kroth:  the drop

4: the last ledge

For some reason we had stopped, and I heard a flat voice speaking. At first, I took little notice of the words. Even the fact that we had halted, and that the others looked grave, did not jostle me out of my private thoughts, which promenaded along general themes of guilt and responsibility and the likelihood of retribution, as if hoping to pick up merit points for honesty and cash them in for a pardon...
    One phrase pricked me into wakefulness. It was not loud or harsh – it was, on the contrary, so ludicrously bland and dull that it did the trick of exciting my attention, like a sudden announcement that there is “no cause for alarm”.
    “Recent events” – 
    It was Vic, daubing our crisis with grey tones. He was up to something. 
    “Recent events”, he droned, had carried us some miles East of the Wayline. We would do well (he asserted) to veer back to that line.
    The way he said it, gave me the odd certainty that he was being deliberately boring.
    “I agree,” seconded Rida. “Sound policy. Back to the Wayline!”
    “Tell me why,” requested Cora.
    “It’s so that we can then resume our original southward course at zero longitude.” Rida’s voice had exactly the same stuffy sound as Vic’s.
    Cora – blunt, as she often was – said, “But why bother? What does our precise longitude matter?”
    Rida pursed his lips and then delivered his judgement. 
    “Ours is, after all, a scientific expedition. A sample transect down the side of the planet. Without a doubt, if we are to keep the sampling consistent we should stick as regularly as possible to a straight plunge along the zero-line.”
    Heather added, “That’s best, yes. We shan’t always be able to keep to it, but the more we do, the better.”
    I murmured agreement. Now that I grasped the issue, my urge was to conform. Keep it quiet. No yells for freedom. Just veer off. Creep out of the guilt zone. 
    Cora, also, was now nodding gravely.
    “I understand,” she said, adopting the same stilted tone as the others.
    Yells and screams remained unvoiced; I sensed quiet eagerness all round, now that the last of us had definitely got the point. 
    “In that case,” said Vic, “since no objections have been raised, let us move.” 
    We set off, at a modified angle of descent, aimed at south-west of south. I kept my gladness silent: colossal relief at the decision, and (still more) at not having had to suggest it myself, left me content not to ask for further details. In any case, Vic’s real reason for proposing the course-change was one which he would not wish to admit out loud, if his concerns were the same as mine, and I was certain they were. We were indeed all tip-toeing around the same subject: weight-rolling is the taboo on the Slope of Kroth, and if you’ve become in any way associated with it, you want to bury it under miles of distance and stretches of time. Rida had voiced our scientific excuse, but as for what our move was really about – 
    As we quitted the area, I twisted my upper body whilst I clutched the holding-strap of Ydrad’s harness, so as to lean out as far as I could, unable to resist one last rearward gaze leftwards and down, to scan the Slope below Tokropol. Macabre curiosity had impelled me to seek what signs of havoc were actually visible along the path of destruction. 
    It was hard to be sure. Due to the steepness and the roughness of this region of moss-covered stone, irregularly knobbed with more jagged outcrops, it was not immediately obvious how far its smashed look was due to the newest rockfall. I could pick out some scraped streaks and “chipped” areas, but the signs were inconclusive. The real test would come lower, where the downward hurtling mass, or its secondary effects, had impacted a human settlement. As it was intended to do. But with any luck we would never see the evidence of that – it being precisely what we were now veering to avoid. The great thing would be to sidle past it… to creep in a detour, bypassing condemnation.
    I remembered a name: Plim. 
    That was the target, the ill-fated enemy of Tokropol. Oh how good it was not to be an inhabitant of Plim right now. 
    No way to tell them, no way to save them... 
    Anyway, it may well already have happened...
    Waste of time to search for words to say sorry...
    Meanwhile we were successfully distancing ourselves from the scene of the crime, as for some hours we continued our oblique descent, and I indulged in feelings of relief and thankfulness for each mile of westward deviation. I remained troubled, though. On this tipped landscape The Slant as usual protected me from physical vertigo, but moral vertigo – that, alas, was another matter. The Slant’s psychological cloak could hardly stretch to cover the guilt of my association (involuntary though it had been) with Narth Drong’s terrible deed and with my uncle’s part in it – his part in encouraging it, perhaps in making it possible. I remained haunted by the thought that things might have gone differently, the tyrant of Tokropol might have refrained from pulling the lever, had it not been for Vic’s evil suggestion that you can act and repent at the same time.

                                                   *

Cora presently said, “Any idea how far we’ve still got to go?”
    “Nearly there, I expect,” said Vic. 
    More minutes passed.
    “I think we should be there now,” Vic remarked. “But it’s... er... not obvious.”
    Heather said, “You can’t expect to see much. It has been a while since we passed a marked section along the Wayline.”
    I said, “Oh, yeah, the Line had rather petered out...”
    Vic said heartily, “Never mind. I agree, we have probably seen the last of... No we haven’t!” he contradicted himself in a tone of sudden uplift. “Look there!”
    Hardly more than the faintest dusty streak, it was nevertheless a sign.  Even as far down south as here, this route must be trodden now and then. Whether by animals or humans or both, it had been pounded into a visible path. “I calculate from this that Tokropol is about eight miles east of the Wayline,” Vic announced. He formally entered the fact, if it was a fact, in his journal. But the trail he had spotted so gleefully did not last more than about half a mile, after which we lost it completely, and a hunch told me that we had seen the last of it.
    “No matter,” Vic maintained. “I’m sure that we are back at longitude zero. And if not, then we can’t be far from it.”
    He was right, in a practical sense; nonetheless I think we all experienced a nudge of eerie regret. The loss of a visible Wayline was an unfortunate reminder of how far we had departed from the familiar conditions of our lives. It was yet another “goodbye”. It could lower our immunity to other misfortunes...
    Rubbish, said I to myself. If that mild twinge was the worst we had to endure, then we ought rather to rejoice in our luck, than make silly omens out of what ought to be no surprise. I told myself to “buck up”, toughen up, and give my attention wholly to the journey. You can only worry so much, you can only feel guilty so much, and then you get tired of it. I thought better thoughts, and then I thought no thoughts as at last I completely surrendered to the hypnotic downward spring-hop, spring-hop, of my ploon-buoyed descent of the universal Slope. 
    In this way, the gradient, which dominated all my reality, wiped out the anxieties which it had caused in the first place. Stuff happens and you can’t do anything about it. Slippages occur, weights roll, avalanches devastate, all as a natural outcome of the entirety of life...
    This peace of mind lasted about an hour. 
    Then we came to a brink at the end of a spur. 
    The precipice straight ahead meant that we had to detour. And as bad luck would have it, complications to our right – screes and cliffs which not even the decapods could negotiate – meant that we could not see a way round in that direction. So we would have to turn left. In other words, we must head back east.
    “Damnation,” muttered Vic Chandler.
    East – back onto the questionable road down from Tokropol. East – once more towards the hateful boulder’s path. The contentment which I had just regained, I must now relinquish. 
    Urgent question: When could we stop the detour? How soon would we be able to veer west again? We were headed towards Plim. I did not want that to be true, or even approximately true, but it was no use arguing with geography. Due east we went, for some miles, until, eventually, we found a way down.
    Even then, we could not go straight south. We had to head south-east. This was because, to our right and straight ahead, various further cliffs, gashes and deep-gouged corries, far more exaggerated than those we had met before, continued to complicate the terrain as far as the eye could see. They blocked the possibility of a return to the now-invisible Wayline and compelled us to veer further and further south-eastwards, in precisely the direction we most wished to avoid. 
    No alternative was mentioned, though I suppose if we had been willing to spare the time we could have given up trying to descend at all in this unpromising region: we could have gone due east for a vast enough distance to be sure of missing Plim. I would have been ashamed to suggest this. I preferred to keep my dread of Plimian retribution to myself. I thought: “If we do encounter the place, let Vic, if he can, look the survivors in the eye, if there are any; let him brazen it out.” As though his position was that of a manager who might have to deal with a few irate customers; nothing worse than that.
    My saner self knew that such thoughts were stupid even as I entertained them, but perhaps, in moments like these, some quirk or offshoot of The Slant did enable me to pretend that the crisis ahead of us would be small. 

                                                    *

Evening came, and we would have to stop somewhere.
    Right on cue, we found ourselves upon the approaches to a ledge.  From
the first glimpse, the sight of it imposed a subdued silence upon us.
    As we trod an oblique track down towards the western end of the mighty sill, our view of its length opened out into a run of uncounted miles, eastward from where we were: undoubtedly the ledge at last. From where we gazed, it widened and eventually disappeared into the gloom of dusk.
    I was so tired, physically and mentally, so worn down by my own fears and guilt that I did not feel it worth the effort to push against the silence in order to utter a word. If any of the others had showed a disposition to argue with fate, I might have given them some half-hearted support. However, nobody recoiled, or tried to suggest that we evade this spot.
    So we settled for the night, on the western end of Plim.

                                                   *

The fact that we woke next morning to find ourselves still alive and not arrested, changed my mood and made me realize how batty a lot of my thoughts had been. I smiled at my imaginings, and while I smiled I imagined them again: I pictured all sorts of unwelcome beings lurking among the pleats and folds of cliff which undulated away along the eastward perspective. To show them that I disbelieved in their existence, I sat with my back to them as I finished my breakfast.
    Then, while I munched my last biscuit, I heard, from Cora, such a short and dismissive a laugh, that it might have confirmed my new optimism.
    The creature that trotted into view, splay-legged and clumsy, was a lanky dog that bleared idiotically as it saw us.
    “This is absolutely crazy,” murmured Vic. “An airedale, down here, of all places – here, boy,” he called, standing up slowly. Before he could step forward, we heard sharper footsteps.
    This time a man, colourfully clad though silhouetted against the brighter morning light, lunged forward to collar the airedale. In doing so he fell to his knees, but he quickly recovered and smartly scrambled back onto his feet. 
    He beamed at us in wonder, while we noted him to be a short, stocky fellow, flamboyantly dressed in bright yellow boots, crimson trousers and green jacket. 
    “Hello, hello shonks,” said this dog-owner in a fruity upper-class accent completely at variance with the world I had come to know. It did not fit, and, because it did not fit, it clashed with my previous awe of Plim; it deadened all sense of menace; my worries shrank to a trivial dirge in my mind’s ear.
    “We’re shonks, yes,” agreed Vic, acknowledging this slang term for Toplanders. “Nice dog you have there.”
    “Animals are important to us. They give us warning of rockfall.” The man’s eyes flickered over us as he spoke. He probably caught no reaction from Vic’s poker face, but I dare say I probably gave my guilt away by wincing at rockfall. “I am John Seely Cumnor-Rae, of Plim.” 
    Vic introduced us by name.
    “Most pleased,” nodded Cumnor-Rae, “to meet no fewer than four rootless shonks,” and he shook his head and chuckled. “It has been a long time. Years. Decades.” 
    “Ah,” smiled Vic, “time-units from the Dream of Earth!”
    “So they are, so they are! Good old time-units – can’t beat ’em, I always say – remarkable, their persistence.”
    “Astronomically meaningless, though.”
    “Ah, but,” echoed Cumnor-Rae, eyes brimming with pleasure, “they fulfil a human need. And besides, ‘week’ was astronomically meaningless even on Earth.”
    Their smiles broadened: two educated, civilized men, two intellectuals delighting to fence with each other as they met in the depths of Slantland. 
    Rida prompted: “‘Decades’, you were saying. Decades since what?”
    “Since we absorbed a shonk population.”
    Frustration in me broke out.  “Not again!” I cried; “we’re not dust, to be hoovered up like this by one Slantland culture after another.  We already have a home, thank you.”  I saw Cumnor-Rae blink, I saw him hesitate to speak, apparently at a loss for a reaction to my blaze of protest, and this gave me time to feel aghast at what I had done.  Why couldn’t I make up my mind about what I was most afraid of?  Punishment by Plim or acceptance by Plim – 
    “Duncan here,” remarked Vic, “has bounced back from a low point yesterday.”
    “Indeed?”
    “Yes. Quite forcefully. Impetuous lad, at times. But what he says is true enough. We do have a home, up in Topland.”
    I was glad of Vic’s prompt support, but it occurred to me that Cumnor-Rae might not really believe in Topland, or, if he did, he might still not believe that anyone could have come the whole distance from there to here. This far south, the word shonk might simply refer to any wanderer between one latitude and another. 
    In other words – I wasn’t certain that Topland still possessed all that much cultural pull, down here. More likely the attitude was that anyone in his right mind ought to prefer making his home in Plim rather than in Topland...
    The Plimian’s next words strengthened this impression.
    “I have heard of quite a few shonks,” Cumnor-Rae replied, “who made good Plimians.” 
    “But this might not be Plim’s lucky day,” I shot back. Then, appalled once more at my big mouth, I squeezed my eyes shut and asked myself what had possessed me.
    The man merely laughed and said, “Don’t be too sure. Never judge a day until it is over. Meanwhile, please accept the hospitality of this ledge.” 
    We stood still, unable to meet his eye.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “Duncan,” said Vic slowly, “has already told you, I think.”
    “Nevertheless,” replied Cumnor-Rae, “the invitation stands.” It was extraordinary, the sense we all had, that nothing further need be said about how I had known that this was not Plim’s lucky day. My guilty knowledge had given our game away, and yet, in a short time, our new acquaintance was leading us merrily along into central Plim, while I helplessly reflected that we could have said “no thanks”. In theory we still could turn round and walk back the way we came, but we weren’t going to. Cumnor-Rae waved – I did not see to whom, but I knew from that moment that the news of our arrival was being relayed ahead of us.
    Meanwhile the clouds of hesitation cleared and I began to feel confoundedly good, as I’m sure we all did, judging by the wave of carefree chatter that swept us all along as we swung our arms and strode happily along towards our doom, and I guessed the reason: in contrast to our stilted, guilty speech of yesterday, when we were trying to evade our just deserts, now we were headed straight towards them. Crazy but understandable, the way in which springs of delight gushed forth from our newly satisfied consciences. We were fulfilling a deep aspect of our natures, our Krothan anti-avalanche natures, by giving ourselves up. Similarly, so I supposed, the friendliness of Cumnor-Rae, and of others who appeared from crevices and waved, stemmed from their approval of our decision to turn ourselves in, to confess, to take what was coming to us. For surely they all knew what we had done. They knew, even if we did not give ourselves away any further in so many words. The truth shone in our faces, or else it resounded in the timbre of our voices as we answered their greeting. And they knew that we knew that they knew. And so we were all happy, though I was far from happy at being happy. 
    The dog, too, trotted happily along with our group. Why an airdale? What was this ridiculous animal, so ill-adapted to a sloping environment, doing here? From the hiss of that question in my mind’s ear, a glance down-Slope distracted me, and a dark line of fuzz along the sagorizon, a dozen miles below, made me think: “Long time since I’ve seen a forest.” A surprise, that forest, but not impossible. The weight of trees, even on a sixty-degree slope, can be supported if the roots are deep and strong enough. But so what, why did my thoughts flit meaninglessly from one idea to another, were they becoming like those of the Tokropolians with their random dictionary words, or was I perhaps not as hopeless as all that, could I trust that pieces of a puzzle were on their way to coming together, so that eventually they might coalesce? I might unconsciously be building a structure of evidence; only, while I urged my brain to hurry, my will seemed to lag. All that I retained was a capacity for wishy-washy foreboding, of discontent at my content, and even that was diluted almost to naught when, around another cliff-fold, the ledge dramatically widened and we were among hundreds of brightly-dressed people busied on and between the thresholds of a honeycomb of caves. When they saw us they surged around us with such welcoming smiles that my last dregs of pessimism and mistrust were whited out. They bombarded us with questions till Cumnor-Rae raised his hand and bawled at them to step back and leave us a few yards of space.
    I thought back to the N’Skupurans. They had turned out to be good people – so what about this lot? Never mind. Don’t need to know – just go. Get out of here. If only we could get a move on, get a grip on ourselves; but the bright morning sunshine, and the breeze of friendliness, were as hard to resist as a cloggy nightmare –
    “Tell me,” muttered Vic in my ear, while Cumnor-Rae spoke to someone to fetch the headman, “why have you got that thunderous expression on your face?”
    Oh? Was I still capable of a thunderous expression? Maybe there was hope for me yet.
    “Sorry,” I gritted my teeth, “I’ll try to wipe it off.”
    “That’s not an answer. Better tell me. You’re the canary, I’m the miner...”
    “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll get out,” I mused, “ – I think. Provided we stay on the alert.” But will we? Not for the first time I deplored the fact that this expedition of ours had no proper leader. The situation called for action which I lacked the moral or legal authority to undertake. Perhaps, though, no leader could have done what was needed here. Beyond the whole issue of our guilty association with Glorious Glondeem, the danger I sensed was not standard. No word for our peril existed in the dictionary. It possessed the stealth of the unnamed.
    I chuckled, “Maybe, like when someone discovers a new beetle...”
    “Eh?” said Vic.
    “They’ll name this one after me. In Latin.”
    Rida, who had stepped close, frowned: “What are you talking about beetles for?”
    “He isn’t,” said Vic. “He’s talking about a new way of falling into the krunk. Aren’t you, Duncan?”
    “Yes, that is it,” I said.
    “Periculum Wemyssianum,” Vic grinned.
    I sighed. “Glad you think it’s funny...”
    “No, no, you’re a good canary.” 
    “Shush,” I said, for Cumnor-Rae was coming back to us.
    Vic however had the last word. He murmured, “We’ll make an effective team, Duncan, if you enact your role and I enact mine.”

                                                   *

I noticed, presently, that some way ahead of us the ledge ran past a large cave entrance, a seventy-foot darkness, and I guessed, partly from the expectant looks of other people, that something might hop out of it when we reached it. Sure enough, when the moment came, a skinny middle-aged man in grey jacket and trousers darted into view, bird-like, to jerk his head to and fro in the sunshine.  This character caught sight of us and then bounded towards us, waving; the crowd drew further aside, leaving us to him.  At the same time Cumnor-Rae, from our direction, hurried to meet him.
    I could sense nothing in particular to worry about while the two men put their heads together in whispered conference, nor when we shonks were then beckoned forward.  The grey-suited man bowed to us and introduced himself with colourless politeness, “I am headman Lem Bek. Welcome, northerners, to Plim.” He pointed back with his thumb. “We have readied an alcove for you.”
    Now, that was somewhat different.  I did not wish to go into that cave. To stand trial – yes, I was prepared for that; but... I glanced childishly around as though I hoped to spot a ladder into the sky, or some other magical exit into a place where no forebodings existed. 
    It was then that I beheld the terrible notch down on the sagorizon.
    At a point more or less due south of me, that kink in the forest told me, immediately, from its size and position, that what I was seeing was the destructive swath of Glorious Glondeem. So my imagination quickly supplemented the sight of it with close-ups of what must be there: vegetation splattered into a blanket of cinders, studded with torn stumps and wrenched roots, framed by the smoking edges of the hole punched through the forest by thousands of tons of rock at the speed of a racing car. I guessed, moreover, that the hole had been enlarged by fires surrounding the impact. Else it might not have been visible at this hazy distance. 
    Anyhow, the damage to the forest was one thing; of greater concern right now was its alignment with where I stood: for that told me my proximity to the impact area on Plim itself. I must be very close indeed to the zone of destruction here. 
    I turned my eyes quickly back towards the headman. Was that a knowing smile on his face?  Had the fellow detected my guilty glance? Granted, we “northerners” must be prepared to take our medicine soon. I could have wished, however, not to stand trial so close to the evidence... At the best of times, Slantland life must breed suspicion of anyone from further north, especially after a rockfall disaster, and now, unfortunately right after Glorious Glondeem had smashed its way through their realm, the Plimians had come across a group of wandering shonks, namely, our unfortunate selves; with timing as bad as that, and as close to the havoc as this, we didn’t stand a chance. 
    Oh well – justice wasn’t our responsibility. It was up to the Plimians to deal it out.
    Obediently we entered the cave. 
    Its depth was as wide and tall as its entrance, so that the breeze penetrated it easily; I was glad not to feel enclosed. Alcoves, in which hammocks were slung, pocked the walls, while the centre space was furnished with tables. Between alcoves the walls were holed with tunnels – more than a dozen of them – half-drawn curtains at their entrances. 
    Lem Bek, who really seemed an unimpressive little man, ushered us to the longest table. At the same time, a score or more people drifted in with us.  While they were taking their places on the hammocks and at other tables, I peered around in an attempt to estimate what, precisely, was being choreographed here. State trial, state execution or state funeral?  The hammock-sitters had notebooks on their laps, and pens poised.  The headman announced our names, and the sitters wrote them down.
    Vic joked, “Are they going to take the minutes?” 
    The headman replied, “You are about to give our chroniclers much to do.” Saying this, he smiled, but he was looking at me; at stupid Duncan Wemyss who had already blown the gaff more than once with his big mouth.  Not only fear, but deep self-doubt assailed me; I did not trust myself to be afraid of the right things.
    We sat, Lem Bek facing the cave entrance, the rest of us with our backs to it. 
    “Duncan,” said the headman, “tell all.”
    “Go on,” said Vic to me. “You might as well be our spokesman. Tell it like it was.”
    “Tell it,” said Cora. “Tell,” said Rida and Heather. Heather added, “Don’t worry, Duncan, whatever happens, we’re with you on this.”
    Plead guilty – and get a more lenient sentence. Something nicer, perhaps, than being politely torn limb from limb? The cave had filled up some more. A crowd of silent people, with grave-looking men forming a line to keep back the others, bulged inward through the entrance. At that moment a beautiful plan came to me.
    It was one of my clever ideas, by which I thought I saw how I might get us all off.
    My notion was that I could save myself and my friends by showing that I understood how this crisis must have developed, and how the government of Plim must have prepared for it. If they could be sufficiently impressed by my sudden view of living history, they might conclude that we shonks could not have acted irresponsibly after all. 
    I spoke:
    “I’ve just worked it out, Lem Bek. You and your people had known of the impending attack for ages, hadn’t you? And though you might have counter-attacked, instead you chose another way. A longer, easier way, without the bloodshed and danger which would have accompanied a war against Tokropol.
    “Instead of waging war, you altered the shape of your realm. You built inwards, widening your ledge into the cliff and cutting off the outer edge, so that Glorious Glondeem, when it fell, would miss Plim. That’s what’s happened, hasn’t it?  My, what a huge project it must have been.  A huge project – but so was Tokropol’s, and you had no choice but to work long-term at undermining their long-term plan.
    “Besides, it was a sensible choice, on your part, to allow your enemies to use up their energies for so long with a project which they thought would destroy you, but which, in reality – due to your counter-measures – would do you no harm.
    “For that’s true, isn’t it – you haven’t really suffered any harm?
    “Now as you must have guessed, we, recently, were in Tokropol. You might say it was we who – ah – triggered the descent of Glorious Glondeem. Well, we await your judgement. But remember, we only…”
    I got no further.
    Lem Bek’s shoulders had started to heave. He leaned forward as if racked by a cough. His mouth opened wider and wider until a yell of laughter tore out of him, and simultaneously his right arm shot up as if to yank on a bell-pull.
    It was the signal for a resounding cheer from the other Plimians in the cave. The cheer grew close to deafening and was taken up by those who had not been able to get in, who had been forced to wait outside.
    “That makes it official!” the headman cried above the tumult. “Write, chroniclers, the day and the time!”
    Then he leaned over and reached for my hand and gripped it. “You can’t imagine,” he said fervently, “what a relief it was, when the thing fell past us, to know that the long wait was over, that our calculations had proved true... If it really was you who made it happen when it did, you did us a whacking great favour, and don’t be surprised if you get swept off your feet by a grateful mob!”
    I nodded wordlessly, numb with understanding. 
    The question we now faced, was not how far we would be condemned, but how far we would share in the credit and the triumph. We soon found out that Lem Bek hadn’t exaggerated much about that. The rest of the morning passed in a social whirl. As we performed a diplomatic walkabout before lunch, showing ourselves to the enthusiastic people of Plim, my mood adjusted another notch away from mystery and towards jollification, though during occasional pauses for breath I reflected again on how wrong I had at first been, and then my wariness stirred in its sleep. Very infrequent moments, those were; not enough to identify the trouble ahead, any more than you, upon waking, might identify a hooded figure unexpectedly seated with folded hands by your bedside. The faint, patient message was: no, Duncan, you weren’t wrong to fear, you merely mistook the true object of your fear, but eventually you will learn, when it finally obtrudes so that even you cannot fail to recognize it.

                                                   *

After the third or fourth family had invited us in for a drink, Vic remarked that the experience had points in common with that of wandering around the streets of a small Scottish town during Hogmanay.  (“That’s as may be,” I replied, “but the languages are more varied here.”)  It was sheer bliss for a while, as my senses and pulse were adjusted down to the casual beat of a stroller who has no need to bet his life on anything. The way it took me, I found it comforting to act the role of observer, or reporter; it was a way of pretending that some day I really might get back to Topland. I found I could, for instance, amuse myself here in Plim with making guesses and inquiries regarding names, tongues, cultural origins. A lot of the words I heard I did not recognize at all, which was hardly surprising if one held to the theory that remote southern cultures were descended from a variety of ancient scientific expeditions into Slantland. However, everyone whom I spoke to did know English as a second language at least. (Indeed the veneer of English had seemed to get thicker the further south I had journeyed. That might seem strange, but no more fantastic than the astonishing destiny which had led the Australian continent on Earth to become, of all possible things, an English-speaking country.) Then there were the metal objects, tools and ornaments of a high standard, which showed that Plim was technologically much more advanced than Tokropol.
    Then it was lunch with the headman, with us as guests of honour.
    Lem Bek’s acclamation earlier on, and the applause and the welcome accorded us by the entire population, had cleared the air, so that I knew for certain that the whole business of Glorious Glondeem was finished, and what was revealed in its place was the larger doom to which as yet I could give no name. This remaining shadow bided its time. Only gradually did it encroach upon my mood. Most of us can recognize the skeleton of a tyrannosaur, if it is properly mounted in a museum, but if that same skeleton were moving about and you had to observe it by means of X-ray vision from inside the belly of the living monster, you might take longer to name it... might even take longer to see it... and likewise with the voice of my residual anxiety. The truth was all around me but it was semi-transparently involved with other things and it spoke only in an undertone, too deep and pervasive to be definitely heard – not one of Fate’s noisy crises, nothing so personal as guilt for having unleashed a crashing boulder.
    ‘Lunch’ was a banquet spun out for hours, merging into a lazy succession of ledge-parties. We wandered out and in, not bothering to keep together the whole of the time, in our new and irresistible sense of security.
    At one point, Vic and I were back at Lem Bek’s table, and we sat companionably opposite the headman, sipping our creamy liqueurs, when I indicated the sign that stood amongst the fruit bowls: WELCOME TO THE BEST GOOD CHEER IN YEYLD.
    “In my northern homeland,” I remarked, “’Yeyld’ wasn’t a word I often heard employed.”
    “Down here,” said Lem Bek wryly, “it’s in general use. What do you expect? We don’t really want to call ourselves Slantlanders, though that’s what we are. More comfortable to refer to ourselves as inhabitants of Yeyld, which after all is true, Yeyld being the entire northern hemisphere of Kroth. Sounds much more civilized. Puts us on a par with Toplanders,” he finished.
    Noting his tone of sardonic dissatisfaction, I asked: “And what would you most like to be?”
    Lem Bek shrugged.
    I was about to concede that mine had been a vague, useless question, but before I could phrase my admission, Vic told him:
    “Duncan here has quite precise memories of Earth. And so have I. We know Earth history.”
    “Ah! You have precise minds!” and Lem Bek raised a finger. “And you are, I guess, oneiros. Valuable, that.”
    Vic and I looked at each other. I guessed the same thought occurred to both of us. Were we likely to be pressured to stay, because of our value as records of the Dream of Earth?
    Lem Bek did not pursue the idea. He merely added, airily, “As for me, when I use a phrase, I use it for the good of the sound. We did that on Earth, too, didn’t we?” he mused, his speech beginning to be slurred.
    I got up and drifted from the table. My mind felt far from ‘precise’, whatever the headman might say, but then, it’s not unusual for conversations at a party to be somewhat disjointed.
    I strolled into the next cave along the ledge, and idled amongst the celebrants there, until I chanced to see that Cumnor-Rae, who had been telling some jolly tale, broke away from his group and came towards me with a characteristically Plimian bounce in his step. He was holding a teapot in one hand and a cup and saucer in the other. “Try this!” he said, and poured. I took the cup, thanked him, sipped, and said, “Good!” – though it wasn’t tea, it was hot wine. He asked, “Enjoying the party?” I was slow to answer. Rummaging in my mind for an honest reply, I found the word “fragmentation”. That, thought I, was the key. My brain buzzed: There’s no physical link between the disparate tribes of Yeyld, no practical transportation between the isolated human roosting places on the colossal world-sized cliff, and so the only quality they possess in common is the fading memory of the Dream of Earth, which survives in splintered fragments, with enough cultural confusion to supply an academy-full of mainstream novelists with material for the whole of their working lives. My lips moved and for an awful moment I feared I had said out loud: “The trouble with you people, is that I do not find you at all interesting.” What a disastrously crass thing that would have been to say, but fortunately I had merely thought it. At least, I fervently hoped so. Gaping krunk. I’d prefer to fight another Battle of Neydio, or face an invasion from Hudgung.
         Yeyld doth Hudgung
         Overlie;
         Yet Hudgung conquereth
         By and by.
    Other, spoken words, ringing just then in my ears, scared me some more. Cumnor-Rae had left me alone with my drink, but just before he went he had said:
    “I know what’s happening to you.”
    I took a step after him, to collar him, but then I decided against it. The less said the better. It could be vital not to underestimate Cumnor-Rae.
    It became noticeable around then, that the crowd was thickening at the inner end of the cave, where some nucleus of activity or debate grew as I watched.
    I drained my cup, put it down and walked some paces closer but not so as actually to join the group, for my aim was to figure it out but stay free of it. Then came a stroke of luck: I spotted Cora leaving the group. I caught her eye. She came up to me and said, “It’s a theatre group. They’re allocating parts. They tried to get me to join in, but acting’s not in my line.”
    “Uh.” My eyes slewed to a different object. 
    Cora said, “Yes, there’s Heather, and it looks as though she hasn’t said no.”
    “What is it – a historical drama? Like the one at N’Skupur?”
    “Apparently not. From what I gather, the current cycle of Plimian plays is based on a fictional woman detective, Nicki Sparmiento. She’s all the rage, it seems.”
    I watched Heather, my gorgeous Heather who of course wasn’t really mine in any reasonable sense of the word, as she made enquiries, and overcame hesitations, and gradually got drawn in.
    Some of my attention was presently claimed back by Cora, who still stood beside me, and resumed speech: 
    “Look out, here comes that Cumnor-Rae... is he trying to recruit Vic?”
    My uncle strolled beside the bumptious Plimian when they came abreast of us and I heard the latter say, “...suitable for many parts. You should reconsider. Nothing gives stronger cement for our community.”
    Vic ceased his stride, greeted Cora and me, and replied suavely to Cumnor-Rae: “How often have we heard it said that the appeal of the detective story is that it reduces the problem of evil to the puzzle of evil, so as to reassure us with a simplified view of life... I wish you luck, sincerely I do, in your aim to produce a sanitised stage version of the Dream of Earth.”
    “The fading dream of Earth,” corrected Cumnor-Rae. “It is many months now since the Awakening. The pictures grow ever dimmer in our minds. The names become little more than names. We can still play around with them, still paint or dress or scent them whichever way we choose, but to retrieve a bit of their own flavour we could do with an infusion of expertise... otherwise, is it our fault if the vision is ‘sanitised’, as you call it?”
    I said coldly, “Looks like you’ve got your infusion.” I was watching Heather. She looked stressed, her jawline tense. She now appeared to be arguing with a whole committee who surrounded her. It happened then that I saw her features afresh. I ‘saw through’ the uniform greyness of Krothan skin, so that my thoughts travelled for a moment back to Earth and I realized that I would have known her for a West Indian girl if I had met her in my old life... I stared more intently. It looked as though she had broken free. She emerged from the group, and they did not try to pursue her; but I did. 
    As she headed out of the cave she slowed her walk as though she wanted me to catch up. I hoped that was the case; I quicked my step. I took her arm; I had never touched her before. She let us link arms, which made me proud, so proud… We stepped out onto the ledge.
    It was not too crowded. I felt free to speak my mind. Most urgently, I began by asking:
    “Did you sign on any dotted lines?”
    “I said I would think about it.”
    “About...”
    “Playing the part of Nicki Sparmiento.”
    “Wow! The leading part. The heroine.”
    “Yes, and I could do it; I’ve acted before, back in N’Skupur.”
    “I bet you have.”
    “But then we got into a bit of an argument,” she went on, “because, well, the part of Nelda Denton, the villain, is actually much more interesting, in my view. That’s the one I wanted to be. And you know what? The producer vetoed the idea because... I’m a shonk.”
    “I don’t get it. You are not allowed to be a villain because you are an immigrant from a different latitude...?” I looked up as if trying to get inspiration from Heaven. “No, sorry, I don’t get it,” I repeated.
    “Oh, well,” she sighed, “I let myself get irritated, that’s what I most regret... being ratty.”
    I gave her arm a squeeze, which was body language for, You’re very far from being any sort of a rat.
    She became happy to stroll peacefully with me along the ledge, and prepared, perhaps, to dismiss from her mind the little episode that had mortified her, but for me the peace was overshadowed, for the more I thought about this role-allocation business, the less I liked it.
    The first chance I got, I would check my suspicion with the fellow mostly likely to know his way around Krothan ethnology... but first I would finish my walk with Heather.
    Arm in arm, we continued for a few minutes along the ledge; there was nowhere else to go. We couldn’t really go up or down-Slope: we had left our ploons tied to our mounts, and without those weight-reducing balloons we were practically confined to the ledge. Still, that gave us quite a bit of scope for a good long walk. As the ledge followed the gentle folds of the Slope, and through wider spaces deliberately hewn from the rock with the efforts of ages, the people we passed often looked in our direction but did not stare; for the time being, they let us be.
    The silence between Heather and me had a weight to it. A lot of it was a weight of happiness, which was a bit much for me.
    “Sorry to be so quiet,” said Heather all of a sudden.
    “That’s all right! I realize you’re trying to work it all out.”
    She chuckled, a trifle sadly. “I tell you what, Duncan,” she murmured, “I will give this one a go... I’ll agree to play their insipid heroine... but I’ll give it all I’ve got, I’ll put such life into it, I’ll really show them what I can do, and then, sooner or later, they’ll see I can be trusted with something more challenging, and finally I shall get that part of the murderess.” 
    We came to a stop. To my surprise, we had at last actually reached the end of the ledge: it narrowed to a sudden point, beyond which was nothing but the sixty-degree Slope that faced the dizzying emptiness. 
    So we turned, and in the midst of our turn we had to face directly South for a moment.
    Heather’s eyes flashed up at me and she ended with, “I like to finish what I’ve started.”
    I understood well enough that the Plimians had her on the hook.
    I stared out and down into the void.
    “I too,” I said.
    “You mean…?”
    “I’ll put it more strongly: I have to finish what I’ve started.”
    She didn’t argue.

                                                    *

TO BE CONTINUED