uranian throne - episode nineteen

the non-dummy run

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;
18: the rash down-payment  

[ + links to:  Glossary - Timeline - Maps - A Survey of Ooranye - Plan of Olhoav -
Guide to published stories - Index of proper names - Dates]

1

She was, as yet, unaware that a young man had eased into the room.  It was not his purpose to creep, yet so quiet was his step that she did not notice his entry.   
    He, for his part, knew her well enough to guess at her daydreaming expression although she had not yet turned to greet him; he pictured her eyes narrowed into introspective slits... and with a knowing smile he decided to wait.
   He and she were the two visible people in the room.  He, watching her; and she, gazing out the window of this corner buttress of Sghee Tower.
    The third, invisible presence is we, the Uranian Bards who narrate this adventure of many lifetimes ago.  We are privileged to dip, godlike, both into the mind of skyfleet officer Duruld Omott, and into that of the object of his fascination, investigator Miril Nerred. 
    Both are open to us, though closed to each other.
    Miril, unaware of her admirer's entry, continued to enjoy her unique daydream.  It was all about personal success.  A clean swoop to the target, a swift flash to distinction: long had she been drawn towards the as-yet un-grasped glory of the dream.     
    Ah well, she must wait for today's test to begin...     
    Reflectively she chuckled, shook her head - and at last became aware of Duruld.   
    It surprised her that she had not sensed his entry straightaway; he, whom she had previously classed as a heavy-shouldered saunterer, must have learned stealth.  Whatever the reason for this, it was likely to be a strong one, but still she did not quite turn; instead she took a step closer to the window, away from the man, in order to gaze, more intensely than ever, down onto the plain far below.     
    Nevertheless he read her stance, knew that she had spotted him, and reckoned it was time he opened his mouth.   
    "Why, it's Assiduity," he archly declared; "Assiduity Miril!"
    She crossly responded: "I get tired of people calling me that"
    "Sorry," said Duruld.  "Though actually it's a compliment.  You're known as one who never abandons a trace.  To me, that's enviable.  My reputation, unlike yours, is still unmade."    
    Her lips quirked at this, and she did at last turn properly to face him.  "And why are you here, Duruld?  To watch the ritual?  It's almost time."   
    "Either that, or - " he turned his boldness up a notch - "to watch you."     
    Her reaction was a skeptical smile.  "Watch if you like.  I think I can hear them.  Yes, here they come."   
    From many floors below, from the direction of the base of the tower, came the muffled chant of the candidates for the examination that was due to take place in the adjacent room.  Duruld remarked, "Thud, thud, thud up the stairs; they like doing it the hard way."  He marvelled at her nonchalance as she resumed, even now, her absorption in the panorama visible from the window.   Captivated by her absent air, Duruld felt impelled to move forward.  Must be something in that view, he thought lightly; but of course - he reminded himself - it had been the scene of her triumph.
    Sghee Tower stood a third of the way inwads from rim of Vlamanor towards the hub.  Yet so far did its altitude extend above its neighbouring structures that from its upper floors the view was like that of an outpost right on the city's rim. Thus it was possible from this high window to enjoy the sight of the Vlamanor-Yoon monorail.   
    Miril could see straight along the clean metal arrow for scores of miles as the ancient engineering masterpiece of Era Thirty swept to its vanishing point at the horizon.  Equally fine was the view she had of the ribbons of forest that snaked their way on either side of the embankment. 
    Those paired forests were not tidy like the rail which they initially accompanied: far from matching its straightness, they twisted and meandered, and in further portions diverged out of sight of the line.  Not that they had been planned that way.  They had been planted in regular formation.  The idea had been to form a defensive glacis to protect this section of route on both sides, but during subsequent ages convection in the subsurface ice had distorted their positions, and now only the monorail itself, its embankment constructed with the skills of the Zinc Era, had resisted the deviating pressures of glacial flow so as still to run directly to Yoon, 5,124 miles away over the curve of the giant planet.  Of all that entire route it was this first portion, in sight of Vlamanor and still accompanied by the ribbon-like forests, that was the most fabled.   
    "The Allomba Fapps," murmured Duruld.  "No longer a puzzle, thanks to you, Assiduity!  (Sorry - sponndar Miril.)"   
    He stopped to listen; the chant on the stairs had grown closer, louder.  Yftim-mar-teray, yftim-mar-teray...       
    He spoke again:  "I'm wondering now, Miril... do you intend to solve the mystery of the Unbelievers, too?"   
    Louder grew the chant.
    "You do not answer me, Miril."
    He was astonished when she turned him a glance of... kindness?  Great skies!  It was as though she were fond of him!   
    "Hereabouts," Miril sweetly said, "acceptance is the mode, if you wish to go on living."   
    "In other words, shut up." Duruld felt a thrill.  Most of the time it was with mere whimsy that he thought about this girl.  She really wasn't his type; and yet, though common sense might insist that he'd form a more compatible couple with just about any other woman, it was suddenly very good to bask in the momentary concern that flickered in her face and voice.  He was being allowed a glimpse into some fantastic dream of a future in which he might aspire to share a rung on the ladder to greatness -
    Duruld shook the silliness from his thoughts.  He reminded himself, as he listened to the noise increasing from below, that he had two or three minutes at most to probe.   
    "Miril," he said, "you're up to something."  (She had gone back to being distrait.  She did not seem to be listening to him.  All he could do was press on.) "You know," he continued, "that I'm not happy with some trends in this city.  Sometimes I wonder what the place is coming to.  I respect the Noad and all that, but..."   
    His verbal gropes must have scored a hit, for Miril turned in a flash.  "Retract that 'but' concerning our Noad!  She's the greatest we've had in millions of days!"   
    Ah, the spark of political zeal!  Could he fan it to produce illumination?  "She is, I grant you, great," Duruld conceded, "only, trouble is, the great can be tempted to take on too much.  Maybe you're looking to help her?"   
    "You're being vague, Duruld, and I'm busy today."   
    "I'll bet," he smiled, "but what with?  For instance, how did you solve the mystery of the forest shapes?  By working backwards.  Back from conclusion to premise, every time.  Back from the contorted lines of growth - to the currents in the ice.  Back from the currents in the ice - to the measurements of rates and time.  Back from the measurements of rates and times - to records of attacks by vrars and cremps.  Back from - "   
    " - there to defence policy," she finished for him.  "It wasn't a perfect job, Duruld."   
    "But you plugged all its gaps.  I wish I had a word for your style."   
    The tramp of boots had reached the platform just outside the main room, whereas the chanting, which had risen to a crescendo, had ceased.  Miril moved towards the partition door.    
    Duruld called after her, "So tell me, are you going to investigate those folk?"   
    Over her shoulder she gave him one last twinkle of her eyes.
    "No.  I'm going to join them."   
    Then she was gone, and Duruld wondered: should I follow her?  Go in too?  Stay by her side?  But what she may get away with, would be undignified for me.  She's no older than I am but she knows much, much more, and for that reason alone I shan't risk being a further bother today.   
    So, unwilling to take any step which might misbecome him in her eyes, Duruld Omott headed for the elevator and left the scene.

2

Carefully holding their bowls of liss quabb - White Blood - and chanting low, the cloaked candidates were shuffling into the large, main room of this level of the tower.  The chanting had gone right down to a hum, rhythmic with the candidates' steps and the to-and-fro slosh of the white glow in their bowls, as the fifty sought their places.
    The seats had inbuilt desk-arms and were arranged in rows.  The candidates stood waiting behind their places.  Miril looked around for a spare for herself; she lifted one from the wall and pushed it behind the back row.  Having accomplished this lone act, she waited with the others, and sat down when they did - at a signal which she did not see.
    Miril, unlike the others, had no bowl, no steaming liss quabb, but she could, like them, produce writing materials from a pouch of her cloak.  She expected to have all she needed.  Too late, anyway, for rearrangements.  All eyes were drawn to a tall blue swirl at the front of the room: the Invigilator, padding in to stand at the main desk, who turned out to be none other than Lrar Emdu, Daon of Vlamanor. 
    Raising his bushy eyebrows at the candidates, the Daon intoned:   
    "You are the third group to volunteer for this test.  Each has made our city stronger.  Remember, you are here to express your opinions without hesitation.  The personal aspect is vital.  In the contrast of atmosphere, humdrum pen-and-paper on the one hand, and, on the other, the momentous vapour of the White Blood, you work in the middle.  You know that the liss quabb comes from Varramb nenself; do not, however, hesitate on that score, but write without hesitation; write what you think.  You have half an hour to answer, as best you can, the question I am about to set for you.  Pick up your pens - now!"   
    He turned and wrote in large letters on the board behind him:

"WAS THE WORK OF THE SIMULATOR EVER TRUE?"

    The Daon's arm dropped after the writing of "TRUE".  He stepped aside, and there arose throughout the room a susurration of sleeves as hands began to write.  
    Miril fell into their majority frame of mind, out from which she had to struggle repeatedly: the loyal Unbelievers' view of life as a chaotic random dance of vari-coloured fluffy balloons, forever floating, bumping around, impossible to arrange in any order.  It was true that life on this world of hers was an unending adventure, in which even the profoundest ideas were no more than jostling actors, rather than foundational principles; yet this situation did not satisfy her yearnings.  More must exist!  Life, according to Miril, ought to contain more than a phantasmagoric swirl of themes!  Tricky question.  Here fifty candidates were scribbling away, doubtless taking the official line, that the old Simulators of the Hafnium Era, and especially the chief one, Varramb, could not really model the future in the way that legend claimed.  The variables were too many; chaos too powerful; randomness inherent in reality.  So far, so obvious.  Then why make the point?  What else could one do but admit it as true, as Varramb nenself, the great and ancient Simulator Ghepion, had ended by doing?  Yes, the Simulator had finally warned humanity against reliance on the tool of Simulation.  After that, nen had insisted on retiring, on abandoning all power and influence.  So again - what was this new parade of Unbelief all about?  Didn't they all already un-believe enough?  Wasn't coherence dismissed as a pipe-dream anyway?   
    Miril reflected on a past age that was over a hundred million days gone.   
    The retirement known thereafter as the Renunciation of Varramb had brought the Hafnium Era to a close.  People were persuaded that the advice was good, that Simulation as a basis for decision-making had been taken too far, had become a kind of fantasy-addiction which sought to eliminate risk and which thus sapped the moral courage to make real decisions.  Better to leap in the dark; better to make mistakes and take responsibility for them, than to run endless 'what-ifs' by means of clever machines.     
    Besides - it was also realized - the machines couldn't really do it anyway.  All they had ever really done was suggest probabilities as an inspiration for policy.  That had admittedly been of some use; it had statistically helped concentrate human minds on what was "likely to be the most likely result" of what they might do.  Unfortunately, insidiously, during the Hafnium Era reliance on such aids had become addictive, and when the time came to break the addiction with a healthy change of heart, all the simulation devices were switched off, with the exception of the only conscious one, Ghepion Varramb nenself.     
    That entity, in retirement, had wandered by monorail to this very city, Vlamanor; had crept down into the vaults below the city floor; had lastly been granted that lair in which to rest and dream nen's own dreams, free from preoccupation with the wants of humankind.     
    Since that retreat, seventeen eras and hundreds upon hundreds of lifetimes ago, the repose of Varramb had been uninterrupted.
    The old Being was therefore out of consideration, and so were its powers.  Why then this new drive to disbelieve in those powers?  What was the point of arguing that they had not ever existed?  What did it matter, one way or the other?   
    At last the dim blur of an answer took shape in Miril's thoughts.  She picked up her pen.    
    Just to be contrary, she wrote on her paper, let me suggest that the machines of the later part of the long Hafnium Era, given their exponential evolution, with the ever-smaller mincing of their components, may, just possibly, have acquired the ability to model a situation in sufficient detail, to run Simulations far more effectively than we realize...    
    For what would be the physical result of such machine-evolution?   
    Can I not sniff it now?   
    The nano-plasm of super-miniaturised components, the...
    WHITE BLOOD.    
    She sniffed, as though what she suspected could waft its effluvium into her nose.    
    Yes, it has been fetched and we have it here in our bowls.  For the best of motives, or so is my guess, Varramb long ago decided to conceal the truth from us mortals, but now some people have gone down into the vaults to draw a supply of the liss quabb from the old Ghepion's unwilling veins.    
    One might then say that the Unbelievers were, in fact, Believers. 
    They believed that Simulation could work!   
    What they disbelieved in was the Renunciation.   
    Well, this was worth some fuss, thought Miril.  A big project, if it were done at all.  A scheme of the Noad's, to revive an old controversial power, presenting it reassuringly as a type of Unbelief.
    Daring and risky, but exciting, to revive Simulation in that style!  Miril thought admiringly of her heroine, Noad Sevret Vaid of Vlamanor.  Just like the Noad, to arrange things so cleverly.  Miril's already high opinion of her ruler ascended to an even loftier height.     
    It was regrettable, thought Miril, that she herself had been so slow to grasp the point, but at any rate she'd got it now, and could take heart from having figured it out without the need to sniff it from a bowl. 

3

Like almost every citizen, Miril Nerred devoted a few hours of most days to instinctive economic labour.  Uranian urban civilization is so old that it has evolved a form of upkeep which requires little in the way of conscious thought and can, almost entirely, be undertaken in a dream-state.  The pattern of such activity is organically complex and it is rare that any two consecutive daily sessions match exactly in either content or location.  So you don't expect to finish in the same location that you did the previous time.  You are apt to wake from the work-trance to find yourself anywhere on or above the city floor.     
    Even so, on this occasion Miril Nerred experienced a mild jolt of surprise when she came conscious at the end of her stint.
    The cityscape around her was a bit brighter than she expected, which immediately told her it was the fourth hour of ayshine, and not, as expected, the fifth.  So, she had woken from work a full hour earlier than usual. 
    She grasped the reason for this when, the next instant, she realized precisely where she was.   
    A smooth metal way, like a solid grey stream, separated her from a double-scarped hump of a building.  Some wakening flash of a beam that shone from one of the structure's upper windows had wrested her early from her trance. 
    Evidently she was wanted up there.  Wanted by the person to whom was reserved the right to transmit that style of summons...  With beating heart Miril crossed the kerbless avenue and was admitted by the guard-ray to the Palace of the Noad.   
    Up the elevator, into the top corridor she advanced before meeting anyone; then, half way toward the sphincter-like door at the far end, she encountered the advisor Jattak Othv, a man who usually bulked with importance; this time he seemed overburdened, stooped in haste, like a mere aong, or messenger-of-the-moment.  Miril turned him an inquiring look and the advisor perfunctorily gestured, Just go in.    
    Sure enough, it was that simple.  When she approached the door it twirled open for her, and without announcement she crossed its threshold into the pod-like Chamber of the Noad.   
    The inner walls curved and narrowed to gather at a point at either end, so restricting the floor space, which was made scantier still by the platform that occupied its centre, over which shimmered a breathtaking three-dimensional image: a holograph of a floating, aerial city. 
    The marvel appeared suspended in the deep blue of the upper atmosphere, or rather it was slowly gliding like a lone stratospheric cloud, immensely far above a landscape rendered hazy by vertical distance.  The floating, gravity-defying structure inspired awe, admiration and fear.

Skyborne Yr approaches Vlamanor

The image was at least three times the height of a human.  Enough crisp detail was depicted, that the legendary Yr, City of Mists, could distract Miril's curiosity, for some moments, from the sight of the Noad herself.    
    Then those moments were over.  The presence of Noad Sevret Vaid of Vlamanor drew Miril's whole attention.   
    No simple grey ruler's cloak for Sevret Vaid.  Uranian attire does not normally vary as much as Terran; rather than emulate the prodigious variation of your Earthly fashions, we Nenns - at any rate, most of us - customarily feel no need to wear anything very different from the usual cloaked suit.  Skirts, therefore, are unusual, yet the Noad of Vlamanor wore a pleated skirt, its dark material gathered to symbolise the slopes of a cone-volcano, to promise an explosion of perpetual vigour up top where reigned a decisive will.
    For an unguarded moment the mighty Sevret Vaid was caught staring at  the holograph in a fleering, hate-filled manner.   
    That betrayal of emotion caused Miril to infer that too powerful a mind can sometimes lurch, like an unwieldy engine.  Evidently, for some unguessable reason, the Noad's feelings were stirred deeply by Yr.  And yet, statistically, that skyborne city's depredations were hardly more to be feared than a serious meteor-impact... the Yrian outlaws were rarely seen.  So why the vehemence? 
    Miril's mind kicked the question into storage.  Right now she must concentrate on paying respectful attention to her ruler.
    The two very different modes of beauty, the sharp lineaments of the older woman and the oval visage of her younger subordinate, regarded each other speculatively.   
    First spoke Vlamanor's Head of State.  With a wave at the hologram, while she smoothed her face, she remarked:   
    "The one and only manangaloom.  No other flying city was ever built.  Strange, eh, sponndar Miril?"
    Miril suppressed a shrug, in the presence of this leader whom she greatly admired.   
    "A one-off exuberance of Era Fifteen," she replied, and ventured to add, "Strange, yes, Noad S-V.  But also fortunate, that only one was built."   
    With an edge to her voice Sevret said: "But in one respect the uniqueness of the 'City of Mists', and the scarcity of its dire visits, have had one most unfortunate consequence, insofar as we've been left with insufficient urgency to evolve a defence." 
    Miril felt she had been rebuked; she had failed to say the best thing, whatever that might be, and so she felt the cold clasp of shame.  She was a perfectionist when it came to relations with the Noad.  If only the answer would come to the question: why was it particularly necessary right now to reflect upon the danger from Yr?   
    "And that, sponndar," the Noad continued, "should be a matter of serious reflection."   
    "I'm sorry, Noad S-V - "
    "Console yourself, Miril, that you are not in my place," the ruler amiably replied, turning on the charm.  "You do not have to assess rumour with insufficient data, along the hard road to renl.  I have not had a moment's rest since I sniffed an opportunity, a way to do what has never been done before."   
    "I... am full of wonder, Noad S-V."   
    "I can see that's so.  Wonder and confusion!  Understandable, in these early days of the crisis.  In my job, one must train habits; create rituals.  Consider for example the fifty-strong groups of Unbeliever-corpuscles whom I am injecting into the body politic... you're looking more confused than ever, sponndar Miril!  Tell me, what's your current view of the content of their Unbelief?"   
    "My view..."  Miril took a deep breath.  "They may be taking the line, that the 'simulators' of the Hafnium Era would have been better described as 'inspirers'."   
    "Go on."   
    Thus encouraged, Miril continued: "Either that - or the total opposite, that the things actually did work precisely as they claimed.  That would mean that we ought to disbelieve in Varramb's renunciation." 
    Sevret nodded eagerly: "Now describe the shape of your thoughts.  Go on, go on!  It could be important."   
    Miril had to suppress a panicky laugh.  The strange appetence of these words told her that she was being given an opportunity for real communication with her idol.   
    "It's like balancing on a globe," she heard herself take the plunge; "I totter and sway on the top of an idea that curves away on all sides; I try to hold my place, but the more I strive to keep upright, the more my weight slides.  I can only dance to keep my equilibrium as the globe rolls under my boots.  Unbalanced one moment, I must re-balance the next on a different part... or else jump to an adjacent globe and start again..."   
    Noad Sevret Vaid laughed in delight.  "I've never heard our way of life put so well!  An excellent way to make the point, that imbalances can be righted for a while but that they're always remittent, and maybe in the end you only have one option left which is to fall off..."
    "I hope it doesn't come to that, Noad S-V."
    "But yes, failure is a real option.  For me as well as for you.  We cannot escape that peril.  But - we can vary the balancing act."
    "Not sure I understand..."
    "I mean, in this case, that we can seek vacations, relief from slippery ideas.  As for you, Miril, what you need right now is something as dry as a biscuit."   
    The point: biscuits aren't slippery.  And biscuits can be satisfying.  Miril nodded.
    "...Your success so far," the Noad was saying, "has derived from a process of backwards reasoning, that's to say, deductions from effects to causes.  That's how you achieved your solution to the mystery of the ribbons of forest paralleling the monoline.  Thanks to you, we are now sure what gave them their shape.  What you could do next - merely my suggestion, Miril - is that you could calculate forwards instead.  Work from the pastward end of the chain of events, and see if its product is the same as we've got now.  You see?  You'd be checking on whether the historical process is commutative..."      The voice of the Noad stopped - then resumed:   
    "You're not saying anything, Miril.  Are you happy, then?"   
    "I think so," breathed the girl.  "Yes, it seems I am happy."
    "You know I'm suggesting... Simulation."   
    Miril, without demur, agreed: "That has to be it.  The classic way to carry out the check."   
    "Classic is right.  You know where I'm telling you to go?"   
    "Yes, sponndar Noad."   
    "Seems you're not dismayed at the prospect.  Good - very good.  Not everyone would tolerate the idea of descending to Varramb's lair.  Well, this is, after all, an exciting time to be alive.  We're about to move forward into an era of live experimentation, I do believe.  And trust me, you'll be taken care of..."

4

Miril Nerred was conducted by a palace official to a floor-level room, empty except for a closed hatchway which was slanted so that one must stoop to reach the opening button.  An invitation to hesitate, thought Miril wryly, and pressed the button.      
    Pendulous on its upper hinge, the hatch swung back to reveal a misty blueness.  Miril bowed her head and stepped into the Vaults of Vlamanor.   
    The closing hum behind her did not make her look back.  Onward lay her goal; onward and downward; namely, the section of the vaults known as the Torpor of Byey.  Strangely, she had never ventured into it before.  Strange, because it felt as if she had: in an odd kind of way the sub-floor environment felt familiar.  It can happen with much-discussed works of art, that they become so known by repute that it hardly seems necessary to go and actually see them.  That must be part of the reason why she had not bothered until today, yet it wasn't the whole story.  A certain reluctance to be reminded that the humans of Ooranye share their giant world with greater beings, helped to explain.   
    Miril descended a zigzag stair which ended on a slope.  Then she took some more steps down the slope itself.  She began to make out, at the far bounds of the misty view, a jungly mass.
    It consisted of mounds of cvoc, the clutter of machine evolution.  Heaped geometric forms and tangled lines had flopped over to obscure the older reticulations of the city-vaults.  Some actual Ghepions, minor ones, were doubtless to be found amid the mess.  None of it, so far, showed anything like the form and size of the Being she sought.  She would know Varramb when she saw nen: necessarily enormous and unmistakable, the Simulator's presence would announce nenself.   
    She realized she'd have to trudge through quite a bit of cvoc before she reached Varramb, so there was nothing for it but to endure the increasingly fuscous gloom as she crunched her way through the metallic "underbrush".  Onward, downward, her way became accompanied by echoing whispers or sighs that gave her some bad moments until, her intelligence triumphing over her nerves, she recognized the harmless, indeed uplifting, pump of the ayash currents.  Those blessed, essential streams, constantly in operation, ensured the maintenance of the only links between the surrounding plain and the upheld disc of the city floor, which otherwise only skyships might attain; their sound a reminder of all that works well through the ages.
    Next she came to a more desolate section.  A scree of broken metal fragments looked to her like rubbish (though her intellect withheld judgement on its value), and the "rubbish" saw her: it rattled, it moved, it collected itself into half a dozen little heaps, and a babble of voices issued from the tops of them.  The closest heap arranged itself into a head with two bright eyes, or semblance thereof, shaped for her understanding; she knew she should - must - appreciate the effort the thing was making.  Above the babble, a pure, childlike voice burst into song in the Nouuan tongue:

The pulses of the plot
The pulses of the plot
The pulses of the plot
Varramb!

Wizened old Truth
Wizened old Truth
Wizened old Truth
Varramb!

Execute the run
Execute the run
Execute the run
Varramb!

The pulses of the plot
Wizened old Truth
Execute the run
Varramb!

The other "heaps" joined in, the words spread via echoes; by the last line they had accumulated into a united chorus, all the minor machines welcoming Miril to the great presence whom they served; around her boots at "ground" level meanwhile thousands of even smaller machines were busying about, tidying, carpeting the slope with a sort of plush metal wool.
    Like an astronomer who waits for clouds to break, she watched impatiently, for many further heartbeats.  She knew she must not quail before the hazy hints and outlines; must keep a lid on any incipient nightmare which the commingled masses of cvoc might suggest.  Keep a cautious rein on the imagination - that was the name of this game!  Thus she was ready when the entire scene suddenly underwent a process of being pulled apart. 
    Its components, like opening curtains, were swished away to either side of her forward view, peeling off to left and right so as to make made way for her eyesight to penetrate the central gap.  With brightening clarity she saw what stood in front of her: a deepening, widening mouth, with horizontal laminae in lieu of teeth.  Then she perceived a lower row, also similarly placed to teeth until their motion hinted that they actually were legs, which swung unbendingly back and forth with an apparent lack of joints.  And if they were legs, then, positioned above them was not, after all, any striated "mouth" but, instead, a myriapod's long side.  Yes, decided Miril, she was not looking at a face but at the side of a body.  Or - wait - this was confusing - had she been right in the first place?  Was that whole length nothing but a face, after all, with an elongated stare?  Whatever the case, she must stand her ground and remember that it was infinitely better to stand firm than to interpret the sight. 
    From the centre of Varramb, a limb extended in her direction, many-jointed (unlike the legs, if they were legs), and ending in a cup-shaped palm.  As it approached her, she could not bring herself to move, despite being well aware that to freeze might seem discourteous.  She told herself that she had a right to stand still.
    The Ghepion chuckled, or such was the impression that came to her from a play of flashes on the thing's surface accompanied by a series of clicks.
    They became words.  "Miril Nerred, you roused me," the echo washed , musically through the Vaults of Vlamanor. 
    Weakly the girl said, "Oh..."
    Another puff of words: "This is good, a change is good..."   
    Putting forth all that she possessed of willpower she managed to say hopefully: "You don't object to my coming here."
    "It is pleasant for me," the Voice affirmed.  "So few are the citizens who choose to avail themselves of the Bequest of Byey.  Which, of course, is just as well, since an over-reliance on Simulation leads to disaster."
    A pause.  Miril's thoughts seemed to fly far away.  Her tongue froze again.
    Mused the Voice: "Disaster, as I have many times said; and yet I can make exceptions."
    "Mmm?" she managed, inanely.
    "I expect you may have heard," the Simulator chattered on, "that Byey is one of my old names, and the Bequest is the gift I gave to Syoom.  It is the gift of inaction; the gift of my quiescence.  Largely for the best, I have moved on, into contemplation, away from that thing which I used to do.  Nevertheless - I can still do it.  And now, my friend, you came down here to ask me for a test-run, eh?"   
    She nodded, agape.  It was all she could do before a presence which became more overpowering with every moment. 
    Another chuckle from the Being.  "We Vlamanorians, human and Ghepion, are a proud lot.  Byey the Simulator, as I used to be called, became Varramb the Renouncer, yet I have kept the old name too, though my chorus is determined to call me Varramb...  Yes indeed I can get back to work without delay."   
    Miril stammered, "You're - you're about to start?  B-but, I have given you no details as yet..."   
    "No need.  Have you forgotten what I am?"   
    She whispered, "Oh, of course..."   
    "Approach, friend, and place your hand here."   
    Obedient and trusting, for so she had to be, Miril dipped her right hand in the proffered bowl.  She saw first her fingers and then her palm submerge beneath a seething white mass.  It was that very same colloidal soup of submicroscopic data units that had been nicknamed the White Blood.
    Cold, smooth and slippery, but not actually wet, the substance slipped off to leave her hand clean when she lifted it clear of the bowl.  No trace was left on her skin.  Presumably, though, it had extracted data from her.   
    Stillness reigned for a moment or two.  Then, plink! the Being's long row of legs began to ripple like a field of vheic-stalks in a changing wind, swaying the huge bulk to right and left, while the hidden chorus struck up one more shrill stanza:

The options all congeal
Cramponning the hunch
Federating Fact
Varramb!

Silence resumed its sway, a silence in which Miril could sense that the task was complete.  It had been accomplished swiftly, as might have been expected, for Varramb had been ready for her, had known her requirements, again as she might have expected, and now she stood waiting for the words of dismissal which duly came forthwith:    
    "Go now and check the results, little one, and may Thremdu guard your soul."

5

Miril's breath whooshed, and the harried look on her face relaxed into a grin.     During the way back she repeated to herself, I've done it, I've done it; until finally, leaving the vaults beneath her, she tottered onto the city floor.        Yes, she had done it: she had visited none other than the Dweller in the Vaults.  Simulator Varramb!  That old Ghepion from the Hafnium Era!  The Evolved Machine who, having settled in Vlamanor, had never since obtruded into the light of day.  She had seen and talked to nen, and had emerged with her equilibrium just about intact.    
    She thought with a shudder: Never again.  No more downward trips of that kind. 
    Of course the thing in the vaults was not evil, merely over-large.  In fact it doubtless amounted to a heap of good.  But the flavour of that particular goodness (eugh!) was hard to digest.   
    Well, anyhow, she'd been given what she'd sought.  In fact the Being had known her wish before she had asked for it.  Which meant she was left with no excuse to lose the trail.  Follow it she must.     
    Clutching the skein of her purpose, within ten minutes Miril had made her way to the rim of Vlamanor, where she stood on the landing-plain or oalm at the city's edge, from which she was able to gaze down upon the plain fifty yards below. 
    Easily visible from her altitude were the ground-level terminus and the running gleam of the Vlamanor-Yoon monoline: the straight metal rail streaked away into the distance atop its seven-yard embankment of compacted gralm, flanked for about twenty miles by its meandering accompaniment of dark forest, and then, beyond the point at which those ragged ribbons of vegetation veered away, the line dwindled horizonwards, bare and alone.     
    That vanishing perspective held her gaze for some heartbeats; then she went to take a skimmer from the local vehicle bank and within minutes was descending the ayash airstream which conveyed people down from the city's disc-floor to the plain.     
    Besides her own skimmer, dozens of others rode the stream; wayfarers, farmers or farmland administrators, the ordinary traffic of settled times.  Upon reaching the ground, however, she was the only one who headed for the railhead.   
    The embankment, seven yards high, appeared deserted.  This did not surprise Miril; the monoline was not in heavy use at present.  Customarily the vlep-cars flashed from city to city only once every few days.     
    She passed a stationary vlep, but she did not consider commandeering it; she intended instead to keep riding her skimmer, paralleling the embankment as she watched the forest flow by on her right.  Thus she'd re-examine the area which she knew so well from her previous investigation.   
    Only - how was she supposed to "check the results"?  Unease thrashed about in her mind.  The underlying question was: why had she had not been handed any summary of the last run's data to check against?  She had simply been told to go... 
    And so she now went, down the line, hoping for the best.  She skimmed with decreasing speed as she headed towards the place where the forest ribbons veered from their parallel course.  After a few minutes she had slowed to a mere fifteen miles per hour.  Partly this was simply because she wished to re-examine the details of the scene with care.  The greater reason, however, was the clang of the alarm bell of common sense; that faculty of ordinary judgement had become somewhat muffled during her extraordinary session with Varramb, and it was time she recovered it.   
    With an impact that halted her, the thought at last came bluntly to the fore:   
    She wasn't equipped at all for this investigation!  No token from Varramb did she carry; no baseline dataset that might show the modelled result of forest growth, with which to compare the actuality at the forest's far end.
    Such comparison being, supposedly, the object of the exercise, what good could she do here?  What use was a test which was no test?  And having nevertheless been sent here, or manoeuvred here, by Varramb and, ultimately, by the Noad, she was left to wonder - why?   
    Could it be to test Simulation by some unfamiliar means?  Perhaps (for example) by a "document" imprinted, as yet unbeknownst to her, on her mind?   Something she'd soon become aware of...     
    Hardly practical.  A mental "document" that could not be read or consulted by anyone else was of limited use, surely.   
    Or it might simply be that Varramb had a sensory outlet somewhere close by, and when she came within range its location would 'ping' inside her head, whereupon she'd pick up a capsule or package which was waiting for her, and take it from there.
     Miril shrugged, resuming her progress paralleling the monoline on her left.  Might as well continue.
    She now recognized from some rock formations on the forest edge to her right, that the end point of her journey was nigh.  Or it ought to be... She put her spyglass to her eye and scrutinized the scene ahead.  The trees and bushes looked... dishevelled, contorted even.   And just where was the end, the point of divergence?  Why hadn't she already reached it?  This didn't look right.   
    Miril swiftly deployed reasons that might explain the unexpected further "straight" continuation of the forest.  Could it have been caused by the convection currents, which can arise from the slow churning of the various ice-crust dwellers called stryegns, sometimes to cause destruction, but sometimes, alternatively, distortion and elongation - for instance, here, prolonging the straight bit?  And as for the vegetation's dishevelled look: one of the mutable life-forms of Ooranye might have caused damage for any of the unguessable reasons which always abounded.     
    She sighed when forced to face the outrageous fact that the ribbon of rail-parallel vegetation had grown several miles longer.     
    Too much had changed.  More grimly, she proceeded on her way, and at last she reached the end of the parallel.  From this point on, the line of greenness veered off and the monoline continued unaccompanied on its bare embankment that ran on and away over the brown and purple-patched open plain.   
    No 'ping' in her mind had announced any depot or outlet on her way so far; nothing, that is, which might contain a stored report from Varramb for her to collect.  The truth crashed down: the "Simulation", so-called, was nothing of the kind. It must, instead, have been an Action.   
    Miril Nerred, hovering, found her thoughts to be as stationary as her skimmer.  Presently she went back a bit, to re-enter the parallel-vegetation zone, and brought the vehicle down to the ground.  She stepped out of it, took some deep breaths, and gave herself full permission NOT to understand.     
    Her ideas had become as confused and weary as the movements of one who has been running to catch sheets of a document whirled away in a tempest.  That particular comparison occurred to her because, in truth, this end of the forest had recently been subjected to raw violence.  Torn creepers straggled down from the overbeetling brows of five or six major ice-chunks which jutted up a hundred yards or more.  Some dozens of other heights, lesser in altitude and bulk, leaned chipped and tumbled, while from bare ground grew a scattering of new trees, weedier than those further back along the forest line.  The spaces between these were sparsely strewn with lesser growths, slight enough to permit an easy stroll from one small clearing to another.  Miril began to wander on foot, among this thin, light vegetation.  How unwise had been her half-conscious hope, that the world might at least trouble itself to make a bit of sense for her.     
    Deciding to relax for a while, she sat down on a flat rock.  
    Silly to feel disdainful towards facts!  Fate ought never to be snubbed, and bewilderment ought to be viewed as an opportunity.   
    She rested her legs; her eyes wandered.   
    She scanned the foliation spread in a blanket of green lace over the ice-crags around her.  The encroachment was thin; it must only be days old, as were the upthrust crags themselves, for this whole extension of the forest could be no less recent than those crags were. 
    The newness of the trees tempted her to speculate that she was being fooled somehow.  Hypnotic illusion?  In a way, she would have preferred it so.  Yet she knew of a rougher answer, the one she must allow for, the staccato burst which Uranian life occasionally gave: "Impulsion".
    A distasteful term, and one that had not been coined for nothing.   
    Not only the breezy rustle of leaves but also a faint crepitation, the unfinished settling of recently disturbed ice and rock, became audible the more she concentrated.
    It became ever harder to believe in any illusion theory. 
    In that case, when I go back, she thought, what am I to tell the Noad?  "Excuse me, Noad S-V, I have to report that Varramb has gone from Simulation to Impulsion."  How would Sevret Vaid react to that?  Perhaps she'll like it.    
    Miril thought back to the holographic vision in the Noad's audience chamber.  a hate-image of Yr, City of Mists.  Kept in deliberate view, so that Sevret Vaid might stoke her defiance until she was ready to hurl a challenge at the real thing. 
    Possibilities for Impulsion there!  Well, let the Noad play around with bursts of fire if she wished.  "I," Miril muttered aloud, "have earned the right to a vacational Fate-line." A reasonable allowance of peace and quiet.     
    Reflexively she glanced around, aware that she had spoken aloud.  But of course no one was present to hear.  No chance of being overheard out here, surely.
    However the very next moment she heard some twigs snap.     
    She jumped erect, whirling, to see a dark-clad, limber figure who was clambering down from a thickety outcrop.  He was about fifteen yards away.  He might, with sufficiently acute hearing, have heard some of the things she'd been saying.     
    Her hand went to her sponnd-hilt; but no - she hadn't uttered some State secret, so what did it matter that she had mused aloud?  And look now, the man was giving her a friendly wave.  Yes, one ordinary Wayfarer hailing another.  A chance meeting, or so she trusted, as she waved back.   
    He was moving soundlessly now, no more snapping of twigs as his long legs brought him down from the rocks and onto the level gralm.  Perhaps - twitched her mind - he had initially made a bit of noise on purpose, as polite notice of his approach.
    The man halted, leaning against the upswelling bole of an immature ksuiv tree, which swayed against his weight.  "I too," he remarked, "am in vacational mood."
    So he had heard her.  "You've got good ears," she snapped back.
    "It's as well to stay alert, even on holiday."
    That was a foreign word she didn't know, but she picked up on the rest of it:  "Alert?" she said. 
    "Yes, even in a peaceful place like this."     
    "That's what you call it, eh?" scowled Miril, discomposed by a swiftly growing attraction towards this stranger.  "If you think things are peaceful around Vlamanor, that only show you must be from far away.  Which is obvious anyhow."     
    "You mean, my Jommdan accent."  The man acquiesced.  "You're right, anyway; what used to be my home is a long way off," he added with a lopsided grin.   
    "Who are you?"
    "You see before you a mere Wayfarer named Yadon, of no fixed abode.  And you, sponndar?"   
    "Miril Nerred.  From - " and she waved back over the miles towards the hazy smudge of her great city.   
    "Which is where I was headed."   
    "But you've interrupted your journey."   
    "I saw this patch and wondered," the Wayfarer explained easily.  The way he said it reassuringly embodied the Wayfaring ideal, that to wonder was enough reason to stop and look, without expecting to gain much understanding.  Conversationally he continued, "All looks quite new.  It must be new.  But who'd wish (or need) to plant an arboretum here?  It piques my curiosity."
    Miril could not stop herself from saying, "I to a similar extent am desirous to know about you - "  and though her words were still sharp, her tone softened as she spoke, until by the time she finished her sentence she sounded as though she were requesting a favour, with:  " - to know about where you're ultimately from."   
    "I set out from Olhoav."   
    An obscure, ancient name!  A datum which took her store of general knowledge several moments to yield.  When she got it, her jaw dropped.  "You came all the way from Starside!" 
    "A not un-heard-of journey, surely?" 
    "But not for hundreds of lifetimes...  The things you must have seen..."  She faltered, gaping at this light-hearted voyager. 
    From out of the blue a hope had come to her.  One worth pursuing.  She began obliquely:
    "You've learned to deal with surprises, I expect."
    "I've certainly met them," he laughed. 
    "I..." began Miril, and found she had lost the thread.  This confusing happiness!  Could she be justified?  Could she allow herself such beguilement?  This craggy stranger with a friendly smile - could he (perhaps BECAUSE he was such a foreigner) have been sent by a kindly Fate?  Sent to allow her to offload a complaint which she would not have confided to one of her own people...?    
    While she was working out how to begin, the man made it easy for her.  "This place, now...  How does it look to you, sponndar Miril?"   
    She blurted out, "I have a sense of being cheated."
    The relief!  He's interested - he's invitingly raising his eyebrows -     
    Yadon said, "Sounds like you have a tale to tell.  Let's go for a stroll."  
    Rejoicing inwardly, she stepped alongside the tall, loose-limbed wanderer as he resumed his reconnoitring of the forest. 
    As she ambled beside him she happily related her own achievements, problems and tasks, beginning with a sketchy summary of how she had discovered why the forest lines meandered as they did, next telling him about the mysterious Unbelievers flourishing in her city.  She explained that in order to figure out what they were up to it was necessary to investigate the revival of interest in Simulation.
    "Simulation...  is that the in thing in Vlamanor?"
    The in thing...  Accepting the turn of phrase, she nodded and said yes, it was a feature of Vlamanor's current scene. 
    "It became my aim," she went on, "to find out whether Simulation actually worked.  Either it models an outcome, or it doesn't.  Worth knowing, either way.  So down I went, to Ghepion Varramb nenself.  I wanted to say to nen: please model the forest growth from its starting point onwards to now, using the data from that old time..."   
    "So that you could then compare that report with the real thing," Yadon prompted.   
    "Yes - only the crazy thing, which really baffles me, was, Varramb hasn't given me a report to compare!"   
    "Odd."   
    "I'll say it's odd!  Nen just sent me out, giving me to understand that my request had been fulfilled, and I, as in a dream, unquestioningly came here... whereupon one look at all this - " she waved at the surround - "told me the answer: that Simulation was no longer the issue at all."   
    "Ahhhummmm," hummed Yadon.     
    How great that he was marvelling along with her!  She felt extraordinarily content.    
    For a while there was a silence, which he broke with: "You know, during my travels, I've perforce developed hunches.  With regard to what you've told me, I can imagine how a really powerful model of reality might affect events as well as  simulate them."   
    "You can picture it?  That's good!  Then tell me how it works!" she demanded with a wobbly chuckle.  "Unless by 'affect events' you simply mean, that a report of that kind can influence policy-makers to act.  That's not the case here: there hasn't been time for any more reports and decisions."   
    "No, what I'm suggesting is, that (this world being like it is) a sufficient powerful modelling cannot help but cause real eddies and swirls among the fate-lines.  Consequently, the model is apt to become more than a model.  Beyond a certain stage it will constitute, in itself, an action."   
    "The power of self-fulfilling prediction," Miril murmured.   
    "How much of a punch it packs, I wouldn't know," continued Yadon.  "I suspect, though, that (this world being what it is) sooner or later one is going to run into an extreme case."   
    "'This world being what it is'," echoed Miril.  She'd heard him say it twice.  Something tingled in her mind.  She did not exactly shiver, but a notional shadow caused her to glance at her companion sidelong.  Broken skies - was that a flicker of amusement on his face?     
    "Why are you laughing at me?"
    "I'm not," he said.    
    Hmm... all right, she decided.  But after some more minutes of companionable strolling, when they sat down together on a convenient rock, Miril found that the fair weather of her emotions was giving way to stormclouds.  The shivers began.  Jolts of uncomprehending distress.     
    "You're too well-travelled for me," she said.   
    The man shook his head.  "Irony got to me, that's all."   
    Appalled at having to blink back tears, Miril shot back:  "What irony?  Voyaging from Starside to Sunside: doesn't that make you unusually entitled to laugh at comparative stay-at-homes?"    
    His head drooped.  "If only you knew." 
    Her emotional pendulum swung once more.  Feebly she tried to rebuke herself for the amazing, simple-minded infatuation which had seized her so suddenly in its grip.  What was she doing, loafing around in this short-lived haven with a man who churned her up with ridiculous speed?  And as for if only you knew - if only she knew what?  But a strong instinct kept her from asking.      
    Soon however they got talking again, and he steered the conversation away from himself and back towards her own experiences, and here she obtained some salve for her pride, for, drawing her out, he appeared genuinely interested in what she had to say about her original work on the Allomba Fapps.     
    "Not bad deduction," he judged, and at first she did not register the next three words, spoken under his breath, "for a Uranian."   
    "...I thought it odd, you see, that nobody else had done the work on the ribbon-forests before I did, since all I did was forge a chain of reasoning...  Eh?" she stopped, belatedly stunned at the three words for a Uranian.   
    "Yes, you did rather better than most would have done, I'd say," the Starsider agreed with himself.  "Something which most of you haven't taken to: Cause-and-Effect, an idea which, according to the impression I get, is regarded as over-rated on this world."   
    She had a choice.  By this time they were reclining close to each other on a patch of deep moss, but she might, rejecting the softness, foment her dismay at the streak of remoteness, the resurgence of irony in him; or she could give way to the urge to trust.  That would be nicest: to plunge deeper into the gold of his glamour and charm.   
    A short while later, having made her choice, she was lying in his arms.  Faith now reigned in her, that the undemanding hour stretched likewise for him.  Surely she could, for such a little while, overlook "Not bad for a Uranian".  The phrase did no more than hiss faintly like a fuse on the floor of her mind.     
    When for one moment she shifted her head to check on his expression, his eyes met hers quite shyly, and she happily looked away again, snuggling against him; all right, the "beyondness" of him still hovered about, and she knew really that his life-path was not hers, but it was allowable to dream while the dream lasted.
    "You have a wife, Yadon?"   
    She sensed his head-shake.
    "I am between wives." 
    "Your first one was... killed?  I mean, you do not look old."   
    "Yes, my first wife, Dittri, was killed."   
    "I am sorry to hear that.  And your second?"   
    "I await the impossible," he murmured.   
    "Ha.  Then it won't be Miril Nerred," remarked the girl, deciding, after all, that it was time to scramble up and brush the gralm and the leaves from her cloak.  "I'm all too possible," she dryly added.    
    Yadon, to her relief, made no apology.  Standing up likewise, he contemplated her sombrely, seriously, somehow giving her her dignity.  "You are going now?  Back to your city?"   
    "Yes."   
    "I'll accompany you, if I may."   
    "No reason why not."   
    "Are you all right?" - a strange, foreign phrase.   
    "You've done me some good, yes."
    "I don't know what I've done."   
    "Oh," she said, "I suppose it took a Starsider to explain to me, how Simulation-as-Action can work.  Credit where it's due."   
    "You mean that?"   
    "It may have sounded sarcastic, but yes, I mean it."
    That a man who had voyaged across the globe should be exceptionally endowed with apparng - context-awareness, the faculty of seeing things afresh and of not taking them for granted - seemed reasonable to Miril, and her besotted self - credit to that - could be forgiven for being impressed. She'd been perceptive "for a Uranian".  That phrase now reached the end of its fuse and detonated its meaning.     
    Its impact was the less for being overdue.  She had had time to adjust.  It could now only signify a figure of speech.  Its picturesque meaning was surely not literal; rather, it was: as if Yadon were judging this world from outside.  He couldn't really be an alien. 
    Except - as a Starsider he was alien enough.  A man from the remotest part of the planet could well possess insights which demonstrate apparng at its most powerful.  He might therefore have the capability to look at Uranian life as if, or almost as if, he could see it from the viewpoint of another world.
    A wonderful man.  Perhaps he'd be a bit eerie to live with.   
    While moving off she chattered, "Let's go find our skimmers.  It's time I reported back.  I owe it to the Noad to be as prompt as I can.  Not only is she a really good ruler, she has been good to me personally."   
    Soon they had regained their vehicles and were speeding along the Allomba Fapps back towards the great city.  Though they skimmed side by side, the speed and the whistle of the air were not conducive to further conversation.
    A half mile from the massive base of the urban stem, forest and monoline simultaneously came to an end, and Vlamanor towered hugely above the approaching skimmers.  Miril and Yadon, by tacit consent, allowed themselves to drift increasingly apart from one another as they approached the aerial fountain of the ayash, that must lift them to the height of the rim.  Yadon waved and called above the rising swish:  "Convey my salutation to your estimable Noad."   
    Miril cried back, "Tyeplinoa", which means, "I have feasted" - a term we Uranians use to mean that we have enjoyed another's company.  It was moments later, after she had risen a good way among the other vehicles in the traffic stream, that she thought of the nuance that meant "I have feasted enough".  In other words, I want no more.  Not what she had wished to imply; and with a pang of regret she looked back to find that she could no longer distinguish Yadon among the others borne upon the airstream, which meant she hadn't a hope of retracting the word.

6

She tried again to spot the Starsider but obtained no further glimpse, while her vehicle curved downward, along with its neighbours, in the airstream's arching trajectory until, gently as a falling leaf, she was set down upon the smooth metal of the oalm.  Journey over.  She stepped off her skimmer.  A quick look around confirmed that she had lost her man; by picturing his path through the air - how he must have risen past the looming rim and then swept down as she had done, to alight somewhere upon this portion of the great urban disc - she could well imagine so many places he might be, that she had to shrug, realizing that only improbable luck would reveal him. 
    Besides, what was the point of wishing to see him now?  It would be more respectable to wonder what he was thinking; whether, at this moment, he felt impressed with this beloved and majestic home of hers, the loaded disc of Vlamanor.  She hoped and trusted so.  A community such as hers, upborne for so many thousands of lifetimes upon its massive mile-wide stem, must surely surpass in splendour Yadon's Olhoav or any other outpost in the starlit hemisphere.  No disc-on-stem cities had ever been built in that remoteness. 
    Yadon, indeed, if he knew what was good for him, might make a new home for himself here, amidst a Syoomean city whose blazing splendour must so clearly outmatch anything in his native land... 
    Anyhow - sighed Miril - it was time to toss the fellow from her mind.  Without further delay she headed for the Palace of the Noad.  She must report. 
    Her reception was different, this time. She was not invited into the same room.  Instead, while she stood in one of the lobbies, a guard handed her a communicator, which she held to her ear.  The voice of Sevret Vaid crackled:      "Back already, Miril?  You must think you have found something important."   
    "I reckon so, Noad S-V."   
    "First, tell me: have you joined or rejected the Unbelievers?"   
    Miril's brain whirred: usual wisdom held that one did not match wits with Sevret Vaid, but on this occasion -  "Depends how you mean!  I can tell you, Noad S-V, theirs is a merely performative Unbelief."   
    "Amounting to...?"   
    "A drawing-back.  In preparation for a rush forward."     
    "Forward to...?"   
    "Impulsion."   
    That word brought a couple of seconds' silence.
    "Come and dine," invited the voice in Miril's ear.  "We need to explore all this."   
    Quite a few Vlamanorians had learned that this 'being asked to dine' was a perilous honour.  Miril, as the words bounced around in her head, felt reasonably confident nevertheless.  No matter what political balloons the Noad might bat at her, she could probably flounder her way through them, since they were unlikely to overwhelm more than those waves she'd already breasted, the Ghepion in the Vaults, the Starsider in the forest...   
    An officer conducted Miril along one of the minor corridors, and left her standing outside a room which, through its open door, appeared mostly bare.  All she could, looking in, was a table, with two chairs, one on the near side and one on the far, and, spilling over the back of the near chair, the glossy locks of the Noad.  The voice said, "Come in and sit down."  Miril obediently edged round to reach the place on the table's other side, facing the door.     
    Now she could see the expression on the face of the ruler.  It was quite amiable.  Noad Sevret Vaid pulled one plateful of delicacies towards herself and pushed another towards Miril.  They both munched for about half a minute, and then:     
    "Tell me of this Impulsion."   
    Miril told her story without, however, mentioning Yadon.   
    "Your conclusion," the Noad summarised, after having quizzed Miril on some of the details, "is that what's hitherto been called Simulation actually causes - not merely models but causes - an accelerated spurt of events."   
    Miril nodded, and judged that this was the right moment to get round to saying: "I met a Wayfarer who agreed with me."   
    "Oh, a handy coincidence, that.  You discussed the matter?"   
    "In general terms."     
    "The name of this Wayfarer?"   
    "He gave it as... Yadon."   
    The lips of the ruler formed into a plenteous smile, broadening under fervid eyes.  "Tell me, Miril," the Noad husked, "which side you are on."
    "Sponndar?" gulped Miril.   
    "I said tell me now which side are you on!"
    "On your side!  On Vlamanor's side!"
    With an impatient gesture the Noad said, "I meant, with regard to the use or avoidance of Impulsion.  Which?"   
    Miril glanced up at the ceiling.  Of course this room wasn't that Chamber which housed the towering hologram of the City of Mists.  But the glance was enough.  Impulsion - action - battle with Yr - that was the thought that the Noad could read in her face.   
    "Don't bother to answer."  Sevret Vaid rose from her chair.  "Don't get up, Miril."  Backing out through the door, the Noad added: "I need you out of circulation for a while."   
    While the door hissed shut Miril's thoughts accelerated to such a speed that she could not possibly voice them; otherwise she might have shouted, "I meant no harm!"  She slumped, hoping her imprisonment would be of short duration.   
    Long or short, she was stuck here, alone.  The sparse, windowless room was void of interest.  A pole-lamp stood in one corner, but it was unlit, and light came only from the ceiling-glow.  Miril was soon awash with self-blame.  I was out of touch, she thought.  Too concentrated on my own projects.  Should have guessed that she would guess that I might guess her purpose -      No wonder she has locked me in here, so clear has it become, that she plans some move against the City of Mists. 
    So clear indeed that I can't be the only one appalled at the risk she is running; you don't challenge the floating city.  If it attacks, you must defend, but it would be madness to provoke it -

7

Soft and unvarying was the glow from the walls and the ceiling of Miril's prison.  She had been left with no furniture other than the table and the two chairs, plus one other item: the single unlit pole lamp which stood in a corner.    
    Since the Noad was not cruel, the very scantiness of the furniture (Miril optimistically reasoned) must be an indication that she would be let out soon; and then - what?     
    Possibilities abounded, her imagination lathering the bare cell with potential futures.  Wherever her thoughts alighted, immediately an ebullition of "Yes, but" frothed within her.  Attempts to guess the Noad's plans caused her to dither between pessimism and optimism.  She could envisage some ugly prospects, yet their uncertainties permitted countervailing hopes.   
    - A hum, a slide, a click!  She whirled.  A bed was sliding out of the wall. Further slidings, further clicks accompanied the bed's automatic upholstering and unfolding.  Within ten more seconds, to her unease, the cell had taken on a more furnished look.  A long-term look. 
    Oh, oh, this was not looking so good.  Her consciousness must now shoulder the burden of lonely imprisonment for longer than she had hoped.  She sighed and went to sit on one of the chairs.  Anyhow, her mind could rove; she could be free in that way at least.     
    The nicest theme for daydreaming was her brief idyll with Yadon in the forest of the Allomba Fapps, except that it brought an additional sorrow: Yadon was lost to her.  But - could there be such a thing as a lucky misfortune?  Maybe her desolation at the Starsider's disappearance from her life could be balanced by the far different hurt she now felt at her treatment by her former idol, the Noad.  Each blow might serve to lighten the other; two misfortunes might make a fortune...     
    Later, bedrowsed on the bed, she pictured a flow of combative scenes, visions of "I'll show her", imaginary conversations in which Sevret Vaid was unable to return a convincing answer...    
    ...Presently she heard a voice, and she assumed she must be dreaming: it was a deep, calm, vaster-than-human voice, which issued from the top of the pole-lamp.     
    "I shall favour you now, Miril Nerred."     
    It was Varramb, the Ghepion, who was speaking to her.  High time, smiled Miril.  She propped herself up on one elbow and stared at the glow spilling from the hitherto-dull lamp.  A very odd idea came to her, that perhaps after all she was not dreaming.  The light puckered, steadied and resolved into a cinematic vision of the Noad's head, a head that was yelling in cheek-swelling fury: "Yadon in my city?  That should have been foreknown!"    
    It was a sight, this image of a ruler in her rage! - this Noad who had imprisoned Miril and who, to judge from the current glimpse, was now a prisoner of her own violent emotions. 
    "Ah, show me more of this, Varramb," Miril requested aloud.    
    Varramb obliged.  More yelling from the Sevret image: "...Not one of you 'advisors' warned me - fools that you are - "     
    It all seemed real and yet not real, which of course is what you get in dreams, but Miril could feel an ache in her elbow, while her neck, too, smarted under strain from her tense posture, hard hints that what she was seeing was not dream but Simulation.     
    "Varramb," she cried, "just what are you up to now?"   
    The answer sighed through the cell.  "I am friendly towards you, Miril Nerred."     
    So it might be.  It wouldn't be the first time that a Ghepion had liked and befriended a human.  Many of the immortal machines had indeed develop warm sentiments towards the ephemeral humans whose lives dusted the vast timeline of history.  "All right: thank you for that," Miril said.  "And truly I'm interested in what you are showing me.  But can you explain why the Noad is so worried by Yadon's presence in Vlamanor?"   
    "Yadon has worried quite a few people by this time."   
    "Has he really?  Even so - a single wanderer frightening Sevret Vaid?"
    "But he is a wanderer from Starside," Varramb replied.  "An adventurer with a catalytic reputation, gained in the last few hundred days; a reputation that has spread across Syoom."   
    "I have heard nothing of this."   
    "You have been too absorbed in your own local interests, Miril.  Otherwise you might by now have understood that the monoline routes between the Twenty-Five Cities, and the random trajectories of countless Wayfarers, have served as the grapevine for Yadon's fame."   
    "'Grapevine'? 
    "A Terran word.  It means rumour-routes.  Sevret Vaid is obviously terrified lest this trouble-shooter (you may not have heard that one either) foil her attempt to attack the City of Mists.  You can guess the rest of it."   
    "Varramb, you're certainly enlivening my detention.  Let me now guess that the Noad aims to foil Yadon in turn.  For a start, by imprisoning me, his friend."   
    "That could be so," agreed Varramb.  "She may have reckoned that he and you together might be too much for her."   
    Herself and Yadon together - a fond thought.  But - enemies of the Noad?  A sad thought.  "Can you interfere with locks, Varramb?  Can you get me out of this cell?"   
    "I have the run of the city," the Ghepion acknowledged.  "But a sheltered guest such as myself has no call to take part in your crises.  Your human troubles come and go, and are no business of mine."   
    "Then what are you talking to me for?"   
    Calmly the Ghepion replied, "I told you, I am friendly towards you.  I cannot release you, though.  I respect the authority of the Noad, the rightful ruler of Vlamanor."   
    "Still," argued Miril, thinking fast, "you are willing to be kind to me.  So then, can you put me in touch with Yadon?"   
    "I'm sorry, Miril: so sorry.  I doubt that you will ever see him again."   
    Her spirit crumpled at that.  Not ever again see the Starsider man, not ever be warmed in the rays of his presence, not for all the rest of her life?  Of course she knew how silly it was to be so overwhelmed by the loss of a bliss which had been hers for only a few hours.
    "But be comforted," added the soft, vast voice of Varramb.  "Yadon, simply by the news of his presence, has done much for Vlamanor: he has impelled the Noad to take premature action.  So, if you wish her attack-plan to fail, as I think you do, you must rejoice in the credit which the Starsider deserves."   
    No doubt, realized Miril, the Ghepion really did think that perspectives of that sort could mitigate grief.  Exasperatedly she cried, "Then produce what you can - a simulated Yadon if you can't give me the real one!"   
    For she might safely, without breaking her heart, speak with a mere phantom.  Yes, safely: for she'd not be deceiving herself with an illusion.  And taking all aspects into consideration, it could also be said (insofar as the simulation would be an animated summary of the knowledge available about the man and hence a consequence or outcome of his existence) - it could be said that it WOULD after all, in a certain sense, be some kind of manifestation of him.  Better than nothing...  Irrational artifice of comfort - but why not?  It might even be justifiable!  Something practical might spring therefrom.     
    The upper area of the pole lamp collected a little oval cloud, which began to wink with sparks.  This was it: her wish was about to be granted: a production not quite as rapid as the previous simulation, that of the Noad (for these new sparks - perhaps because Yadon was less well known - required a few more seconds to coalesce); nevertheless the holograph was in place before Miril had taken many breaths.  Claiming more room than the image of Noad Sevret Vaid had done, this one completely hid the upper part of the pole lamp, while the base took on the guise of a pedestal.     
    Miril gulped and reminded herself that the beloved looming image was mere guesswork, informed guesswork and no more, certainly not really Yadon but, rather, an appanage of the info-stash of Varramb.   
    The image smiled down at her.
    The man seemed to speak. 
    "Skimmjard, Miril!  Good to see you again!  Anything you wish to ask me?"   
    That easy-going drawl!  That relaxed enfolding! 
    "Yes, there is, Yadon" - and saying the name she felt darkly clever (look, I'm pretending to be fooled.  Pretending, mind you.  I know you're not real).  She went on:  "Yadon, it's good to see you too.  Er... now listen, can you help?  Varramb, unfortunately, will not act to save Vlamanor; might YOU think of a way?"   
    "You ask that of me - a stranger from further away than you can imagine?"   
    "Yes, because you you must have experienced so much, you may know what needs to be done."   
    "You really think so?"   
    "I really hope so, at any rate."   
    "Tell me more of the 'how'; I need, before I can answer you, to become clearer about what your hope consists of."   
    "Something, anything, that you may think up in order to stave off the Noad's insane plan to launch an Impulsion attack upon the City of Mists!"   
    Having gushed out these words Miril fell to breathing heavily, while the calmer Yadon, or rather 'Yadon', looked thoughtful.     
    "You are certain that your Noad is acting foolishly - that to challenge Yr will bring defeat upon Vlamanor?"   
    That was an easy one:  "I know this much history, Varramb" (she might as well be explicit in addressing the thing):  "I know that Yr has never been successfully attacked.  Never, during all the eras it has haunted the skies of Ooranye, has anyone given battle to the flying city."   
    "Ah," the holographic figure nodded.  "A significant datum - for, doubtless, motive has not been lacking.  Yr has behaved inimically on more than one occasion."   
    "And with impunity."   
    "I acknowledge the point.  It's not surprising that no city on the ground has dared retaliate.  To fight an entire city that possesses the freedom of the air..."   
    Miril said, "Precisely.  And so, why should we survive such an attempt?  If one were to ask why Vlamanor might succeed where none other has even dared to try, I see no good answer."   
    "Therefore," the image remarked, "if such a move were made, it ought to be led by the Sunnoad himself on behalf of all Syoom, and not, as is the case here, to be a local initiative of one rash Noad, who is foolishly willing to risk dying amid the wreckage of her city under an assault from the sky."
    Just what she wanted to hear!   
    "My thoughts exactly," said Miril - and paused.     
    Up till this moment, she had been assuming that the voice of 'Yadon' was really the voice of Varramb, which meant of course that it was saying only what Varramb wished to permit the image to say: that same Varramb who, short while ago Varramb, had expressed nen's loyalty and submission to the rule of the Noad.  Now, however, the image had just sounded a serious note of criticism aimed at Noad Sevret Vaid.  How come?    
    But then, come to think of it, if the simulation was to be authentic, it had to be given free reign.  It must be allowed to express what Yadon himself would have said, even if that went directly against what Varramb approved.      Grounds for hope?    
    Probing, she remarked:   
    "Let's imagine the worst comes to the worst: the Noad attacks Yr, and Yr retaliates to the full.  I suppose, even then, we in Vlamanor won't be utterly destroyed.  Anyone - any thing - living in the vaults will be safe, under the city-floor of iedleis, the ultimate metal."      
    (Cheeky, cheeky!  I'm as good as saying that it's small wonder Varramb can't be bothered to interfere, since nen will be all right, whatever happens.)   
    To avoid such cheekiness it would be as well to keep firmly in mind whom she was really talking to; that the image of Yadon up there in the corner, though it might tug at her fool heart, was just a clever simulacrum, no more; and that she must never forget she was communicating not with Yadon but with Varramb.
    At that moment the simulacrum said with a wry curve of the lip:   
    "Not everyone will be able to shelter under the iedleis metal floor.  It's going to be bad, very bad.  Much destruction and loss of life..."   
    "You sound like it's inevitable," said Miril with a sensation as of a leaden weight upon her chest.  "As though the Noad has already started the fight."
    "I reckon she has," affirmed 'Yadon'.
    The image was bowing his head and compassionately smiling down.  Miril shuddered.   
    "Then," she said bleakly, "it really is too late."   
    "Yes."  The image's smile was gone.  In fact it was grimacing peculiarly as 'Yadon' said, "What with your fate-waves and stuff, I would guess that Sevret Vaid had fired the starting-gun (so to speak) the moment she requested from Varramb a 'dummy run'."   
    "A what?"
    The simulacrum's voice dropped towards a mumble , rendered the less intelligible by the further jargon it piled on:
    "Im Anfang war der Tat - from the statistical forecast to the mantic deed, somewhere the line gets crossed, and prediction shades into action."
    "What are you talking about?"
    "Perhaps foresight is always too late," continued the Being, "for what can exist but deeds?  Really we never wait for waves; instead we lay tracks and march."   
    Miril cut in feebly:  "Waves... we have to accept waves... they're everywhere; they're our lives..."   
    She was shaken by the other's raised voice:     
    "Thunderstruck is what I am... by the fatalism of you people!"   
    "What?" she gaped.   
    "Accept if you must, but don't go quietly!" glared 'Yadon' at the slack-jawed girl.  "And anyhow you know that there is a way out of this one!" 
    She felt so dull!  "What?" was again all that she could manage to say.   
    He continued more gently:  "Chin up, Miril: there definitely exists a way out.  Not sure what you call it, but without it your political structures could not work.  You know what I mean, surely.  It's the principle that replacements must be possible."   
    Simula or no, Yadon's real personality seemed to have taken over the conversation, tempting Miril not only to believe that it was, in some sense, really he, but also that he might be right -    
    He was weakening her resistance to the unspeakable.  Deep down she knew he was right that it was, indeed, possible to do something about a Noad gone wrong.  The taboo thought caused her to tremble; she bowed her head for some moments.  Presently, though, she managed to raise her eyes to regard the image of the Starsider.   
    The drapes of his cloak flowed straight and tall, and he stood Noadlike himself while he issued his spellbinding instructions, which were couched in the form of explanations.
    "Imagine a world far from Ooranye: a quite different world with rulers called Kings, who were anointed, sacred, could do no wrong.  Being mere men, they nevertheless did do plenty of wrong.  So much so, that on occasion they had to be GOT RID OF.  Despite their legal immunity, it was done, because it had to be done.  Now, with regard to your world: it is true that your Noads are better than the Kings in that other world.  Your rulers' very title means 'focus' or 'co-ordinator', suggesting one who governs by renl rather than by army or bureaucracy.  Anyone sufficiently capable to do that, must be so good that you might think it unnecessary to speculate on what could be done to get rid of him or her...  And yet - !"  The voice slowed, went more serious still:  "And yet, such superiority only makes it even more urgent, as well as more difficult, to do what must be done on those rare occasions when the institution fails and Noads lead their people in the direction of disaster.     
    "You don't have constitutions or written laws, you lack official provision for the necessary step - but nevertheless a Uranian body-politic must have... um... shall we say... a metabolic pathway..."   
    Miril sagged, overwhelmed by the increasing evidence that this simula had been given a free hand to think for itself, attaining direful and essential conclusions.  Moreover a developing hunch told her that 'Yadon' was addressing other listeners too.  She might be the closest, but his words (she suspected) were winging their way down that pole-lamp into other conduits...     
    "You look like I've knocked you flat, Miril, which means, I suppose," the image chuckled, "that I am getting the idea across."   
    She sat bolt upright.  "Not to me, not to me!"  No no no, she not said anything, had not even silently agreed to anything; in no way had she touched the never-to-be-recorded option.  - Oh really? jeered her deepest, most honest self.  You've listened, haven't you?  This adventurer, whom you love, has mentioned the un-mentionable in your presence, and thus has linked you to a terrible deed.   
    "Yadon, or rather Varramb - show me again that vision of the angry Noad!"  One must become accustomed, to be strengthened in order to dare.
    'Yadon' said gently, "Better not, right now.  The woman is in a bit of a pother; you won't gain from viewing her haggard face.  It's hard for the obdurate to come to the end of their road."   
    "The end?" echoed Miril.   
    "Only for her.  The rest of us need merely hop from one log to another - one loyalty to another - to keep our balance when they all start to roll."  The metaphor was unfamiliar to Miril, but she adopted it nevertheless, as she grated hoarsely:
    "I can't change logs that fast."
    Before the syllables were out of her mouth, the image of Yadon had disappeared.

8

"Varramb," said Miril out loud, and "Varramb" she again called, but in the continuing silence she had to accept that the Simulator had effectively bidden her farewell.      
    So much for the Ghepion.  Nen had abandoned her.  Not, however, before having granted her a vision of Yadon; and with that she must be content.          No doubt by this time the real Yadon had bestridden his skimmer and taken off for distant parts, drawn by the suction of his destiny; well then, she must count herself fortunate for having been vouchsafed a last waft of his presence.  A residue or imprint of his personality was better than nothing.  Losses were often worse than this, more brutally abrupt; she had better be thankful.
    Her waves of emotion therefore subsided, and quiet descended upon her mind as more hours went by, so that she was able to wait in peace for whatever might ensue, even as the hours became days.  The next move, she was fairly certain, would come from the human authorities of the city, not from Varramb.  That wise hulk would interfere no more; nen's single political action had surely been the most one might expect from a quiescent Ghepion. 
    Miril sat in patient reflection until somebody - the Noad, or one sent by the Noad - should come and let her out of the cell.   
    ...In the version of this tale written for our Uranian readers, we skip over the rest of the time she spent imprisoned; but in the version that we tell to you Terrans we are prepared to reveal a secret about that lonely couple of days.    
    It can happen, on rare occasions, that the fate-waves which swirl in Ooranye's atmosphere become detectable by the naked eye.  The collision between the three forces which crashed together in Miril's cell - the impetus of Varramb's powers, of Yadon's uniqueness, and of Miril's own ambitious yearnings - would normally have been invisible; but the isolation, the concentration, here brought some trace of the storyferous surge into visual wavelengths.   
    Consequently, whereas in most of our narratives the fate-waves are taken for granted, here we shall try, for once, to help you picture the truth. 
    It's not surprising that we don't do this often.  It's far easier simply to give up hope of describing or explaining the phenomenon to Terrans, for although we might use phrases like "story-tissue" and "appropriateness-power", such verbiage would most likely mean nothing to you; in fact the challenge is so great that it's better if we approach the topic by telling you what a fate-wave is not. 
    It is not anything deterministic.  Hold onto that idea.  Rather than a blind natural force, it is closer to being a live thing.  Hold that too; and then hold the contradiction as we add a 'but': but, if you like, it is, nevertheless, a kind of natural force.
    What, then, is it?    
    It is a phenomenon that stems from the equally invisible paths or tunnels scored through the hardrock of reality by the age-long squirm of souls.  And when we say age-long, we refer to a history of awareness hundreds of times longer than that of Earth.  Nay, thousands of times longer, if you take into consideration not just us Nenns but the inhabitants of all the previous Great Cycles of Ooranye!   
    You Terrans are fond of fiction; you have a need for it because the lives of your fictional characters possess the artistic shape denied to the messier trajectories of your actual selves.  We on the other hand can dispense with invented stories, since our culture has had time to evolve into naturally poetic life-lines.  Here, therefore, thanks to that age-old selection process, reality is as shapely as fiction.  Rather than read tales, we live them.   
    If you've followed us this far, perhaps you're ready to picture the next stage of our explanation.  To do that, you must animate it.  Abandon our recent "paths or tunnels" metaphor in favour of life-lines which arch and swoop and lunge.  Let them obey the plot-forces, ride the fate-waves, skate the fortunes or however you wish to express the ebullition of the destiny-crowded Uranian atmosphere...   
    We're guessing that Miril caught a glimpse of all this.  She will have noticed some wispy harmonic of the vision of Yadon, an after-effect lingering sketchily in the air around her.     
    She also may have noticed - when the authorities finally came to free her - that the wisp followed her out.  Or perhaps not.  The opening of her cell door may well have driven all other thoughts from her mind.
    Not that the arrival of an official backed by guards was any great surprise.  And the grizzled brush of grey hair atop the elderly figure who stood stiffly to greet her was not completely unexpected either: she had been wondering if this particular man might be sent.     
    What shocked her was a further greyness about him.  His cloak.     
    The city's one and only grey cloak now swirled about the shoulders, not of Sevret Vaid, but of this erstwhile Daon of Vlamanor, Lrar Emdu.     
    Vlamanor's new Noad.
    "You are now freed from your unjust incarceration, sponndar Miril," the Successor announced.  "But rather than talk of that, we must turn to deal with a crisis.  Follow me if you please, sponndar."

9

She obeyed, swaying dizzily as she walked, and repeating to herself, this man is now my ruler.      
    Miril had never admired Lrar Emdu, and the fact that he had just been promoted from the blue cloak to the grey did nothing to warm her reaction to him personally.  Yet that could not restrain her from polishing her image of him, could not prevent the slapping-on of coat after coat of hurried revision of that image, quick-drying layers of associational gloss to adjust her belief system so as to make - in almost no time at all - "Lrar Emdu" the embodiment of the city-state of Vlamanor.     
    Imagination having dressed him in that coded attire, he took his place in her mind as rightful Noad.    
    But then - what of his predecessor?   
    Don't ask.  Sevret Vaid is gone.  Don't ask.   
    It was not precisely a "thought", more a fizz in the bloodstream, a voiceless instinct that some topics are NOT suitable for reflection.   
    Meanwhile she walked with the new Noad and his handful of guards.  They emerged from the Palace onto a city-floor space, and continued through some secondary streets which appeared less frequented than usual. 
    Presently she saw where most of the people had congregated.     
    A huge crowd thronged the Ezem, the famous concourse that normally revolves at walking speed at the half-radius of Vlamanor.  The rotation, however, had now ceased.  For the first time in living memory an order must have been given to close the master switch, to halt the circular moving way.
    The Noad took hold of Miril's arm and, acknowledging the greetings of those who stood nearby, made his way through the dense multitude in the direction of a platform.
    Up there a bulky hopper had been placed, a tub or bin about five feet tall, its diameter perhaps six yards.  The gross object bulged incongruously amid the dignified structures of central Vlamanor.
    Miril kept her silence as she was led on to the platform.  She was in thrall to a dreamlike expectancy. 
    She found herself standing close not only to the Noad but also to some other high officials, among whom she noted the weighty form of the fleet commander, omzyr Tahat Teherer, but she did not pay any of them much heed.  None of them could draw her attention away from the simple round bin.   
    She was able to see over its rim and into its interior, which, if her eyes were to be believed, was almost full of slightly steaming cvoc. 
    She turned to look at the Noad.  His eyes met hers with a knowing gleam.     
    "Shavings of Varramb?" she dared to say.   
    He nodded and, with a tight smile, turned to murmur something to the omzyr.  Then both men, Noad and fleet commander, proceeded to scan the sky with binoculars, ignoring all else.
    Miril's mind swam meanwhile with impressions of the whole scene; of the jumbled metallic contents of the bin, and the spiky restlessness of the concourse crowd, and of Lrar Emdu and Teherer.  Amid dreamlike forebodings, she intuited that the new Noad was no longer the plodder she'd once judged him to be.  Instead, old "by-the-book" Lrar Emdu was turning out after all to be an event-juggler, a flexible gambler.  The man's personal star was on the rise - had to be, to meet a crisis for which gambling skills were imperative...    
    Let the reader guess whether Miril, while she pondered all this, also noticed that the Yadon-wisp had followed her from the cell; and whether she saw it pour over the lip of the bin.
    Whether she did or not, she had the intelligence to picture a chain of possibilities being forged...   
    She saw Noad Lrar Emdu's lips move, as he issued a quiet order to omzyr Tahat Teherer.  The fleet commander, obeying, proceeded to climb the rungs on the wall which stood behind the platform, and then reached for a service panel that was high enough to be well in view of most of the crowd below.   
    Everyone was watching him as he opened the panel, drew out five control bars, bunched them under one arm and carried them back down to the platform, walked to the edge and held up what he had fetched. 
    A heightened roar greeted the gesture.  Miril sensed it to be a roar of understanding, for she guessed - though she had been incommunicado for two days - what a pair of binoculars, if only she'd had one to hand, would have shown in the sky; a thing perhaps mere seconds away from becoming visible to the naked eye.
    The seconds passed, and then a moan of detestation wafted up from the crowd.  Miril's glance now spotted the direful wink in the cope of the heavens: yes, there the thing floated - eight miles up, if tradition proved true.     
    She lowered her gaze again to regard the stirred multitude.  Their agitation left her in no doubt that everyone in the concourse had seen what she had seen, and that they all knew, just as she did, what it was.  Equally clearly, all five airships in Vlamanor's fleet must know and be ready to attack the intruder.    
    However it's still a few score miles off, and it's drifting towards us slowly, so we have some minutes to spare.      
    On the other hand those minutes give us time in which to do the wrong thing - but fortunately the Noad is no longer Sevret Vaid.    
    Miril edged up to the bulky bin with its contents of glinting junk.  Her nerves twisting with anxiety, she was desirous of reassuring herself by any possible means.  It must have been fairly easy, she thought, to send some collectors down into the vaults, to scrape from the screes all this cast-off cvoc of Varramb's earlier growth, remotely equivalent to hair or nail clippings from a human.  Clever of the Noad - since the Ghepion does not intend to help us any more in this our hour of need - to use that blind, self-organizing rubble as smoking evidence of mighty power.
    It occurred to her that the Noad, too, might be wanting reassurance.  Why, after all, had he brought her here?  For reassurance from Miril Nerred?
    Yes! - for she had got to know Varramb as well as any citizen had in recent days, and in a way Varramb was the key.  She raised her eyes and, ah, yes, they again met those of Noad Lrar Emdu, and, in order to show him that she believed he might, in History's judgement, prevail, and that she now supported him despite her former enthusiastic loyalty to his predecessor, she gave the briefest of nods. 
    Noads were adept at receiving signals.  It was all up to him now.  Let him juggle the forces around him, which Noads must ever do.  The more they are beset, the more effectively they juggle.  Right now two huge pressures crowded Lrar Emdu.  One was the terror from the sky, the aerial city drifting closer, its lower surface beginning to show what appeared at first to be fracture lines and then, when closer, the formidable Strakes of Yr, the running ridges standing out on the underside like veins which, during battle, open to emit blades of power -
    The other peril came from down on the city floor, ignited and stoked by the peril above.    
    Here it came: from amid the crowd of backgrounders, a wide low rumble which gathered and spiked into sharper yells.  A young man down there was shaking his fist.  Amazingly he was shaking it at the platform where the Noad stood. 
    Miril hardly knew at which to be more appalled: the sky-borne enemy or the defiance of rightful authority by one of her own people - no, by more than one.  She distinguished the hurled phrases:  Attack, attack, Noad L-E!  Will you not offer us victory?  Defend us by attacking!  What are you waiting for?  Why do you not launch our ships?  Launch them now, against Yr!  Launch them before the enemy positions itself right above us!    
    Noad Lrar Emdu strode to the very edge of the platform and held up his arms to plead for quiet.  He was heeded somewhat, so that he was able to make himself heard:   
    "Launch our ships?  It may come to that, Rarr Reng!"     
    The young man who had shouted the loudest glared.  "'May'?  Where's the doubt?  To wait longer to attack, is treason to Vlamanor!"   
    Confused shouts evinced agreement by many, while others were calling to Rarr Reng to pipe down.   
    "You think so," replied Lrar Emdu, "and yet there are varieties of treason.  You know what one of the worst is called?"   
    He spoke the word, and then turned his back on them all, leaving googozdamun to echo in their ears and brains.
    GOOGOZDAMUN!   
    Striding towards the steaming junk-bin, he left the multitude to digest that ugly and terrible four-syllable term. 
    Always it was spoken reluctantly, and only at long intervals was it needed, but it was never so rare as to allow Uranians to live in ignorance of its meaning.  For it could not be forgotten that googozdamun, the ultimate in criminal irresponsibility, signified reckless tampering with the forces of Fyaym. 

10

By this time enough rumour had got around the city, for most of the population to suspect the truth: that the late Noad, Sevret Vaid, had requested Varramb to simulate an attack on Yr: and that the "dummy-run" had, lamentably, so exceeded itself as to summon its object for real.     
    With a reality-bending blunder of this magnitude, many faces have to be saved.  Miril watched as Lrar Emdu, glaring down into the bin, repeated: "Googozdamun."  ("Not my fault.  If people will meddle in Fyayman things...")
    Miril looked into the bin too, and she saw the chaos of metal fragments stir.  The components of the Ghepion rubble began to glow.  Tiny haloes, which pooled to suggest a kind of luminous slurry, fast thickened into a mealy perturbation, from which steamed a mist rapidly cohering into definable outlines. Oh, let this gamble not backfire! prayed Miril.  O Thremdu, O World-Spirit, allow that misty form its voice.   
    Indeed it almost looked like that would happen.  The shape drifted upwards to an altitude which made it visible to the concourse crowd, acquiring, as it soared, the lineaments of a human head.  Highlights in the beautiful black tresses were the first indication that this shape was further moulding itself into a translucent portrait bust of the late Noad, Sevret Vaid.  During the hush that held sway during these moments, Miril Nerred's heartbeats sympathetically thrummed with those of the populace, while every mind was filled with the awesome question regarding the late Noad: would it condemn her killer?  For everyone silently knew that Sevret Vaid had been expunged; yet now she was once more visible: would her image speak?  Would it accuse her successor, Lrar Emdu, of the unmentionable crime, that rare, emergency political act, which cannot be ruled out nor explicitly allowed -
    Was it about to be brought into the open?
    Could that be a smile taking form in the vapour?    
    Lrar Emdu must (so judged Miril) be watching it oh so carefully, his mouth set in that ironic which suggested he knew it might be his turn next.  And yes, those vapourous lips were curling, perhaps, towards denunciation.  Miril, for her own part, now realized that she herself did not wish wish this to happen.  It was better that the truth did not come out.  Sevret had had to go, and the matter had had to be seen to, quietly.  Ruination would be the only result of bringing the story into the light of day, especially at a moment like this, during an enemy attack.
    Possibly the image itself agreed, for its eyes and features, instead of shaping themselves into an accusing glower, swerved in wisps to focus, in a sketch of remorse, upon the approaching menace in the sky.  Dismay, perhaps even guilt and remorse, seemed to undermine the gaseous lineaments of the late Sevret Vaid; at any rate with a dolorous sag the entire vapour-structure abruptly collapsed.  And that, thought Miril, is that. 
    Heart-heavy yet relieved, she saw it as a plain admission, by a residue of Varramb, that the Yr-Simulation had been a bad idea. 
    The crowd of backgrounders, taking the image literally, reached the conclusion more directly insofar as they were more likely to see the misty collapse as a posthumous admission by the former Noad herself: as though the image really were Sevret,  vaporously living on for a short while in order to make a final confession of the error of her ways.     
    Which of these interpretations became acccepted, did not matter to Miril.  She cared only for the vital point, namely that henceforth all Vlamanorians could, undivided, face the onset of Yr.   
    This unity had been achieved none too soon.  The floating city had come several miles closer, and was now much lower in the sky, perhaps only two miles up.  Petrifyingly enormous, the mountainous floating structure was headed straight towards Vlamanor.       
    The two weapon-emplacements known as the Shoulders of Yr had become discernible on the upper flanks of the enemy.  Somewhere up there, it was easy to believe, a finger must be tensed on a button; it was known from scraps of history that whereas the Strakes were for air-to-ground combat, the Shoulders were for air-to-air battles. 
    Prepared for this, Vlamanor's five skyships were now launched from their tower-docks.  They rose, awaiting the order from omzyr Teherer to lunge into action.  
    Noad Lrar Emdu growled at the omzyr, "Too many unknowns.  We don't even know if the thing's hull is made of ultimate metal."   
    "No others to learn from," the omzyr muttered back.  "Yr is one of a kind."   
    "For which may Thremdu be thanked.  But if the hull is made of ultimate metal, it could carom against the superstructure of Vlamanor.  It could do as much damage that way - "   
    "Look," interrupted the omzyr, for the enemy had canted, slightly but definitely, a few degrees.  No doubt about it: Yr had begun to swerve.  Forgetting to breathe, the Vlamanorians watched while further moments oozed past.  Teherer mused, "Do they intend to enter an orbit?"   
    The Noad replied, "If so, it's an extremely tight orbit, grazing the air space above our rim."   
    "Flunnd!" swore the omzyr, due to a sudden and much closer event: a huge volume of air above the concourse of Ezem had begun to... curdle in a local darkening, which rapidly clenched into the image of a brown fist: without doubt a visual transmission from Yr. 
    It was on a scale far vaster but also more vivid and sharper than the brief vapour-sculpture of Sevret Vaid above the bin on the platform.  The "fist" expanded into a frame within which another holo-image, perhaps ten yards high, appeared, of the head and shoulders of a man wearing a flared helmet, a man who perhaps was seated behind a console on which his fingers rested
    Backed by a patch of crimson wall, the hard-eyed face was that of a merciless ruler who did not deign to move his lips.  Words resounded on his behalf, out of the empty air:
    "You hear Abon Gnaa, the Voice of Rael Odiram, Noad of Yr.  We charge you, Vlamanorians.  Make plain your intentions.  Say whether you intend war against us."   
    Lrar Emdu, who was leaning on the platform rail while he raised his head to watch the towering image, spoke aside to Teherer, "Get me a microphone; I want all my people to hear this."  Teherer relayed the command and within a minute the Noad was able to Yr in a voice equally loud and determined:   
    "Sponndar Abon Gnaa, you and your Noad hear me, the Noad of Vlamanor.  Subsequent to your departure from our air space you will be able to reflect upon our answer to your question, an answer which will certainly be evident by then."   
    The gigantic holograph's entire face appeared to pulse and throb while its lips grew rounded like a blob of solder.  But then came a sudden fade.   Within seconds the image had melted dramatically into thin air. 
    Trying to guess what this meant, the people of Vlamanor swivelled their eyes to watch the actual enemy city itself.
    Yr continued to veer along its curving path.     
    One question dominated the minds of all the citizens.  Had the Noad's defiant reply made any difference?  Within a few minutes the answer became evident.  The floating city had not settled into an orbit; rather, it was on course for a fly-by.  Lungs exhaled, muscles and minds relaxed, as it became apparent that Yr had begun to recede. 
    Many in the concourse crowd stared as if in a dream; others broke into cheers and set out to push towards the platform where the Noad stood.    
    That movement was interrupted by a further surprise: out of the bin of cvoc, a different vapour-brew now arose into sculptured form.  Definitely not a repeat of that previous concoction, this newest swirl was taking the form of a lean, rugged man.
    The wispy figure at first seemed an archetype rather than an individual: the worn cloak, the hardy frame, the keen visage of one who had seen many mysterious sights and dared many adventures, perfectly symbolised the category, "tough Wayfarer".   
    Within moments, however, the idea took hold that this was a portrayal of some specific person, and perhaps one in three spectators were able to come up with of a name that fitted.   
    That substantial minority who recognized him also noted that the image squarely faced the receding Yr, and so were able to conclude that Yadon the Starsider was "seeing off" the menace in the sky. 
    Thus began the down-grading of the simple, true explanation for Vlamanor's successful defence against Yr.  Really, all that had happened was that the authorities had (just in time) kept their heads and taken proper steps, placed the fleet in proper position, and made it plain to Yr that to attack would be too costly.  The purpose of Varramb, however, went much further; the Simulator was looking far ahead, to Syoom's future need for strength from the Yadon legend.
    Right now a blizzard of gratitude gusted through the people, who felt an urge to venerate somebody - wishing they might hoist some prestigious foregrounder onto their shoulders - and although many a rousing cheer was aimed at the new Noad, Lrar Erem, a greater homage was accorded the vaporous portrait of Yadon.  
    The crowd yelled all the louder because the misty shape was guttering and fading.  Even as they watched, it raised a dissolving arm in farewell, as it moved off in an ambling slouch.    
    Miril, too overcome to think, existed in a suspension of all feeling, as though she herself were nought but a mist... until the clump-clump of boots and the approach of excited voices told her that the crowd's human waves were lapping against the platform where she stood.   
    "Well here we are again," said the voice of a friend, "Assiduity Miril!"   
    Her old admirer Duruld Omott!  A long while since she had spared a thought for him!  This time she did not tell him off for using a nickname she did not like.  Instead she laughed in cheerful amazement, so unexpectedly pleased she was to see him.     
    Duruld in turn, suffused with happiness, clasped her arm and grinned, though (because he remained a skyfleet officer) his gaze returned to the sky.  Together they watched the dwindling outline of Yr.  
    At last, when the departed menace was little more than a dot, Duruld turned back to look Miril full in the eye.  He remarked, "I hear people saying that vagabond fellow, that Yadon, masterminded our triumph.  What do you think?  You were close to him for a while, I hear."  Miril tried not to answer.  Duruld, however, persisted: "Supposing we're right to think this, I'm asking you, what did the man actually do, to defeat Yr?"   
    Ruffled at this, she insisted: "I don't know anything about it, except that we Vlamanorians kept our nerve, which was what was needed."   
    Duruld leaned towards her and whispered in her ear, "We've also seen how legends are born - in mist and smoke..."   
    He did not have to complete the sentence.  In a surge of physical affection Miril pressed her cheek against his, relegating the Starsider to a blur of vague renown, fittingly blent with the fly-by of that fabled airborne pirate State which might have, but had not, laid waste to Vlamanor.

CONTINUED IN

Uranian Throne Episode 20:   

The Immigrants