uranian throne - episode twenty-one

the cincture

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 ;  20: the immigrants 

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

[with grateful acknowledgement to artist Quentin Stipp]

1

Eyes glittered in the hairy face of a humanoid figure, seven feet tall, concealed by vegetation at the rim of the clearing. 
    Complacently he stood watching and listening to the Olhoavan immigrants' celebrations of their hero, Yadon.    
    Apparently this compatriot of theirs had just been honoured with the role of Recruiter for the great expedition which the Sunnoad at long last intended to launch, to rescue the exiles' home city from a tyrant named Dempelath; but the watching humanoid cared naught for this. 
    He had, it is true, become aware of a whiff in the cultural atmosphere of Syoom which amounted to a strong suggestion that Dempelath must be defeated for the good of all Nenns.  But what did this matter to a kalyar?  Beneath his facial fur, a contented smile expressed the mood of the evolved man.  He was quietly aware that the future belonged to himself and his kind.  As for the glade's temporary inhabitants, they were of some interest, but of little long-term importance.  In tranquil contemplation he allowed his gaze to rove around the nearby trestle tables, to the shacks at the far end, and the lively exiles who strolled, sat, ate, drank and chatted from one end of the occupied space to the other.  Let the Nenns enjoy their time; the kalyars' turn must come...    
    "Dezagan!" - came the sound of name spoken behind his back. 
    Well he knew that harsh whisper.  It impelled him to turn, for old Zingalorb the Watch, Zingalorb of the crooked finger, was, after all, the censor-in-chief of all the kalyars of the Forest of Namrol.  Some respect was due to that office, or, if not respect, at least tolerance.
    "So you've been following me?" asked Dezagan, allowing himself to be drawn back from the brink of the glade.
    "No," said the Elder; "it was an easy guess that you would be here."   
    "But why act upon your guess?" 
    Coldly ignoring the cheeky word "act", which for kalyars is packed with connotations of time-wasting make-believe, Zingalorb continued: "...Yes, you are easy to read, Dezagan."
    "How do you mean, 'easy'?"
    Zingalorb, sneering, jerked a thumb at the glade.  "Your interest has long veered in that direction."     
    "Towards that bunch of settlers?"
    "Towards the doings of Nenns."   
    "A purely objective interest.  Not an addiction."
    "Yet," said Zingalorb, "it may prove unhealthy."   
    "How?"   
    That monosyllable, and the calm smile which accompanied it, caused the Watch to waver, to ask himself: Must I answer this young fellow?  Must the 'doings' be named?  Yes, no help for it, for they are the reason why such a headstrong type must be warned off.    
    "Because," sighed Zingalorb, "the Nenns are about to gather around one of their heroes."   
    "So they are."   
    "And we can guess what that means!  They'll launch one of their epic adventures!"   
    Dezagan laughed.  "And you're actually scared that I may be tempted to join in?"   
    "You may think it funny - but frankly I doubt your strength to resist."   
    Dezagan's face had settled into an easy grin.  "Wise you may be, most of the time, but on this occasion, Zingalorb the Watch, you are utterly wrong, as you would know if you could read my mind.  I, tempted?  By the adventures of this day and age?  Let me tell you, that at the very moment you interrupted me, my awareness was ablaze with our infinitely wider picture; with how immensely our giant future surpasses all that the Nenns can ever be and do."   
    "And yet you greatly like to watch them, do you not?"   
    "Granted, often enough I'm fascinated by the patterns of their dead-end doings.  Hardly a motive for me to participate!  Rest assured that mine is a spectator's fascination, an enjoyment of pattern, no more.  Broken Skies! - I don't even like those."   
    "Hmm..."  Some deadlocked moments dragged by.  Zingalorb's stare, darkly skeptical, probed and was steadily met by Dezagan's unworried countenance.   
    Zingalorb mused: He trusts himself, I can see.  Absolutelyt trusts himself; and yet it is nonetheless a fact that some of our number have been lured by the Nenns' swirls of action; lured and lost to our number.  It is a tendency which I can no longer ignore.  It is high time I conferred with the Nenn who is at the root of the trouble: Yadon the Starsider hero.  The moment is oppportune, for the man is right now within reach.  I need merely step into the glade and make him understand that we kalyars are not to be included in his Recruitment drive.        
    Aloud the Censor said: "Wait here, Dezagan."   
    Striding with determination through the curtain of foliage in the direction of the partying Nenns, he disappeared from the younger kalyar's view.   
    The latter gazed after him and shrugged.
    He doesn't believe me, Dezagan wryly mused.  But no matter.  In due course he shall believe me, no matter how many days it takes.  You can't beat innocence.  I am innocent and I see no need for further argument.  Yet for courtesy's sake I shall await his return.   
    Having reached that decision, Dezagan sat down on a tree-stump and reverted to his habitual condition of happy daydream.

2

Kalyars know a vast amount.  It is natural and inevitable that their stock of knowledge is so ample, since currently they have little to do except listen to travellers' tales and accumulate data from evidencer clouds, and so, as Dezagan sat on the stump and daydreamed, the multi-coloured patterns of history, the sparkling wonders of life and time, swished across the view-plate of his awareness.  In this he was fairly typical of his people.  Theirs is an easy life: existing in peaceful poverty off the fruits of forest land and looking forward, in place of present ambition, to reincarnation in their distant, glorious future. 
    They are quite reconciled to this life of waiting, for they have destiny's promise that they are the heirs to all human history: heirs of all the false starts that have ever been, all the setbacks and defeats which shall be slotted with ultimate justification into the final fulfilment.
    Of all their false starts, the most splendid had been their very own dead-end efflorescence during Eras 74 to 76.  Those were the bright, powerful, delusive days when they had openly vied with Nenns for control of Syoom: three long eras during which the evolved men had striven for premature mastery - and had lost.  Premature but wonderfully glorious nevertheless, glorious to imagine ever since, the kalyars' rise during the Tungsten Era, followed by the culminating conference at which kalyars and Nenns aimed to thrash out their spheres of influence, and the transcendent Rhenium Moment that lasted the few hours of Era 75, during which the World Spirit uniquely intervened; followed by the Osmium Era, crowded with sagas such as those of the Great Triangle and of Sunnoad Taldis Norkoten, but also allowing, under cover of continuing inter-species rivalry, the kalyars' competitive ambition to beat an epic retreat - all this fed Dezagan's reverie...     
    It was during that last downward wave of fortune that they had gradually jettisoned all present hopes, rejecting them for a better faith, a more certain far future.  Yet the tapesty of those old eras, stretched across forty-one million days, had not been woven in vain.  The epic gifted Dezagan with more stored tales than his imagination could ever re-play.  Such a crop of race-memories yielded never-ending contemplative delight; even grumps like Zingalorb shared the boon. 
    Nevertheless, Zingalorb and the other censors were apt to worry.  They feared that the true faith might might be snatched away from those who backslid from the future vista into current wave-riding adventures alongside Nenns. 
    Dezagan utterly rejected such anxiety.  What could be more innocent than to bask in peaceful contemplation of present epics?  To enjoy the spectacle of current doings in a mellow frame of mind, the same calm spirit as the appreciation of bygone adventure, was the opposite of an illicit craving for activism; on the contrary, it showed maturity.  It evinced the large perspective which kalyars ought to have, and hence showed that they were more, rather than less, focused upon far-future greatness.   But would Zingalorb ever see this?  Could he ever be persuaded to accept the innocent interpretation of such interest in current affairs? 
    Dezagan hoped so.  Only, he was far from sure, so he used the time, seated on his tree-stump waiting for the censor's return, to compose debates, to foil any possible counter-thrust: imaginary debates in which he floored his opponent.    
Zingalorb:  You think you can skirt the danger zone with impunity.  But by fixating yourself on the crises of the Tungsten and Osmium Eras, eventually you'll have worked up your mind into such a state of addiction that nothing is going to satisfy you except a plunge into endeavour in this Actinium Era.  That's where you're headed: a craving for present epic rather than past.
Dezagan:  The larva of crisis becomes the imago of dream; I thus crave, not the immature crises of those bygone days, but the adult form into which they have now been glossed.  That's the maturer shine of peaceful retrospect: the one and only sense in which I interest myself in the present - namely that the present polishes the past.
Zingalorb:  You're talking like that because you believe you merely dream; but a dream about conflict may inspire to action when you WAKE.
Dezagan:  If you had listened to me properly you would understand that I don't dote on the conflicts themselves.  It's the patterns they weave, in quiet retrospect, in time's tapestry, that I care for.
Zingalorb:  But suppose you yourself wish to join in the weaving business?
Dezagan:  I'm no weaver, I'm an admirer.  That will occupy me sufficiently for this lifetime.  And when we kalyars are reborn into the following Great Cycle, that will be time enough for us to come into our own, to build and rule what will then be our world.  You know that; I know that; so why are we arguing?
    No further imaginary answer from Zingalorb.  The end of the spat is well timed, thought Dezagan, for I see standing, over by the line of trees, the fellow himself.  He must just have returned from his consultation.  With his mouth tight shut and a frustrated look on his face, it seems as though my imagined conversation with him had really taken place.  He looks indeed as though he knows he's beaten.  Which is fine, but I'd prefer that the silence did not drag like this.  This can't be a confrontation.  Neither of us is saying anything.  Oh well, let him berate me and get the quarrel over with.  Ah, what's this? 
    Zingalorb had raised an arm.  Was he beckoning again?  What did the old Watch want now? 
    Oh, well, censors must be humoured.       
    Dezagan stood up and walked forward.
    When they were close enough, the Elder said to him huskily, "I must check."
    Dezagan snapped, "Check on what?"    
    "On whether you are ashamed."   
    Ashamed?  Ashamed?  Dezagan ground his teeth.  "Of what?"
    "Of the thoughts you've been harbouring."
    "No."   
    "Not in the slightest?"   
    "Look, haven't I made it clear - "    
    "Good," interrupted Zingalorb with a gleam of white teeth.   
    "Haven't I already made it clear, that history's shoots shall bud - "
    "Good," said the censor again.
    "Bud retrospective aliveness - "  Then, in the midst of insistently making his point, Dezagan's mind skidded.  Good? the fellow had said.  The little word whipped around in his skull.  Good?    
    Zingalorb then did another unexpected thing.  He stood aside with a wave, as if inviting Dezagan to advance and meet someone.
    A figure, a man, one of the Nenns, had stepped into view and was standing at the tree-line bordering the next glade.  A glance was enough to reveal a figure of distinction.  Then the identification became certain: not just the blue Daon's cloak but the whole presence and the far-seeing eye matched with the legend of Yadon.  Dezagan now faced the need to guard against being fooled or tricked by events, but it wasn't clear how, and as he walked forward he felt irrational guilt, as though a false accusation against him could shame him as much as a true one; as though a mere allegation of complicity in Yadon's adventurism might be held to prove the charge.  Yet how could he possibly be framed that way?  It was not possible that Zingalorb could somehow have suborned the Nenn to bear false witness ("See here, Dezagan, this man Yadon swears you were applying to enrol in his action-adventure").  No, it couldn't be anything like that.  Such injustice was simply not done.  Besides, surely, no motive for it existed.  So something else must explain this meeting: some unimagined reason why Zingalorb, having warned him not to have anything to do with the Nenns' hero, was now bringing them together.   
    Dezagan advanced to within a couple of yards of the famous Starsider.
    Finding himself staring down into the deep pits of Yadon's equable eyes, the kalyar could do no otherwise than greet the Nenn in the fashion of the Nenns. 
    "Skimmjard, sponndar."   
    "Skimmjard, kalyar.  What can I do for you?"
    This response by Yadon was as affable in tone as one could wish.  Some huge happiness - sensed Dezagan - had convinced the man that anything could be promised, anything could be achieved, on this particular day.   
    "What can you do for me?  Nothing, or so my censor must hope."  Dezagan cast a glance at Zingalorb.  "Except you might tell me, skimmjard, what an obscure kalyar can have to do with the renowned Daon of Olhoav.  Though honoured to meet you, I am puzzled."   
    "You may become less obscure," suggested Yadon, "if you enlist in the Sunnoad's mission to liberate Olhoav."   
    "Ah, it's out in the open."  No sneaky frame-up, but a straight test.  Dezagan turned to face Zingalorb.  "You have arranged for this man to co-operate with you in putting me to the proof.   But why go to that trouble?"   
    Zingalorb hesitated.   
    "Tell him, censor," prompted Yadon.   
    "Dezagan, listen," said the Watch, "admittedly I told you not to get involved, but now..."  And still he struggled for words.
    "All right, let me tell him," finished Yadon for him, "the cause of the volte-face."  (The utterance of a mysterious Terran phrase was a soft alien punch that compelled special attention.)  "It's due to a dose of this."  Whereupon the Starsider, the Daon of Olhoav, the slayer of Zyperan, lifted his right arm at the same moment as his voice ceased to be jocular, and the others saw that between thumb and forefinger he held a glowing orange crystal.     
    Zingalorb drew back and stuttered, "He'll let you try it, Dezagan.  Just as he allowed me."   
    The crystal's beauty was exacting a price, for it seemed to Dezagan, staring at it ever more closely, that the surrounding daylight had been halved.  A dimmer-switch had turned, a blanket of solemnity had descended.
    Softly spoke Yadon:   
    "Different people don't hear the same things in messages of this kind.  They are direct communications of thought, so no two receptions are identical.  But after all, isn't that also partly true of words?  My guess is, you'll receive, broadly speaking, the same findings as the few others who have experienced the crystal, if, as I suggest, you give it a try, Dezagan.  From what I've heard about you, you could play a part. But of course the choice is yours.  No one will blame you if you demur."   
    Might as well give in, thought Dezagan, his hand closing upon the crystal.  Give in, so strong is the wave. 
    He put the object to his forehead.   
    Too late, his eyes then squeezed shut in desperation, and he strove to remove his stuck hand. 
    Yadon and Zingalorb watched expressions of evident horror chase each other over the befurred face.  Something must be tearing through Dezagan, something unimaginable to those who had not seen the Message, and indescribable by those who had.      
    The dire effect lasted for half a minute or so, after which the young kalyar's eyes opened in wonder; he had relaxed from dismay into awe; his hand went down from his forehead and he offered back the crystal. 
    Yadon took it, with the gentle comment: "You'll understand, now, that an expedition across the world is likely to require a variety of personnel.  I'm inclined to bet that the presence of a kalyar will prove to be a good idea..."
    "I accept," Dezagan found himself saying.   
    Zingalorb, who had had to undergo a more drastic change of view, complained: "I wish I knew what the Xolch is going on!"
    No polite answer existed in any Uranian tongue.  Zingalorb regretted his utterance of exasperation.  After all, well brought-up Nenns and kalyars alike had the ability in common to sense far in advance the moody overtures of a coming crisis, long before verbal inquiry become appropriate - and thus the message crystal from Dynoom, the City-Brain of Olhoav, pleading for help against the tyrant Dempelath, had expressed its urgency in a fumarole of wordless mystery which continued to smoke in the receivers' heads.     
    Yadon however suddenly gave a resounding laugh. "Aye - you may well ask - what the devil is going on?"
    At the sound of another unfamiliar English word, Zingalorb sighed, and answered: "Something worse than Xolch, it would seem.  But you, sponndar Yadon, look confident enough."   
    "That's because I'm slap-happy," the Starsider said, grinning.  "I've found my family again.  Fortune has handed me that brimming cup, so why not more?"
    The two kalyars gazed at the Nenn, and his candid eyes gazed back. 
    Coincidentally both Zingalorb and Dezagan were at that moment thinking the same thing - that the man could be trusted to pit himself against anything, even the unmentionable.  Legend averred that his mind was part alien.  This idea, reinforced by the odd elements in his vocabulary, served to increase Uranians' confidence in him: here was an unknown Good to challenge unknown Evil.   
    "Please excuse me while I enjoy a few hours with my folks," Yadon said to Dezagan, and turned away with a friendly nod.  "Come and join the party as and when you like."   
    "Thank you, I shall, presently."  Dezagan's awareness swim-stroked out of battling winds into an air of outward calm.  Serenity took hold because the thing that had happened to him was too great for jumpiness. 
    He waited till Yadon had disappeared back into the crowded glade, and then he turned to Zingalorb, noting that the Elder had a stiff-necked look about him; no doubt about it, Zingalorb was irritated at having had to change his mind - but change it he certainly had. 
    Without being unkind, Dezagan felt amused.     
    Tactfully he remarked, "Well, we were both right, as it happens.  Though normally it would be wrong to get involved in the Nenns' action-games, here the principle won't apply, for - "   
    "Yes, yes," said Zingalorb, "this is no game."   
    Dezagan continued to think it through.  "Yadon must have heard what we kalyars achieved in eras 74 to 76.  No wonder it's occurred to him to recruit one of us.  Really there are no dead ends in history."   
    "Retrospectively alive," grated Zingalorb.  "Reaching its fingers towards us, compelling us to make this exception to our non-interference rule.  And afterwards?  Will we - in particular you - be strong enough to resume proper focus?"   
    "Yes," said Dezagan.
    He said it without hesitation, that one word, simple and sure, being the best he could do for Zingalorb.  The censor was left standing in sad composure: a censor in breach of rules.  Well, to repair that breach the fellow must repair his principles.  Adjust their focus, that's all.  Nothing's lost so long as we preserve the priority of the Great Cycle to come.  That way we retain the soul of our destiny.  It shouldn't be too hard to admit that meanwhile we may come across an evil so great that we have to fight.   
    Dezagan crossed the leafy boundary and entered the glade, accepting the Starsider's invitation. 
    Trying to spot Yadon he looked around at the other immigrants.  They were sitting at tables enjoying good cheer or chatting as they wandered about, circulating in a state of bliss, still overjoyed at the fact of their Daon's presence.
    Now the kalyar himself became the object of some attention.  Heads were turned by his noteworthy height and appearance.  Soon a Nenn got up from his table and strode over.  "Skimjard messenger!  You can tell me; I'll see it's passed around."  It was natural for these people to assume that any kalyar who bothered to approach them must be the bearer of some practical message, perhaps a neighbourly warning about some dangerous forest animal that had approached the vicinity.     
    "My name is Dezagan and I am here not as a messenger but as the guest of your Daon."     
    Astonishment!  "You're interested in us!" exclaimed the other. 
    "Yes," chuckled Dezagan, "wonderful, isn't it?  I'm an interested kalyar."   
    The man laughed delightedly.  "Interested and hence interesting!  We give you warm welcome."  He was much too polite to add what everyone knew - that it was hard to stay interested in people who dreamed away their lives fixated on a future which awaited them scores of thousands of lifetimes hence.  But if this Dezagan was an exception, good for him...   
    Another Nenn approached.  By his bordered cloak he would see to be an omzyr.  "Skimjard, kalyar!  I heard from Yadon that he was thinking of recruiting one of you people."   
    "He has.  Myself.  He has convinced me of the need to fight someone by the name of Dempelath."   
    Thergerer beamed.  "Every committed ally counts!"
    That day, Dezagan listened to peculiar stories from the Starside city, which confirmed his experience of the message in the crystal.  The cry for help from Olhoav's City-Brain, Dynoom, had shaped ideas which were scarcely mentionable, a nightmarish smudge of themes, but Thergerer tried to put it anecdotally:  "The tyrant of Olhoav sucks the city's light, and in the dimness he causes confused folk to march in formation and chant his slogans, making them feel that they were unimportant before, that their present importance is thanks to him... we don't want that sort of thing to spread..."  It sounded vague because it had to; all that could be said for certain was that Dempelath had effected a revolution against the very fabric of Uranian life.  The kalyar-recruit managed to glean that the root of the damage was an invitation to backgrounders to cease being contented with their lot; henceforth those vastly numerous 'extras' were all promised leading roles in the plots which wove the fabric of history. 
    Darker still were the hints of a control-diagram called the Snaddy-Galomm, reaching beyond the world to some alien inspiration behind the known evil.  And having said this, he shut up suddenly.  
    The day wore on, the air dimmed and evenshine gave way to anyne.  During these first five hours of night the gathering gradually diminished as groups and individuals sought their huts in the settlement nearby.   
    Strolling amongst the lessened numbers, Yadon approached the kalyar and Thergerer and said, "Well now, Dezagan, since I noticed you talking to our omzyr, I'm wondering what he's been telling you about the opposition we face."   
    "Just details which mean little as yet," said the kalyar.  "The main message is what the crystal told me."   
    Yadon nodded, "That thing certainly does the job.  You have no hesitations, then.  You are still for the Sunnoad's rescue mission."     
    "How can I refuse?  We kalyars deserve to lose our promised future if we are not prepared to abandon our comforts for a while in order to preserve our world."   
    Unexpectedly the Starsider confessed:  "I too must be prepared to leave the cosy fireside in my head."
    "What do you mean, sponndar?" asked Dezagan. 
    "I must relinquish my easy and selfish life."   
    Thergerer intervened.  "Easy?  Selfish?  Don't you mean adventurous and daring?"    
    "As a loner," shrugged Yadon, "with no more responsibility than was needed to deal with random problems as they arose, I needed no public virtues.  Now, however, I must shift to acquire a set!  Fortunately, I already value them in others, as the hour strikes for me to apply them closer to home." 

3

Syoom is wide - a fifth of Ooranye - and its people various, their attention ranged amongst myriad different concerns.  One might therefore say that except during the extremely rare eomasps which mark the boundary between one era and the next, their hearts do not beat as one. 
    Some days after Yadon had begun his recruitment, countless folk had not yet heard of it, and were as yet far from likely to hear of it.
    The news did not ripple outward; it splashed unpredictably.
    In the region of Oam, roughly thirteen thousand miles from the Olhoavan exiles' glade, stood a spindly pylon.  A strong-boned woman in the prime of her strength had just begun to climb it, causing it to quiver with each tread of boot on rung. 
    Despite its rickety feel she was unworried by the ascent; she was a highly reputed "Availer" of Pjourth, by name Lemedet Tanek.   
    Her employers, known as the Wunth, were excellent engineers; Lemedet knew she need not fear a material collapse of a structure which they had designed and built.  Therefore her safety depended entirely on her own fitness, which superbly exceeded the already excellent Uranian average.
    Besides, hesitation would be a waste of time; she must get up this wiry thing in order to begin her day’s work; so up she went, on a vertical path that looked like vanishing into nothingness, such was the pylon's height.
    As a matter of fact the real risk in her job would not come from its artificial perch amid the airy vastness; peril would come, if it did, from the surrounding peaks of the Obbong Holobb – the Mountains of Flame.  Lemedet smiled and tossed out her long hair so that it streamed in the buffeting winds; let the mountains do their worst!  She was being well paid, in more ways than one; not only the material terms of her bargain were favourable, but she also profited psychologically, from being allowed to prove to the Wunth what a human could do - and what a Wunth could not do.  
    Her lips stretched into a grin at the thought of those cowardly hemispherical ground-lubbers who, if they'd climbed here, would by this time have been blown off in the gale.  For all their intellect, they'd never dare try it...     
    Actually, she had better not let her thoughts dwell for too long upon the un-pleasing Wunth; she must direct her mind elsewhere.  Above all, blank out the likelihood that one day she'd climb the wire path once too often. 
    Those rewards, now...!  Still visible down below, though receding as she climbed, the bales were stacked on a ledge next to the base of the wire path: casks and drums of solidified energy, a heartening reminder of the boon which her efforts earned for her city, her beloved Pjourth.   
    Climb, climb, step after step... and think of the ancient capital of Oam, which counted as one of the greatest of Syoom’s disc-on-stem metropoli, yet lacked an agricultural surround.  The fields of vheic which fuelled other centres could grow only sparsely in the rocky lands around Pjourth.  Energy was the great problem for the Pjourthans.   
    In theory the lack might be remedied by more remote cultivation of the fuel-plants, but it would be a huge task to develop a farming community at long distance, and as for trade with other human settlements, most were largely self-sufficient in this era.  All things considered, it was easiest to bargain with the Wunth.   
    An obvious enough arrangement: Wunth energy supplies in return for the human daring of the professional Availers.
    The grey mountains shimmered around her, their vistas threatening to unclench their secrets with each furlong of altitude gained; she, imperturbably, continued to climb, thanks to her athlete's muscles.  Finally, after an hour, and still at ease in her mind, she reached the three-way focal command point, where fine high-strength wires many miles long, slung from slope to slope to slope, converged at a human-sized cage suspended in the emptiness.   
    She squirmed in, strapped herself in the chair provided, and bound her blowing hair.  Then she concentrated upon the facing panel of instruments.  From their further side (she knew without being able to see round to examine them) nozzles of ray-spouts projected.  The usual tests showed that all appeared to be in order.
    The skeletal cage gave no protection from the winds.  Indeed the wire web in which she was set was so fine that it seemed as though she were without support, floating at an airy point miles from the rocky surfaces of the surrounding mountain range; and that feeling of detachment, of utter severance from the ground, actually helped to guard against vertigo. 
    Now to attend to the facing mountain slope. 
    Definitely the "ground-weather" was up to its tricks today.  The visible flickerings on that rocky flank, mobile mottlings reminiscent of plant growth speeded up a thousand-fold, forged momentary cinematic patterns, often strange pink arcs that glared and writhed against the grey rock background, and these almost-regularities menaced the observer with their threat to hurl a blast of meaning.  Lemedet had to counteract immediately.  Even before she knew what she did, her darting eyes and fingers took over.  Play the instrument panel!  Swish and stab with the rays!  Enough to dissolve the worst concentrations!  Her attacks duly leaped at the incipient patterns on the mountain slope.  She knew she must scatter them before their evil could coalesce. That was the game, that was her task, and she was at it, successfully, when words came from the panel's radio receiver:   
    "Settled in, Lemedet?"   
    The voice, she knew, must have come from another suspended cage, miles away.     
    "Yes, you can go home now, Efgom.  I relieve you." (Tap, tap, fire, fire, her fingers continued to work.)   
    "Sure you don't need me for anything?"  For transitional support - that was what he meant; it was unnecessary to spell it out.
    "No, thanks, I'll be fine."
    "Good to hear that's so.  Blaping skies, I’m tired."
    "See you later," she said to him.   
    Efgom Hosh was a good friend and colleague, and Lemedet knew that if she had needed more time he would have given it to her, exhausted though he might be, but, as it was, he could go and take his rest.     
    “Nearly forgot to tell you," added the voice: "a man has been asking after you, down at base."   
    "What kind of sponndar is he?"  (Tap, tap, fire, fire, got that one early...)      "Just calls himself Yadon.  Some sort of Fyayman explorer, I think.  No specific title as far as I know.  But some of our crowd seem to act like they've heard of him.  Will you see him when you get down?”   
    "You can tell him yes, whoever he is."  She was fairly used to satisfying the curiosity of travellers concerning the Mountains of Flame.   
    The hours passed.  She kept rhythmically absorbed, her fingers flying over the studs, taking repeated action to prevent the coalescence of terrible meanings.  Fortune stayed with her and she managed not to understand the patterns, just to fight them with her lances of radiation.  Sometimes she sang the working song of the Availers:

I'm not playing your game,
Trallomba-Lee;
I'm not playing your game,
Trallomba-Lo.

Gibberish be,
Trallomba-Lee!
Can't collect me,
Trallomba-Lo.

So sorry I'm not,
Trallomba-Lee,
Playing your game,
Trallomba-Lo.

Dozens of times she sang this, before a new sensation stole upon her. 
    It was from somewhere close, a presence "on hover".
    Oh flunnd, she thought.  In her distaste for the closeness of the thing, she did not turn her head.  Nor was she expected to.  One was not required to greet them.  One must simply continue work and answer questions when asked.    
    Besides, she knew what she would see if she did turn her head.  She'd see the hover-platform bearing its rider's hemispherical body: leathery, eyeless, and two yards wide, supported by four stubby restless legs which lengthened and shortened like pistons, causing the bulky mass to rock irregularly.  The arms by contrast were rarely extruded; they remained most of the time retracted and invisible.   
    A preliminary crackle came from its voice-box, and her heart sank just a little.  Oh flunnd, not conversation!!
    Words came in imitation of a cultured human voice:   
    "Do you ever wonder, Lemedet, why we employ you?"   
    "Never," she said proudly. 
    "Then you never wonder why this mountain slope you face has these striving patterns?"   
    "Not to know, is my skill," she scornfully replied.  
    A modification in the breeze then told her that the Wunth platform had departed.  She had been allowed the last word.   
    Well, that hadn't been too bad.  It had been easy to utter what satisfied both the creature and herself.  Grateful at life in general, Lemedet sang her way through a few more hours, until a bright girl named Senntar, one of the youngest Availers on the team, signalled her arrival as relief, at one of the adjacent work-cages a few miles away.   
    "All right for me to go now?" called Lemedet over the radio.  She could see the flashes bursting into action from Senntar’s cage; but it was always polite to confirm.   
    "Absolutely fine, Lemedet.  You may or may not be aware that you’ve got a visitor down below," her colleague added.  "Name of Yadon."   
    "Yes, so I heard from Efgom."   
    "I trust you’ll make a good impression," remarked Senntar with a lilt in her tone.
    "Trust away," said Lemedet dryly.   
    She started on her way down the wiry stair and immediately was able to switch off from the stress of her work.  Hours of tension had drained some of her energy, but the descent was always easier than the ascent.  Provision had been made for weary workers: every hundred yards or so you would find a quartet of grooved pads, one for each of your four limbs, by means of which to slide under gravity as far as the next stop.  Thus the technology of the Wunth was considerate towards human users; and by this process, Lemedet descended in hundred-yard spurts of speed, greatly shortening the journey.  Nevertheless she did not descend the entire distance by this method.  As often, she preferred to climb rather than slide down some of the stretches.  That way she could spend time in reflection and enjoyment of the vistas, enjoying also the fact that she did not have to pay after-hours attention to those coily glitterings on the mountain flanks.  Philosophically she reflected that even if her luck ran out tomorrow, it was good to count this day, this single door in life's corridor, as an apartment of success.   
    Yet then she went back to using the slid-pads as though she were in more of a hurry than usual.  Why such haste, she asked herself, to get back to the ground?  Don't say it's curiosity about the man who's asked to see me!  But it would seem so. 
    Be honest with yourself, Lemedet: perhaps you secretly fear he'll get tired of waiting...   
    Indignant at that thought, she applied the brakes, slipped out of the pads, and let go of them so that they were drawn back up to their point of origin, while she was left to descend by slow deliberate steps, rung by rung.  This gave her some minutes of self-examination as far as the next stop down.  After which, she admitted, amused, that, yes, she had clearly been hurrying to meet this Yadon.  Ridiculous, as though he were an admirer and she was flattered by his attention! 
    A rather more chilly idea was that she had been impelled by a fate-breeze, that un-discussable, ghostly brush of destiny’s wing -
    Arguing with herself no further, when she reached the next set of slider pads she put them on, to get down the rest of the way at maximum speed. 
    Upon arrival, she sauntered out of the Availer booth and made for the adjacent bench.  She would do her part to respect the occasion.  Let that suffice for her duty to fate.
    In this familiar scene, at the edge of the hill-settlement with its comfortable huts, its light purple trees edging the lawns, and the polished scaffolding of the phial-compressor overlooming the valley, she would comfortably sit before going home.  Let the visitor come or not; she was happy to wait a while.   
    However, she did not have to wait.  Even before she reached the bench, a tall, blue-cloaked figure stood up from it.  Thanks be to the World Spirit that he does not look to be a hard man, thought Lemedet.  Rugged, but not hard.  In fact, smooth, in a certain sense.  These were confusing impressions - but what did it matter?
    Stepping forward, the Starsider said: "Sponndar Lemedet Tanek?"   
    "I am she.  Sponndar Yadon?"   
    "Yes.  I would be obliged if I could have a few words with you."   
    She waved him back to the bench and then sat down with him.  "I've had a hard day," she smiled.  
    "I'm grateful for your attention."
    "Oh, don't misunderstand me: it was only an ordinarily hard day.  Proceed, and I'll be content to listen."   
    "I hardly know how to start." 
    "That's not unusual," she said kindly, thinking of all the tourists who were quite flatteringly curious about the work of the Availers.  To help put the poor man at his ease, she said, "Quite a setting, here."
    "You can say that again - the Mountains of Flame are stupendous," Yadon agreed.
    Lemedet relaxed.  She thought: it's quite evident that though he looks impressive he's just the same as so many others, all of whom seek from me a form of words, a souvenir to take home and admire like a splash of abstract art that looks pretty on the wall. 
    She said to encourage him, "Start any old where."
    Really the fellow seemed to be finding it difficult to begin.  Tongue-tied in the presence of the top Availer?  Be that as it might, she was in no great hurry to do aught but sit here; she was quite enjoying it, as though they were a companionably idle couple: old friends enjoying the view over the flower-decked terraces below. 
    The silence grew prolonged.  Yadon shifted, squaring his shoulders.  "Let me say," he began at last, "how much I understand, and you can top it up.  I mean, what I understand of why you people are called Availers.  You're riders of risk.  Your profession gets its name from the idea that Rules don't Avail; they can't - because the risk is too swift for thought.  So you must go for whatever avails.  Your instinct digs down, down, to reach some layer of strength in your nature.  A strength which prevents you from being swept away by the forces you challenge.  Thus you've hit upon the only practical approach to your particular job."
    That was so well put - so remarkably better than she expected - that she had to remark, "Somebody has explained it well to you."   
    "Not really; I deduced it from the silences that greeted me when I tried to research you Pjourthans."  His tone went flat.  "You are employed by beings called the Wunth."   
    Rather defensively, she responded: "They have their problems, and we are able to help them."  Feeling the eyes of her companion on her face, she continued, "You see, they need us to clear the slopes around here."   
    "Clear them of what?"   
    "Of the think-bombs laid by the Iqdaa."   
    "The Iqdaa?"   
    "Yes, yes."  Oh flunnd, she would have to go into it now.  "The squirming ideographs on the mountains are traps of some kind, laid by beings whose brain-power is as far above that of the Wunth as the Wunth are above us.  I've heard that they are called the Iqdaa, but that's all." 
    Pausing for breath, Lemedet realized with some relief that she had managed at least to excavate some sort of answer. 
    Yadon said, "Hmm... so you don't know much."     
    "And we don't want to," she retorted.  "We simply do the clearance job in any way we can."  She added in wry reproof, "I don't quite know how you got all this out of me, Yadon."    
    "It's called interview technique."  The sudden twinkle in his eyes discouraged her from asking to translate; after all, Wayfarers were always collecting odd bits of language. 
    Yet under his gaze she found herself wanting to say just a bit more.  "I suppose the Iqdaa are trying to enlarge their empire by using some kind of think-bombs to entrap the Wunth with superior visions."   
    "And in this empire of brain do the Wunth, in turn, try to trap you?"   
    "Why do you say that?"
    "Just asking.  To cover all the possibilities."   
    "Well, the answer is that they can't," she said forthrightly.
    "You seem sure of that."
    "I am - because we Nenns are below their attack-range."
    "You mean..."
    "I mean we're intellectually the weakest of the three intelligent species which inhabit the Mountains of Flame."   
    "Weakness being strength," Yadon nodded.  "I get it.  Out of your limitation you have cultivated your defence against identity-devouring knowledge."     
    "Sums it up nicely," she agreed. 
    Summed it to perfection, she thought.  For a couple of moments she was quite dumb with gratitude and respect. 
    Then came a suspicion that he was being ironical; she turned him a sharp glance.  No: he was looking happy and serious. 
    Better show him I appreciate his words, then.
    "You grasp the essence," she congratulated him, "of our task.  We destroy the think-bombs without understanding how."
    "I see... and that's the only way to do it," he nodded in acceptance.   
    "Ah... you're not just a tourist, are you, Yadon?" 
    He smiled admission of that, and she made bold to add: 
    "Just what are you doing here?"   
    Far from being offended, he seemed glad to be brought to the point.  "I'll explain," he smiled; and she felt a little shock, a lurch of perspective as though she, herself, was now the tourist... the gawper at the new.
    "Go on," she murmured.   
    Yadon said, "For starters: you're valued by the Wunth for your ability NOT to understand."  (She nodded.)  "And they pay you - or they pay Pjourth - in energy-phials; right?"    
    "Yes, but also," she added, "for me personally it's good to be given work for which I have to stay awake."
    "You mean you're proud of the skill you use; skill which can never be reduced to any tranced routine.  And yet," he went on, "you say that you never understand what you're doing..."   
    "Thankfully!  One day I may overstep the mark and not return..."   
    "Because you will have understood."   
    "It has happened to others."  She winced as she spoke.
    "But you carry on."
    "Yes, doing my best to concentrate, to lessen the likelihood of grip-trap (starraflenk) by keeping focused on evasion."   
    "I like the sound of what you're saying, Lemedet, but I want more from you - I want to be sure."
    "Why?  What is this all about?"
    "Patience!  You admit you don't even know what your own job is about!"  
    "How do I know what to say to you?" she murmured, playing for time, and then up from the subconscious ocean of instinct came words to say:  "How do I know what to fire at?  How do I sniff the scent of what is evil to the Wunth?  Evil is reality's misbehaviour, reality's distortion or overflow.  It's whatever prompts me to rid the slope of an intruder - "
    "But how do you recognize, how do you know what's 'intrusion'?"
    "By a sort of pinch at the soul - "
    "Enough!"  Yadon held up a hand.  "You've reassured me!  You're the sort I want!"     
    She turned him a blazing glare, which he met it with a firm and steady look that silently said, This is not a tease. 
    All right, all right, she thought.  She mused: "I'm probably the best Availer, but if I were to disappear right now, another good one would take my place.  We're all spare parts in this business."   
    "Good.  Then allow me to suggest," said Yadon, "that one of the others can take your place here."
    "When?  Right now?"
    "If you go out on your old job again tomorrow, it will be a waste.  You'll just be doing what another could do, and you will have missed your chance to say yes to what I now propose."
    "Propose it, then."
    "Rather than continue to work for the incomprehensible Wunth, enlist with me and commit to the Sunnoad's forthcoming expedition to Starside."
    Bombed with this idea, she sat stock still while her thoughts fragmented and whirled.  It had to be something as big as this, to explain what I have sensed about him.    
    Yadon spoke on:  "We aim to do a great deed, to rescue a city - my Starside home city - from a tyrant who may ultimately threaten us all.  I'm collecting the most suitable recruits from all over Syoom, and you are one of them."    
    Incredulity's counter-attack made her say:  "I don't believe it.  I would have heard of such a thing.  We would all have heard of it!"
    "Ah, so you don't believe me," said the man, infuriatingly calm and quite amused.   
    "I dare say you think we're out of touch here in Oam, but - a Sunnoad-led expedition to Starside?? - Come on, we Pjourthans would have heard of something like that!" she insisted and yet, even as she spoke thus, silent belief wormed its way into her, bearing a message of secret gladness.  It seemed that she heard a chime, a tinkly echo of that expectancy with which Yadon's arrival had enveloped the scene.  Skies above: an expedition to Starside, led by the Sunnoad in person!  The glamorie of the sunnoadex made it hard to believe that anyone would dare lie about something like this.    
    "Rumours," remarked Yadon, "are already spreading, even out here in Oam."   
    "You call that an answer?  Rumours?  What's required is evidence!  Then it would be time for me to believe your news."  But she was already believing it.  Just a little longer she continued to resist:  "Vague talk doesn't interest me all that much."   
    "I admit the news is cloudy, losing definition as it spreads."   
    "Well, it's evaporated into nothing here.  We Pjourthans are so provincial, you know."   
    "None of that," reproved Yadon.  "Don't you remember, the Sunnoad himself is from Pjourth?"   
    So he is, thought Lemedet proudly.  So he is!  Her chest heaved. 
    She remarked, "I suppose I could get round to listening to rumours more..."
    "Now listen, sponndar," Yadon said in a tone that swept aside her attempts to stall, "a good reason exists for the fact that a Syoom-wide announcement of the project has not yet been made.  I am about to show you the key to the reason, which I hold in my hand."  He opened his right fist.  Behold, a glowing orange crystal lay on his palm.   
    She began, "You want me to..."   
    "Yes.  I can vouch for the source of this.  It was sent by the city-brain of Olhoav on Starside.  I myself brought it all the way across Fyaym.  Go on, take it."   
    Each syllable of his sentences hammered into her till her will was forged, and she did not any longer delay.  To put that crystal to her forehead was an action not lightly to be performed, but Yadon was watching; and so she did it while he watched the wonder and dismay and astonishment chase over her features.  Within a couple of minutes she dazedly handed it back to him.      She could not have described what she now knew.  Not even to herself could she squarely focus upon the sense, the flavour of it, the coruscating truth, the urgency; but she could not question that her outlook was transformed.  
    "You see, now, don't you," said the Starsider, "that although it would be unthinkable not to send the expedition, it would be worse than unthinkable to send it without success."
    "I see," she said humbly.
    "And that means we must - absolutely must - take the right personnel.  You see that too, eh?"   
    "Perfectly," echoed her dazed voice.   
    "On the other hand," Yadon went on, "it may fall short if we risk a lot of public excitement too soon.  We must not cloud our planning; nor must we warn the enemy.  So we intend to recruit a few key personnel before we announce the rest.  The commitment of those first chosen will boost our scheme to the next stage.  In other words..."   
    Lemedet said breathlessly, "A Cincture?"   
    "Correct," said Yadon.

4

About nine thousand miles from where the Availer was being recruited, another capable sponndar who was likewise of potential Cincture material happened to be plodding across a stretch of plain quite close to a city.  The plodder was a young man whose extreme alertness, and gaunt tautness, made him look older than he was. 
    In his right hand he held what looked like a gun with a flared muzzle, but it was not a projectile weapon in the ordinary sense.  As if the owner himself were confused as to its nature, now and then he gloomed at it with knitted brows.   
    Presently he halted his steps and looked about him.  A couple of hundred yards away his skimmer was parked on the gralm.  Beyond it, a couple of miles further off, the disc-on-stem city of Grard loomed.     
    Grard was his home, but he glowered at it, in marked discontent.  Buildings which stood close to the disc's edge became targets of the weapon's weaving muzzle. 
    He sought to point the thing steadily; his mouth drooped with the scowl of one who takes aim at a hated enemy; his finger began to squeeze the trigger while his eyes narrowed to slits -
    Then those same eyes flew open in amazement as he caught his breath and his throat produced a strangled sound.  Almost he uttered the question aloud:  Broken Skies, what the flunnd am I doing?  And why am I out here? 
    He had no notion why he, Oreneg Vadon, distinguished Notable of Grard, was wandering out here on the plain. 
    Why, for instance, wasn't he comfortably inside his urban apartments?  Or at his mansion in the Halaok Hills?  Moreover, the peculiarly shaped object he held added to his bafflement.  A shiver went through him at some sense of a great evil narrowly avoided.  He commanded himself to halt, to stop whatever he was doing and think clearly.
    At the same time he could not help but listen to the noise of the wind, and, mixed with that, he felt a squeaky vibration in the barrel of the gun or whatever it was.  Too many impressions at once...  He raised the gun-thing to his ear, then fumbled with the catch.  The barrel broke open, whereupon he experienced a certainty that he had released something, signified by a cloud of faint yellow sparks which flew off to disappear into their unknown freedom.  Well, it was good, was it not, to give little things their freedom?
    While he pondered what it was all about, he found he had to block off some other ideas which were too terrible to allow.  He took care to deny his intellect the time needed to formulate the notions which queued for admission: he was not in any condition to endure any kind of thought with a risky smell, given that he could not remember any reasons for his presence or his actions out here in the exposed barrenness.  First step: get under cover.  He set off at a run towards his parked skimmer.     
    Reaching the vehicle, he ran his hand over the smooth metal reality of its hull.  At least his mobility was assured!  Still, could a skimmer speed him fast enough to escape the doubts which crowded in on him?  Ah, but surely his optons were many; the ranks of possibility assembled like a crowd of cheering supporters, even while he gasped for breath.  Most comforting of all was the point that he woudn't be thinking like this at all if he really were slipping into nebulation.  Whatever was wrong with him, it was not that empty madness, that sudden blank overwhelm which drowned one's self in the doom of being infinitesimally small. 
    In fact, on the contrary, he knew he was up to something big.  In the guilty nightmare on the verge of which he teetered, his ego distended in a lurch of ambition...    
    Well, so it wasn't nebulation; doubtless his psyche had been stung by another influence of this giant world.  Thest things happened now and then, and one's only recourse was to throw them off by an effort of will.  Nenns were supposed to be strong enough to do that. 
    Especially he, Oreneg Vadon. 
    A sometime candidate for the sunnoadex itself, he flunnd well ought to be up to repelling a hostile, dangerous, destructive mood!  
    Two main lines of action resented themselves.   
    He could return to the city, this minute.  From that trunk of opportunity, various options branched.  For example, he could ride the Grardesh Travelator, half way between periphery and hub, all around its circular route.  That was as good a way as any of “feeling the pulse” of events and gaining receptivity to important news.  What's more it would be a pleasant way to relax, in communal, patriotic, mind-nourishing satisfaction in the heritage of Grard.  The ancient Travelator, coeval with the city itself, was, after all, unique in Syoom; something to be proud of. 
    (All right, you could cite the Ezem of Vlamanor, but that wasn't so great: the Ezem was just a superstructure added to the Vlamanorian disk, whereas the Grardesh Travelator was intrinsic to Grard's iedleis surface, and it had revolved continuously ever since the Phosphorus Era construction had brought the urban disc itself into existence.  As for whence came the power - it was popularly supposed to be a case of frictionless perpetual motion, but the Travelator had inspired some uneasier theories: for who could be certain that power was not still being sucked from another universe?  A continuation of the ancient crime which darkened the conscience of Ooranye?)    
    Oreneg shook himself out of the historical reverie, but too late to prevent it from having tarnished the plan he’d had, of riding around the ancient moving way.  Well, scrub that idea.  What else might he do, to clear the rubbish that sloshed inside him?     
    He could go to his country estate. 
    Yes!  That would raise his spirits.  Recuperate his strength. 
    And when he found who or what was responsible for the pesky mood that assailed him… haha...  he caught an itch in his right arm.  Not yet time to draw laser, but the moment must come.  
    With a theatrical nod of determination Oreneg Vadon straightened his back, mounted his skimmer and set course for the flaon, the agricultural ring around Grard.    
    Visible, but only distantly, from the urban rim, this farm belt does not crowd the city too closely because, in order to satisfy the requirements of defence (Grard being especially isolated and out towards Fyaym), the inner edge of cultivation begins only after a four-and-a-half-mile interval of bare plain devoid of cover.
    Five minutes at moderate speed brought Oreneg across the barren gap, whereupon he entered the brightness of glowing fields.  Now he skimmed with a slower weave to his route; he always respected farm boundaries. 
    After a few more minutes he arrived at another clear barren space, the Sixif Snand, a belt between the inner and outer flaon which has been fancifully compared to the gap which divides the Rings of the planet Yimdi.  Along this open circular artery you are likely, with fair frequency, to meet skimmers and hover-rafts, motorised sleds and crawlers, and as he skimmed past these various vehicles Oreneg Vadon greeted farmers, stewards and owners like himself making use of an arc of the Sixif Snand. 
    Before long he reached the turning which gave onto his estate.
    A daydream invaded his mind: absurd yet compellng, a vision that caused him to decelerate abruptly.  His skimmer settled towards the gralm while he blinked in confusion at what had just flashed inside him, as he strove to absorb it.  He could still see what was around him, and he perfectly well knew where he was - but the dominant idea which now gripped him, and which concerned a tremendous project, almost blotted his ordinary physical sight from notice.  His mind's eye, now abler than his retina, went exploring the realms of what might be and what might have been.  It was a realm of mighty regrets, mightier temptation...  and luckily for him, it was all too much to assimilate in one go.  He had time, while the trap was being laid, to summon resistance.  With an indignant effort of will he managed to kick away the entire picture.  Starting up his skimmer again, he went faster than before, and within half a minute he reached the drive to his country mansion, Ahantorol. 
    Swerving to a stop, he made an effort to moderate the grim look he could feel on his face.  That lost scheme of absurd ambition, that ridiculously-flavoured daydream - no one must guess it.  Even he himself (especially he himself) must not think of it.  He must save his mental strength for its next assault, and then he must deal with it himself, without any questions from the intelligent, watchful staff of his sprawling home.   
    Restful, harmonious Ahantorol glimmered around him, and thankfully no one happened to be in sight to greet the returning master.  He dismounted, stored his skimmer himself, and hurried in through the porch.   
    His favourite salon, one-quarter occupied by a workstation, was a good spot in which to stand and brood on his next move. 
    He hoped he'd have the time alone, though he'd left the salon door wide open behind him because by reputation he was almost always approachable...   
    "Sponndar O-V," said a voice.   
    So much for peace; hardly a minute had gone by since his return. 
    Oreneg turned to face a stringy, bearded man younger than himself, who held in his arms a furry creature that bulged and squirmed.   
    "Skimmjard, Naldorn," replied Oreneg Vadon to his highly-pad pzak: assistant, trouble-shooter, steward.  "So you found him."   
    "Or he found me," shrugged the steward as he deposited the animal, who immediately ran to its master; "probably the latter, if (as seems likely) when I saw him skittering about in Field 17 he was trying to attract my attention."      "Quite likely," remarked Oreneg. 
    He sat down and wryly contempled the shongo who twirled about while he stroked its back and addressed it:  "Hoping we've grown fonder with your absence, eh, Foffix?"
    The shongo responded with its most show-off twirl, wherein it used its seventh leg as a pivot.  Oreneg meanwhile raised a palm in a salute of thanks to Naldorn, who nodded and left.     
    "Now that you and I are alone, scatterbrain," Oreneg announced to his pet, "I'm tempted to make use of your senseless doings.  You can be a randomizer of my actions; that might foil the enemy, don't you reckon, Foffix?  Whoever or whatever the enemy is."  He stroked the furry head, shook his own and swore:  "No, blaping flunnd, how unfair that would be, putting such responsibility on you."  But that was a fanciful scruple.  The little thing would never know. 
    Again he shook his head.  How his bizarre thoughts seemed to lead nowhere except to worse bizarrerie!  To Fyaym with it all!  He got up and, reaching to the nearest of the tall lamps at the map table, slid the switch to full illumination.  Now his body threw a definite shadow on the white wall.          Foffix pricked up his ears, for the thing recognized that it was time for the dark-shape-on-the-wall game.  (Oreneg doubted that the creature understood what a shadow was). 
    For the next few minutes, Nenn and shongo amused each other: Oreneg making moving silhouettes with his hands, Foffix jumping at them as though they were things one could catch.  Jump, jump, twist and somersault and more jumps and frantic efforts to claw at the insubstantial as though it were real; never tiring.    
    Oreneg finally said, “That’s enough now, Foffix; I don’t have your unflagging enthusiasm.” The fluff-head knew that tone, and subsided.  Oreneg reached to pat the furry thing, but in the midst of the action he froze at an idea which appalled him:   
    Was the shadow game analogous to a game being played by some greater power?  A power, a force which had been amusing itself this very day at the expense of Oreneg Vadon?   
    He must review, and squarely face, the daydreaming ambition which had sidled into his awareness while he was approaching his house.  High time to confront the notion rather than kick it downstairs into his subconscious. 
    Decision made, he dared the picture to re-surface, and when it came he allowed it to preen itself, like a display on a colourful animated map, so that at last he could examine it for what it was. 
    It was a diagram of the great ring-way which divided the inner from the outer farm districts.  But this imagined version had taken kinetic form - and not just as a road on which movement could be seen; it itself was moving!  Yes, it had become a vast analogue of the urban Travelator, running not in the city but in the farm belt surrounding Grard.  A mad, stupendous project!  And absolutely unnecessary!  Never would such an arrangement be needed; the farms of the flaon were quite adequately accessible by motor vehicle; why turn it all into a moving belt?  Insanity!  The whole idea was a laugh, and so ridiculously expensive that it would require another universe-pillaging crime like that of the Phosphorus Era.   
    Ho, perhaps that was the idea.
    A monster of an idea. 
    The sort of idea that any Nenn must flinch from, to salve the guilty conscience that haunted the race.
    Yet, given what had already been plundered from the Chelth dimension: namely the energy to build the twenty-five disk-on-stem cities of Syoom… then likewise, whispered a thought-demon, the energy for another ruthless project could be seized likewise from another universe -
    Let the bad thoughts flow; let them betray themselves:
    I was born at the wrong time.  If I had lived in the Phosphorus Era -   
    Yes, then what?  If he'd lived back in Era Fifteen, he could have taken advantage of the fact that Grard had been the last of the disk-on-stem cities to be built.  Since its iedleis frame had been brought into being considerably later than the others, what remained of the Chelthan wealth by that time was comparatively diminished, enough for one extra city but not quite enough for two.  That was why the decision had been made to allow the construction of Grard and then to "bank" the remainder of the 'loot'. 
    Nevertheless a different option could have been chosen.  Brisk, ruthless action back then might have commandeered the “bank” and all sorts of extras could have been added to Grard.  Those embellishments would have made it unquestionably the greatest city on the planet!    
    A lost opportunity!  And to compensate for it, wouldn't another cosmic power-transfer be handy?   
    Oreneg recoiled in horror from the inhumane contents of his own mind. 
    Still, the thought would not go away; it played with the excuses which might be made if the means could be found... 
    Excuses like: the plunder of Chelth had been so long ago, that no one could be sure about how it had been done; it was hard even to be sure exactly what had been done; so it was now open to think optimistic thoughts, for instance, instead of a cosmic crime, maybe it had merely amounted to a kind of cost-price pillage, admittedly risky and high-handed, but no more than a pilfering of a few minutes' worth of energy-output of a Sun-type star - instead of what is more often alleged to be the exhaustion and wreck of a universe.   
    His thoughts wobbling towards the boundaries set by racial guilt, Oreneg Vadon just at that moment saw, out of the corner of his eye, that the room's doorway had admitted an outline.  It was the delightful silhouette of Awid Awidoan, wife of his steward, Naldorn. 
    Oreneg knew why she had come.  It was to ask him whether he wished her to prepare his third-day meal.  Once every three days, if nothing else interrupted the schedule, he ate at home.  Awidoan it was who prepared it all.  
    Sure enough she said, "The three-day usual, sponndar O-V?"   
    Predictably he replied, "Thank you, yes, Awidoan." 
    What amazed him was what came pouring into him in secret accompaniment of the words: with a force that ditched honour, in undulant delight his emotions chanted, O Awidoan my if-only, my gorgeous if-only, let me un-bow your shoulders, let me relieve you of that burden of which you are unaware.  I can lighten it by telling you (content though you seem, in your work-trance, to be a languorous drudge for five hours a day) of how the situation might change if fate's promises were fairly granted -
    The woman, luckily, heard his words and not his thoughts.  Noticing nothing unusual in his tone, she simply acknowledged his thanks with a nod, and turned to leave, to go about her duties.     
    He called her back.  "Awidoan!"   
    "Yes, sponndar?" she reappeared.   
    Shivering, he said, "On second thoughts, I won't be here for the rest of the day."   
    "Very well, sponndar."   
    Again she moved away, and Oreneg Vadon breathed deep and demanded of himself, what he had been thinking, sickly skies! - what kind of a grutt was he? What kind of a human searchlight ["Vadon" means searchlight] was he?  Not much of one if, instead of lighting his way, he let himself bump into a stupid emotional trap.     
    What saved him from dishonour - the wrong reason, but save him it did, from misdirected love - was that he simply did not have the guts to transgress two taboos at once: dared not envisage a repetition of the ancient crime of plundering an out-of-sight universe, PLUS stealing (or trying to steal) another man's wife.   
    I'm a rich man, he thought bitterly as he looked around his splendid room.  And a rich man is all I am. 
    He turned to go, and his furry pet made a leap at him, whining in distress; the creature sensed that something was wrong.  "Come on, Foffix, tell me," he said to it, "is there anything more ridiculous than a young man of fortune and reputation who is discontented with his lot?  The answer, my little fellow-fluffhead, is No.  The height of absurdity is none other than yours truly, Oreneg Vadon."  He patted the thing on the head, disengaged and slipped out, switching the door shut.  In his life so far, all he had enjoyed was unearned luck, and only one course remained to a man who faced that sad truth:
    Boldness.   
    Not, however, the type of boldness he had been picturing a minute ago.  Not the hopeful "Who knows what might be possible for one who stops at nothing?" variety.
    Rather, from the down-direction, it should be: "Who knows what humiliation might be possible for a man who stops at nothing to confess?"
    The ego must die.
    Yes, kill it with humiliation, but don't confess to just anybody.  Back to the city, quick!  He strode and leaped to his skimmer and took off, ignoring paths, straight across fields in the direction of Grard, grimly determined to expunge the dirt from his mind in one grand gesture.   
    His half-seeing eyes bulged at the magnifying hugeness of the approaching city as though seeing it for the first time.  Get it over with, get it over with, confess to the Noad and get his help in removing the excrescence, the ambition, the irresponsible ego!      
    Oreneg would have preferred to tear into the city streets at top speed, but he had to refrain, lest he invite a crash.  Such an accident, especially if he survived it, would make things worse: it would pile on more guilt.  Grinding his teeth, he piloted his skimmer as fast as was decently possible after it had attained, via the ayash current, the periphery of Grard.     
    From that landing-space he lost no time in darting down Plandan Avenue and swerving around the Coigns of Xunnung to finish face-on to the Palace of the Noad.    
    With the sudden deceleration his vision had blurred; he shook his head and gazed around, re-focusing his eyes.  The plaza, he was pleased to note, had its usual unhurried, normal appearance, with perhaps a couple of hundred people in sight, none of them close to him.  His sudden arrival must have attracted some attention, but folk who recognized him were apt, more often than not, to leave him alone when he was evidently busy.  Not much longer would his reputation last...  meanwhile, it was time to head for the palace door.  But who was that old fellow sitting in the middle of the steps? 
    The “old fellow” uncoiled himself and stood straight, gathering his cloak about him.  His grey cloak. 
    Even to Oreneg’s partially blurred eyes, that identified him as Bnurul Thazd, Noad of Grard.   
    "Skimjard, sponndar O-V," said the man, smiling, but then - an action which nonplussed Oreneg - he sat back down on the step. 
    So certain had Oreneg been that the Noad would lead the way into the palace for a private talk, that for a moment his assumptions did their thing of taking precedence over what he actually saw, and thus because he'd visualised the expectation he actually now "saw" the Noad's hand press the button for the doors, "saw" them slide open, "saw" the glowing carpet beyond... whereas in reality he, Oreneg Vadon, was not being invited in. 
    Instead, it must be the Noad's intention for them to talk outside, in public!  Hey - am I not worth a private audience, then?  The prickly rash of indignation lasted barely an instant.  Then it faded into sadness.  Evidently the answer is no.  Oh well, that makes sense, I suppose.    
    Oreneg sat down on the step, on the Noad's left side, and steeled himself...  But what's the man doing now? 
    "Permit me," said Noad Bnurul Thazd while he reached with his left hand and, with finger and thumb, pinched a part of the hem of Oreneg's cloak, to cause a "click" within the fabric.  "We can dispense with the tell-tale at this stage.  You will have to forgive the impertinence.  It had become necessary."    
To keep track of me?  Oreneg was speechless.
    The Noad went on, "Observe how I trust you now."
    Oreneg Vadon replied with grim restraint: "Go on, sponndar Noad.  I am prepared to listen."   
    "And to withhold judgement.  I knew you would.  Your spirit has, as it were, crash-landed.  Next," commented Bnurul Thazd, "what I wish is that you give, in your own words, the reason for your despair."   
    "In my valuable words?" said Oreneg bitterly, looking askance at the Noad.     
    "It would seem," the Noad chuckled, "that you're apt to sneer at yourself.  In general, that shows an unreadiness to command."
    It came to Oreneg then, how multiple-layered was his own arrogance, his indignation at his own departure from the grandiose script he'd thought was his life.  Unreadiness, indeed. 
    He sighed:  "You know, when I was beaten right at the end of the contest which elected Brem Tormalla 80437, I was as close as that," and he gestured with thumb and forefinger, "to doing the job of the Sunnoad himself."   
    "We all remember."   
    Oreneg winced, "So, you see, it's hard!  Ever since that election..."
    "Savagely hard, no doubt."  The sympathy seemed quite real.   
    "Yet," continued Oreneg, "it has become clear to me that it's just as well I lost.  That I am, as you seem to realize, far from suitable for leadership.  The evidence thickens in the form of monsters of the lower mind, which I never used to suspect could ever live inside me.  Even as I speak they're rearing their forms, in such a way that I can no longer trust myself not to do hideous things."
    "Go on.  Forms, such as...?"
    "I actually caught myself entertaining the idea that, if I had the power, I might repeat the plunder of a universe!  I might do as our forebears did in era 15, on a smaller but equally dishonourable scale.  Such thoughts are unacceptable!  Whatever you choose to do to me, to rid Syoom of the danger I pose, I welcome it!  By my confession I trust I have saved what can be salvaged of my honour."  Oreneg's mouth snapped shut and he waited to hear his doom.  Naught remained but to bow his head and submit to the consequential which must next come from the lips of the Noad, who would surely wield the sponnd of justice; for a ruler must not allow compassion for an individual to deflect him from his duty to protect his people. 
    Indeed, all civilization might need protection from a menace such as Oreneg felt himself to be.   
    "I understand you perfectly," said the Noad of Grard. 
    Oreneg gave a weak nod of thanks, not trusting himself to speak, and still waited to hear the penalty.
    Yet what he heard sounded more like an excuse:
    "You felt betrayed at the time of the election, didn't you, Oreneg; enraged at a fate which had pretended to hold out the ultimate prize and then had snatched it back." 
    Enraged...  'felt'...  the thin excuses of ego.  Oreneg wanted to spit.
    "Quite!  That has been my attitude - one which could be used to justify any crime.  That's why I am too dangerous to be left loose."
    "What then, in your opinion, ought you to do?" asked the Noad as though conversationally interested in a friend's plans.
    "I am ready," said Oreneg grimly, "to relinquish this life and try my luck in a future age."     
    "Sounds familiar."   
    Uh?  Had he heard aright?  Oreneg rolled his eyeballs.  What could "seem familiar" about his unique moral disaster?  Must wait and listen, he told himself.  Don't go asking questions which are bound to be revealed as stupid.  Yes, wait and listen, stripped of pride.  Trust that all will become clear, if indeed I deserve clarity.
    He heard the Noad continue: 
    "Yes, it's an echo of similar news.  Nothing firm as yet; mere wafts from various parts of Syoom."
    Oreneg told himself: sit still, and accept what's being doled out to you.  Don't immediately demand to understand.  You don't deserve it.  Just sit in quiet auscultation of the pulse of destiny. 
    "By the way," the Noad suddenly asked as though he were changing the subject, "what is that gadget you're holding?"   
    "Aaah?" gasped Oreneg. 
    Newly appalled, he stared at the "gun" which, all this time, he had not let go.  In fact, he realized, he had continued to carry the thing for over an hour, quite unconsciously. 
    Why hadn't he slung it back into storage when he'd called at his estate?  What in the name of all the skies was he doing toting it here? 
    His shoulders slumped.  "I don't really know."  He started to babble.  "I don't know what it does, let alone what it is.  The lettering on the barrel says it's a Stymb, which is just a name, just one more artefact for a collector to pick from the plains, the garbage-dump of history." 
    Whereupon, he threw the thing aside - a gesture which expressed all the pent-up bafflement at the turn his life had taken, and his disdain for such treatment at the hands of fate.   
    The object clattered down a step or two, while he shrugged at his own petulance, ruefully aware how poor an impression it must give.   
    "And you don't know why you brought the thing here?" the Noad calmly proceeded to ask.   
    "I haven't the faintest idea."   
    Humiliation was turning into something worse.  Fear was massing inside him.  It was truly dreadful that he could not trust his own actions; that no reflection brought him any answer as to why he had clung to that artefact for over an hour.  Alarm bells rang in his mind: how could he do anything so deliberate and at the same time so pointless - at least, he rather hoped it was pointless -   
    The Noad spoke on, his tone one of firm gentleness.    
    "The time approaches when we shall have to be frank, I as well as you.  For a start, I must strongly advise you not to feel ashamed of your confession.  You assert that you have been thinking evil thoughts about what you WOULD do if you had the power.  But a distinction needs to be made between thinking of doing a thing, and actually doing it." 
    Oreneg thought, regretfully, that he had the answer to that one. 
    "Yes, that's so - practically.  But morally, to have thought the stuff - is that not evil?  Is it not a mere accident of circumstance that it didn't get as far as being performed?"   
    "Maybe it's not evil anyway, in either thought or in performance," suggested the Noad.  "Maybe it's something else."    
    "What, then?"   
    "Garbage."   
    This further swat at Oreneg's ego squashed him down to point at which he had no further to sink.  Deprived of even that negative dignity and false grandeur which the category "Evil" might permit, he must accept that he was not even a villain, he was a nobody!  And if garbage alone was all his remaining status, he could not muster the energy of rage; he sagged instead, in moping dejection...
    No - he caught himself - no, this I will not be: this does not befit the man who, in a thuzolyr election, had advanced to within one step of the golden cloak.
    The belated recovery began. 
    Oreneg Vadon commanded himself: ride the fate-wave, don't merely tumble along it.  It was still a descent but he could make it to some degree a controlled slide.  A glissade of humiliations, with a prospect of a rise on the other side of the trough! 
    For a start he could say something sensible about the gun-thing he had been carrying.
    With careful consideration he said, "I realize that anyone can gather artefacts from Fyaym and take the risk of tinkering with them.  To condemn or pity oneself for having taken that risk, may not be altogether realistic, in view of our natures.  Maybe.  I can't be sure.  So much of it I don't remember."   
    "It can happen to anyone," remarked the Noad, he, too, speaking slowly and carefully, steering the conversation into a minimising duet.  Since the punches he'd delivered had knocked the other man onto the right track, no more shocks were necessary, except the final one...  Tolerantly he went on, "We're all vulnerable, and in his own way each one of us is uniquely bad.  No need to worry about that, provided one doesn't get snared by the idea that one's own uniqueness is more unique than any of the others!"    
    "Point taken," said Oreneg, surveying his inner ruin with a desolate inner eye.  Equality of uniqueness meant that one could never excel in what was allotted to everyone.  This being obvious, how could he ever for one moment have forgotten the truth about the gifts of Fortune?  They are not achievements; they are gratuities.  One might as well feel smug about the shape of one’s nose, as presume to glory in the extent of one’s abilities.  Shame on him, to have overlooked this for so long.  Yet in this trough of ignominy, hope could now whisper the idea that henceforth his life-path must lead him upwards.  No other direction remained to him.
    The satisfied Noad slowly nodded at what he saw in the other's face, and judged the moment ripe to take the next step to save that face.
    "It's not just you," he said.  "What's influenced you, is part of something wider that has begun to break out here and there, all over Syoom."
    Oreneg said sardonically, "A moral epidemic?"
    "Let's say," the Noad replied, "that individual guilt isn't the whole story."
    He sounded unready, just then, to be more specific; but Oreneg was too excited to bite back the question:
    "What is the whole story, then?"
    "Something you're entitled to seek revenge against!" said the Noad.  "Something which I've heard about from the Starsider.  The big thing is happening, and you can be a part of it..."

5

The region known as Beown is one of Syoom's isolated and thinly populated areas; it lies roughly 4,000 miles from the cities of Skyyon and Narar, and 3,500 from Yoon and Jador, and is therefore quite out of the way.  
    Yet the few thousand square miles of Beown are much visited, steadily popular with thoughtful explorers.  At any one time a scatter of savants and wayfarers from across Syoom are likely to be wandering over its glinty extent.   
    They never reach firm conclusions about the history of the place; about the origin and nature of its low-lying, frozen "Lake", or the meaning of the area's ghostly silver frost.  Only the proximate cause of the appearance is known: for it is agreed that the gralm which covers most of the plains of Ooranye has here been swept away. 
    The result is clear but the process is unknown, whereby the removal of the gralm has revealed a glimmering patch of the planetary mantle of ice. Why, for instance, has much of it been whipped into jagged "waves" mixed with darker rock?  We find no answers.  The beautiful, sinister, admired spectacle of the ice-waves is intellectually dismissed, as yet one more unknowable marvel dating from the previous Great Cycle of Ooranye.   
    Knowledge of the kind which Terran scientists would seek - that's to say, conscious knowledge of physical cause and effect - is not the aim of the roaming savants during their visits to Beown.  Rather, what they must be after (Yadon mused with his cloak wrapped round him) is a typically Uranian toning of the imagination's reflexes; a tough-mindedness for defence against assault from the unknown.
    He sensed that regimen building in himself.  His spirit was being massaged into fitness as he stood here on the edge of the wild glitter of Beown. 
    It was good to feel assured that the Uranian part of his mind or personality was in proper working order, functioning as required for survival.  But, ah, that was not all!  How the freshness and wonder of the place breezed in to encourage his Terran side also!  Standing here, he felt as though he were once more the newly arrived Earthman.  As such, he found himself goggling like an interplanetary tourist at this scene on the Seventh World. 
    Could he, in fact, be in for one of his strong bouts of outright Earthly consciousness?     
    Maybe not today.  Those old ego-tracks had become quite rare.  Mostly his awareness had become accustomed to float in a stable amalgam of dual identity.  "Uranian-fused-with-Terran" more or less summarized his identity nowadays.
    Of course, minor gear-shifts in his personality were still to be expected.  They came with the little shocks, the wobbles in life's road.  Such variation might cause him to veer several times a day, like a car swerving close to a boundary between lanes... but actually to cross?  No, he didn't think so. 
    He was through with that, he reckoned.
    Hardly had he formed the thought when he was proved wrong. 
    The segue came upon him, just as he happened to turn his head -

The ego-track of Neville Yeadon:

The villagers are keeping their respectful distance.  None of my colleagues have arrived yet.  Until they do, I must play my part alone.
    I must focus on my duties and not falter. 
    The old woman who seems to keep this place: did she see me give a start just then, at the moment when I felt my identity flip? 
    She says, "Cease your restless pacing, Yadon." 
    "I just have."  My reply sounds a bit snappy in my own ears, but she merely seems amused, with the manner of one who has 'seen it all'.
    "If none of the others arrive," she remarks, "it won't be the end of the world."   
    I retort sarcastically: "And even if it were the end of the world, it wouldn't be the end of the universe, so why should anyone worry?"   
    That slight head-shake of hers...  My caustic tone has gone for naught.  Is this what bothers me - my failure to impress one old woman?  Elderly, rather, insofar as Hedjel Ummungul is the Elder of Beown.
    She fits the part well.  More than that, she knows a lot about the world.  She has met the Sunnoad, and she knows who I am.  And yes, I do keep wishing I could convince her of the importance of the occasion.  Shows the extent to which I now care what people think!  I didn't used to be so concerned with image-projection, during the good old life I enjoyed on this world until fairly recently; how nostalgically I now look back on those days when I roamed without responsibility!  How my circumstances have changed ever since I received my commission from Sunnoad Brem Tormalla 80437, darn him... 
    Better not say "darn him" out loud here; hobbyists on this planet have been learning and spreading the English language, with capacious enthusiasm and zero nous, from the day of my arrival in this body. 
    Lip buttoned, I glare frustratedly at Hedjel Ummungul.   
    She divines my thought.  "Don't let my doubts worry you, Yadon.  The expedition will go ahead (if it does) without my views affecting the outcome."   
    "Nevertheless, sponndar Hedjel," I manage to smile, "I have a strong urge to try and convert you."   
    "Why is that?  What do I matter?"
    "I'll tell you why - it's because I look upon you as an indicator."
    "Of what?"
    "Of belief.  To cure you of your skepticism will bode well for the level of public support at this crucial early stage.  This is important.  The deliverance of Olhoav matters."  (But oh, shall they ever return, those old days of mine, those Yadon-the-free-wander days?)
    Again, she guesses right:
    "You're suddenly wishing it was all over."
    I can't help chuckling, "Well, that's certainly an incentive to get the job done!  But if the enterprise is to succeed, people must support it..."
    She laughs and points into the sky.  "Look!"   
    My gaze follows her finger and my heart misses a beat at the sight of the oval shape soaring over the horizon from the direction of the Sunward pole.  It is the ship from Skyyon.  The man has kept his word. 
    Of course he has.  Can a Sunnoad not keep his word? 
    How supremely satisfying it is, to watch the vessel as it swells in view.      The gift of confidence in destiny, the bonus you get when riding a good fate-wave, the buoyant feel that things are about to come right, is bestowed on the occasion: what need to sweat when history is on your side?  History is about to do its own persuading.   
    Huger and huger looms the skyship, and the sight of it magics away the minutes until the hull comes to a hovering rest at about the height of a church spire above my head.  My eyes follow the opening of the nadir-hatch.  A descent-platform appears; a man rides it down.  It touches the ice close to where I and the Elder are standing.     
    When the figure steps off the platform, I see he is not the Sunnoad.  My mind begins a recoil.  Thus knocked back to some extent, I glance at Hedjel; her face wears a look that says 'no comment'. 
    Meanwhile the man who has come down walks over to greet me:    
    "Skimjard, sponndar Yadon.  I am Tarl Ezart of Skyyon.  I bring you a message from Sunnoad Brem Tormalla 80437."   
    He holds out a packet.   
    I take it from him and respond: "Skimjard, sponndar Tarl Ezart.  The fact that the Sunnoad has sent me a message, instead of coming in person for the Cincture, has more significance than any of the message's words can possible contain."    
    The words constitute a rebuke which I could not stop myself from uttering.  I wonder whether the whole mission has been cancelled.  No!  Surely that cannot be!  Yet through lack of the Sunnoad's presence the occasion has been dealt a serious wound.     
    I nevertheless owe it to myself and to my mission to show myself no less cool than this Tarl Ezart courier.   
    I recollect having heard his name before.  He’s a native of Skyyon, and as such he's a more centrally based adventurer than I.  Doubtless he often sees Brem Tormalla at work in the Zairm during the hours of day.  Well-placed, therefore, for awards of tasks, perhaps including the conveyance of the great man’s apologies for absence.   
    Something emboldens me, fuels me with a capacity for resistance to the facts, or a preference for some facts over others.  The earlier hours of today were preferable to the present moment; they were more faithful to hope’s script; I want those attitudes back.  My memory beckons them and they muscle forward, like minders who shoulder their way to form a protective circle.  Let no enemy fact dare to disturb me; let priority be accorded where it is deserved; let what I want to see be what I do see. 
    Armed with these attitudes I cancel the present disappointment and focus upon today's splendid earlier hours -   
    For example the first arrival here: that of the fine athletic woman who zoomed up to halt by the icy lake shore.  The sight roused me to hail her gladly: “Skimjard, Lemedet Tanek, Availer of Pjourth!”   
    I recall that she replied, “Skimjard, Yadon!  I call myself Yozazel now."   
    "Why the name-change, if you don't mind me asking?"   
    "You, of all people, ask me that?" she retorted with an ebullient smile; "you, Nyav Yuhlm alias Yadon?  You've started something, Earthmind!"   
    "Oh... you reckon?" I murmured, dubious at having splashed so much me onto this excellent world.
    "But where are all the others?" continued Lemedet breezily.  "I see no one else here; am I the first, or maybe the last?  Whichever it be, it's good to see you again, Yadon."   
    "You are indeed the first, 'Yozazel'."  Realizing that this word was close to yozazar, which means 'Quester', I added: "How perfect a sobriquet for the first arrival for the Cincture!" - and I gave her a Terran-style hug.   
    "Yeeeee," and she squeezed me in return.  "You are bold!"   
    "Only with an extrovert Pjourthan," I replied.  "Not something I should have dared with anyone else."   
    I was right in sensing that this was a good line to take: she was proud of having learned so much English that she knew the meaning of "extrovert".  So far as I knew, no equivalent term existed in the Uranian languages.  Whether she grasped the meaning properly was another matter.     
    We chatted some more and then she wandered off to look at the Settlement of Beown, while I kept watch by the ice-lake shore, waiting for the others.  I was now more confident than ever that they would turn up.  And come they did, during those splendid early hours; from varied directions, one after the other they arrived.  The second was another adventurous woman, called Hrezin Medd. 
    She is from Lysyon in Ux.  I interviewed her twenty-five days ago, and she impressed me with her speculations about Dempelath's possible moves when the time comes for us to attack him. 
    I remember she made one particularly worthwhile point.  Concise as Yozazel is expansive, Hrezin said:
    "We must remember that while we shall have all of Syoom at our back, he, though outnumbered, will be on his home ground, with Fyayman surprises at his back."   
    From the crag-pierced plain of the Moraar came the third recruit, the Logician, Laro Hing. 
    A few dozen days ago I had managed to lure him from his eyrie on the ridge of the Krokkembar.  I had written him a letter full of appeals to his professional skills, hoping it would do the trick, and it had.  The notable folk, the great ones of Syoom, were truly drawn to the task!     
    As soon as he arrived here at Beown the Logician endorsed Hrezin's warning and, moreover, backed up his opinion by citing the experience he'd gained from the myriad artefacts he'd studied, the cultural detritus of this inconceivably ancient planet on which the reach of history shades back into geological time.  "Take it from me," he said, "this Dempelath will have plenty to throw at us."  When, thanking him, I expressed relief that such a busy man had managed to arrive in good time for today's commitment-ceremony, Laro's austere face cracked into a rare smile.  "I wouldn't miss this voyage," he said, "for all the treasures of the Nefforlank."  I nodded in grim appreciation, remembering my visit to the Moraar's "worst place".  Not wishing that sombre topic to dampen my satisfaction at the way things were going, I declined to comment, but the reference quietly added to my sense of triumph at how exceptional circumstances were attracting exceptional talent: and I had been honoured to recruit the personnel...   
    Laro Hing went off to wait with the rest of them, while I remained by the lake shore.  The fourth arrival further increased my elation still further: it was the Grardesh notable, Oreneg Vadon.     
    He's the fellow who reached second position in that thuzolyr-election to the sunnoadex which Brem Tormalla won.  I had had some doubts about Oreneg.  The doubts sprang not so much from the few dealings I had had with him so far, as from a hunch that the greater a man's ability the greater his vulnerability to ego-traps.  Be that as it may, this formidable character arrived quite modest in demeanour.  He greeted me soft-spoken, appearing more withdrawn and tired than I had seen him before, and disinclined to converse.  I suggested he relax with the others in the village nearby while I continued to wait for the ship from Skyyon.  With an easy nod he re-mounted and skimmed away to join the other recruits.
    The next hour saw three further arrivals, names I'd managed to enroll during fifty days of energetic "head-hunting": two men, Niom Rax of Jaax and Gnarr Solairn of Invun, and one woman, Hevad Quafroa of Jador.  I do not know them well; for the sake of speed I have allowed my hunches to "call the shots", which means in these cases that I have enlisted the gifted and the reliable on the basis of reputation rather than personal knowledge. 
    At the last, just as I had begun to worry, I saw strolling towards me (he must have left his skimmer at the village) the dark and hairy giant, the kalyar, Dezagan.   
    "I trust I am in time," he said in his deep voice.  "The voices of custom kept rumbling at me, bidding me reconsider, so that I almost did not come."
    "All that those hesitant voices achieved," I grinned, "was to time your arrival to maximum effect."   
    "What do you mean by that?" asked Dezagan gruffly.
    "I mean you're probably the last - except for the Sunnoad himself, whom we're now waiting for.  Do you want to wait here with me?"   
    "No, thank you, I shall wait with the others."  He turned and left me.  So again I was left to wait alone. 
    I did not fully understand why they didn't wait with me.  The exaggerated respect - if that is what it was - that made them keep back while I alone of our company stood watching by the lake shore, seemed a bit peculiar.  Anyway, the main thing was, they had kept their word to attend the rendezvous...   
    ...And here they are now, for they must have seen the skyship. 
    I snap my mind back from its memories.  Never mind that the Sunnoad hasn't come.  My recruits are here, and they are ceremonious in their stride as they walk from the village to gather here for the Cincture at last.  Awareness clicks like a camera in my brain, so that I sharply register the scene which I shall never forget. 
    On one side of me stands the Sunnoad's courier, Tarl Ezart, and beyond him the jagged ice-waves of Beown lake.  From the other direction comes my chosen band of individuals advancing in line abreast to keep their appointment with destiny.  Beyond them I see the faint waves of the bare Nalgudda hills which distantly encircle Beown; hills which emphasize the loneliness of this perfect venue, free from the pull of all distraction: a fitting scene for our determination to launch Syoom’s campaign against Dempelath's evil darkness.  
    We gather at the frozen landmark lake-side, where some day will stand a monument, I guess, for future memories of Brem Tormalla’s reign. 
    If only he were here. 
    What rubbish is that "if only"... The event will go ahead regardless!  Our task is to make sure of it! 
    The recruits gather close.  Their line curves as they co-operate with me to form a ring. 
    One space is left for messenger Tarl Ezart; he, too, steps forth to join the Cincture.     
    All eyes turn to me.  They all see that I am holding the packet Tarl has given me: the packet with the gold emblem.  Except for Tarl (who has watched me not reading it) they probably assume that I have read the Sunnoad’s message.     
    The ceremony of the Cincture is rare, uninterruptable, and known to every educated Uranian.  I too (since my days in Olhoav’s great library) know how it must proceed, yet wonderment seizes me at the expected instant when the round green glow begins to form in the centre of our circle.     
    It's like a circular radar screen, though flat on the ground.  Its pointer scans radially, round and round as if to say to each of us in turn, You are recruited – You are committed - You are married to your task. 
    Three times or more it goes around, and then fades, glimmering back into the slurry of the racial subconscious whence it came.  I hear sighs from all round.  We are standing with eyes downcast, bowed in subdued awareness. 
    None of us are stupid enough to wonder out loud how far the vision was “real”. 
    Presently we look up to meet each other's eyes.  We have acquired a shared understanding, that we are bound together by a memory that will never let go.  Well, that's precisely what was needed.  Henceforth on our trek into the future we carry a purpose.  The commitment to it, in these moments, has fastened itself around us with the click of a belt that cannot be undone.     
    So far, the achievement has been a quiet one.  However, some spoken words from me would, I feel, be appropriate now.  
    "Friends, sponndarou, we have, as the Terrans would say, 'taken a vow".  And though we number but few, our vow suffices to ensure that the expedition to rescue Olhoav shall without fail be launched, in the Sunnoad's name if not in his presence."   
    A rag has wiped across my awareness to rid me of all smudges of doubt.  I glance down at the packet which is still in my hand.  It's time not only to open the thing, but to read it out loud.  That's what this assemblage expects, and I must not disappoint them.  Go ahead, Yadon, I tell myself; go ahead as though you trust that the contents will not make you look like a fool.
    I open it as they watch, and I read out:   
    “'Greetings from Brem Tormalla to the Cincture of Beown,’” (and my audience sigh their satisfaction at the proof in the wording, that the Sunnod had had no doubt that they would go through with the ceremony); “’You have planted a tree of purpose that will stand sturdy against all blasts.  The regrettable fact that I could not be with you today is far from being a sign that you mission lacks priority - on the contrary, I have been making sure of things at this end.’”   
    I look up to scan the faces of my audience and they look back at me, leaning at me with a readiness to swallow whatever this message may mean.  I too am hungry to gulp the fate-wave.  And it seems that, far from blundering, I did right to reserve the Sunnoad’s letter for this moment.   
    “’Our move has been anticipated by the enemy,’” I continue to read out.  “’Hitherto the best justification for the mission to rescue Olhoav from tyranny is that by fighting Dempelath over there we can avoid having to fight him here.  Now however I must tell you, it is too late to hope that we can confine the struggle solely to Fyaym.  The past few days have seen a spilth...'"  I hesitate over the word and repeat it, "'a spilth of his power into Syoom...'"   
    I glance again at my audience, half expecting expressions of bewilderment, but it seems that on some level they already know what the Sunnoad is talking about. 
    "'I have acted to contain it, and in doing so I had to miss our rendezvous.  This does not matter in the slightest.  What matters is, that whether the Spilth is a deliberate diversion on the enemy's part, or simply an overflow of his loathsomeness, it will not prevent us from coming to get him.  You with your commitment today have made sure of that, even if our path to victory turns out to be crookeder than expected; the momentum of your deed will see us through.  The next step will be for us to meet in order to concert measures, to which end I hope you will be able to join me in Skyyon, three days from now.’”   
    I pause and look them over once more.  To apply a popular “tree of purpose” figure of speech, this little crowd is certainly a solid-trunked set of adventurers.   
    “Three days…” nods Tarl Ezart.  “And then, perhaps, some hundreds of more days to prepare the fleet.”   
    “Must there be a fleet?” inquires Hrezin Medd.     
    "What else?" asked Tarl Ezart.   
    "An overland force, mounted on skimmers.  We don’t want another Phosphorus Era disaster.”   
    Laro Hing interposes, “We’re not intending to conquer Fyaym, so we can’t be compared with Fiarr Fosn.  However, in one sense Hrezin's suggestion could have a point: even a moderate-sized fleet for action against one Starside city will take hundreds of days to organize…”   
    I let them talk.  My peripheral vision catches a minor movement: Elder Hedjel Ummungul, standing somewhat apart, still looking skeptical. 
    I move over to her and say, ruefully, "You look sadly unimpressed, sponndar Hedjel.  Written all over you is the opinion that the crest of this wave will be followed by a trough."
    She smiles, "Sorry, Yadon.  I know this is a historic occasion.  I suppose I am not excited, for I am too quietly reflective, merely (you might say) pleasantly awed at how this fate-ripple, like all others, must eventually smooth out in the ocean of history."
    "Not," say I, "before this particular 'ripple' has closed over Dempelath's head."

CONTINUED IN

Uranian Throne Episode 22:   

The Golden Cloak