uranian throne - episode twenty-two

the golden cloak

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;
21: the cincture.

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

The ego-track of Neville Yeadon:

The past few dozen days I've been so windlashed by events, that some moments I even find it hard even to remember where I physically am.
That's a result of being so buffeted, by a host of mighty impressions, that even when things are quiet I get like a quivery cartoon character who continues to b-o-i-n-n-g-g-g for quite a while after the hammer has hit him on the head.
Right now, with my left hand clutched around the lowest baluster of the grand staircase of the Zairm, the distraction comes upon me.
I ought to be deciding how best to use the free time which chance has given me today. Make the most of the fact that I have the run of the Noad's palace? Or wander elsewhere in the great polar city?
(I hardly know Skyyon, never having got round to visiting the place in the days before the Cincture brought me here to the centre of decision.)
Yet - instead of concentrating on these options -
I tighten my hold on the baluster, and hold tight lest I keel over, walloped by a gob of memory which has plopped onto me with such potency that it quite paints over what's actually in front of my eyes. Result: instead of the palace staircase where I'm standing, I'm offered a panorama of a journey which I made recently with my fellow-organizers. It was a round trip that took in the cities of Jador and Hoog. The skyship voyage finished yesterday morning, many hours ago, yet it's like Time has hurled me back to float amid the cloud-wrapped towers of Jador, the noble parks of Hoog, the jostling multitudes, the waving cloaks, the colourfully shifting perspectives, the orations, the enthusiasm. Only as a dreamy spectator, of course, but then even on the real tour I said and did very little; why my colleagues bothered to take me along, I can't imagine.
Oh but yes, I do have the answer to that one. Face it, the reason why I am invited to tag along on these canvassing trips, is that I'm a sort of mascot. Whatever my words or deeds, my main importance is simply that I'm a talisman for the gathering forces of Syoom.
This role of mine works in two ways. First, my Uranian nature, and second, my Terran.
My status as a Starsider symbolises and encourages our aim to dare the wilds of Starside. My status as a friendly Earthmind is viewed as a usefull oddness which we hope may trump the more hostile strangeness of the enemy.
All right, all right, I accept all of that.
The whirling vision fades. My eyesight returns to normal. The fate-wave, one might say, has heard my acquiescent thought. "See that you don't forget," it seems to say. Yes, yes, I know I'm in for it; I accept that my unique circumstances bring with them an inescapable duty.
Today, however, I have a chance to rest and mooch while Sunnoad Brem Tormalla is in a military conference with some omzyrs. I know less than nothing about preparing a fleet, and Brem Tormalla 80437 fully understands my limitation in that respect, so I'm left free.
I might go look in the palace library, which is reputed to have a unique collection of galaggastom vumana - historic handwritten journals that are composed in a rhythmic style half way between prose and poetry. A few of these unprinted, irreplaceable books have turned up in my wanderings across Syoom, and I've learned to admire and value them while finding them hard to classify, because their themes act like drawstrings to compress their style so that their prose gets as punchy and as figurative as poetry. Powerful stuff, and I've been inclined for some time to try my hand at a galaggastom vuman myself. Up till now I haven't had time, but today, from examples I find here, might be the day to get ideas for technique...
No! Get out of the palace altogether! Today may be my last peaceful chnce to wander through this Sunward polar city.
I needn't go far. If any V.I.Ps - the Sunnoad or any of my colleagues - want me, I can be reached on my wrist-transceiver. But they shan't want me today...
...Memver Park! Here I am, on the lower disc, the more populous part of Skyyon. It hasn't taken me long to alter entirely my field of view. Blocked now from my sight is the flame-shaped Zairm. It rears up from the higher disk, the underside of which is the now the ceiling of iedleis metal half a mile above my head.
Blocked likewise from any view of the city's rarefied upper reaches, I enjoy the more intense lights and the hotter colours of the busier, nether districts. ("Nether" is relative, of course. I'm still raised above the surrounding plain.)
Memver Park itself, though, is not crowded; while it's a general truth that the lower disk is busier than the upper, yet in the Park one can stroll in contemplation, finding nothing like that hum that pervades the bulging masses of structures around the park boundary. I treat myself here to both vividness and peace.
All of a sudden I see on a lush green lawn a fat bulk, an animal about the size of a walrus. It's dragging itself along by its forearms. Its eyes are compellingly brilliant, so that I am wary of looking into them. And neither is it good to stare down at the curve of closed mouth. Better practise the blinkered outlook often necessary on this world - though I can't help but identify the flac-flac undis.
This "oracle" wriggler is, I'm told, a creature without species. The park administration of a great Uranian city likes to collect such a sui generis creature if one is available.
I wish I had not come here.
"You haven't," it croaks at me.
I squeeze my eyeballs... and recall that quite a few of these "one-offs" are said to be mind-readers.
"Yes," says the flac-flac undis, "rouse yourself, Yadon. You haven't come here, and you're not here now."
Hit by its words I am forced to admit that, indeed, I'm not really in this scene at all; it was fifteen days ago that I strolled in Memver Park.
  Fiercely do I hope that the fibs of lurchy memory aren't an improvement on the truth. I "put my money" on the truth being better. Won't it be nice if, instead of being here, I turn out to be in the snug little "axil" where I was lodged at the junction between Tower Seventeen and Walkway Nine? I like that apartment, so restful and convenient, and gratifying as a place reserved for honoured visitors to Skyyon. But face the truth, now, Yadon. Face whatever may replace this false view of Memver Park.
Here goes. My insistent glare causes the park scene to waver and go runny. It yields to -
Ah, so I haven't descended to the lower city after all. I'm still on the upper level.
All around me stretches the rarified districts of the palace, the skyship docks, and (just twenty yards from where I'm standing) the Pinnate Tower itself, the abode of the Wekkm, the Ghepion of Skyyon. That's perhaps where I'm headed. Or perhaps it's where I've just been, to visit the City-Brain.
To shrug off the entire positional shock, I pinch myself like one is supposed to do in order to prove one isn't dreaming (on the assumption that you never dream you're pinching yourself), and I decide to accept, without fuss, the revelation that I'm up here and not, as I had thought, down in the park. Actually the scariest aspect of it is that I'm not scared. Worse than being 'left in the lurch' is being left with the ability to lurch.
Well, get used to it, Yadon old fellow, and figure what to do with the rest of your day.
A few bystanders are close, and I see some chatterers' moving lips. Nevertheless the silence is absolute. This must mean that I am in the muffler zone that surrounds the Wekkm.
Now, the question is: have I just had an interview? Or am I about to have one? Or did I enter this zone just for fun, as a tourist, maybe to contemplate the Pinnate Tower, its serrations, its bristle of tines, its bladelike form that knifes at the sky?
A voice interrupts my gazing: a rasp inside my head, showing off fluency in colloquial English.  "Well, whaddya skinnin' at me like that for? Cat got yer tongue? Get on with what you were saying!"
  My mother tongue, ever since I let it loose in this world, has attracted a coterie of hobbyists, but I'll bet that no human Uranian will ever get this good. Such total proficiency is, on the other hand, child's play for the vast intellect of a Ghepion.
"My apologies; I was distracted," I say.
"I can tell that from your face," the Wekkm replies, switching from a snappish to a lulling tone. (I'm not surprised we can hear each other. The muffled zone does not affect us; it only prevents eavedropping by others.)
Evidently, my interview with the Wekkm is neither past nor future, but present. I am in the midst of it.
"A retreat into memory," continues the Brain, "is one of the ways you cope with overwhelm. In fact..." He pauses. The pause doesn't fool me, for it's common knowledge among humans on this world that when a Ghepion pauses in its speech, it's theatrical, done purely for effect. So vast an intellect need never take a measurable length of time to formulate its words. "In fact, in that direction, right now, lies your usefulness to Syoom."
  "Are you kidding me, Ghepion? My bouts of dithering - you say they're useful?"
"Consider," the Wekkm invites, "how your inventiveness in matters of survival is likely to exceed that of ordinary Uranians. You have already risen successfully above the greatest shock of all, namely, a transition between planets."
"Looks like I'm really important," I say, sarcastically.
"Precisely. You will be essential in the war against Dempelath."
"Essential - you mean, not just as a symbol or mascot but as an effective doer?"
"That's the size of it," says the voice from inside the Pinnate Tower.
  "Flunnd," I mutter profanely.
"Sorry, old man, you're not going to get the quiet life you want," says the spookily colloquial City Brain. "Now much as I am enjoying this conversation, it is time for you to go to Zdinth Hall; the Sunnoad messaged me a minute ago, that he and a lot of top brass are waiting for you."
"I'm going," I say, "but please do me one favour?"
"What's that?" asks the Ghepion.
"Cut out the Terran argot. You're not as good at it as you think." And, childishly pleased with my parting shot, I stalk off.
...And here I am, here I really am, about to climb the palace steps which lead shortly to Zdinth Hall.
The guards don't challenge me - on the contrary the mandibles of destiny's maw actually wave me in. (Tut-tut, best to avoid off-putting metaphors like that. After all, these folk are most respectful towards me. All recognize me as "Yadon the Cincturee" who is here to help Syoom during its latest hour of need. And the more I good-naturedly co-operate the sooner that hour will be over.)  Through the double silver doors I go, then, and through the stunning vestibule with its pendent mobiles kaleidoscopically projecting the history of Syoom onto each wall, and then through another imposing double door and into Zdinth Hall itself, or, as it's officially named, Norkoten Hall (most un-Uranian, to name something after a person) stop chattering, mind of mine, and concentrate.
Down the long axis of an oval table, about fifteen people, including Brem Tormalla himself, are seated around in relaxed postures. The meeting has not yet been formally called to order. Some are snacking on plates of fruits and the crispy meats called klasts. My ears register a chattery hum.
Faces turn to greet me.
"Take a seat, Yadon!" the Sunnoad calls.
I obey, and my gaze roves around the company. Some are officials I know well, others I know by sight alone. Sunnoad Brem Tormalla 80437 occupies a place close to the other end of the table, but not the actual head place which is taken, to my surprise, by one personage I've never seen before, although - oddly - during lulls when my ears catch a word or two of his I half-recognize the voice. I scrutinize this fellow covertly. Whoever he is, he's being treated as a guest of honour.
Footsteps presently alert me that another person has entered the Hall the way I came. I turn and see a very thin, mature lady, who takes the chair next to mine. Two thousand days and more have passed since I last saw her. What surprises me is that the others here aren't more interested, but perhaps anonymity, or a pretence of it, must shroud Indan Orliss, head of the Bostanga Fom.
It's strange to see her here at all. From what I've understood she and her organization like to keep their distance from the Sunnoad, the better to survey at long range any threat to him, and to deal with it, likewise, far from his presence. For these reasons you wouldn't normally expect to see her at a summit meeting.
Well, now that she's here, I have a bone to pick... but I'm not sure how to begin. Besides, the meeting may be called to order any moment.
I pass her a plate of klasts and, as she takes one, she shows she remembers me: "Can you tell me, sponndar Yadon, what's going on?"
That's my opening. "It's your job to creep around and know these things."
"Let me be the judge of my duties," she smiles.
"Sorry to snap at you," I say. "Fact is, one of your minions, or rather a couple of them, pulled a laser on me, some time back."
"Who were they?" she asks briskly.
"I'll just say, they were good people - which is what made it weird."
"If you don't tell me their names," she sweetly replies, "how can I commend them for their zeal?"
"Sol Ostobon and Zadrun Mok," I inform her, "since you insist." I review the memory of that bivouac on the plain, the strange towers, the Bruised Cloud, and my interrogation by those agents of the Bostanga Fom. I did after all emerge from it alive, and my memory, thus encouraged, glides back further - and during a random lull in the general hum of talk, I at last identify the tone of the honoured-guest-chap at the head of table. I mutter: "Abon Gnaa!"
Indan Orliss cups her ear: "What was that you said?"
I reply in an undertone, "Just realized where I've heard our guest of honour before - it's Abon Gnaa, the Voice of Yr's Noad, broadcast that day in Vlamanor when Yr passed overhead. I was there shortly before."
She rolls her eyes as she murmurs, "That's the one. I should have remembered immediately. Flunnd! - I must be slipping. The day the recordings of the pass became available, I viewed and listened to them, both image and sound. The picture was that of his ruler, Rael Odiram, but the voice was that of Abon Gnaa. I should have known him straightaway, but you beat me to it."
Tickled by my point-scoring, I say: "I had to see those recordings too. Such a near miss - I could have been a witness! How badly I timed my departure from Vlamanor! If only I'd stayed a few days longer I would have been in the crowd when the colossus floated overhead."
"Galling," she nods, "for a Wayfarer to miss that."
"Which is why, as soon as I could, I, like you, felt I had to gauge the importance of the drama I'd missed, and so I bought a news-cube and played and re-played the recording."
"For you it was curiosity," murmurs Indan, "but for me it was professional. Anyhow, today the man is here and again we shall hear him speak, I assume, on behalf of the dreaded Rael Odiram. Soon we'll know why, or so I hope."
We gaze towards the other end of the table, at Abon Gnaa consorting with the notables of Syoom.
"All friends together," I murmur.
She gives a little snort. "Indeed, but let's pay close heed to what happens after they've finished the dish steyaz."
I almost sneer. The proverbial variety of Esquimaux terms for types of snow are no more numerous than the phrases used on the Seventh Planet for "diplomatic meal", and of these the dish steyaz is particularly laden with imminence.
I nod, "We'll do our best to stay switched on." And yet, why should I have to strain to figure stuff out? What am I after all but a mere figurehead on the prow of fortune's flagship? Still, the Skyyon City Brain has made it clear that "figurehead" won't do. But - flunnd to the Brain. Rot the Brain!
  Nevertheless it's polite to look involved, and to say something intelligent if I'm called upon to do so; how bad it would look if the Sunnoad, for instance, were to ask me something and I fluffed it; impolite of me to embarrass those who, with the best of intentions, have over-promoted me this far.  With ears pricked, therefore, I open a corridor of concentration in my mind.
It's perhaps not a completely hopeless task to sort out what’s being said at the other end of the table.
Abon Gnaa is declaiming:
  “...My master seeks your aid, but on equal terms.”
Equal terms? Between the bandit city of Yr and the Sunnoad of Syoom? Indignation stirs around the table. Yet, no whit abashed, the envoy continues:
  “Rael Odiram, Noad of the free city of Yr, sovereign of the skies, seeks reassurance from you, Sunnoad Brem Tormalla, that any agreement we may reach will not be nullified in practice."
  Brem Tormalla raises a hand to quell the murmurs. To the envoy he crisply responds, "Be specific."
  "Specifically, that you will not consider yourself bound, by your duty to your own people, to abrogate the terms of any agreement we reach."
"And what might induce me to do that?"
"The temptation to take advantage of our need.”
  Oh-oh, that’s blunt, even for a dish steyaz. Of course the point of such a meeting is to allow blunt things to be said without starting a quarrel; nevertheless I hear hisses of anger. The social temperature has dropped several degrees. But, fortunately, folk then begin to notice that the Sunnoad himself has sat back with a smile.
  “I congratulate you, envoy Abon Gnaa, on your loyalty to him who sent you,” Brem Tormalla says. "I also quite like your timing, for we had reached a point which does require us to become more explicit. Now with regard to the reassurance you demand: will my word be enough?”
  “Sunnoad 80437 – it will.”
  Slackening of tension all round.
  I suppose that even Yr must share some of the Syoomean respect for the Sunnoad. Though not strictly part of Syoom (since an aerial city can drift anywhere), Yr's history cannot help but be interwoven with that of groundlings.
Brem Tormally continues, "I should like to know why your Noad did not come here himself to state his case."
  "Rael Odiram to come here, to Skyyon?"
  "Why, yes. Not unreasonable, surely, that he would have met me in person, given the need that prompts this unprecedented request for co-operation with Syoom.”
  The envoy grimaces. “You are determined to make me say it, and, since you insist, I shall. Know then, all you notables of Syoom, that Yr is divided against itself. I have told you about the threat posed by the Grounder faction: now we have reached the point of civil war. Our Noad, Rael Odiram, dares not leave the city and in fact by this time he may not be able to." The envoy darts a sudden piercing look down the table. "Earthman! Does this sort of thing sound familiar to you?”
All heads turn to face me! Brem Tormalla’s too! They're all looking at me with - I sense - a certain lilt of amusement.
  Well, if they want me to talk back –
  “I don’t know what stories you hear up in Yr,” I say to Abon Gnaa, “but I’m no ‘Earthman’. I was born in Olhoav, on Starside."
But it's not enough. I must continue. I draw a breath...
"It’s true that I have a partially Terran mind, because my lives run concurrently instead of being reincarnated separately in a scattering of historical ages, and it's also true that one of these concurrent lives is, or was, Terran. BUT - when you look at me, what you see is a man of Uranian flesh and blood.”
Why do they all still look as though they’re waiting for more, as though Abon Gnaa’s point remains unanswered?
It's as if they expect me, from my Terran experience, to give some unique pronouncement upon the troubles of Yr, but that would be ridiculous. I didn’t even hear what was explained earlier about that city’s 'Grounder faction'.  No - but on the other hand, I can guess, can’t I?
In fact my ideas are galloping ahead; hurdling assumption after assumption, leaping from one guess to another...
I attain the context of the Grounder Faction of Yr and the atrocious plan on which they have set their sights.  I whiff the moral pollution, the tainted wave splashed here by the Spilth, the leakage of yuck from Dempelath.
  Far worse than the aerial piracy of which the Yrians over the ages have been intermittently accused, their Grounder Faction wish now to end the floating city’s age-long drift through the skies, pick on some luckless town, settle on it, conquer, enslave... a plan quite out of character for Yr.
Once again I get the hunch of the Spilth - sure that the deviation of Yr exists in the context of a more widespread plague - while from snippets of recent news I reflect on Syoom's recent rash of partisan politics -
  Bury that smelly evidence in silence. Don't pay any heed. You'll only encourage the phenomenon. But can it be killed by being ignored? It has already leaked out too much for that. Damn, look what comes of allowing the English language onto Ooranye: so far and wide has the hobby-tongue spread, that even this Abon Gnaa fellow picked on me to comment.  I look for support towards the folds of the golden cloak. Yet he, too, is inexorable. “Your circumstances, Yadon, are well known," the Sunnoad pronounces. "But though we accept you as one of us, we await your fuller answer to Abon Gnaa.”
I'm under pressure to say what I don’t want to say. My lip gets to curl archly: “I am Earthman enough to voice an elastic suspicion.”
  “Out with it then, Yadon,” says Abon Gnaa, speaking Jommdan with an English idomatic construction.
As often when I get desperate, a clear pictorial idea has flashed into my mind.
  “Imagine someone with a stick, stirring an ant's nest," I say. "None of you know what that is, since your knowledge of English is analogical at best, but just choose whatever equivalents you like. Dempelath, tyrant of Olhoav, has the stick, and we are the ants."
"And the stick - ?" ask Abon Gnaa and Brem Tormalla, simultaneously.
"The Snaddy-Galomm."
  "The what?" interjects the Yrian envoy.
  "I bet that the Sunnoad knows of it.  He has read the crystal-message which I brought all the way from Starside to Syoom; as for the rest of you - "
  “No,” they all say, or shake their heads, making it clear that they know nothing about it.
  “Well, he can confide in you if he sees fit,” I drily remark. “Suffice it for me to say that Dempelath has used it to stir the world. It is his means to bring the evil of Earth across the void to Ooranye.”
Until this moment I have shied from the truth; now I've blurted it. Not a happy feeling.
  With a slow nod, the Sunnoad says: “Show him the crystal, Yadon.”
  I take from my blue Daon’s cloak the object from which, nowadays, I am never parted. I hold it up to Abon Gnaa.  The envoy stares at it frozenly; he would back-track if he could.
Gently the Sunnoad commands, "Shunt it over to him, Yadon."  I obediently slide it down the table.
  Now it is Abon Gnaa who is on the spot; all eyes are on him rather than on me, which makes a change I like. Morally the fellow now has no choice; he must put the crystal to his forehead and endure the mental pounding which accompanies the reception of Dynoom’s fateful message.
I see him do it... Then it’s over and he doesn't wait to be told to return the crystal to me: he fairly throws it back. I have to put out my right arm to make a catch. Not that it would have mattered if the unscratchable thing had dropped to the floor.
Indulging a rascally pleasure, I say: “Takes some getting used to, does it not?"
  "But what does it mean?" croaks Abon Gnaa.
  "What you really mean to ask," I reply, "is how are you going to cope with what it means?"
  "Yaaaergh," he exhales.
  "Not an easy brew to swallow," I sympathise; "and when you have, it's hard to keep it down."
  "Spilth," broods Abon Gnaa.
  "Quite. Better keep that word under wraps, mostly. Maybe not too tightly wrapped, inasmuch as we'll have to take peeps at it now and then if we're going to fight it. But maybe we're in no danger of understanding it too much anyway. Never, during all my days in Olhoav, did I comprehend the scope of Dempelath’s maleficence. It was left to the city-brain, Dynoom, to figure it out. Dynoom, and no one else, discovered that the tyrant has achieved some pulling-power with the fates’ meshed cyclone, the Snaddy-Galomm."
I pause.
  "And then what?" asks Abon Gnaa, speaking for everyone around the table.
  "The result," I slowly say, sensing more figures of speech en route, "is that Dempelath has been able to introduce to this world" [FLASH of metaphor] "some invasive species of ideas that shouldn’t live here, ideas as unsuitable as" [FLASH] "kudzu being brought from Japan to the West or as" [FLASH] "measles and smallpox brought by Europeans to the Americas; you don’t know what I’m talking about – but I do.”
Got carried away. Sweat on my forehead. Well, wasn't it necessary to solidify matters? But for the sake of the subdued company I had better finish off more gently.
  “Common ground for all of us,” I continue, “lies in the troubles which have recently begun to afflict Syoom. A sudden plague of plagues can only result from one master plague propelling them to the fore. We, its victims, must rally together, as brothers in arms.”
  “Well spoken, Yadon,” says Brem Tormalla 80437.
They like to hear him say that. After some sighs, general conversation resumes. I hunch in my chair and sneak a glance at my neighbour Indan Orliss. I should like for the nonce to confine my conversation to her. I need a friend right now, and she may be a sort of one.
She gives me a light punch on the arm and murmurs, "You have a lonely task ahead of you."
  I grimace, "How lonely?"
Indan Orliss dryly said, "You can work it out. You have brought here with you some unique qualities which Syoom needs, and you have acquired the responsibility which accrues thereby."
  “But what about the others here? They must have joined in too. I mean, joined in with the understanding...”
“At second hand, yes."
"Whereas at first hand - "
"It has ended in your lap," she nodded, damnably colloquial.
“I don’t have it in me to command.” Yet while I say this I foresee that the Sunnoad may put me in charge of an expedition against the Grounders of Yr.

The Journal of Neville Yeadon, 10,545,951 Ac:

It's easier than I expected, this business of deciding what to resist and what to accept.
  I only have to stand back and look, and ask myself: have I, de facto, accepted?
  Answer: apparently so.
  I did try, at first, to tell them not to put me in command of this expedition. I put it as strongly as I could to the Sunnoad and his omzyrs and all the top brass, that they would do better with someone else, and yet here I am, living like a lord in the zarromzyr ("grand admiral"?) cabin in the flag-skyship Ruuzna Ptorrai, headed for a confrontation with Yr - may Heaven help me.
Beyond a certain point it had become obvious that persistence would have been crass, so I ceased trying. Hence the crowded events of the past few days have rolled on without my objections. It was infinitely easier just to stand meekly by while Brem Tormalla collected a force of four great skyships - two from Skyyon and one each from Ao and Vyanth - summoning them together to form an aerial flotilla above the Aelv-Ej boundary this morning, with myself supposedly in charge. And so here we are.
  Fortunately, the set-up makes only modest demands on my self-belief. I've studied enough Earth-history for helpful analogies to come to my aid. For example it helps to sustain my peace of mind when I recall how the German, Max Hoffman, sardonically told a group of touring officers, ‘See – this is where Hindenburg slept before the battle, this is where he slept after the battle, and this is where he slept during the battle...’ Similarly if all goes well my name will impress those who later visit the field of glory, whatever I do or don't do. The legendary figurehead "commander" need only preside.
  At least I am not such a fool as to be unaware of my role as figurehead! I know perfectly well who the real commander is.
  A sort of diffidence restrains me from writing his name here. His identity is obvious enough and, besides, I don’t expect anyone to read this Journal of mine - but somehow it would be in poor taste to ‘jump the gun’ by naming him plain and clear. For he is more than just the effective commander of this flotilla of skyships. He is the Sunnoad’s inevitable successor.
A successor who may not have long to wait. Brem Tormalla is ailing. I have heard this from more than one source, and indeed I have lately noticed it for myself. It’s no wonder Tormalla isn’t leading this task force: he has enough other problems to juggle: all over Syoom, unrest has erupted, as Dempelath “stirs the ants’ nest” from afar. As yet we don't focus too sharply on what is going on; we're living from day to day under crisis management, coping with one issue at a time.
  The least I can do is to try to be helpful any way I can. Must play the game as it is played on this world. Keep a grasp on Uranian principles of government - endeavour to be what they call 'renl'.
  Still, the higher the political level, the greater the strain on my credulity as to how viable the system is. The Heir Question (as I call it) keeps needling me.
  I marvel at how the institution of the sunnoadex seems to function so well, although it couldn’t possibly work on Earth; in fact the sunnoadex is even more fantastic than the noadex. A city’s Noad usually does at least have an official heir, namely a Daon, the recognized next-in-line. Yet the Sunnoad, the Noad of Noads, the focus and co-ordinator of all Syoom, has no equivalent official “Sundaon”, though at times, like now, the likely candidate is obvious enough. Madness, it seems to me, to leave it so unofficial! I’ve never asked about it, because I don’t like to seem critical or stupid... but I do continue to wonder.
  How, in actual historical fact, have successors to Sunnoads been chosen?
  So far as I’ve been able to figure it, only two ways exist.
  One of them is the manner in which the current wearer of the golden cloak had it passed on to him from his bedridden predecessor. Arad Thastu 80436 was unconscious and sinking fast but there was sufficient time, during her final days, to organize a thuzolyr-election: that knock-out affair with the mind-mirrors whereby a convincing successor was selected from the entire Syoomean population. The land was at peace at that time, and such a procedure was practicable. Brem Tormalla, by his merits, won, and thus became the 80437th Sunnoad, having beaten all-comers in a test of ability.
  You’d think that would be the natural way of doing it, preferably early rather than late. But no! On the majority of occasions, a new Sunnoad is simply named by the old one at the last possible moment. Probably that’s what Arad Thastu would have done, had she been lucid. And then all of Syoom would simply have accepted whomever was nominated by her “dying voice”. Bizarre! A procedure to invite chaos and disaster - or so one would think. And yet in the judgement of Uranian history, it seems to work!
  Better shut this notebook. Put it in the drawer.
  [A bit later:] More to write. A big (though expected) event.
  The door buzzed and I let it open to admit the man himself, my fellow-Cinctee, the one who’s due to go far, and whom I would fear if my life's aim were to get in the way of his. Fortunately, as things are, I can afford to be more relaxed than he: I know what my niche is; my ambition is merely to regain it; Oreneg Vadon by contrast is a younger man in a hurry to get a lot further, and so I bet he shall, and at no distant day.
  In a formal tone he announced: “Reports confirm, zarromzyr Yadon, that Yr has grounded."
"Abon Gnaa foresaw correctly, then. Thank you for the news."
Oreneg continued: "Here," and he passed me a packet, "is the appropriate set of sealed orders." His arm dropped back to his side. He stood respectfully motionless.
I sensed however that his stiffness of demeanour was quite illusory. Lankily uncoiled, he seemed to stand taller that I. At any moment he seemed liable to explode into action -
Nevertheless he turned to go.
"Wait," said I. "You must read them too.”
  "After you, then, zarromzyr," he nodded.
In his face I saw not exactly a smirk, more fierce than that, a glare of satisfaction, of one who knows that it is he who is the real boss, the real "zarromzyr" of this jaunt.
Which is fine by me! How long, I idly wondered, would it take him to realize that as far as I’m concerned he can prove all he likes? He’ll certainly get ample scope when the Sunnoad accords him his “dying voice” – which I reckon is a virtual certainty.
  Here, though, I knew I must go through the motions of command, and so I opened the packet, unfolded the paper, scanned the text...
  Oreneg’s eyes were on me as I read one snippet aloud:
  “…The achromatic zone will be used to blank the intercommunication of the nemaean allies of Yr…”
  Clear as mud, thought I, as my two sets of mental gears, Terran and Uranian, crunched dyslexically together.
  “All this secrecy of sealed orders," I remarked, glad that the cabin was soundproofed, "seems unlike the way things are usually done on Ooranye. Here, your turn,” and I handed him the orders. “It appears to be the complete plan of campaign. You may give commands as you see fit, though you may route them through me if that helps keep everybody happy."
  That was telling him, making it clear that I was perfectly well aware and quite content to know how things stand; happy moreover to continue with the charade of calling him my chief “adviser”.
  He took the now-unsealed orders and read rapidly down the page.  Then he looked me in the eye:
“But, sponndar Yadon, it is you, none other, who have been appointed by the Sunnoad as this task force’s zarromzyr."
  Was this his way of saying, “So don’t try to get out of it?” Unsure how to respond, I caused the conversation to sprout a new shoot: “Pity that the Sunnoad could not appoint himself commander.”
  Oreneg smiled, “Indeed, a pity. But the latest I heard, he has his attention taken up with the Noo Wallang.”
The what? I had not heard of these “mockers of fate”. I said as much.
  Oreneg shrugged. “I know scarcely more than you do, and neither of us can afford to fall into any starraflenk right now. With your permission, zarromzyr, I return to my post.”
  “Permission granted,” I said, for the starraflenk, the grip-trap, the snare of excessive understanding, is something I can well do without, and to avoid it certainly suits me.
  The defence against knowledge has shifted. Slightly. Now instead of covering all the disturbance with the one word "Spilth", we're allowing some more particular labels. For example, the Noo Wallang, whoever they may be. But we still aren't about to go beyond labelling. It's just like the progress on Earth between two types of coastal defences, when a crude blank sea-wall is replaced by a more sensible, semi-porous porous barrier of piled boulders which allow the oncoming breakers to blunt themselves; the method has improved but the aim in either case is the same, that is, to keep at bay the assaults from the ocean, though here the ocean is not one of tumultuous waters but of lethal knowledge.

I wake, and stare at the ceiling of my cabin, feeling uncomfortable, aware of having spent a disturbed night. The dream didn’t help. I usually forget my dreams, but no such luck with this one -
  Rivers and streams are rare on this world; nevertheless I was standing beside a foggy stream bed. My antagonist - I had just fought a duel - had been standing on the channel’s other side. My laser bolt had got him in the chest and he fell flat on his back and then slid forward, down the bank, into the mists; which closed over him.
  I waited just in case, despite appearances, he might be still alive. He was a bad enemy: I didn’t want him alive.
  After some minutes, since I saw no sign of him rising from the stream bed, I went home to a big house, I don't know where.
On the first-floor landing I recalled that I was now expecting a guest. I dithered on that landing where, for some reason, I didn’t have the light on, despite the lateness of the hour in which evenshine had deepened towards night.
The certainty came to me, that somebody had come in through the front door. A head-shape (in silhouette) presently rose above the parapet of the stairwell, whereupon in terror I fumbled for the light-switch –
  And woke up.
Now what the heck is a pesky little dream like that supposed to mean? Perhaps nothing; dreams are full of randomness; it's like listening in on the babble of the Universe, in which case it's naught to do with me; I just happened to tune in to a lot of cosmic drivel.
  I rise and get my breakfast, and then from hour to hour I drift, wide awake yet still unable to shake off a dreamy sense, perhaps because my duties on board this skyship are so vaguely defined. I envy the officers and sponndarou who are expected to plan and to prepare how we'll fight when we reach our destination, as we shall do within a few hours.
  We are headed for Oirr, that region of fantastically ancient ground-built cities which pre-date the dominant disc-on-stem design. Soolm, Arn, Vus and Contahl were constructed before the energy-grab of the Phosphorus Era enabled Uranians to construct the twenty-five disc-on-stem colossi out of iedleis, the ultimate metal. Soolm, Arn, Vus and Contahl are thus of more ordinary materials, not physically so durable, and so they have had to be rebuilt many times since their origin, like a human body renews its cells.
  I have never visited Oirr, and I'm looking forward to doing so, although the circumstances are not ideal: it is where our present quarry, the City of Mists, has grounded under enemy control. Not an occasion for daydreams of wandering among those most-ancient cities, Soolm, Arn, Vus and Contahl.
  Another reason why this is not a good time even to think about sightseeing is that the news from Skyyon about the Sunnoad's health is bad. Oreneg Vadon finds time to keep me posted: he tells me that Brem Tormalla is sinking fast, "burning himself out” in Oreneg’s phrase, “in the pressures of the Drall,” or, as I would put it, in the hassle of organizing a crusade.
  Well, one thing’s for sure, when Brem goes, the succession won’t be like the last one: Syoomean society has no time for a thuzolyr-election at this juncture. Instead it will be the “dying voice”. I can only hope that our Noad of Noads, if he really is dying, has officially recorded his choice. We don’t want fate to disappoint Oreneg a second time.
  …Estimated arrival time: round about now-ish. I know I’m important to these people yet they don’t seem to mind where I am. My value as a symbol is valid wherever I happen to be or whithersoever I mooch in this floating ovoid hive. Pleasing myself, I wander into the control room.
  Here at the very centre of the skyship, large telescreens, thrice man-high, give views of the outside in all directions.
  In addition to these major window-equivalents, the walls have arrays of smaller screens which link us with the other ships and with some bases in Syoom. Every so often my glance sweeps these; I'm always relieved to see no image of Brem Tormalla because "no pic" is "good news": according to the current arrangement if he dies while we’re on this campaign the image of him will be sent to appear immediately "in the box", together with a recording of his dying voice.
  Nobody talks to me while they all get on with their tasks. Seemingly under no pressure, I nevertheless tell myself I must fix my juddery mind which keeps darting to and fro between dreams and memories, Uranian and Terran ideas, for to get woolly or inattentive would be to risk disgrace.
I need to talk with a fellow outsider.
I need only take a couple of strides to approach the nervy, mettlesome Abon Gnaa. Like me, the Yrian envoy is standing around uselessly.
  “This is an epochal alliance," I say, "that you have made with us."
  Abon Gnaa turns to stare at me.  “Perhaps,” he murmurs.
  “Only ‘perhaps’?”
  “Only if we win."
  I’d better hurry if I’m to thrash anything out with him. He's going to be in demand during the attack - he's our essential Yrian expert; in fact, why isn't he already in consultation with the captain and with Oreneg Vadon? For look, here we are! Our flight is at last bringing us into sight of the landscape chosen by the enemy for his descent from the sky! A pair of mountain ranges, and a flat gap between them, prompt names which I've learned to come to my mind: the mountains are really a single range, horse-shoe shaped, called the Toomsut Solyairn, with the particular peaks of the Rnung Tror, the “Crying Mountains”, facing each other across the end-gap which forms the pass into the land called the Glank.
Our flotilla is on the point of entering that pass. We're currently at about fifteen hundred yards’ altitude, level with the Crying Mountain summits, but we’re steadily dropping, and slowing too. I can trust, surely, that we aren’t so stupid as to rush into a trap? Why then is this Yrian envoy looking so gloomy?
We're both avidly staring into one of the big screens, which we have to ourselves. We are watching for the first glimpse of the enemy – if "enemy" is a permissible term.
I glance again at Abon Gnaa just when his mouth purses into a moue of distaste. It would seem he’s now focused upon the closer of the two fortresses which are each perched on one of the Rnung Tror. This one's name is Therrold. We're currently drifting past it at a distance of about five miles. The other fortress, Kyaptha, is about seven or eight miles off.
Abon Gnaa continues to grimace. Why the repugnance?
He murmurs, “They shouldn’t have settled here.”
  “Who's 'they'?” say I. Some hunch tells me that he isn't referring to Yr, but rather to the inhabitants of this area.
I didn't speak firmly enough, I suppose, for he makes no answer.
  The flotilla is going extremely slowly now. I decide I may have time to learn more before the crunch comes. More loudly I ask about the inhabitants of Glank:
  “Was it their fault that Yr picked this spot?”
  Abon Gnaa utters a derisive pfufff. I notice suddenly that he’s a short man. I wonder: do Yrians breed short in order to save skyborne weight? Shortness does not detract from him; oddly it seems to give him a posture of bricklike firmness among taller men.
  “Yr has passed over this land more times than your histories will ever know,” he says. “And so we have seen much that you ground-dwellers miss. Many times we saw nemaeans fly here to lay their eggs. In fact this place had already become secretly infested when Nenns settled in the Glank, eras ago.” He notes my startlement, and adds: “I have told the captain.”
How is it that I am here, that I have got so far while learning so little? The terrifying answer is, that the connective tissue of cause and effect appears to be even weaker in my case than it is for most Uranian life – and therefore its alternative, the pull of fate, which works from effect to cause, is all the stronger in me.
  Consequently what I deserve, and what I get, are stretching further and further apart…
  Let it be so, provided that the skin of dreaminess is not peeled to reveal a nightmare. That, in turn, may depend on whether I can be useful.  Look hard and intelligently, Yadon, if you dare. You never know, you might get the chance to contribute seriously. Look now, skimmer-swarms are headed this way! They're zeroing on our skyship from both Therrold and Kyaptha!
  …It didn't take them long to arrive: representatives from the garrisons of the two forts have been conducted from the reception hold up to the control room and are even now conferring with Oreneg Vadon and the captain and officers of the skyship. I watch them at it; they’re standing so close to me that it would take me about three seconds to walk in amongst them. What's more I suspect, if I did that, no one would object. That’s the crazy dreamlike thing. Nobody objects, whatever I do or don’t do.
I don't move far because I don't wish to abandon the view from "my" screen or the chance of quizzing Abon Gnaa; I take no more than a couple of steps closer to the dialogue with the Glankers. The men from the forts, I learn, are called Tyogh and Cojild. The woman, apparently their boss, is Op Flallik. I hear their shrilly apologetic responses to sharp questioning by Oreneg Vadon. What are they admitting? What are their piping raspy voices conceding? Apparently, the Yrian invaders have made some sort of alliance with the nemaean pests; the folk of Glank certainly picked a poor spot when they chose to live their history in this insectoid-infested region. As for me, I ought to have learned the basic facts of this scene before we arrived here. But - scrub that: this is not a homeworky world...
  It says somewhere in the Good Book that when you’re hauled up before the authorities, you should take no thought about what you should speak, for the words to speak will be given to you when the moment comes. Now, who are “the authorities” for me as nominal commander?
Well, the fateful answer is that here on the Seventh Planet "the authorities" consist of whatever crux, crunch, zero hour or moment of truth may await you at the next crossroads of your life. …If only I could know the worst and get it over with. But at least a stream of information is flowing at me now.
I hear of the Xombs, the cold-volcanoes strewn in mid-plain, and no sooner is the word in my ear than I begin to see them ahead, emerging from the haze of distance. The scene has opened out. The broken ring of mountains, the Toomsut Solyairn, has receded on all sides into invisibility. Smaller shapes claim notice: the Xomb ice-cones perhaps seven hundred yards high poking up out of the ground. On their flanks, the mottlings of human habitation.
Around me I hear breath hissing out of lungs. The enemy is in sight at last. The viewscreen is showing us which of the Xombs has suffered the descent of Yr.
  “Woe to Addra,” I hear Op Flallik say.
  Abon Gnaa mutters, “The others are not thereby reprieved: subjection likewise awaits Suyit, Kuzub, Morch, Pummun and Umst - if I know my people.”
  Across the diminishing miles I observe the unfortunate Addra cone. It is the middle-placed one of a group of six. Unlike its fellows it is now topped by a point of brilliance, an addition to its summit: the glint of our enemy.
  Steadily growing in our viewplates, this intruder develops a sparkle, a coruscating and many-coloured belt, signifying a flashy wall around Yr’s middle.
  At another order from the captain one of the officers presses a stud.
Cross-hairs appear on the viewscreens. This is preparatory, I know, to the aim of cannon; I wonder how likely it is that the people of Addra, who've had the back luck to be chosen as the footstool of grounded Yr, will escape collateral damage when we fire at the oppressor. How dearly must our victory be bought? And then a worse doubt occurs to me: can we win at all?
  Our altitude has decreased to the level of our enemy and I sense the peril that radiates from the structure of Yr: the thing virtually grins menace, from its bowl-shaped keel lined with strakes, up to its scintillating belt-wall, and higher to the summit complexity of interlacing skimways and helical towers. That urban crown is the part that looks most normal. But it is not very ordinary at that. For, nebulously prowling like dinosaurian ghosts, blurry patches of fog are on the move in the thoroughfares of Yr. It is, after all, the City of Mists - long reputed to enjoy an alliance or even a symbiosis with certain species of cloud.
  Rather than worry about the mists, I reckon yet more dire are the denser smokes around the gun-ports in the scintillating wall. These wafts must be the nemaeans.
Individual insectoid motions are merely random, but that does not reassure us, for every Uranian knows that the nemaean swarms have a hideous power of combination. I too, Starsider though I be, have instincts no less educated by history and thus no less apt to shriek the warning: This is what created the anti-fleet that doomed Fiarr Fosn.
It is indeed such head-sized buzzers which brought down the curtain on the Phosphorus Era.
  I hear restless murmurs from some officers around me. Well, no wonder. They're understandably dismayed at what looks like our drift towards disaster. But the voice of Oreneg Vadon rises above the uncertainty, to give the order: "Achromatic Zone - on!" Instantly the scene on the viewplates becomes monochrome.
It's not a change in our sensors alone, it's an actual field-effect. For miles around it acts as a chromatic suppressant. Since we're now in range of Yr itself, the City of Mists has gone grey.
Oreneg declares, in words that are heard both here in our control room and by transmission to the other ships of the squadron: "The nemaeans must now be in confusion. Because they communicate through colour-codes, in this monochromatic environment they must lose the power of combination, and therefore now is the moment to attack Yr from above. All ranks above ordinary sponndar must don our replacement cloaks." I don't understand but I prepare to obey. He, as he speaks, throws off his usual cloak and takes one from an orderly; other orderlies are going round the control room handing out the "replacement cloaks", one of which is proferred to me, and, acting with the sense of being in a dream, I obediently throw aside my old Daon's cloak and put one on which seems grey to me; not because it is a real grey (like one worn by a Noad) but because everything is now grey in the Achromatic Zone. What does it matter? We'll all soon be dead, for the plan to attack Yr from above is suicidal.
  Not that I have any right to criticize Oreneg for thus tobogganing down his chute of destiny. Who am I to object? On this monster of a world, it’s all too easy to get pelted into idiocy by a hail of fate-charged facts. Right now I’m failing, just as he is, to get enough of the picture to avoid floundering in our attempts to combine wide supervision and narrowed insight.
Even as this truth occurs to me, a watch-officer cries out incomprehensibly: “Stolon outbreak, sponndar O-V!”
  Whatever this may mean, an amazing change has abruptly spread over the plain below, and Oreneg Vadon is ignoring it! He's ignoring that the ground has come alive with a nightmare rumpling! All around the conic Xombs and as far as the eye can see, subsurface wrigglings are in evidence, as if a horde of giant worms have joined the coalition of dread. Here's the stage at which I drop the reins of rationality. Give us, I tell myself: the time has arrived for me to give up all attempts to guess my way. Time to abandon any reach at the sense of things; time to avert my eyes from the viewscreens.
Instead, scrutinize people's faces.  The locals – Op Flallik and her companions – look sick but acquiescent. It's as though they were saying, “Typical, ain’t it. As if it weren’t not enough to have to face the nemaean insectoids that await us at Yr. No, we must also be plagued by these animated roots.”
  My crew-mates, less defeatist, are more censorious. The mood around me is dense with recrimination and it's all aimed at the folk of Glank. Resentment is expressed out loud in edgy phrases which all boil down to, "How could you do it?" Do what? I find an actual answer, for on wings the words in my hearing spread in my mind to mean: "You must have done a deal with the nemaeans when you settled here; so you must know what they're like; so how could you betray your humanity by allying with them now?"
Oreneg merely says, “Prepare for ejection, everyone.”
  More dreamy, dreamy movement. We're trooping in pre-organized formation down the ramps toward the skyship’s hold.
I am failing to grasp so many things that I wince in advance at the next set of jolts, but what can I do to stop this dream from taking a rougher and perhaps nastier turn?
  We pass a holocubicle in which a life-size image of Sunnoad Brem Tormalla 80437 has at last flicked on. As we file past it, its clear meaning makes us bow our heads. Oreneg alone breaks the shuffling silence: "He was a great Sunnoad, but now, as we limber for the fight, we must forget rank. The insectoids understand human talk, so take care in the heat of battle to address each other as plain sponndar - not to give them targets by our use of titles! What do titles matter anyway? Victory is all, for without victory we cannot survive.”
I reflect that such Churchillian rhetoric is misplaced, since we are certain to lose.
  Quietly, in the cavernous hold, we mount our skimmers in rows, and wait for the floor-hatches to open. Wait, in other words, to get tipped onto the streets of Yr.  Meanwhile we have viewscreens to watch - not that what they show will help matters at all. I look around at my fellows in the grey-dappled, colourless light of the Achromatic Field, which has certainly made it easier for us to regard each other as plain warriors, our present colour-blindness obliterating any visual distinction of rank. Our replacement cloaks, stitched with the initials of our names, plus facial recognition, must suffice for purposes of command, I suppose. Eyeing the screenscape once more, I reckon we have about five minutes left. That's how long we've got before our course brings us directly above the enemy... What is there to say?  Dempelath would gloat if he could see us now. It’s funny – I can see the odds against us, so why can’t Oreneg? Perhaps the current pulling him along is blinkered in a different way from the one that swaddles my brain. So for him it’s acceptable that we are due to plummet. He thinks it's all right that the nether hatches are about to open and drop us onto the streets of Yr, where we immediately shall have to engage, hopelessly, all the overwhelming multitudes of human Yrians and their insectoid allies. The track of his life says do this, so do it we must.  I could protest. I could raise my voice. I could shout that all this is stupid. What have I to lose? Nothing - so why does my mouth stay closed?
I discover the interesting reason, which is, that rather than make a fuss, it is easier just to go ahead and die.
Yes, easier to die than to contradict the experts! But wait - heck, I'm an expert too! I access my Terran heritage of historic blunders! In despite of everything, a force pushes me at the last possible moment to stand up astride my vehicle, open my mouth and allow my thoughts to cry from my throat:
  “Pilots of the squadron, this is Yadon speaking! Rather than drown in the ocean of enemies that awaits us, we shall exit sooner and fight upwards with a boundary at our backs - we shall aim for the base of the Xomb! Follow me, sponndarou of Syoom, when I give the word.”
  I can't believe what I've done. But it's true: I’ve just gone against the Sunnoad; for, of course, Oreneg is now Sunnoad; as yet un-proclaimed, yet he must be the one. I therefore have used my lesser authority as zarromzyr to contradict his plan. I am guilty of the unthinkable.
Actually it's not quite unthinkable because Uranian history allows for Correctors.
  Yes, looks like that's the way I've picked, the rare and solitary way. I've entered the tradition of those who stand up to the wearer of the golden cloak and tell him he’s wrong and (by force if necessary) set him right.
Well, just imagine: Corrector Yadon, that’s who I am! The drawback to this game is, death is the penalty for having tried and failed.
  On the other hand, death faces us all anyway, right here. That's the justification of my leap from figurehead to actual leader.
Whatever remains after you have eliminated the impossible must, however improbable, be the way to survive the battle. Here my adaptation of Sherlock Holmes declares that what’s "impossible" is to call my fate-wave a liar. Since it can't be a liar, what remains, however improbable, is - victory.
  The means of victory? The thinnest of clues, which everybody else appears determined to ignore. But at least nobody has so far interrupted me, which is a good sign. Nobody has put me under restraint or shot me, which are even better signs. The thread of a chance has emerged from the ooze of despair. Now for the final peroration:
  “Not being subject to your Uranian phobias (you've all heard of my Earth-tinge) I can, if necessary, order the unspeakable. And because you will allow me this, we are going to win. You'll soon see what I mean. You'll see it - you'll do it - when we make a wide-beam attack at the join between the opposed forces: right where the stolons and the nemaeans meet. Pilot, head exactly for the base of Addra Xomb. Keep that course – keep it exact - and on a count of three – two – one – eject!”
  The floor falls away from under us all, and my necessary skills awaken. Despite pitching trajectory and buffeting winds I manage with hand on throttle to achieve the vital minimum of control during the plunge to normal skimming altitude, and so I get down without a crash. Not all my followers are so fortunate – I see some dozens lie wrecked on the gralm – but most of them are hovering in readiness to follow the lead I must give them without delay; for although my choice of landing has surprised the enemy, it has equally amazed my own side. My followers have opted to be glued to my fate, otherwise they wouldn't have jumped with me; but they still don't understand, whereas I - I have a glimmering.
To say, about a man on Earth, "He doesn't know what he's doing", is to express disapproval, almost certainly. But here on Ooranye, on this plain writhing with the tips of stolons, the only knowledge I possess is where my hopes are pinned. Those root-tips, even as we watch, greet our arrival by extruding a hideous multitude of sting-shapes, a deadly threat to me and my men, but also to our other enemies, the Yrians and their unhuman insectod allies the nemaeans, who are spilling downwards from over the conical mountain's rim.
Our change of approach has surely delighted the Yrians. They must be thinking we've made things easier for them, so that, rather than defend against assault from above, all they need now do is swoop down on us. Much easier, they think, to meet an attack from below. The fools. This is just what I want, though I admit that the numbers don't look good for us. My idea is, we can spit most of the human fighters from Yr before their balance recovers from their downward rush.
Only - this could be where I've gone wrong - we won’t be allowed to, for each one of them is accompanied by a dozen cranial nightmares.
I've seen nemaeans in pictures, but that is scant preparation. Their three lidless eyes stare blankly as stones while their back-hairs quiver at propeller speed with a whine pitched high as they approach and low as they recede. Their tactic is to smash our frail bodies with their rocklike impacts. They can also kill with their teeth. One of these creatures hurtles at me so close that I feel stabbed by the mere sight of it. My mind wobbles towards insanity. Luckily my laser kills the thing faster than thought. Then another attack, another escape. How long can I be let off so lightly, I wonder. Why aren't we all broken already?  It's because their flights are disorganized. I start to remember that it's the greyness of everything in this Achromatic Zone that robs the nemaeans of their power of combination.
Still, the disorganized threat is dire enough: sheer numbers raining chaotically down.
Besides, the human Yrians have now joined the fight with considerable effect. My sponnd-arm is almost wrenched in a laser duel with a warrior who comes at me on my right (his skimmer slicing the air as I dodge): I become aware that I again have out-fenced and killed my foe but now his fourfold insectoid escort hurtle at me, gnashing, and at most I can cleave two of them before my curtain falls. So this is it; I brace myself to discover what death is like. Yet for some flukey reason my time continues. Two of the creatures have collided with each other. I can dispose of the other pair. It occurs to me, though, that I’m supposed to be leading, not merely staying alive.  Well, here's a moment when nothing's coming at me; but I hesitate to make use of the breather to issue orders. I hardly dare even to whisper to myself since the nemaeans' superlative hearing (it is believed) can even catch our subvocalizations.  Perhaps anyhow the scales have tipped - for we have begun to advance up the slope of the Xomb! That can only mean that the stolons have played the part I hoped they’d play. Thanks to their subsonic interference, they have degraded sound for the insectoids. As vital, this, as our Achromatic zone which robbed them of colour. Indeed the pervasive nemaean hum has blurred, come to think of it, into a rougher roar.
Now the stolons, having thus given vital momentum to our attack, are retracting, satisfied, and are disappearing back into the ground. Ah, the understanding that comes to me! The stolons have splurged their crucial, once-in-an-era blast at their ancient enemies the insectoids; one great instance of historic loose ends being tied. But no one will dare ask me how I knew. The pressure of my wave, force-feeding me with the insight that plant-life can borrow energy from its future, told me. That's how I knew, if you can call it knowing! Fate-surfing is not for talk -
  Unless, that is, Dempelath wins. In which case, no more elegance of events. In the desert glare of humdrum causation, events will shrivel to everyday Terran style.
  …Our upward surge has brought us at last into the streets of Addra. We skim among buildings, from whose windows faces stare, wan with fear or shock; not one of these townsfolk comes out to help us in our fight to liberate them from the Yrians. I guess the population is kept indoors by a phobic horror of the awakened stolons. Well, that’s their problem; more important to me right now is that visibility has improved because the swarms of nemaeans have thinned out. More of my followers recognize me, or rather recognize the initials dyed onto my cloak. This enables me more effectively to lead; arm-waving gestures are at last of some use.
  We still meet with resistance when insectoids buzz at us from round corners. Sometimes they're accompanied by Yrians. Killing, in the greyness, is a solemn but not a dreadful thing, a distasteful job, the remains of a sad dream which might have grown far worse.
  The gradient eases; we’re almost up to the volcano’s rim. When we get to it, we’ll be in sight of Yr itself, nesting on the crater. Here, if anywhere, is the place for the enemy's last try at a counter-attack.
Sure enough, it comes. The human foes are few; on the other hand the nemaeans are still numerous. They storm around us mindlessly. They're no cleverer than the lifeless rebound of molecules in an excited gas. It seems they'll never recover in time from their damaged sight and hearing.
  At last, quietness. The sudden blank silence of victory.
Here on the rim, with the slope and the town of Addra below us, we can look back and see the battlefield clear. If any foes are left, they are lying low and exhausted. Meanwhile, ahead, Yr towers before us, balanced on its crater-cradle.
I note the pale splotches round the lower edge of its hull. They must be the juice of Addra's crenth-crop, onto which Yr has destructively splashed; entire fields of crenth, the most concentrated and valuable strain of vheic, now totally destroyed. The economic damage is considerable: but the main thing is, we've seen to it that Yr will not similarly squash the liberty of this land. Yr, having made the terrible mistake of abandoning the air and risking a battle on land, has lost its gamble. The grounded City of Mists must submit to the authority of the Sunnoad, for the first time, probably, in its aeons of history.

Around me gather a small knot of my men. We are still under orders not to reveal the identity of the officers amongst us - for it is likely that some of the insectoids remain on the loose, and until the Achromatic Zone is switched off and we are thus given the all-clear for communication, we shall guard our words.

A young fighter whose name I know to be Kusk smoothes his torn cloak amd remarks, in a sadly wondering tone, "I killed today for the first time, sponndar."

"It was my first battle too," I say. "Death,” I add, “is a solemn but not a dreadful thing – on this world.”

He turns me a sharp look - he knows who I am - and says “Yes, sponndar?” Young, interested, eager for truth, he's seizing the chance to converse with the Earthmind.

I improve on my statement: “On this world we all know we have other lives to come. But - in addition to people, other things can die. Things bigger than we. Causes. Cultures. Entire civilizations. No reincarnation for them. They are mortal."

“That," Kusk nods slowly, "is why we are right to fear.”

He's quick to see the point. I wonder what kinds of disturbances have filtered down as news to the common people of Syoom. In other words, what damage Dempelath is doing, long-range. It’s all so vague as yet but I have a strong hunch it will get more precise as time goes on. Unless we stop it. And stop it we must and will. Brem Tormalla is no more, but Oreneg Vadon is no fool either. With him as Sunnoad the great mission against the tyrant of Olhoav must have a likelihood of success.

Just as I think of Oreneg, he comes into sight, appearing from among a group of fighters some fifty yards away on the crater rim. He is walking towards me.

The men around me withdraw a token distance, to allow a conference between myself and the Grardesh hero. By now, they too must know who he has become. But because the landscape is still grey, and secrecy still in force, they are careful not to show too much respect – yet.

As the new Sunnoad approaches I feel like I'm inside an old black-and-while film epic. I can almost hear the music.

Oreneg Vadon comes up to me, says "Look," and points.

I take out my pocket telescope and train the instrument towards the summit of Yr. “What am I supposed to see?”

“The proof that you were right, sponndar. The Dangling Rag. Sign of surrender."

After a couple of sweeps I spot it: a pole with a downcurved top from which a sheet flutters.

“So that is that,” I say inanely, folding the telescope. “Er... in which case, although I, er, Corrected you somewhat high-handedly, the outcome has justified my insubordination?”

Oreneg firms his lips. "You sound hopeful, that you can be classed as... a Corrector?"

I can’t read his expression at all. Is the new Sunnoad really going to punish me for my intervention which after all did win the battle? Quick: check: did I not do right? Yes, certainly! With anxious rapidity I go over it all again. Our unexpectedly redirected landing was a valid and vital Correction to his strategy and though I don’t know how I had the cheek to carry it through, I nevertheless did so and here we are, victorious and alive.

Then why is so poker-faced about it? He seems slow to admit my status as Corrector; or, worse than that, he looks about to deny it! Perhaps he can’t stand the idea of it. It does seem a blot, so soon in his reign. But a Sunnoad ought to be big enough to accept that, surely?

He's shaking his head, and now I see a quite ruthless grin.

“Oh no,” he muses, “you’re not a Corrector. In fact you’re the one person on the planet who cannot be a Corrector.”

"That's plok," I say, feeling death close, and reacting with indignation. “You mean an Earthmind cannot participate in your institutions? It didn't bar me from the dayonnad of Olhoav – “

Now he has tilted his head on one side. I tell myself to stop blustering. The grin has mellowed into a sadder smile.

"Wait just a moment," Oreneg says. "I'm getting the signal from the Ruuzna-Ptorrai."

"What signal?" says I, feeling crossly obtuse. I tell myself to shut up and not not interrupt his communication with our flagship. Not surprisingly, he doesn't answer for some seconds. Then -

"Ah, the surrender has been confirmed. The skyship has received a formal message from the rightful Noad of Yr, Rael Odiram himself, who has now been released from imprisonment. He says that Langhebli Dostomon, the leader of the Grounder Faction, in other words our main Yrian enemy, has been killed in the battle, and that the Faction’s entire organization is dissolved. So our victory is complete."

Click! No more greyness! A never-to-be-forgotten moment of return to colour! In a shock of dazzle and splendour, the sky, the volcano’s surface, the city of Yr, the plains of the Glank stretching away below, are all clad in their hues once more. That includes us, our clothes, and, God help me, that cloak they put on me before we left the skyship –

Golden, the cloak. Uhhhhhh..... it is not Oreneg Vadon after all, it is none other than Neville Yeadon of London / Nyav Yuhlm of Olhoav / Yadon the wanderer of Syoom, otherwise known as “me”, whom fate has chosen to make the current guest appearance in that variable spark that flickers through Uranian history in the long count of reigns. I have never felt so small.

"So it's all up to you now, Sunnoad Yadon 80438," says Oreneg Vadon.