uranian throne - episode twenty

the immigrants

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;
19: the non-dummy run 

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

1

The ego-track of Neville Yeadon:

Stop being so jumpy, I chide myself.  A dark plain and a stand of drunken-looking trees a half-mile off, but no visible enemy: the scene, so far as I can reasonably tell, is peaceful enough for me to bivouac here for the night.    
    Yet my fingers strain as though to point my laser at one of those scrawny, leafless growths.  They're only trees, but the way they seem to clutch at the sky makes me want to brandish something back at them, and I go so far as to make a grab at my holstered sponnd. 
    In fact an actual click tells me I've got as far as to snick the catch on the laser, setting it for bolt-mode, for distance combat.  And all because of a fanciful comparison of appearances.  It goes to show, as the saying goes, that I was momentarily "beside myself".   
    That's not so much a figure of speech for me as it is for most people.  My head is like two adjoining countries.  Immigrant ideas keep pouring across the leaky border that divides my Terran from my Uranian identity.  In either direction, hundreds of thoughts and habits smear their way through my awareness so that by now I suspect I'm developing a hybrid Terro-Uranian consciousness.  In the long run this is inevitable, I suppose.   
    For example that tingle of impatience, which got my hand ready just now to snatch sponnd from holster, might have come from either of the "countries" or from both.  I was no kind of fighter on Earth, but I was as keen a believer in the right of self-defence as any sensible Earthman, and here, on a planet which seems vastly strange even to its own inhabitants, it's natural for Neville Yeadon, Londoner, to be hyper-vigilant and sensitive to appearances.  Equally, such edginess must appertain to the Olhoavan, Nyav Yuhlm, student of the arts of survival in the hard schools of travel and adventure on both hemispheres, Starside and Sunside. 
    The world of Ooranye will always overwhelm any human mind, be that mind from the third planet or the seventh.  All I can do is play the hand I've been dealt...  Hand, hand... that figure of speech from card-play, that thoroughly Terran metaphor, can snuggle into conditions here: the hands dealt tangled, meshed like the weather-systems of Earth...  but more purposive.  Uranian fates allow a co-operative individual to contribute, if he's willing, from his own puny strength.  
    Or am I fooling myself?  That's what I wonder whenever the power of the plot gets to me: moments in which I feel so helpless, that I reckon I could no more influence a fate-current here than a swipe of my arm could have diverted a hurricane on Earth.    
    In such moods I sadly fear that my growing reputation is nothing to be proud of.  It's a role I've been handed, not earned.  Each splash I make seem to encrust me with another coating of legend, and so I wander bespattered with an undeserved fame.  It glistens on me like sugar frosting, a glitz of fraudulent renown; thank goodness Syoom is wide, with four hundred million square miles to get lost in, not to mention the sixteen hundred million square miles beyond its boundaries; always a way to scram...      
    Quiet, you restless mind.  The air is dimming; evenshine is drawing on.  I shall go no further today.  Tomorrow is time enough to ride through, or to avoid, that peculiar stand of gnarly trees.  Let them look like they're frowning at me.  That kind of fancful thought can have its uses: the more dire the things seem, the more they spur me to retaliate with a brighter mood.  Here's one to savour while I'm arranging my gear to prepare for sleep: I did do the job I was sent here to do.  That's the brightest truth of all.  Old Dynoom entrusted me with a message to take to Syoom, and I delivered it faithfully.
    Well, didn't I?  Come on, negative mood, answer: did I not deliver it faithfully?   
    Faithfully, yes.  But - effectively?
    Well, umm...
    Since my adoption of a vagabond lifestyle it's hard to keep track of how much has happened, or can have happened, while I've been wandering around Syoom.  How long is it in Terran years since I arrived at Ao with the message?  Four or five, I suppose.  A fair stretch.  And during all these heaps of hundreds of days I've heard not the slightest rumour of any campaign to send help in response to Dynoom's appeal to rescue the victims of Dempelath's tyranny. 
    Admittedly the Sunnoad may be planning something big, but you'd think I'd have heard rumours of any significant degree of appropriate action.  So far I can't say I'm impressed by the official response to my epic message-bearing journey from Starside to Sunside.
    Well, anyhow, I did my bit.  The matter is out of my hands.  And after all Olhoav is so very far away...   
    Sleep...  sleep...   
    Awakening.  Morningshine glows about me as I lie swathed in my cloak on the cork-like gralm of the plain.  I am alive for another day on this strange and wonderful planet.  My mood has lightened.  My thoughts are crisper - perhaps because yesterday evening my eyes deceived me in the failing light whereas now I see that those funny-looking 'trees' are in reality guard-towers.    
    They're sculpted to look like trees, except the tallest.  That middle one more resembles a magnified but flimsy kiosk.  It's held up by cables - in daylight they're unmistakable - cables connecting it to the "trees" around it. 
    What does it all mean?  Who cares what it means, I reply to myself in somewhat un-Earthly mood: I neither need nor wish to know the answer; let it be; ignorance is power.
    That's a Uranian principle which has strayed over the border into my Terran identity and taken up a more powerful stance than ever before!
    It's not new to me; the idea is one which I've learned to respect during my life here: the insight that you are less likely to get pulled into a trap if you insulate yourself from its meaning.   
    If, instead, you strive to understand, you may find yourself in some mesh of reflexes and reactions which will end with you sucked into a current you'd rather miss, playing a game that you don't want to play, developing a character which you'd rather not have... 
    None of that can happen if you simply refuse to know what it's all about!      One mustn't exaggerate, of course.  While avoiding the "knowledge-game" I can still put my own gloss on things.  I dubbed the objects "guard-towers", did I not?  And as such I shall respect them.  I'll go past them carefully.  I shan't retreat from them, for whoever's there will have seen me by now, or at any rate they'll have seen the silver gleam of my skimmer's porrang hull.  It could well be safer for me to go on than to go back.  Not that I can be certain; but whithersoever my glance probes I see sufficient cause for wariness, so what the heck.  My nerves have become skittish - but now let the outward calm, which others say they see in me, come true; let it percolate inwards so that I become as cool a customer as I am reputed to be.
    Having tidied up to remove all trace of my night's bivouac, I mount my skimmer, and nudge the lever to a slow speed.

2

I aim to ride past the central group of "tree-towers", so as to skirt them at a moderate distance - a few hundred yards should do nicely.  To veer further might look too much like sneaky evasion.  On the other hand, closer in, my track could be viewed as impertinent defiance.  Strive for the golden mean: that's what life demands in this... what should I call it...  ungenerous zone; pondering what that hunch might mean, I've almost got past when I spot, up in the "branches", a white cushiony thing undulate into view.  It must just now have thrown off a camouflage colour.  "Give it a label," I quickly order my mind; "gloss it, categorize it."  Must be some member of one of the innumerable species of sentient cloud which infest this world...  but what is it doing, oozing here among the towers?  It floats into fuller view as I watch.  Now it's completely detached from its base about fifteen yards up.  It is sliding through the empty air; is it coming at me?  I decelerate and turn my skimmer to face it directly, so as to keep the thing squarely in my sight - and I decide that it is turning to trace an orbit around the stand of towers.  But though it seems, after all, not to be coming at me, I'd rather not turn my back on it, especially when I notice, on the thing's swerving flank, a discolouration, a brown-black indentation, a bruise which throbs on a five-second pulse. 
    I halt, hover and stare.  The timing of this Bruised Cloud's arrival - that's what I wonder about.  Looks as if it's employed in a morning patrol, like a sentry-and-dog on their round to guard some compound on Earth.  Fanciful analogy, maybe, but then I often have to sustain myself with imagery of this sort.  One has to make one's own kind of sense of life on Ooranye.    
    Having stood my ground for some moments, I decide that honour is satisfied and I can now go on my way at a respectable pace.  I therefore turn again, so that my vehicle's bow is once more directed into the forward distance.  Just a touch on the lever and I'm off -    
    But no. I hear an explosion behind me.  Then the whizzing of a projectile, a plop and a fizzle, and I get the message as clear as any "shot across the bows" can be, that an object (I can't quite make out what) has been hurled onto the plain a short space ahead.     
    Should I - can I -  lunge off regardless?  No, that would be foolish; I'm neither a desperate nor a guilty man, and ought not to behave as though I were.  Whoever's in that guard-tower, since he wants to stop me I must allow it.  This is his patch after all.  Resolved to co-operate, I turn my skimmer, descend to a low half-yard altitude, step off and begin to walk, leading the vehicle with my right hand on a deck-ring, towards the stand of tower-trees.   
    Here, what I first sense is something very old and familiar in my life, something which is common on Earth though seldom seen on Ooranye:  Shadow.  Umbrageous zones on this planet aren't completely unknown but they tend to be noticeable, if at all, for special reasons.  They're nothing to do with interruption of the far sun's feeble light: Ooranye's daytime airglow, normally ubiquitous and pervasive, naturally seeps around every object, with the result that everything in a landscape is illuminated from all sides.  Scenes therefore are more like impressionist paintings dominated by colour than like Renaissance-style chiaroscuro.  Yet here, as I enter the grove of guard-towers, I do perceive some definite shadow.       
    Memory comes to me of a few rare occasions when, on my travels around the seventh planet, I have come across plants which have evolved to stain their surrounding air with a protective darkness.  Could this be such a case?
    No, here it doesn't seem to involve any plant-hugging cloak; here it's a wider diffusion of shade. 
    I begin to sense the sussurous tracery, the warning whisper of a fence-plant.  You occasionally see them around dwellings on the plains.  This one's meshy curtain is becoming partly visible: a ghostly fence surrounding the bole of the central guard-tower. 
    Well, if they - whoever they are - wish to question me, I suppose I'll be provided with a way through. 
    Sure enough, as I plod on, I see a ripple shake the fence: and now some of its dark green strands have parted.  It's an invitation which I might as well accept, having got this far.  (I glance up as I walk through, and see that I'm now crossing the orbital path of the Bruised Cloud.  It floats over my head as I look.)  I approach the tower - pre-fabricated, as I now see from the screw-heads in the wood, and the slats and joints.  Easy to imagine it being taken down and packed at short notice.  Whoever it is that I'm about to meet will be flexibly organized...  Next, a door opens in the bole...  I squeeze in...  and immediately shoot upwards, straight upwards!  This must be wrong.
    Because of the tower's contorted shape I had expected to be jerked about; in fact I'd been wincing in anticipation of it.  Instead, the smooth, impossible comfort of my actual rise makes me more queasy than I would have been if subjected to the anticipated corkscrew ascent. Well, isn't this typical of the whole crazy planet?  A tower that denies on the inside what it looks like from outside: do I really want to adapt to this sort of stuff?  Isn't it time I opted to reject?
    Temper, temper, Earthmind.   
    Now the upward whoosh is over and I'm facing an opened door.  I step onto an almost transparent platform.  My head for heights is fairly good but ordinarily I wouldn't tolerate a floor that's so see-through that you feel you're suspended fifty yards up in the air.  What's more, it is so flimsy that it ought to be heaving in the breeze like the deck of a ship -  only, it isn't.  The platform is rock-steady, because all the disturbances, all the 'heaves', have been transferred to the plains below me and the remote horizon - it is they which are now swaying, bucking and yawing, while contrariwise the transparency I'm standing on is rock-steady.   
    I am convinced that the seated couple who are waiting for me are doing this transference trick.
    It must be the same will-power that was used, just now, to make me see the ascent through the twisted tower as a straight course.  Or so an immigrant thought persuades me.  Not that I feel inclined to welcome immigrant thoughts, the way they trickle up through the horizontal barrier I'm furiously trying to maintain between my consciousness mind and the vast alien archive lurking below it...  Must stop grinding my teeth...  They're staring at me, those two Uranians, younger than I but more severe.  I stare back. 
    Unusually for the inhabitants of this world they wear no cloaks but shiny-plated tunics and helmets, though the cloaks are to hand, thrown over the back of the chair. 
    The man's glower is the most fanatical, but even the woman reminds me (I mentally rummage) of a younger and prettier Madame Defarge. 
    They're resting their lasers across their knees. 
    It is possible that somewhere in my brain is the knowledge of who they are.  Certainly, no everyday jobs for this pair!  It is evident that they are chirrs, vigilees, folk whose work is done entirely in a state of full awareness rather than in the tranced routine which suffices for humbler toil in the streamlined societies of this ancient planet.     
    No third chair is available, but if there had been I somehow doubt that I would have been invited to sit...
    The man coldly announces, "I am Sol Ostobon, and this is my wife Zadrun Mok.  We are of the Bostanga Fom, which gives us the right to detain you, and to ask who you are and what is your business."   
    The term Bostanga Fom means nothing to me.  Did it ever?  I have failed to remember. 
    (Out of the corner of my eye I see the Bruised Cloud creep into view.  It pastes itself to one of the lesser tree-towers in the stand.  Apparently the "bruise" is an anchor pad; re-attached to its base, it deflates with sudden rapidity to a mere discolouration on the side of the tower.)     
    "I am Yadon, a homeless wanderer."  
    They're looking at me, watching my reaction to their funny cloud; perhaps they can guess that I'm a stranger to Syoom. 
    To stress my vagabond status, I add: "I live off the land, or by contractual Wayfaring."
    Sol Ostobon says, "I can imagine.  We meet at last, Starsider."     
    So they know.  He makes a sign to his wife as if to say, Keep him covered...  and she, understanding, turns the tip of the laser she's holding in her lap, so that it points to me.  I'm irritated by this "come in Mr Bond, we've been expecting you" stuff.  Sure, all they had to do is wait for the fate-lines to bunch their coincidences their way: the result being, that although Syoom is eight times the land area of the Earth, they've found their needle-in-the-haystack. 
    Now what is the fellow doing?  Using both hands, he has lifted a heavy volume from the floor.  He opens it and begins to read aloud from it, punctuating his words with sharp stares in my direction.      
    "The reports," he says, "cover several pages.  Here are some recent samples.   
    "On Day 10,545,487 Ac, at Invun, one of my agents overheard you in the Swoa Zoalzh in conversation with one Thendon Arek, Wayfarer, who remarked that he was leaving Invun the next day on a transect to Pjourth.  You are recorded as having replied in these words: Quite a journey!  But a bigger one needs to be made!  We ought not to breathe freely until the Sunnoad leads a fleet to Starside.   
    "On Day 10,545,561 at Xydur you were overheard in the central market chatting to a farmer who had planted a new field of vheic.  Your recorded comments included, It's time the Sunnoad led us to plough the first furrow of victory on Starside.   
    "Most recently, on Day 10,545,614 Ac at the Museum of Relief Operations in Jaax you were heard to interrupt a guide's speech with the words, It's comfortable to cloister ourselves here in Syoom but the passage of time will darken all our prospects unless and until the Sunnoad gets a move on and does his duty on Starside."   
    Sol Ostobon shuts the book with a snap.  He leans forward, his stare more concentrated and more grim.  "I don't pretend to know what cloister means," he says, "but the drift is clear."   
    "Did I really say all that?  Yes, I suppose I did," I lightly reply.   
    "You are discontented with the Sunnoad," the man's tone tolls like a bell.  "Seriously discontented.  That makes you our business.  We of the Bostanga Fom have the duty to act, if need be, pre-emptively.  You understand."   
    I do indeed sadly grasp the situation, despite my previous determination not to comprehend; for now the memory at last comes back: my previous brush with the voluntary elite of the Bostanga Fom, some two thousand days ago, shortly after my arrival in Syoom.  Yes, and not only do I know them, I can understand them.  Analogies from my Earthly home come to mind: in those associations which sprang up for the protection of Elizabeth the First and of William the Third, two sovereigns much threatened with assassination.  In both cases the members of the association swore to defend the endangered ruler and that if the worst happened they would wreak vengeance upon the plotters.  Of course the time scale is vaster here on Ooranye, and the Fom is a more or less permanent feature of this Actinium Era, but the comparison remains apt.   
    I speak - relieved to hear no tremor in my voice -    
    "If you really believed that I am a threat to the Sunnoad, would you not have resolved to shoot rather than talk?"   
    Without hesitation Sol Ostobon replies, "I can do both."   
    It's no good pretending I don't see the point.    
    "You wish me to name accomplices?  But surely, if you've listened to the rumours that follow me around, you must know that I work alone."     
    "Then you admit that you're working towards..."   
    An immigrant thought, crazily provocative, is banging for admission, and on a whim I allow it:
    "It would not be the first time a Sunnoad was Corrected," I say.   
    "You dare to smile as you say that," remarks the sponndar who has my life in his hands.     
    Perhaps the only reason I'm not yet dead is that my super-confident antagonist has no reason to hurry.  Not only has he "got the drop on me" but also, though younger than I am, he oozes that kind of seniority that comes from being steeped in a vastly older culture.  It comes to me that I have seriously erred for a long time.  Carelessly have I gone around creating the wrong impression on a world which, lacking laws, is networked instead with steely lines of responsibility.  If this fellow really is sufficiently dubious about me he will follow his conscience by firing his laser.  If it's not too late I had better add some emollient remark.   
    "Actually you needn't worry," I assure him; "I have not the slightest intention to become a Corrector.  Having read some history I'm well aware that the role is just about the most dangerous which anyone can play.  Death and ignominy are the penalty for failure, and I'm not daft enough to take that risk."   
    I watch as he slowly shakes his head.  The moment glitters with finality. 
    Oh well.  I have been privileged to live a life on two wonderful worlds.  Let that suffice.  The greatest adventure of life now awaits within the next second.  I am about to find out what awaits on its other side.   
    "Stop!" says the woman. 
    She now has her own laser pointed at her husband.  For him and for me, it's revision time.    
    He begins, "Zadrun!  What - ?"   
    "The Starsider may be on a destined path."   
    "So are we all!  What by the Skies do you exactly mean?"   
    "He could really be a Corrector!"   
    Fragment of memory: I'm a schoolboy at the school play, and Romeo is making his great speech.  "But soft: what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."  At which point, an aeroplane happens to fly overhead; and, at that incongruous noise, some in the audience chuckle. 
    Back to the present, I sense a droning overhead, not a real sound this time, but something nevertheless that presses on one's Uranian senses.  Sol Ostobon feels it too, as I can tell from his suddenly pursed-up mouth and the too-and-fro flicker of his eyes; he's having second thoughts.  
    "I dare not shoot," he admits.
    He lowers the point of his laser.     
    "Why?" I ask levelly.
    "My wife may have seen a reason to trust you."   
    Neither of us mention the 'overhead thing', the droning murmur of the fate-wave.  For my part, I silently vow that I shall never again resist the immigrant thoughts in my skull.  How grateful I am that I did not make any desperate move!  To escape the threat of death I might have attempted to lunge forward, to wrest the man's laser from him; almost certainly such an attempt would have failed, and even if my chances had been far better than they were, an undignified scrimmage would have been a poor swap for the higher-grade outcome now on offer.
    The overhead sound-that-wasn't-a-sound has flown by.  It has left the three of us convinced that our concerns have paled by contrast with the mighty wave.   
    The woman's voice breaks the silence.  "Now that it is decided, Starsider Yadon, that we are not going to kill you, logic requires that we ought, instead, to help you." 
    She cups her hands in front of her mouth, and trills... a piercing sound.   
    "Er..." I begin.   
    "Nuruk," she says with a gesture that directs my gaze to where the Bruised Cloud is re-inflating itself.     
    "No," I say with a shudder, watching the thing as it swells.
    "You need our help, Starsider," she insists.
    "No thank you; I work alone; let Nuruk stay here; truly, I'm better relying on myself."   
    Zadrun concedes, with an acidic smile:  "Very well, having noted the speed of your decision, I believe you, Yadon.  Since you insist, Nuruk stays here."
    Her husband says, "If we can do nothing more for you, we bid you farewell.  Skimmjard, sponndar!  May luck favour you."   
    "Maybe it will," I say, spreading a patter of speech to cover my retreat; it really looks as though I can go!  "I'm of the opinion that I have already enjoyed all the luck I can reasonably expect, but since Fate is not reasonable, maybe I shall receive more; who knows?"  With that, I reach the elevator door, it opens, I step in, and down it goes, while I hope that this is not some nightmare trick by which, once I'm in the open, they set Nuruk onto me.  Down on the ground at last, it looks good, I am being allowed to mount my skimmer, allowed to set off... apparently I am free of the clutches of the Bostanga Fom.     
    Leisure to breathe brings the thought, that perhaps I may have to take seriously what's been said. 
    No, dammit!  I am not the stuff of which Correctors are made!   
    Back over my shoulder I look at the grove which is dwindling behind me.  It's oddly changing.  I slow down for a better look.  It... the entire complex... is coming to pieces.  It is being disassembled - skies above, Sol and Zadrun aren't losing any time!  They're packing away, or rather, ordering their prefabricated fort to pack itself away.  A chatter of ideas surges up from my store of Uranian knowledge: a well of hints, immigrant suggestions which my Terran consciousness is forced to entertain.  Organic units had been lifted off a grove many days ago and - but hold it, I don't want or need to know.  Why should my proper mind be forever huffing and puffing alongside the running excuses for events?  All that I need to understand is: the couple who detained me, whether they had been waiting here only to assess me, or simply because their watch in this district happens to be over, have finished with this scene just as (thank the Skies) they have finished with me.
    I'm back to thinking like a purely Terran mind.  Risky, of course, since I'm not on Earth.  Nevertheless, for better or worse I've again erected the blocks against Uranian immigrant thoughts.  Perhaps it's all right for a while to block it all off.  In a sense, on either world it's the same old story: whether I'm being pushed about by historical forces (as on Earth) or used as a lever by fate (as on Ooranye) I have to accept the hand I have been dealt.  Stuff happens; causes are followed by effects; which of them weighs the most depends on the world, but in both cases they thoroughly outweigh me.  Grouchy thoughts, yet happy ones as I look back again at the grove.  It has not only receded, it has got fuzzier with the dust of disassembly.  I'm not sorry to see the whole scene blurring.  Alone and free, I accelerate away, into the welcome emptiness of the plain.   
    Now that my Terran self has renewed the claim to be boss, I can condescend to allow some dribblets of native knowledge to seep up from the basement, such as:   
    It is the preferred style of the Bostanga Fom to guard remotely.  They don't crowd the Sunnoad; they leave him space.  So their presence does not mean he is close.  Indeed it is reasonable to assume that he is far away from here.  That means he is far from me, which suits me nicely: for then I can't be pressurised by fate to become a Corrector, if I am nowhere near the Sunnoad.

3

My compass (or, as I suppose such a device would be called on Earth, 'direction/distance indicator') tells me that I am 6,000 miles from Skyyon, the Sunward polar city.      
    That destination, which I've picked as my next one, I could reach at top speed in a day.  That's to say, I could reach it in a day if I travelled at top speed of 200 m.p.h. for the whole 30 hours.  However to my way of thinking it's seldom advisable to go so fast for such a length of time.  Sometimes I have done it, and the skimmer motor is sufficiently robust to continue for years at full power if need be, but my hesitancy is due to a reluctance to attract attention: I have a strong sense of the risk, that I might whizz blindly past some evidence of a threat; never a good idea on this giant world.  I therefore trade caution for time, and travel at half-speed.
    This makes for easier sightseeing as I pass through a notable region of giant windbent flowers which nod their stelliform heads, each twice man-length, thirty yards above me as I skim by; the sudden appearance of such isolated loveliness arouses wonder in me.  Adjacent to this profusion of beauty, metallic glints on the gralm announce the litter of an ancient airship crash - and hint to me the origin of the giant flowers; for it can happen, on the Uranian plains, that the debris of a disaster gives rise to growths that are found nowhere else: many a unique ecosystem has evolved to feed upon an admixture of trace elements furnished by wreckage.  And so I, the wandering tourist from Earth, am treated to a spectacle which prompts my mind to reflection as the majestic flowers recede.  Just suppose I had remained on Earth; suppose also that I had somehow survived the attack on me in that London backstreet; I would be an old man now, or dead, whereas here, having lived a great part of a marvellous second life, I am still in my middle-aged prime, and stronger and fitter than I could ever have become as an Earthman; and here I am as what amounts to a tourist on Ooranye!  
    Then comes a backlash against the thought of what a lucky devil I am.  A jagged prickle of awareness that threatens to sink my heart: a sense that I am about to collide.  What can I actually see?  Miles further on, more plants, again quite different from what I've seen before, rattle around me in the wind.  Hundreds of them now, man-high, each of them a bare stem above which the slatty part swings to and fro, reminding me of swinging saloon doors in Wild West movies.  Those which are close together thwack each other often, with rhythms that don't match, and it all gets noisier as the growths become more frequent.  I slow down to sixty, fifty, forty miles per hour.  I'm going to have to weave around so as to avoid these clumps. By now, ahead of me I see some hills, which are completely covered in the slat-plants.  I could make a detour, to go round where they thin away.  Curiosity, however, invites me to steer through a valley between.  Now watch out, Earthman!  It's not just my skimmer, it is I, myself, that needs steering.
    Most of the time I feel reasonably accustomed to this world.  Attracted by its Wayfaring ethos, I approve of the high value set on adventure and voyaging.  And since these aspects of life are valued on Earth too (though far fewer opportunities are provided there), I feel I can prize the Uranian way of things without ditching my Earthly mind-set.  Now and then, however, it's not so easy.  Here for example, where the view threatens to morph into a grin of terror.
    I feel urged to open a valve in my mind.  An extra puff of native mentality needs to be assimilated fast.  I have to sip enough of the strength that's needed here on Planet Seven, strength which my Terran self could never provide, and I must do it while I nevertheless remain Terran.
    A thing like a tennis racquet a few feet high, stuck in the ground, faces me.  It shimmers at me.  I'm going ever so slowly now, paying attention to the shimmer which tells me I'm in the presence of an enormously valuable object.  But why?
    To get the reason I'd have to allow a gush of other stuff into my consciousness, and right now I don't want any such spurt, so, doing without reasons, I'll go round the racquet-thing.  I'm free, after all, just to avoid it: since it stands between me and the small hills, I'll alter course, veer around and circle them instead of passing through.  So, here goes.  To shun the racquet-thing, I steer my skimmer onto my new, swerving course. 
    Flash!  Mere seconds have gone by and all of a sudden the hills are gone.  Gone as if they had never been.  Heavens preserve me.  Flat plain, denuded of its contours, is all I see.  Without coherent thought, I pull the lever and halt once more.
    The racquet-thing is still visible, standing where it was, though it is no longer facing me, now that I've gone to the side.
    I suppose the truth must be, that the hills were never there; the racquet-thing must be the creator of an illusion, the hills being the illusion.  The way the trick must work is that if you're directly in front of the gadget you see past it to a landscape that does not really extend in that direction.  Maybe it does not exist at all, anywhere, anywhen, or maybe it is a reflection of the far past, when hills did rise in that area, though they've since relaxed into the horizontal.  I can experiment...  A short skim in the other direction confirms the idea that you have to be fairly in front of the gadget in order to see the illusion. 
    Well, what now?  I was about to leave the scene, passing by its mysteries, which don't concern me; that still seems like a good idea.  Just go!  That's the great thing about this world: if you don't like something you can just go.  I reach for the starting lever.   
    Yet the inner voice still babbles about whoever is behind this setup:
    ... you could say HE positioned it as a decoy... ...that's to say HE placed the chaomattaz [racquet-thing] some way off from his workplace, so that raiders approaching from this direction would be satisfied with snatching and making off with it, and leave his headquarters alone... ...though so far nobody has thieved the thing...  Anyhow, when it does get taken, HE will either have to place some other decoy, or relocate himself altogether...    
    And so on and so on, sentence following sentence with reference to "he", all without specifying who "he" is; implying merely that he's somebody who, to decoy unwelcome callers, uses the chaomattaz, its intrinsic value being so great as to tempt some Uranians to theft: a rare crime on the seventh planet. 
    "He", therefore, is one who is able to surround his workplace with a ring of artifacts that are each worth a fortune.   
    That's disturbing enough.  My own behaviour is even scarier. 
    Instead of proceeding with my intention to give the whole area a wide berth, I turn my skimmer to penetrate the "decoy" stretch of plain.
    What do I think I'm doing?
    Perhaps the Bostanga Fom weren't wrong about me!   
    From a toy, the chaomattaz, the imminent next stage of my life is educed, and, from that, the next, namely -
    What next I see: tracks in the gralm, tracks of a Crawler - tracks scored like graffiti on the surface of the plain.
    No sooner have I seen them than I start guessing.  I estimate they were formed over a period of a few hundred days, the older ones more eroded than the newer.  Windblown dust, vegetable debris and loose granules of gralm must smudge the patterns a little more with every passing day.
    Skimming along very slowly now, I carefully examine the culture layer in this district. 
    Clumpy concentrations of the slat-plants are closer-packed and taller, till, further ahead, one of them rises into a featureless mass that looms above the rest.  Near and to one side of this rests a small-model Crawler.  The vehicle looks like a cross between Terran military tank and farm-tractor.  It has apparently been abandoned upon what an ancient junk-pile that has crumbled down to a mere yard-high swell of trash.  I skim past. 
    The tall main mass of slat-plants is where I'm headed; as it resolves into several dark groves, I enter among them, for, since I have come so far, my determination now is to face what is here.   
    Behold, here are some ramshackle clusters of low buildings, built of parts of the slat-plants and - ahah, I guessed it - parts of a crashed skyship, patched up and arranged into structures on the ground... 
    At this point I stop the skimmer, sink it down and get off, to stand alertly amidst the structures built from salvage, while I listen to my own warnings.
    The scene is quietly shouting at me: mind your manners; tactfully does it; and in my Terran mind a wise obedience accepts the advice.   
    About a hundred yards in front of me, around the corner of a shed, a creature fluidly appears, curving into view with a metallic twinkle: a body the size of a gas-truck, a hunchy head, a cylindrical back and multiple legs that scissor as they ripple along. 
    The surface of the plain, or perhaps the ice-layer beneath, vibrates as the thing moves.  I start to hear a reverberating growl like exrre, exrre, exrre.  A fragment of contemporary lore wells up from the native depths of my Uranian mind: "Exrre guards the golden one", though from what I can see the metallic beast is merely circling a central group of ordinary-looking sheds.  I remember another fragment: "Exrre radds from place to place," though what "to radd" is I don't know.  Anyhow, the thing does not scare me yet.  It's only the equivalent of a guard-dog.  I walk forward, while in my busy head I piece together three clues: one, a lumbering guard-doggy thing; two, a tractor-vehicle which amounts to a small-model trading Crawler, rather than the flat-bed titan convenient for large construction work; and three, the clusters of improvised buildings.   
    I deduce that it has all been put together by one lone recluse, with the wealth and the status to arrange things how he wants, where he wants.
    Pointless to evade the truth.  Pointless likewise to remark to myself, yet again, how hugely I yet again got it wrong.   
    This unlisted address, the size of a cylindrical hut, located amidst the thousands of miles of plain between Jaax and Skyyon, now jogs a place-name in my memory, for I have heard of "Icohi".  So, what does my education tell me?  For a start, Icohi is a place to leave alone, unless you're pushed there by one heck of an excuse.     
    Be that as it may, the sensors will have spotted me and it would look too suspicious if I slunk away now.  I'll pay my respects; I'm sure he'll understand; afterwards I can move on.  I walk towards that modest-looking door... and before I get to it, it opens.  The golden-cloaked Noad of Noads himself operates his own front door, for naturally you don't find servants here.  O my Terran self, cut down on the stupefaction; call yourself to order.  He's waiting, discernibly tight-lipped; adopt a studied manner as you advance to his threshold.
    "A visitor," says Sunnoad Brem Tormalla 80437.   
    "A datum," say I, and perform a moderate bow.
    His face relaxes, thank the Skies.  "I'm disinclined to ignore data," he says, moving aside, inviting me in.  Suddenly he's no more scary than that genial, burly man with whom I was briefly acquainted back in the city of Ao about two thousand days ago. 
    The times since then have brought scant change to his granitic serenity; the lines of his broad features have hardly deepened despite the transfixing status of the world's most vertiginous post.  On the contrary, his looks and voice are smoothed by my reactions to him, blurred in my awareness by the phosphorescent chorus of living history, an effect surprisingly gentle, but after all he must know how to give of himself to his people.  What a huge mistake it would be, to spout something inane about not wishing to waste his time!  All the same I wish - as I cross the threshold - that the fate-wave was not so smelly-strong.  I'm in for it and no mistake.  Well then, Earthman, put your trust in Providence rather than in this planet's convoluted paths of destiny.  But no, that won't do.  It's not a case of one or the other.  Fate, here, is a force of nature, not a competitor with Providence.  To play at juggling priorities between them would be like trying, on Earth, to pit theology against meteorology...   
    He clicks the door behind me.  At the same moment, at a glance, I take in some details of the layout here.  I am in a circular room, maybe six yards across, so it must occupy the whole of the interior of the "hut".  It has no windows, but a transparent ceiling lets in the airlight and the meagre sunlight.  Round the wall, from waist to head high, in three separate arcs run stretches of instrument board.  In the room's centre stands a chart table, likewise round, and on it are luminous lines and winking dots.  My eyes play around all this for a second or two and then I turn to look at my host. 
    He, too, is scanning the interior, more intently than I.  Perhaps he's anxious to check on the instrument clusters after his attention has briefly wavered in order to greet my arrival.   
    "I can't invite you to sit," he says, with a gesture around the room.  Indeed, it lacks any chair or bench.   
    "I'm hardly peeved about that," I reply.  I indicate the winking tell-tales which, for all I know, are signalling some urgency.  "Nor shall I mind if you have to throw me out at any moment.  All these look like warning lights..."   
    "Perhaps you count as a warning-light yourself," says the Sunnoad.
    I gulp, as the moment stretches.  "I suppose," I hazard, "the Bostanga Fom has warned you about me."

4

A reminiscent smile grows upon Sunnoad Brem Tormalla's face, and he nods peacefully as he addresses me:
    "I am not terribly surprised to see you, Daon Nyav Yuhlm of Olhoav, alias Yadon the wanderer.  I have indeed had some reports from the Bostanga Fom, and also from my own agents who have tracked you as you sweep your lazy curves through Syoom.  In fact, since that now-distant day when you entrusted me with the message which you had brought all the way from your Starside city, I have never entirely forgotten your existence."
    "A long time ago," I murmur.
    "Two thousand days.  During which time, most of what I've heard about you I like and even envy."
    "I am content," I say, playing safe, "to know that as a messenger I did my job."
    "Yes, you made a good guess, leaving your data with me.  But... afterwards?"  He rests one hand on the chart table. I get the odd feeling, that he regards me  as though I were one of the moving lights on his maps.  Heaven help me if I try to fool him.
    I answer: "My active part was finished with the delivery of the message."
    "But you must have kept your ears open, for news of what is being done about it."
    "Such rumours would - if I had heard any - imply that the purport of my message had got around."
    "It has got around, as you well know.  And you deem to be unsatisfactory the fact that you have heard of no consequent plans or preparations to send a skyfleet to Starside to rescue Olhoav from the tyranny of Dempelath."
    I must choose my words like steps that inch along a narrow ledge.  "I cannot presume to say more about it, except that I count myself immensely fortunate to live the life of a happy vagabond, wandering through this utterly fascinating land of Syoom.  I'd be a lot less happy, did I not well understand that the hardest questions of policy are entirely your business, Sunnoad sponndar, and not mine."
    His eyes flicker.  "One discrepant side to your picture: you need to revise it to accommodate those occasions in which you HAVE been heard to comment upon my apparent neglect of the appeal from Olhoav."
    "No - that is - "  I struggle for air.
    "Go on, answer me.  You must know that the report by the Bostanga Fom is undeniable.  They read parts of it to you, did they not?  But you can still try for exculpation."
    "How?"  The word comes out as a croaky whisper.
    "If you have the sense I credit you with, it must be fairly clear to you that I don't want to condemn you but to make use of you.  I know the thin though far-spread rumour, that your mind is partly that of an Earthman.  It's true, is it not?  You do, indeed, possess that faculty."
    "And it's all the harder to talk about," I babble, "as the distinction between my personae is becoming blurred at their common frontier."
    "Mental miscibility," nods the Sunnoad.  "You're one of us Uranians at the same time that you aren't.  Must be quite confusing at times!"  His expression breaks into a grin.  "Really you like the game, though, don't you?"
    It's one of those moments when I dare not disappoint.  He calls it a game as so must I.  "Fate-ball!" say I, extemporaneously, with a sudden laugh.
    He laughs too, deftly, though he can't know anything at first hand about Terran culture.  And it's enough to make this conversation flow on like the best kind of World Cup match, except that what we're kicking around is the truth instead of a ball.  I can't remember ever being able to speak so frankly as this concerning my dual nature. 
    I dare further to trace out my thoughts:  "Even if I had retained my Terran body, physically travelling through space to this world, I would have had to change my mentality to adapt.  As things are, my mind alone did the journey; my physical self is perfectly Uranian, and what is Terran in me is just what's left of my memories; plus that side of my soul.  That's all that allows me to call myself an Earthman still."
    "While, equally, you count as a native of this world." 
    "Yes, because one is allowed to have more than one home."
    At my utterance of "home", the Sunnoad broods at the floor for some seconds, then raises his head and jabs at a button.
    I hear a low grinding, and sense a gentle vibration under my boots -
    "Regarding your Uranian home in Olhoav, allow me to express regret that I have not, so far, answered the call for help which you brought me from that city."
    With his tone of sympathy, my insight expands, and in this unornamented control room I get hints of that life which Brem Tormalla must lead, of homeless dedication.
    He jabs at another button.  Another soft grind.  The floor faintly trembles again; with an absent air, he presses with his finger a third time.
    Now he's taking a few steps around the chart table; he bends, reaching down to something, straightens up...  
    "I still have these, of course."
    What he holds glowing in his right hand, is that message-crystal that knits past to present in my life-story: the crystal which was brought to me from Dynoom and which I carried through Fyaym.  And protruding from his left fist I see the artefact called the "stupp", which I purloined in my raid upon the Husnuth so long ago.
    The two things I crossed half a world to bring to him. 
    I desperately hope he's not now about to hand them back to me -
    "Yes," he continues, "here they are.  They summon memories, do they not, of that room where 80436 lay dying.  I owe you, Yadon."
    "Indeed, Sunnoad Sponndar?"  That's perhaps not the suavest way to say it.  Though to Terran ears it sounds dry to call a man by a number, it's not dry here, oh no.  Indeed, 80437 - that's what I ought to have said.  Curse my wobbliness!  
    He remarks, "I discovered that before leaving Ao you took action against one Tem Talfarn."
    "Yes, that's true, because - "
    Stop.  He's holding up his hand.  He knows.
    "Tem Talfarn," summarises the Sunnoad, "had been about to use some Fyayman gadget to influence the election.  In other words if you had not acted as you did, I might not be wearing this cloak.  To repeat: I owe you, Yadon."
    "Ifs without end, 80437."
    "And some ifs are vital."
    I admit: "I stopped Talfarn; and that makes me one, just one, of the factors in your rise." 
    I am keen to play down my contribution as it has occurred to me that at this height it could be just as dangerous to be owed as to owe.  I'm being terribly strategic as I strive to match wits with the Noad of Noads, lest he somehow redefine our roles at my expense.  But who am I to resist his fate-wave? 
    Must kick these thoughts away; stuff is happening.  I just then saw him flip a switch in response to a beep from some tell-tale on the encircling bank of lights.  Now he reverses another switch, perhaps putting something on hold.  Catching my eye he says: "A sample of business here.  Watch."
    A groaning rumble and a movement alert me to slidings in the circumference of this 'Kiosk': doors opening onto covered walks, protected routes, made available at the press of a switch.  Brem Tormalla brushes past me with a gesture for me to follow.

5

I could refuse.  No - that would never do; dismiss the thought.  This is a moment to move.    
    In the old courts of Earth you had to back out of a ruler's presence because etiquette forbade you to turn your back on him; here I find the contortion is more difficult still: not "which way can I face", but "which way can I disagree", in order to escape what he has got planned for me?
    Or, maybe I should not (disjointedly I try to think it through) - should not, have no right to, spurn his repentance.  If that's what it is.  If he's Correcting himself.  Rearranging his priorities.  After all -
    If he's right today, he must have been wrong before.   
    I stride in his wake.  Down the cloche-like way we file, towards an arch, and through we pass into a humming brightness.  More instruments, more lights flash, and, dominating them all, a curved glowing screen largely fills a 120-degree arc of wall.  It is tilted to lean at us as we stand before it.     
    My guess is, the entire installation was built by one man - this man.  Individual touches suggest this: the offsets and minor irregularities in the fused plastic coamings.  If only the instinct of my native under-self could penetrate further and tell me more.  I need to answer the question, "Was he wrong before or is he wrong now?"
    Meanwhile, punching switches, the man remarks:  "I built all this from the wreck of a grounded skyship, the Niom Krarb.  It's good to have a hobby."
    Well, that's one hunch confirmed.  He built all this; it's his hobbyist's domain.  Snap goes another switch.  "The locking collar," he explains.  "Just in case this place has to turn into a fort."  His disquisitions are drowned out for me by the  more troublesome question, Why is he telling me all this?  It's as thought he believes I might sometime need to know; and that is laughable.  The simple answer, I guess, is that he is honouring me in this way as compensation: his way of making up for having failed to act in the matter of Olhoav.  And while he's showing me this interesting room, where my thoughts lurch this way and that as blotchy images appear and swirl on the big screen, I feel obliged to say something intelligent.  "The swirls of fate, Sunnoad Sponndar!"   
    "What about them?" he asks without turning his head.
    "They press so thickly."  
    "Your point being - ?"  (He doesn't turn to look at me; he's staring intently at the screen.  Must be waiting for something to come into focus.)   
    "They press so thickly," I repeat, "around the wearer of the golden cloak, that perhaps the Noad of Noads never can make a real mistake.  Decisions may seem like mistakes at the time, but..."  But now I seem to hear a ghost from Earth.  It is Thomas Jefferson, in his inaugural, remarking, 'Let history answer this question'.  I'm wrong!  Real mistakes are made!  Disasters are caused by rulers!  I recollect that Sunnoads Fiarr Fosn and Tu Rim went catastrophically wrong.     
    The man turns.  "Watch this, Yadon!" he says briskly; "I'm receiving the pre-arranged signal from Byndin Ghelanver, Noad of Toolv."   
    Light blazes in my face and I automatically step back.  Now the Sunnoad is limned against the image of a beautiful woman who has flashed into magnified view on the screen.  Her glory towers over us.  Even in a world in which everyone is handsome by average Terran standards, this lady excels.  I sort of expect someone like that to be surrounded by courtiers; but no.  Haughtily she broods in high-ranking solitude.  They've begun to speak to each other and I'm losing track - I just gaze at her as she sits wrapped in furs which match her grey-caramel skin.  Hardly relevant, what she looks like; it would be better to make an effort to distinguish the words.  But particular drops of meaning are hard to distil.  I gather that the conversation began with an exchange of courtesies whereby the Sunnoad thanked the Noad for reporting and she thanked him for his interest in her city's problem, whatever that may be.  She's interlacing her fingers and now leans forward to say something desperate.  I get individual words but, bare of context, they slip from my grasp almost as soon as they are uttered.  Eventually the Sunnoad replies to her - in words that I strive in vain to comprehend -    
    "What we know is that the flomquaz is closing in on a spiral."   
    "Indeed it is, Sunnoad Sponndar.  But at any rate it has not yet begun to smile."   
    "We can at least be thankful for that."
    I meanwhile grimly guess that I shouldn't worry at all; on the contrary, it should be fine with me, that I get none of it.
    This however is not altogether true.  I am developing a sketchy feel of the "flomquaz", for starters.  It's a mountainous spherical monster which rolls forward with a threat to "smile", that is, to show an arc-shaped rent in its surface. 
    The mere datum causes me to shiver lest I be shown a picture of this thing.  But no, the great screen goes blank.  Whew!  I wonder how far the lady Noad of Toolv was satisfied with the interview.  I dare say it's all in the day's work for Sunnoad Brem Tormalla. 
    Wiping away the sweat from my forehead I find I still have to exorcise my own big question: am I merely being honourably shown a glimpse of the golden-cloaked man at work or, hell's bells, am I being trained?   
    Another big picture blazes on the screen, but rather than concentrate on it my memory keeps clinging to the sight of the lady just gone: the picture of pouting self-possession, vulnerable power.  Wishing to know more, I dig into my knowledge of the world.  I know something about the city of Toolv.  My education tells me it has a unique constitution: its Noad is always a woman, and just below her in rank are the Four Hundred Lords, all male -  
    Time is lacking for further thought on this topic.  I must switch my attention over to the new screen-image, which is quite different from the previous one, this time hovering outside a place instead of showing a person.  Through the panes of a geodesic dome I can glimpse something huge that's flapping inside. 
    Meanwhile a voice-over is debating with the Sunnoad.  Trarral Htem, Noad of Jaax, is one name I catch.  Also, the dome is called the "wjait", and the giant bird inside it is the "paom".  What's especially un-graspable about all this, is that the whole lot seems metaphorical rather than real.  I catch some place-name and I swing towards the assumption, "That means it's real..."  But no, I can't finish the thought.   
    Flick!  Another picture!  Quite glad am I that there's no time to finish puzzling over the last one!  I stare at the new vista.  Blocky cliffs now confront me on the big screen; saurian forms are spread-eagled against the rock.  More chatter: the Sunnoad is exchanging comments with someone whom he addresses as "Wayfarer Alom Tharro".  Again it's all close to gibberish as far as I'm concerned: this Alom Tharro character is talking about "the Abutments of Mezenk" where the "Ghardinu" must decide how far to trust the "preceptor of klorr" with regard to the "metamorphism of trarral".  I meanwhile thank the Lord that all this stuff is nothing to do with me. 
    I'm starting to feel rebelliously grumpy.  Ooranye is a fascinating world, but there are limits to what I can take in, and hence my profound gratitude for the fact that it's not my job to do so; yet why, then, is this pushy throng of mysteries being shovelled at me?   
    The light dims; the pictures vanish.  The transmissions, the reports, the updates are over.  I catch the Sunnoad's eye.  To my surprise I sense that the grumpiness is not mine alone.  He has a bit of a crabby look.   
    "Hard, hard," mutters Brem Tormalla.
    He puts some sort of plug in his ear.  Next he makes a call on a different, minor screen.  I hear the word "captain", and deduce that he's talking to the control room of a skyship; his tone sounds easier now, which relaxes the atmosphere somewhat, but I wonder what had what was it that was "hard, hard".  His failure to help Olhoav, maybe, or the hail of other tasks that prevented him from doing so.  Well, having had a whiff of the situation in his HQ, I don't wonder that this juggler of Syoomean crises should fail to give priority to a remote Starside city's plea.   
    He's clicked off the communicator and he's turned to me.     
    "What do you think of it all so far, Yadon?"   
    "I'm almost speechless, 80437."    
    He lifts ironic brows, "That may be because you're wondering exactly how these people are the better for having conferred with me."
    "No, that was not in my mind at all," I truthfully reply. 
    "And yet it's a fair question.  Noads Byndin Ghelanver and Trarral Htem, and Wayfarer Alom Tharro: what have I given them?"   
    "You're not a separable link in the story..."  I trail off.
    "Good, you're raising my hopes, Earthman!  The fluid grasp of situational dynamics which we Uranians call renl is perhaps part of your armoury too!"
    "Part Earthman."
    "Pick and choose the best of both worlds, then.  I've been reading reports about you for some while."
    The tug of unease, like a dream about to turn disagreeable, leaves me without power to change tack.  "What do the reports say, sponndar 80437?"
    "They amount to a mental barograph, that tells me you can do it."
    This is it.  "Do what, sponndar?  I am only a wanderer.  I used to be a Daon, but can hardly even claim that any more."   
    "Now listen, Yadon," he waves aside my words.  "Just now you've watched as I offer help and moral support to some of my people who are under pressure.  I want you to do the same for some other folk whom I am currently too busy to reach.  That's all.  Lighten my load that little bit." 
    My tongue twists as I consider various prevarications.  He prompts me, "Will you do this?"
    "Er...  Who are these people you wish me to help, Sunnoad Sponndar?"   
    "Recent immigrants to Syoom.  Will you hear more?" 
    I nod, ashamed, and he continues:
    "They're currently at the periphery.  The Grardesh border patrols spotted them first, and notified Noad Amnen Narsh of Vyanth because his is the closest city to the newcomers.  I heard of the matter when Amnen Narsh reported it to me.  He offered to help, but I reckon - for reasons I shan't specify today - that you're the man for the task."   
    "Immigrants..." say I, to make sure I heard aright.  The word does exist here but it is not often used.     
    "Immigrants, exiles...  Captain Tak Valakar of the Zeztul has agreed to take you most of the way to the encampment."   
     Surely he won't blame me if I ponder this carefully.
    "Whence came these people?"   
    With a tightening of the mouth the Sunnoad answers: "They appeared out of Fyaym; it happens now and then.  And it can transpire that such folk have had experiences which challenge the core of one's being.  I reckon that you, Starsider and part Earthmind, stand as good a chance as anyone..."   
    "A chance to do what?"  I hear the snap in my own voice and quickly apologize.  "Sorry...  We of Earth ask too many questions."   
    "No matter," he smiles.  "You will plough your own furrow."     
    I smile too, at the way the idiom exists on both planets.  Besides: for a job description, it's the sort I like best.
    "Yours to command, 80437."  To have spoken those words feels right, which is just as well, since they cannot be recalled. 

6

Up in the skyship and looking down, I keep doing double-takes.  I'm out, I'm out, I exclaim.  I did all right, I escaped without loss of equilibrium, yes I really have conversed gracefully enough with the Noad of Noads.
    The splendid chime of this thought gives me all the poise I need while the platform floats down to fetch me, to carry me up, into the skyship Zeztul.     
    Well, well, even if it hadn't gone so right, what after all would a little loss of dignity have mattered?  Who cares about the preservation of poise?  But on the other hand, since word has got around that I possess the consciousness of an Earthman, then for the sake of my former home planet's image, if not for myself, it is natural for me to wish to preserve some scraps of reputation - of that most singular reputation which I have somehow acquired on this giant world.  For so many of its people have fitted me out in the legend of a fate-favoured and resourceful wanderer, that I have little choice but to live the role.   
    Part of me stands back, amused at how stuffed with confidence I am, while Captain Tak Valakar takes the trouble to show me the settings for the vision sensors in this alcove of the control room.  From here at the touch of a button I can see the outside all around, as if I were dangling in clear air underneath the skyship.  Really he needn't have shown me.  I could have figured it all out.  Skyship design has remained mostly unchanged for thousands of lifetimes; Uranian culture has long outgrown the technological fidgets; virtually anyone on this world knows a control room like nen knows the alphabet.  With not much effort I can access that native memory in my Uranian head - but I supppose the Captain must have his moment of explanation!  Eager he must be, to display his stuff to the exotic Terran mentality which (in his view) sits on top of my normal self like a magic hat.  To the thinking public of the Seventh Planet, the enigmatic Third Planet - hardly visible even in telescopes, because it's so near the Sun - must count as some mystery-shrouded fantasy world.     
    ...My understanding has just caught up with a word the Captain spoke to me before going to see to his own duties. 
    "Our departure is delayed while we pick up the swaffr." 
    I could ask him what swaffr means but I don't.  Let the syllables flow past my ears while he continues, "Meanwhile you can study the sprawl of Icohi."        Ah, my understanding has caught up.  The swaffr - how could I have forgotten?  A crop of containers coming up from the ground in semi-transparent blocks, pulled along bright lines which radiate down from this skyship.  I don't know whether the lines are physical, like glowing wires that stream out from the hull, or whether they're lines of force, which seems more plausible from the way they flashingly multiply into a winnowing-fan formation.  Either way, as I watch they rapidly overspread the sprawling acres of Icohi, that complex of structures on the ground which has been built by the Sunnoad.  Icohi is yielding its latest harvest of data collected by Brem Tormalla 80437.   
    I think back to a scene long ago when I, the youngster Nyav Yuhlm, gawped at the ground-floor of the Pnurrm in Olhoav.  Since then I haven't been much involved with signal-blocks.  Though many Wayfarers do liaise with the cartographers in the use of swaffr, I prefer to leave that task to the experts.  I shall always be too much of an Earthmind to compose the kinematic, existential maps of Ooranye. 
    However, during this delay, while the Sunnoad's doodles are being so carefully stored up here, persumably so they can be distributed to eager cartographers throughout Syoom, might I pop back down for a second interview, and get a proper briefing from 80437?  It might look like a retrogade move, but isn't that what one might expect from an Earth-minded eccentric, to be indulged if he changes direction...?   
    It's not as if I am refusing the commission outright.  I'm willing to go and meet the immigrants from Fyaym.  But it's reasonable to ask nicely for something more in the way of solid content to my instructions.  Yes, if people wish to make allowances for an Earthmind, they can surely allow me a job-description in black and white.  I don't even insist on a contract.  Just something clearer than faith in a fate-wave!  I could seek out the Captain and say I need to go down again, just for half an hour or even less.  I could say to him:  Sorry, you know, but this is how we Terrans do things; I shan't inconvenience your schedule...     
    Conducting the conversation in my head, while more and more of the swaffr are borne up to the ship, I feel a constriction in my chest, and I know it's no good.  I am not merely an Earthman; my soul straddles both worlds.  I cannot, must not step off the wave.  The chest pressure eases.  I breathe better.   
    "We're almost set - "  It's the Captain again.  He thumbs at one of the lower view-screens:  "It's break-time for Exrre."   
    I obediently stare at a grey-blue patch of surface gralm, to note what he wants me to note: the truck-sized arthropodal shape of Exrre, lurching and waddling on its way. 
    Even as I watch, a flap of gold approaches it: the Sunnoad, with a spring in his august stride, reaches the beast's flank.  Break time, literally: Brem Tormalla wields what looks like a key, Exrre splits down the middle of its spine and falls apart.  From between the exoskeleton's halves, a bright fluffy creature bounces.  Brem Tormalla gives the thing a pat and ruffles its fur...  
    Voicing my own thoughts, the Captain remarks: "Quite gratifying, Yadon sponndar, that when I exchanged some words with the Sunnoad just now, he seemed lighter of heart than usual.  You must have lifted some weight off his mind."   
    Well, yes, I dare say it probably did make 80437 cheerful to fling me where he wants me to be flung -   
    "I'm naturally honoured," I faultlessly say, "to be tasked by the Noad of Noads."   
    Equally impeccably this youngish Captain, in his smart tunic and super-relaxed air of command, restrains his curiosity with ease.  After assigning me a cabin, he takes his leave of me without having asked anything about my mission.  
    When a mild acceleration and a soft thrum under my boots, and a shift in the scene outside, tells me that the skyship is underway, what I sense is akin to superstition, but more powerful: the way events and sights on this world persistently point, point, point.  Even the otherwise unrelatable fact of Exrre's "break" seems like a breeze-blown guidon fluttering at my break from vagabondage. 
    Oh, well, that's what it's like to be steered onto an official lane of activity.  I suppose my freedom isn't necessarily lost, for I can 'up' the scale, subsume it all in a larger pattern: looked at that way, the fact that I've wandered into doing a job for the Sunnoad is not so much a change of direction as a zoom-out into a larger adventure... 

7

Nine thousand miles, which is three days' travel at the standard skyskip speed of one hundred miles per hour, and now, I'm told by Valakar, we are about to land... but I see no recognizable destination.      
    I have been informed that the immigrants have settled in an area known as Namrol.  That is close to sfy-50, the boundary between Syoom and Fyaym.  It is some few hundred miles from other settlements in the border territory.     
    Namrol is, I'm told, patchily forested, but so far through the scanner "windows" I see no forests; nothing but open plain, and yet the Zeztul has begun to descend.     
    Dissatisfied by my ignorance, I ask myself: might I, during these three days, have learned more from the crew?  They're an affable lot, quite friendly and respectful towards me.  Somehow, though, I can't bring myself to ask the questions which I might have asked on Earth.  Of course, this isn't Earth but what, precisely, is hampering my faculty of inquiry?   
    A possibly relevant thought, is that here I am living amidst what in Terran terms is an impossibility - a civilized land without laws; admittedly, laws have existed in Uranian history; even police forces and detectives have existed in a few eras - but not often.  Such legalistic cultures, my studies tell me, form a tiny minority in the saga of this giant world.  Here, instead of laws, what we mostly have are, er, pointy waves...  and I suspect it's this fact which inhibits me from taking the risk of making a fool of myself.  You're not supposed to need to question a wave.    
    Tak Valakar approaches me.  "Your skimmer has been placed ready for release," he tells me (and the skyship's descent has ceased; now it hovers).  "We are honoured to have transported you, Yadon."   
    Can't ask for more help, after that.
    "Thanks for the lift," is all I can think of to say.
    He beams in response; these people like trite Terran phrases.  "I'm sure you could have reached this area twice as fast on your own, though not as safely.  I bid you goodbye, sponndar Yadon, and I wish you success."   
    Whatever protection the Zeztul has provided, is about to be withdrawn.
    On my own I must continue for the last lap.  Any rational objection (like, why did they leave the escort job uncompleted?) is over-ridden by the pointiness of things.  And what, pray, is 'pointiness' when it's at home?  Shut off that logical Terran perspective.  Feel instead.  Feel inside my head...  Ask myself, what have I done?  Not sure; but as I step through the ribwork surrounding the hold, across a vast bare floor and onto the platform where my skimmer has been placed, I feel good.
    Mounting my trusty vehicle, I note that they’ve cleaned every part of it shiny-new.  Invitingly, the small rectangle of the pilot-board glows before my eyes.     
    Now the platform under my skimmer begins to tilt.  I hear the soft tchut-kunk as the under-hatch opens.  The ship must be drifting low enough, that I should be able to slide out of it and drop neatly onto a level flight-path, just six yards, at the most, above the plain.     
    Giving a wave to those watching on-screen, out I go; the wind soughs against the shield. 
    Within seconds I've dropped into steady flight.  No navigational bother - just aim at the horizon ahead. 
    The skyline is sparsely dotted with patches of forest concealing I don't know what.  I'm plumb lucky, I realize as I contemplate the turn in my fortunes during the past few days.  I ran into the Sunnoad, no less, who honoured me with a mission which, when it's over, will leave me with my last worry gone.  For he has reassured me (I have his word) that he hasn’t forgotten about the message I brought him all the way from Starside.  I can trust him from now on to do what he can to help Olhoav. 
    As for this new job of mine, I realize that being hired for it means I've become less free, but I shall not complain about my return to the centre of things.  My life may never go back to what it was, wandering without commitments, but you can't have everything; I must accept it the supersession of what I've lost; accept it with that pliancy you must have in order to surf the fate-waves of Ooranye.  And the priorities don't have to be re-shuffled too far: although I am no longer a vagabond but a man with a mission once more, the mission still permits me to enjoy the tang of the breeze as my skimmer’s prow cleaves the air of the giant world...  What difference does it make on whose scanty orders I travel?  Wherever on Ooranye I happen to go I shall be exposed to the blizzards of adventure; discoveries will pelt my awareness, for it's that sort of planet.   
    Even as I reflect on that, I see an enormity rise above the skyline.    
    I’d bet a million genthou that what I’ve spotted is the "wooden peak", the crown of great Kafumabapsu.  Yes... the conformation of the giant tree, one of the wonders of the world, is unmistakable from pictures I've been shown.  They told me, after all, what section of the border this is.  I wasn't told, though, how circumspect I need be on my approach to Kafumabapsu: I must therefore please myself what special precautions I take.  Well, the authorities were content to let me out of the skyship alone; surely I may skim onwards to where the bushy patches begin.    
    Here, my natural instinct bids me slow down, as vegetable clumps surround me.  The pathways between them wind out of sight in all directions, and, figuratively echoing their profusion, it becomes more difficult to envisage a linear fate-wave; my actions must ramify like the forkings of the paths, and likewise the actions of others...  I slow to a cautious creep.      
    I hear voices.  Too far, as yet, for me to distinguish tones and words.  The arrow-line of action points me to approach a clearing.  People, perhaps a hundred or more, loosely congregated, are spread around, like they're having a picnic. 
    They're not particularly alert and I manage to position myself behind a thicket, quietly descend from my skimmer, tie it to a branch, inch forward, and peer through the leaves.     
    My gaze roves among the seated and standing figures; the tables of food; the strung lamps on the boughs.  With a bit more of an effort my vision penetrates to the far end of the clearing, perhaps a quarter of a mile off, to a scattering of new-built huts.  Then back again, towards the near figures, I scan the faces that happen to be turned my way. 
    Comprehension dawns: I know who these people are! 
    I am no longer the only Olhoavan exile in Syoom.  That grizzled fellow yonder is old General Thergerer.  Following on from that shock I see others whom I can name.  I see Gevuldree and Lanok Ryr, Aatul and Ambrerl and Raddao Cruvunnd - old acquaintances who now slap a big new canvas onto the easel of my mind, because they've actually managed to get here.  Or at any rate, lots of them have made it.  I must find out how many. 
    A stupendous further thought won't let me rest.  Must find out exactly who has made the journey and who hasn't.  Oh but no need to wait at all - in a sunburst of love and wonder I right now discern two figures who are still unmistakable despite being several Terran years older than when I last saw them: my two children, now adults, Tsritton and Idova. 
    Losses un-lost, re-gifted to my life.  
    A joyous vision and, what's more, granted under the best circumstances imaginable: for this gathering has no smell of danger about it, it's plainly an innocent celebration, without any aura of anxiety. 
    I guess the happiness is the natural consequence of these exiles' successful advent in Syoom.  Perhaps today they're having a house-raising, or hut-raising at least, to complete their settlement.  Drawing on my courage I step from concealment.  My eyes have blurred but I see a few figures start in a manner that suggests they've spotted me.  One of them reaches to draw the attention of Thergerer.  I meanwhile have begun to walk into the clearing.  My senses intensify; I half-see, half-imagine a narrow expression on the face of my son Tsritton; his eyes have become thoughtful slits; he looks to the General; the General waves him forward; I advance further and the people make way for me; suddenly voices are hailing, “Yadon!  Yadon!”  Idova, too, is now stepping forward; her lips are parted in astonishment but she believes. 
    My stinging eyes, my racing heart, cause my steps to falter.  I and Idova and Tsritton lock gazes and halt within yards of each other, and then their faces (and mine, I feel) contort with incredulous joy because we don't just realize, we really realize, that we are together again.     
    Tsritton falls back a step.  "Thremdu!" he ejaculates, swearing by the World Spirit.  "This is zandralg."      
    That word he's just choked out, signifying "over-weighted moment”, is nicely chosen.   
    “No it is not zandralg,” says his sister, and runs up and hugs me. "It's better than that.  Not a load but a brilliance!"    
    “Your brother’s right, though,” I say to her, "it's heavy, heavy!  A shovelful of history!"  Heavy enough, in all seriousness; a moment ago they must have had the usual public image of me, and the next moment here I actually am.  I suggest, "Jettison the load!"  I'm speaking on two levels: on one, to my beloved children; on another, to two highly intelligent people who know what I'm getting at immediately. 
    Tsritton recovers, grins...  “Ah but father, we can't take stuff in our stride like you do.”   
    “Ah, stop quavering, brother," says Idova.  She gazes into my face at arm’s length.  “We knew father'd turn up sometime.”   
    Tsritton says, "True enough."
    I echo, "You knew?"    
    "From what we kept hearing," nods Tsritton, "yes, we knew."   
    “So this is inevitable,” I smile.     
    "Sure!" they both say joyously, but their softened eyes say different: namely, that they're drinking a draft of amazing luck, not "inevitable" at all; and I too have no doubts about how fortunate we are. 
    I allude to this benevolence of fate:  “But all depended on you surviving the journey from Olhoav!  Can't wait to hear about that!”   

8

The celebration has sprawled over longer hours than planned, and I'm still waiting to hear my children's story. 
    I suppose it's no use being impatient about it.  While the air has darkened to yyne - the deepest part of night - the Olhoavan exiles’ settlement has stayed awake in unruly vivacity, bobbing lights betraying the whirls of dancers and the flung trails of those ornamental comets called lixxou which merrymaking Uranians like to chuck around.  I meanwhile have talked late and long, answering a torrent of questions not only from Tsritton and Idova but also from Darilar, Razpar and Latal, friends of Idova, and Sumul, friend of Tsritton, and with the older folk including Thergerer, Lanok Ryr and Gevuldree whom I never thought to see again.  They all want to know what the legendary Yadon has been doing... and though I want to know what they have been doing, their questions have hogged the time, and I surrender on that issue and give them what they want.  At least I've learned from many sources that Idova and Tsritton have won golden opinions from the exiles' community; the pride they show in me is matched by mine in them.  Thergerer, especially, has confirmed the noble part they played in the trek across Fyaym.     
    Well then, since my meeting with these excellent folk has afforded me such pure gain, it definitely looks as though I can and must continue on the path they have approved, the problem-solver-errant path, answerable to my own legend.    
    Here come two fine-looking girls, wearing secretive smiles.  “We bear a message,” says the elder sister, Darilar, beckoning me into a direction in which others are beginning to steer their steps.  “A presentation," adds the younger, Razpar, "has been prepared for you, Yadon.”   
    I can no longer see Tsritton and Idova, who doubtless have gone ahead to cook up some sort of surprise.  Nothing for it but to follow my guides deeper into the scrubby forest, through more glades, and past groves inside the glades, under occasional patches of sky which allow me glimpses of giant Kafumabapsu towering over his leafy children.  I am surrounded as I go, by accompanying crowds who keep to a respectful distance and remain partially visible amongst the growths around us.  Visible but silent, apart from the continual tramp of boots over fallen brush.  A sense of purpose reigns, which sharpens into an atmosphere of determination when finally I approach a lantern-lit grove surrounded by flame-shaped trees. 
    These trees are, come to think of it, reminiscent of Terrestrial poplars.  No sooner does this thought occur to me than I hear, in syllables that sound half-English: “The perpars ploint!”  A garbled rendition of the poplars point?  No, that's an absurdity.  Or perhaps not.  Long ago (I now recall), hundreds of days before I set out for Syoom, in the period when I and my people were political exiles in the lands around Olhoav, many of my English words had rubbed off onto Uranian tongues; the hybrid lingo thus formed has been dubbed celeriton-speak.  All right then: "the perpars ploint”.  Now what?   
    The space in front of me is emptying: the crowd moving aside.  I step forward, my wary attention splintered in several directions.  Up above me are the quivering "plointing perpars"; around me are the folk strolling into position.  Now the crowds have arranged themselves to line the edges of the grove; looks like the centre space is reserved for just for a few.  A central space for me and... what?  The mood has flowed from convivial to solemn.  Not much chatter can be heard any more. 
    My ears catch the portmanteau word consuff.  "Convivial sufficiency" is what I work it out to be.  Well, at least the "convivial" sounds good.  But next I almost jump at a sudden DZEEEE - a whistle drawn out into an eerie shriek.
    It's one of those "perpars" that has fired a laser bolt up into the sky.   
    Usually when Uranian plants do this sort of thing they are aiming at some prey - for instance when the target is a cloud-creature lured by infra-red emission - but this time the perpar appears to have been goaded into making the shot by some human manager.  I guess it to be a ceremonial signal.   
    Next thing, I am approached by Tsritton and Idova and by the settlement's head, a middle-aged man named Rallix Noom.  They point me forward to a table.  It's a simple piece of furniture the size and shape of a barbacue grill; I approach it obediently.  At this point the crowd jostles inward from the edges of the grove, keen not to miss what's about to happen; the jostling is restrained, not like a Terran mob hemmed in by a line of police: being Uranians they are policed by their own self-control.  Still, the whole situation is making me nervous, and I note that Rallix Noom, the headman, appears as blanched as grey-skinned Nenns can ever get, which suggests he's nervous too.  Rather strange, that the fellow has hardly spoken to me at all this evening.  Surely it can't just be an unwillingness to butt into a family re-union, since I’ve chatted to so many other members of this throng of exiles.  They’re my people, after all; we're all one Olhoavan family, as far as that goes, and, after all, I am technically still the Daon of Olhoav!
    Then what is Rallix Noom's problem?  Must process my impressions quickly, as I'm facing the a fate-wave's crest.  Rallix Noom is burdened; I can tell.  As headman he possesses some knowledge or responsibility which others aren't glad to share in full.  They're happy for it to rest on his shoulders, not theirs.  And now a deeper hush has descended upon the clearing; more than the hush of respect, it is an awareness.  How weird, the way I and this crowd, despite mutual affection, are, at this moment, on our mutual guard.   
    Rallix Noom clears his throat.  “Here is your property, Daon Nyav Yuhlm,” he says - and stretches an arm -   
    Following his indication I approach the table.  Recognition surfaces as I make out what rests on a piece of charred cloth.  It can't be - but it is: the thing is my own laser-sponnd, the one I dropped amid the scene of the greatest horror and the greatest triumph of my life. 
    I pick up the weapon, and the touch of it makes me wince at the memory of where I had let it fall, in the dread, collapsed ruin of Zyperan.  “You followed my exact route?” says I, and I answer myself:  "You must have done."   
    “We did, father,” Tsritton nods; "we saw with our own eyes what fate had befallen the city-monster."   
    I'm in, forever in.  This legend is going to grow and grow.  All the stronger for being true; for I am, and always shall be known as, “the slayer of Zyperan”.     
    Never any chance of escape, never shall I outrun the further demands attracted by the status of hero, of one who can deal with monsterkind.  I lick dry lips.     
    Out of the corner of my eye I see Rallix Noom give a signal - and I turn and see four people wheeling forward a man-high panel, an upright field-screen, from the grove's periphery.  Evidently the Syoomean authorities have lost no time.   
    I don’t dare refuse what comes next, nor do I feel capable of doing so, so strongly does my curiosity propel me towards the face on the screen: that of my acquaintance Captain Tak Valakar, who looks...  stuffier... than he did during my voyage in his skyship.    
    “Greetings once again, Yadon.  Your re-union has gone well?”   
    I chirpily reply, "Yes it has gone well, thank you, Captain; now do divest yourself of your unpleasant news.”   
    “It concerns," he smoothly says, "what your band of immigrants have dragged in their wake.”    
     I respond, “Something bad, you mean, acquired in their trek across Fyaym?”
    "That is not for me to say," says Tak Valakar.  "80437 does not believe that you should be given all the information all at once."
    Disgruntlement surfaces in me.  "80437 will soon supplement this ration of data, I suspect."
    "You're right," begins Valakar, "because - "
    "Because it seems that 80437 is about to give me an extra job, that's why.”
    No sooner have I heard myself speak than I am put off by my own mettlesome tone, and especially by that ugly word "job", which I pronounced in English.  For a moment I feel quite abashed and humble.  I can only hope that my bluntness is in the expected range for Yadon the half-alien.      
    Tak Valakar however seems unoffended, nay, even pleased!  Moreover the bystanders, those close enough to have overheard, are looking tremendously relieved and excited; even old Rallix seems brighter, and as for my children, they are holding their breath as though expecting a treat.  Well, thank goodness I haven't spoiled the atmosphere; indeed I've fulfilled expectations somehow.  Deep down they had all been dreading that I would reject my allotted role.  (No telling what an Earthman will do, after all.)    
    Valakar muses: "The djaobb, from what I glean, is one in which you will be given a lot of latitude.  You can look on that as the reason why you are not being given too much information: you'll fill in much of its outline yourself."   
    "The job being...?"   
    “You are to recruit for the Sunnoad’s expedition."   
    Hoping intensely that I have heard aright, I say, "Expedition?"     
    "To defeat Dempelath and to rescue Olhoav.”    
    My expectations pivot; joy bursts open the flood-gates of belief.  The news I have longed for could not have come at a better time or place.  The fact that it is Valakar who is telling me, instead of the Sunnoad himself, is (if anything) a reassurance: the tremendous deeds being planned, for a project involving layers of command, require that I be no mere wave-flick errand-boy sent by Brem Tormalla but a part of something organized and huge.  As for my earlier resentment – born of a childish wish to wander for ever free of responsibility – that was no more than a contrasting prelude to a better direction.  The people know; the cheers spreading around me from throat to throat are not of astonishment, but of folk who get the main meaning of the news.  Now they are sure, and with my son’s and daughter’s arms suddenly around my neck and the congratulations issuing from countless lips I ask myself in amazement, why the heck I had I not thought more about getting back to my own Olhoavans during the past two thousand days?  Admittedly, in order to see them earlier, it would have meant a return across Fyaym, daring the vast wilderness for a second time with scant chance of survival.  But the real reason for my neglect must be that a fate-wave is a blinker, focusing the front-view and suppressing the side-view.  All has turned out for the best: my people managed to get here without my help, while the rescue of Olhoav has shifted to the front view.    
    The ceremony is over.  We are leaving this special grove, with the memento which had been stored here, the weapon used to slay Zyperan, clipped to my belt. 
    We retrace our steps to the settlement.  I keep hearing "djaobb", the new-minted Uranian word, bandied around.  The "djaobb" has in fact begun.  Although during the unique few hours of the rest of this day I can relax and enjoy the company, yet from this moment on I am "in business", receptive to whatever may pertain to my role of Recruiter.

CONTINUED IN

Uranian Throne Episode 21:   

The Cincture