouth; "that is what I have learned to be true."
    "Sure?  No fooling?  This offer really is on the level?"   
    "Yes indeed."   
    "You've been lied to.  Lavishly lied to!"   
    In reaction to this collective slap in the face the crowd murmured, echoingly,  Lied to - lied to - a groan of the spirit.  Anger took uncertain hold; anger that was unsure of its focus.   
    The skulking spirit of Xolchunnur hesitated.  It estimated that the chances were bound to be against Yadon, so why interfere?  All that the outcast Intelligence needed to do was wait for a wave of disappointment from all the wishful thinkers in the crowd.  That wave would gather, would hump its lethal force against the impudent Starsider.  No need to do anthing.
    Even so, Xolchunnur could not resist one taunt.  Just one, uttered through Raldl's mouth to target the accursed, meddlesome Yadon.
    "It is you who lie, fugitive drifter from Olhoav!  Fates do come in bundles, and you, little man, cannot refute that."   
    "Oh but I can," Yadon smiled.  "That 'bundle' theme has been played out on Earth."   
    "Earth?"  An inhuman wheeze strained Raldl's throat.  Suddenly he doubled up; many cried out at the sight.  Yadon turned to shush the people and then turned back, to face the haunted figure now collapsed on the Frustum steps.
    "Yes, whatever you are, Thing who speaks through the lips of Raldl Otehr.  I said 'Earth'; you know who I am, don't you?  My mind once lived on Earth.  Listen to me if you dare."   
    Xolch/Raldl's senses contracted, shrank into a blob of dismay, a mere scrap of awareness pummelled by the name of the Third Planet.  "Earth," the maimed Intelligence hissed.  "What is Earth but an infant compared to Ooranye."
    Advancing regardless, Yadon's argument was unstoppable.
    "For all our world's infancy, we Terrans have forgotten more fallacies than you will ever invent.  This 'bundle' business is old hat.  It was tried on after a philosopher of ours had rightly said, 'I think, therefore I am'.  The bundlers stupidly sought to undermine the concept of 'I' with a lot of blah about how awareness fluctuates and varies and evolves; an argument which is the more self-refuting the more it is coherently advanced, for what but an 'I' can argue at all?  People of Oso!" - the Starsider's gaze swept the crowd - "whatever line of action you choose, and however many lines you may choose amongst, your finalised choice is one, just one, fate-wave, just as your ego is the one and only 'I' who rides that wave.  So don't ever think you can hop away from the consequences of your actions."
    Hundreds of beclouded faces evinced the dashing of hopes, but over all this wafted the Fiend's signature-stench of rage and despair, the reek of a spiritual evil that could not abide the rupture of its idea.     
    Raldl Otehr, mind as well as body crouched, trembled at the thought of how the Thing that was in him must lash out in its retreat.  Yadon had destroyed the belief without which Xolchunnur could not proceed to the next and final stage in nen's plan.  Now it would never happen.  Never, the pulling together of all the awarenesses in Oso into a modernised Mad-City gestalt, ready to launch a fresh assault upon the rest of Syoom.  Never, the explosion, the destruction.  Still-born: for, on Ooranye, a crowd can be swayed by intellect.     
    Still, the defeated Adversary in its fury might (for all Raldl knew) do dreadful damage; indeed these were moments of nightmare for the guilty tour-guide.     
    The best he could shamefacedly hope for, was that the malevolent Intelligence might wreak its vengeance on the Terran alone.  Yes, the man really was a Terran - or so Xolchunnur's dismay seemingly confirmed.  Wonder piled on wonder!  Of course, Yadon's fantastic claim might still not be true.  Yet lunatics and lying show-offs are so rare on Ooranye, that the presence of one at this crux would be a coincidence just about as startling as the claim itself.    
    Be that as it may, Raldl knew for a certainty that Xolchunnur would hate above all to lose face.  The meddler, Terran or not, who had unmasked his fraudulent ideology would go down in legend - and the only way to nip that legend in the bud would be to kill everyone here present.  And surely, an entity which had demonstrated, out on the plain, that it could juggle enormous blocks of stone. had the power to murder on a grand scale.  No boulders were available here, but it might rip or throw bodies about -     
    What saved the people of Oso will never be surely known.  But it would seem that the credit must be shared.   
    Part of it belongs, it is believed, to Raldl himself.  Collapsed, he lay on the Frustum's plinth, his limbs contorted, his lungs working feebly, but his mind as acute as it had ever been in his life.  He pushed and worked at one idea, which was to repair the disaster he had helped create. 
    The thoughts he directed at the monster mind which pervaded him, laid stress on the future:  "You've lost it, Xolch, you've lost it.  But it's not too late to go.  Depart, and live to achieve greatness on another day.  Whereas if you try to kill us all now, and happen to miss just one or two of us, who knows but that the World Spirit, from which you split, might not intervene?  It hates to do so, but it has done so before.  And if it were to do so now, you would not survive.  Go, Xolch: depart while you can.  Go before you weaken further, before you become helplessly stuck among people who have ceased to believe in your message."
    Yadon also did his bit.  By his quiet departure from the scene, he removed much of Xolchunnur's motive to stay.  That malign Intelligence, deprived of the focus of nen's hatred, had no further urge to linger, and began, at last, a vaporous trickle outwards...

14

Three days later, on 10,543,859 Ac, the tour guide was sufficiently recovered to resume his normal activities.      
    Perforce he had risen in society; the group he led now included notables such as the Noad himself, the Daon, the head of the Secret Service and the omzyr of the skyfleet. 
    The occasion went well, and afterwards they all professed themselves satisfied with the tour.   
    It was hard to say exactly what they had planned to superintend, but what contented them was the quiet evidence, the unspoken conclusion that the old swells of nightmare had subsided and that a more peaceful historical awareness would henceforth reign in Osonian hearts.  Ancient events were ancient events, muted by age, tamed by distance and scrubbed of fear.
    "Well," said Raldl afterwards to Lyan when she had met him again for a meal at the Nezzen, "it all went splendidly, I must say."   
    "I thought so too," she said.   
    "Hey - how would you know?  You weren't there," he frowned; "you had duties elsewhere, or so you told me."   
    "Raldl," said Lyan, and leaned across the table towards him.  "My duties," she said, "were to watch you, discreetly, from further off.  If aught seemed amiss I was to signal to the fleet's Number Two." 
    He eyed her with incipient dread.
    She went on, "Now then, Raldl..."  She spoke faster to quell the glare.  "I know that you've resented - "   
    "No, no," he interrupted with equal haste.  The sun of his smile had suddenly broken though.  "I've just had the thought which makes it all right from now on.  In actual fact I want you to keep watch on me, for the rest of my life." 

CONTINUED IN

Uranian Throne Episode 19:   

The Non-Dummy Run