kroth:  the slant

6: savaluk

A hand nudged my shoulder, shaking me out of my doze. “Siamo arrivati!”
    I murmured some thanks. But next, I almost said an ugly word, in the bitter realization that I had missed the approach to the city.
    I heard Fabrizio say, “We cannot park at the hospital; they do not allow space for private vans there. But it is only a block away, and it is clearly signposted.”
    I repeated my thanks. Things were happening too fast; I wished I could wake up more quickly. We had arrived at the Top of the World and I urgently needed to be alert and in proper control of myself.
    Fabrizio added the welcome words, “I suggest you have some breakfast with us before you go.”
    “That,” I quoted, “is an offer I cannot refuse,” and then a new thought, better even than breakfast, made me feel so good that I no longer minded having been overtaken by the speed of events.
    Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I went to the window and drew the curtain aside. I saw rows and rows of vehicles, some of which looked even more massive than ours. A few skyscrapers loomed beyond, against a sky that was no longer absolutely cloudless; some wisps of whiteness floated in the blue. A couple of men in darker blue uniforms walked past my field of vision. Other than this, there was (not surprisingly) not much to see from the midst of the lorry-park. And yet my heart sang as I went to the door and jumped down onto the tarmac.
    The air was not cold as at Earth's north pole, yet it was noticeably cooler than it had been at the start of my journey, and in it hung some tang which excited me. But trumping everything was the great blessedness, zero gradient. A banquet for the eyes, the feast of flatness spread around me; level ground enfolded me; what tremendous relief it gave, to stand upon a normal surface encircled by a decent horizon!
    I re-entered the van and expressed my warmest thanks to Fabrizio, who, I realized, must have put on some extra speed, or cut corners somehow, despite having said that he could not accelerate his schedule, for the journey had ended hours sooner than I had expected. Yet it was already light. 'Already'? Of course, dumbhead, this is the North Pole. Never any night here.
    After breakfast, as I did not wish to presume any longer on my hosts' good nature, I refrained from last-minute questions, shook hands with Fabrizio and Ugo, and set off, guiding Vic by the arm, to find the Royal Fountain Hospital. Sure enough, starting from the exit from the lorry park, the route to the hospital was signposted.
    In many ways it was like walking through central London, with its hefty office blocks, its traffic, its shops and news-stands, but what made it different was the seaside taste in the air and the thinness about it all – the avenue was a good deal wider than Oxford Street, and it was so long that it seemed open to infinity at both ends; the buildings were much more widely spaced, and the proportion of motorised traffic lower, with many more people riding bikes. Also I had the usual sense of 'this is not all', the sense that I was yet again seeing some important extra thing without knowing what it was, but I didn't worry. I trusted the good feeling I had. If necessary I would fight for this place!
    At a news-stand I bought the Savaluk Times and ran my eye over the front page as I ambled along. Unfamiliar with the social and political background, I expected to find the paper heavy going though not completely incomprehensible. And so it turned out to be. “SALIENT SIN BIN” said the headline, while the subheading added, “Penalty for violent crime: transportation to 65 N, 180 W”. “While resisting calls for martial law, Parliament has suspended some civil liberties on the grounds that the courts cannot cope with the number of criminals taking advantage of the recent disturbances....” Another front-page article – PARACOPS FORESTALL VIGILANTISM – concerned hastily improvised additions to the police force.
“Recent disturbances”: that must connect with the trauma of emerging from the Dream of Earth. Or so I assumed. Be that as it may, as I guided my silent companion along the peacefully bustling streets I saw not a trace of violence anywhere, whereas the newspaper seemed to be full of it. This discrepancy, between the picture of society painted by the press and the evidence of my own eyes, reminded me so much of England, it helped me to feel at home.
    Following the signs, I took a right turn along a cross-street towards the next avenue, and stopped to admire what I saw. Right down the middle of this second avenue, and reflecting the bright blue of the sky, idled a leisurely river. Floating leaves demonstrated how slowly the waters crept along.
    Numerous bridges spanned the river, but to the left – northwards and upstream – it was straddled by a huge arch, set in the stone bulk of the Royal Fountain Hospital. So the waters flowed through and under the hospital.
    The structure's confusing sprawl caused me to take quite some time to find my way in: it had one entrance for ambulances, one for equipment vans, one for taxicabs and (needless to say I found this one last of all) one for pedestrians. Inside, I was still confused. There appeared to be several reception points, and the place was as crowded as the concourse of a central station on a bank holiday. Should I ask for help? Whom should I ask?  Everywhere I looked I saw injured folk walking around or being wheeled around, and an even larger number who seemed physically whole but had a vaguely bleary look, perhaps a milder version of Uncle Vic's “fugue” condition. It had become easier to believe in the “disturbances” which the newspaper had mentioned.
    Depressed by the immensity of it all, I joined a queue. With diminishing expectations I waited and waited, but when I finally did get to the front and showed Vic to a receptionist, things happened fast. We were taken along a corridor to an examination room; a doctor – a sharp-eyed fellow in his twenties – asked me some questions and then assigned Vic to a ward. And that was that.
    “We'll put him right in a few days,” the doctor said as my uncle was taken away. “Meanwhile, how are you fixed?”
    I replied: “I've got some money with me. I'll just have to find a hotel at first, then lodgings if I can.”
    He nodded, satisfied, so I knew then that he hadn't been asking whether I could pay for the treatment. He had merely voiced compassionate concern about me, about my situation as a new arrival in Savaluk. Yet I wanted to be sure, myself, on the subject of fees.
    “Doctor,” I said, “this may seem like a stupid question.... but is the treatment free?”
    “I don't know about 'stupid', but it's an odd question,” he smiled. “As a taxpayer, your uncle's already settled his score with us. Down in Guthtin, haven't you heard of the Health Service?” He read my expression closely.
    I made the quiet decision to be blunt. “I knew the Health Service in my country, Britain. I didn't know how much to assume beyond that.”
    “Oh – aha – your mind is still anchored in the so-called Dream?”
    “Yes.” I felt glad to give him the truth.
    “So. You remember Earth better than Kroth....”
    “I don't remember Kroth at all.”
    “And by contrast, your memory of Earth is perfect?”
    “Well, it's just normal for a, you know, actual inhabitant of Earth.”
    “I envy you that! Must be really interesting to have that. I'd like to run a few tests on you, while I'm about it. Don't you worry at all; you're obviously coping fine. It's just that you've roused my professional curiosity.”
    I could see, indeed, that he was excited as he went to a filing cabinet and pulled out a folder. For the next ten minutes he fired general-knowledge questions at me, mingling themes from Kroth and Earth. At the end he said that there was no doubt; I was an especially clear case of “oneirogeocentricism”, or to give it a more down-to-Kroth term, “Earthdream”. “Of course,” he added, “that rather begs the question of what a 'dream' is. There's quite a literature on the subject; fascinating stuff if you ever want to go into it. In fact it's quite possible you may contribute to it: by that I mean that if you can hang onto your Earth memories as clearly as you've got them now, I and some colleagues would like to record them, once this crisis is over and we're not so busy – if you can spare the time. We'd make it worth your while: we'd offer you a proper job, under contract.” He shoved the drawer shut and added, “Meanwhile – why don't you treat today as a holiday in the big city? And come back tomorrow during visiting hours, by which time I'm sure you'll see some progress has been made with your uncle.”

                                                   *

Now for some time on my own!
    I was rested, I had had an ample breakfast and I had been relieved of my charge. And here I was with a day in front of me and a city to explore.
    At the hospital exit I turned right and headed for the upstream end, where the river must flow into the tunnel that ran through the great building.  From there I continued northwards.
    After a few hundred yards the line of buildings on either side drew back a little to make space for a rectangular park bordered by flowers and shrubs. I wandered onto a lawn. Walking past some birds which were pecking at crumbs, I reached an unoccupied bench. Here, on a whim, I decided to sit down for a minute or two.
    Well, what next? I could try to make sense of my Savaluk Times. Not the front page with its concentration on law and order. The inside pages. I extracted the paper, opened it.
    Most of the stories covered the Great Change, or the Awakening, from the individual practical angle, with anecdotes about how Mr and Mrs so-and-so, or little Tommy and Emily, coped with the sudden end of the dream of Earth. I read through all this stuff (there was a lot of it) and I marvelled at the public's attitude of acceptance. Why the Earth-dream had existed in the first place, was a question which no one seemed to bother about, as if it did not require explanation. For that matter, why had I never asked? Staring around me at the bright park and the blue sky and the people on other benches reading their papers and feeding the birds, I confronted that question for the first time: why had I never asked anyone, point blank, for the reason for it all? The answer came to me: some things are just too big to ask.
    I leafed further through the paper in an attempt to find some political commentary. That might give me some handle on how things worked around here. I found plenty on law and order, quite a bit on defence – the need to resist incursions by something called the Gonomong, in the far south – but little on what was happening in Parliament or the Cabinet. Well, in a way it was refreshing to be given a break from the never-ending partisan sloganeering of my Earthly country. And of course, good heavens, the paper confirmed that there was a Parliament, there was a Cabinet – again, that fantastic mixture, that juxtaposition, familiar institutions in a re-formatted cosmos…. Just for a moment it was too much. Holding the opened broadsheet up in front of my face I grimaced violently, then smoothed my features.
    I rolled up the Savaluk Times, stuffed it into my rucksack and went to look for a hotel.

                                                   *

The Nistoom Hotel was just opposite the park exit. I checked in and lightened my rucksack by unpacking most of the things in it, and then I was ready to roam. An idea hit me and I asked at the desk: did Savaluk have a Tourist Information Office? Yes, said the clerk, it's not far, here's a map. One thing led to another and within the half hour I was boarding a bus for a guided tour of the city.
    This was a better plan than trying to wander about on my own. Get the experts to show me what this place has got; after which I could wander more profitably.
    The tour guide, a jovial fellow with sideboards, lounging beside the driver as people got on the bus, asked each of us passengers to tell him what part of the world we were from, so that he could build up an idea of the cultural complexion of the group.
    “Guthtin,” I answered when my turn came.
    “Where's that?”
    “Er, it's where it is.”
    “Can't argue with that!” he laughed. I climbed to the top deck and heard him on the intercom as the bus started up:
    “Hello ladies and gentlemen, I'm Gary Verly your guide for today's tour of Savaluk. Of course we have to be selective! It would take a lifetime to cover all that there is of importance to see, but we'll see what we can do between now and tea-time! I note we have a good selection of folk from many latitudes and longitudes, and over half of you have never been to Topland before. Those that have, please excuse me if I repeat what they already know!
    “Our first stop is the Parliament Building.... then we'll disembark for a short stroll around the section of the Palace that is open to the public.... then a quarter-hour peek at Hirrax Arcade (ladies had better set their watches, ha-ha).... followed by other points of interest such as the Barracks.... the Radio Observatory.... the Yeyld Museum.... and finally the climax of our tour, Nistoom and the Fountain itself.
    “Now as we set off you will note on our right an odd shape familiar from countless postage stamps, the terraced pyramid of the Suzz-Edd Hunnurao, from which we get our verb 'to suzz'....” The bus swayed around the next corner and the flow of historical anecdotes continued.
    This, I soon realized, was going to be a day that fulfilled its promise; a day to remember. Two scenes stick in my mind most of all. The first of them I encountered as my fellow tourists and I tramped through the great echoing hall of the Parliament Building, where I was enormously impressed by the rows on rows of empty seats, full of haunting possibility, the potential power-house of a world. The majority of the seats had not been filled in ages – so the guide informed us. Only a small section of the hall was ever occupied, and then only on those infrequent occasions when the members from Topland and Upland met to debate and to legislate upon issues of rare importance. Legend, or tradition, motivated the staff to continue polishing and dusting the empty seats so as to keep them ready for the members from Slantland and Hudgung, should they ever turn up. The meaning of “Slantland” was one I could picture only too well; I was reluctant to ask, or even guess, where Hudgung was. I did ask how frequent general elections were. The guide turned to stare at me. He could see I was not joking. “Ah, I get it, sir. You've lost your Kroth memory in the recent you-know-what, haven't you?” he said sympathetically. I nodded, and told him that in compensation I had kept my Earth memories bright. “Wow, good for you, that's really something,” he said, and went on, “To answer your question: we haven't had general elections for donkey's years. By-elections only, nowadays. At least, that's how it is in Topland.”
    “What about Upland?”
    “That's what I meant really. Like in the dream when people said 'England' when they meant 'Britain', or 'Holland' when they meant 'the Netherlands', as you must surely know! All the area north of 60 degrees latitude is, collectively, Upland. Topland is the special bit of it,” he added proudly. “Our part – the part where it seems flat. I might add, young sir, that you made a very sensible decision when you chose to come on our tour.” My fellow group-members turned to nod at me and say, “hear, hear”, causing me to feel touched and embarrassed at all this good will that was being shown towards the ignorant amnesiac of the party.
    Now that my secret was out, the guide was happy to dumb down and show off his knowledge at a more elementary level than before. At our next stop, the Palace grounds, he commented, “Upland is an elective monarchy, perched on top of a pyramidal democracy. In their capacity as the Electoral College, the Lords meet in secret to choose the next Sovereign upon the death or abdication of the previous one. (Just like the cardinals used to elect the Pope in our dream world of Earth, as our young friend here will attest.)  Furthermore, the Electoral College uses the same secret voting procedure to recruit its own members whenever a vacancy occurs, so it's self-selecting.  Theoretically, anyone could be asked to serve. It could be you! It could be me! In practice, membership is restricted to those who have some outstanding achievement to their credit – and those undeserving cases who have tried to bend this rule have become the laughing stock of history.  Plenty of funny stories on this theme; we've all heard of 'Tuppence Tiffley', haven't we? I've met people who doubt he ever existed, yet the records are quite clear – Tiffley was a real historical personage, who not only yearned to get elected to the College, he actually went around canvassing for the job. Just imagine that, folks. Imagine going around and saying to people, 'Vote for me'. What a Wally, eh? Now, the story goes, the Lords decided to make an example of him, not by rejecting him but (this showed fiendish cunning) by accepting him. By the time he realized how out of place he was, he had clowned his way into folklore.... so in a way, I suppose, he did have an outstanding achievement to his credit, hahaha....”
    As we traipsed around the lawns and the statues, listening to the guide's funny anecdotes and admiring the architecture, my mind was elsewhere. The Palace and its grounds were splendid enough, but they didn't “get to me”, they didn't haunt my imagination like that big unused space in the Parliament building had done, with its hint of some Arthurian-style link between past and future glory.
    Dwelling on that theme, I failed to guess that the most staggering encounter yet lay ahead of me. Nothing I had seen so far would equal the climax of that tour. It became apparent that we were approaching it, or rather the edge of it, at a point where one of the long radial avenues of Savaluk came to an end.
    “Officially,” said the guide's voice over the intercom, “we're not really going outside the city. Savaluk's built-up area is ring-shaped, and – you can guess what I'm about to say – we are crossing the inner edge of the ring.  Ahead of us lies the area inside the ring.... the top of Topland.... the Pole itself.... Nistoom.”
    Underneath a column of thin white cloud a couple of miles away I could see a line of blue, that broadened and expanded to right and left as the bus rolled towards it. Then I shivered with gladness, for I recognized the meaning of that spreading blue, and knew I was looking at what I had feared I might never see again: a lake. A gorgeous stretch of open water, with real waves. In this one utterly level place on a world that was almost all slope, the reality of the lake was a dream come true, wonderfully, securely real and true.  It invited me to rush out, splash in it, plunge into it… and even while still out of my reach, from where I sat on the bus, it offered brimming satisfaction for the soul.
    “Four miles across,” spoke the guide, “Nistoom exists in the only location it can exist – centred upon the exact North Pole. The island of the Fountain marks the precise position of the Pole. The Fountain, of course, is the source of the world's water. It is where water is continuously created, to flow forever down the sides of Kroth, making life possible. Are there any geophysicists present? No? Too bad. Pardon me, madam? Oh, don't ask me the science of it! Anyway the main thing is, it happens; and because it happens, we happen too. I don't know about you folks, but that's good enough for me....”
    He went on to talk about timetables, toilets, the Visitors' Centre and the hiring of boats. That last item was the one which interested me. As soon as we all spilled out of the bus I made for the nearest jetty. The fellow hiring out the dinghies advised me also to borrow a garment he held out to show me – a kind of waterproof half-sleeved poncho; and he suggested a pair of wellington boots with extra grip in the soles. I paid for the loan of all this, got into a dinghy and put out from shore.
    The chattering thoughts in my head, like all the noises of land, grew faint as the shore receded, and I forgot everyone else, I even mostly forgot myself, as I pulled peacefully on the oars, welcoming the infinity of water and sky. Because my life stretched before me, I had all the time I could want to get to know the score, starting tomorrow; but today, just today, I was content to sponge off the universe.  I would commune with its quiet immensity, and accept the privilege of smallness, entitling me not to question and not to strive. Later would be full of bustle, finding a job, making friends, joining classes if need be, cramming to speed up my assimilation to the culture of Savaluk. Today, none of that.  Today, right now, there was the lake, the sky and the slowly approaching Fountain.
    I took my time, allowing other boats to outdistance mine. My boat was within a hundred yards of Fountain Island when I felt the damp spray and donned the waterproof to protect my clothes. I put on the boots as well, trusting they would be needed. A thin grey haze enveloped me; it did not prevent me from seeing that the island was a low, rocky, featureless cone maybe four or five acres in extent, with a summit a mere four yards or so above the level of the lake. The dinghy's keel scraped on hardness a few yards off shore; I got out and waded, pulling on the mooring rope, and made fast to a ring on a little post, next to some other boats, close to some steps cut into the rock.
    Plenty of silent figures were shuffling about on the island. I recognized some of the tourists in my group. They were keeping apart from one another, and I, likewise, had no wish to speak. Slowly, carefully, I began to ascend, towards the centre, towards this utmost centre of all. The slippery steps, and all the rest of the ground, were covered with a film of water maybe a quarter of an inch deep pouring continually down towards the lake. Then I understood why I could not see any fountain up ahead. I was in it.
    But what was causing the Fountain? I reached the summit of the cone and stood looking down into a bowl-shaped indentation in the rock. It was maybe six feet across, and in its very centre, under water, hovered a tiny sphere of radiance about the size of a ping-pong ball. It seemed to waver and bob about, but I knew that in reality, behind the turbulence and refraction, it was forever motionless while new matter in the form of water poured from it in all directions steadily, eternally.
    That was it. I had seen it. I was content; I could leave, and let the next person take my place and have a look. Rich with inner peace, I turned and retraced my steps to the boat.
    Having seen the real thing, I later went to look at the rather quaint display in the Visitors' Centre (and I was glad I had not seen this beforehand). As icing on the cake I also bought two guidebooks, “Nistoom” and “Life from Cosmic Law”.
    From the former booklet I learned something big, which I had not got round to noticing on my tour: the waters of Nistoom feed six rivers that flow out of it and divide and subdivide into the innumerable trickles which moisten Kroth all the way down. From the other book I gleaned a summary of the current theory of planet-formation:
    VMAs, “virtual mega-particles”, occasionally appear at isolated points in the Universe. Their special property is that they encourage the accretion of more normal matter at a continuous rate. Occasionally, so the experts say, there is a one-off bonanza in which case, bingo! all of a sudden you get a planet; more rarely still, if the planet possesses a “biogenic field”, a little sun is formed at the same time, to orbit the planet, typically at a distance of about fifteen thousand miles, and warm it up. This allows life to evolve. As to whether all this is more or less believable than Earth cosmology, I refer you to my uncle Vic's overarching Theory of Excuses, which says that things are obliged to happen somehow, and any excuse will do.

                                                   *

There is no night, nor is there direct sunlight, in Topland, where the sun circles the world just out of sight below the horizon.  People who desire to see the sun, and experience the alternation of day and night, travel a few degrees south, then return, refreshed, to the polar realm and its gently diffuse illumination which, I am told, is all the stronger for some reason connected with the reflection of sunlight from the upper atmosphere. At any rate it is stronger than twilight, and the world seems full of colour.  When you get sleepy you just have to close the bedroom curtains.
    Next “day” I awoke ready to get down to the business of sorting out how I was going to earn my living.  On Earth I had assumed that I would go to college.  Here on Kroth I was not sure of my status or entitlements.  I wasn't even certain that college was what I wanted right now; what would be ideal would be an easy job, that gave me some breathing space to get used to being a citizen of Topland.
    The doctor had suggested I might be employed as an experimental subject, paid a wage by scientists wishing to study my unusually clear Earth memories. That should do nicely!  It ought to bring in enough money for a while during which I could hunt for something more long-term, something with prospects.
    Then there'd be the task of finding lodgings, or perhaps renting a flat, and the question of whether I should, after all, get some further education....
My great hope was that I would not have to make all this adjustment alone. I still had some family – or so I hoped, as I looked forward to the hospital visiting hour.
    The doctor was not the same one I had seen yesterday. Today I was referred to an ample lady in her forties, with a wise face and a kindly voice, who asked to have a word with me before I entered the ward.
    “He's basically all right,” she smiled. “Fully conscious, and looking forward to seeing you.”
    “That's great!”
    She continued, “He's responded well to verbal and situational therapy. He can be quite incisive and articulate.”
    “That's a polite way of putting it,” I grinned.
    “But,” she went on, “in his sleep he often calls out for someone named 'Reen'.”
    “That's his wife – my aunt Reen.”
    “Your uncle is unmarried.”
    “No. You must be talking about someone else....” My voice trailed off as she passed me a dossier. The photo on the medical record left me in no doubt that it referred to Vic. Near the top of the page was a box that said “Marital status: single”.
    “That's mad,” I said, as I stared at the document. But some warning sense was trilling at me, telling me that I had better listen.
    The doctor said softly, “It happens to lots of people. Their relationships in The Dream were different to what they are in this waking world. Sad, but it must be faced.”
    In a small voice I asked, “But he is my uncle? I do have that much family?”
    “Yes, don't worry, you can depend on that. Also, you can rest assured that Reen exists, somewhere. But not married to Mr Chandler.”
    “I don't get all this, doctor,” I said desperately, my voice rising. “I just don't get why I keep one relation and lose another – ”
    “Think back,” she said. “Back to the Dream. Where was your aunt born?”
“Isle of Man.”
    “And your uncle?”
    “Er, like me, in Hertfordshire.”
    “Interesting. We're not sure, but it seems often to be connected to Earthly geography – who remains linked with whom, when the Dream is over. The current theory is, the geography of Earth is in some sense the geography of our relationships here on Kroth, so that although, of course, there is no Isle of Man, and no Hertfordshire, in any literal sense, nevertheless these concepts do mean something.... and unfortunately for us, a good part of what they mean, when juxtaposed, is 'separation'....”
    My face crumpled as her words buzzed in my head like wasps. I found myself quietly weeping for Reen and for all the pity of things. The doctor went on calmly, “The only consolation I can give you is that you're not the only ones having to endure this sense of loss. Millions of other people at the moment are in the same boat – and there I go, using the word 'boat', you see! Earth-ideas die hard. But for the especially unfortunate, the cases of fugue, it can be exceptionally hard. That's why I thought I'd warn you before you go in to talk to your uncle. He is a bit exceptional....”
    I sighed, “I'm well aware of that.” I could just imagine Vic's cussed refusal to adjust; and then I brightened at the thought of his contrary personality, persisting from one universe to another.
    He was sitting up, eyes alert, when I went in. He spoke to me as though he had last seen me only a few hours before. “Hi there, Duncan – just the fellow I want to see.”
    “It's great that you've recovered, Uncle.”
    “Recovered into what, though?”
    “Into your old awkward self, I hope.” Indeed his face had that knowing look that always made me nervous – insofar as when he wore that expression it tended to mean he was about to shake up somebody's ideas, and at this moment I was the only target in range; but this was loads better than having him shuffle around like a zombie.
    “Awkward? Me?” And he made a flicking gesture at a copy of the Savaluk Times that lay beside him. “It's life that's awkward,” he said.
    “I'm certainly with you there,” I said with feeling.
    “You reckon?”
    “Eh? Yes, I'm saying, I agree with you!”
    “Are you? Good. In that case, I just want your opinion about something,” he said. And then with studied casualness he blasted out the question:  “What do you think of this dream so far?”
    I found a chair and sat down hard. “Don't you start confusing me – what do you mean?”
    “Relax,” he said, eyeing me a bit more affectionately; “let's get a learned opinion. Doctor!” he called out in a commanding tone that made me wince with embarrassment: “Doctor Rallod!”
    The doctor at that moment passing through the ward was the young fellow I had seen yesterday. He altered course and came over and said, “Mr Chandler – how is it going?”
    “Doctor, I haven't been given any drugs, have I?”
    “No, you haven't.”
    “No. Nor have I been operated on, have I?”
    “Nothing's been done to you except that you've been given a bed to lie in.”
    “That's just it,” said Vic triumphantly. “Dream logic: hospital – bed – sufficient symbolism for a slap-dash dream. No attempt to fill in the details.”
    “Just a moment,” said the doctor. “I see you have your nephew with you. You need to bear in mind what he's got. Oneirogeocentricism. Exclusively Earth memories. And he's less than half your age; and yet he's not flying from reality. Maybe you should follow his example.”
    “The young are resilient,” replied Vic, “whereas an old codger like me is far less adaptable, far more dependent upon props like rationality and plausibility.”
    “Very well, I can dose you up with reason,” said the doctor. I could tell that he and Vic liked each other and enjoyed sparring with each other in this way. Just as well – for to me it was vitally important that my uncle should respect the doctor and come round to accepting the existence of the world as it was. Otherwise I did not know what I was going to do. Dr Rallod went on, “What you regard as omissions or discrepancies in the scene, are actually deliberate. Drugs or brain surgery would be irrelevant in your case. Instead, we had good reason to believe that the mere provision of a hospital bed would be enough to pull you out of your fugue, for that is how this particular cure is supposed to work: fugue is a mental problem that is best tackled by physical symbolism. Sure enough, it did work – otherwise you wouldn't be awake enough to deny it.”
    “You're a clever cuss, doc.”
    “Glad you noticed. Now, we were about to tell you, that if you really wish to leave today, you are free to do so. But ideally, we'd like to keep you in for another day or so, to do some tests on your memories.”
    “Oh, all right. I can stay if you want. Why should I object to being pampered for a bit longer? But as for accepting this peculiar world as real....” His voice dropped to a cantankerous mutter; Doc Rallod smiled, said he would see us later, and walked off, obviously satisfied that he had won this round.
    Vic took a deep breath and blew out his cheeks and said to me, “Well, what did you think of all that?”
    “I think,” I said, “that they shouldn't have let you see that newspaper.”
    “Why? What makes you say that?”
    “They should have broken it all to you more gently. It's too big a pill to swallow at one go. If they hadn't left evidence lying around, you'd have had time to adjust gradually to the fact that this isn't Earth....”
    “Hang on just a flippin' minute!” he demanded. “Did you think I was like you? Just remembering Earth and nothing else? I'll have you know, I have a full set of Krothan memories too.” And while I stared at him open-mouthed he launched into a tirade. “A full double set of two worlds in my head, contradicting each other! That's why I went into fugue. Did you think 'fugue' just meant a flight from reality? I'm not that kind of coward. What temporarily blew my mind was not just the change, it was the change combined with the retention of what I had before. Most people don't experience that full overlap. With most people, it's one or the other, and the rejected world goes faint and takes a minor role. But as I say, I have both in my mind at once: my memory of Earth is as good as yours, and my knowledge of Kroth is as good as the doctor's. I can compare the two worlds, the two universes, fairly with each other, and my conclusion is that Earth is a darn sight more plausible. 'Dream of Earth' – bunkum. Earth was real. This place is the dream. That's still my guess, despite what Doc Rallod said.”
    “Uncle, you scare me.”
    “Well, suppose the facts just are scary?”
    Impatiently I replied, “I know I've got no choice but to face facts. That's not the point.”
    “Then what is the point? Is it the opposite problem – are you perhaps afraid of being caught out by wishful thinking? For I take it that you (like me) would prefer this ridiculous Kroth set-up to be a dream.”
    “No,” I shook my head firmly, forcing my thoughts into line of battle. “Listen to me. This is dangerous. I am greatly afraid of what might happen if you refuse to believe in the reality of where we are. I fear that you will take it too lightly, even treat it as a joke of some kind, and then the first sticky situation you get into, you'll go and do something stupid....”
    Once again, as had happened on other occasions in my dealings with Vic, I was pleasantly surprised at his ability to take criticism. He listened. He didn't mind being told off – he respected it, provided the point being made against him was worth consideration.
    “Tell you what,” he said, “I'll ask for some books on science. The hospital has a library service. Physics, geophysics, cosmology....”
    “Er – cosmology?”
    “Yes, that'll be a laugh – unless the laugh's on me. Actually I already know quite a bit about this supposed universe; but if you really want me to take Krothan ideas more seriously, then, to keep you happy, I'll give it another go.”
    “That reminds me, Uncle. I have a brochure here, I think.” I picked up my rucksack and the guide to the Fountain was still in it.

*

Next time I came to see him, his expression had markedly changed.
    “You win,” he admitted with tight-lipped amusement. He bent forward as a nurse plumped up his pillows for him. “I concede that this universe is real.”
    “You better had,” said the nurse, downrightly, and went to slap the pillows on the next bed.
    “First-rate mind, that Doris,” murmured Vic.
    I, meanwhile, sat down and said, “Phew! Thank goodness you've seen sense.”
    “Yes, well, I'm sorry if I gave you some anxious moments. I've been reading some quite advanced stuff – ” he pointed to a small pile of books – “and combined with what you've been telling me, I can see that no mere dream would hold up to such detailed scrutiny. (Unless of course I'm just dreaming that it does. Sorry! Couldn't resist that.) Anyhow, I can reassure you, I'll be good, I'll play the game from now on. However, please let me tell you something else I learned from those books, something you won't have learned from your experience in Kroth so far. A piece of very good news.”
    “I'm all ears.”
    “Earth wasn't a dream, either. Both states of reality are true.”
    “Is that official?” I asked, experiencing a hot prickly sensation; not that I had any hope that I might get Earth back, but to be reassured that it had been real (actually, deep down, I suppose I had never doubted it) made my heart thump.
    “They call it a dream,” Vic explained, “because that is how they cope in ordinary language with a much more nuanced truth. Really, it just makes the point that for all practical purposes it might as well be a dream. If you want to find words to describe what it actually is, then you can only do it by analogy – like all ideas in advanced physics. In this case the analogy itself is taken from another branch of physics, namely, the theory of atomic structure. Take the hydrogen atom – hmm, are you following this?”
    “Yes, yes. Go on!”
    “Take the hydrogen atom…. er, well, to put it as simply as I can, its electron can rest in what we call its ground state. But then, wham, an influx of energy can instantly raise that electron to a 'higher orbit' – though it's nothing like an orbit really – from which it can again descend, after emitting a photon, back to the 'ground state'.
    “Applying the analogy, we can say that the collective consciousness of humanity has its own 'higher orbit' – Earth. The energy for it is mental, because mind is the universe-maker, when there's enough of it. But when something happens to burst this energy bubble, our reality reverts to its 'ground state' – Kroth.... Of course, ideally, instead of putting it this way, it would be better to stick to symbols and equations, but apparently only about three people in the whole world understand the mathematics of it, so the rest of us might as well stick to analogies, or else talk of dreams.” He sighed and added: “My marriage to Reen – now there was a nice dream.”
    I could not bear the sudden collapse in his tone, the bitterness and despair in that last sentence.
    “She exists, somewhere,” I said.
    “So I'm told…. but what if she's married to someone else? As indeed she's likely to be…. Could I face that? I don't know what to do….”
    “You're not married to someone else,” I pointed out, “so why should she be?”
    Bleakly he replied, “A woman has to be one in a million to put up with me; a man has to be one in a million not to want Reen.”

                                                   *

I signed a 144-day contract drawn up by a consortium of medical scientists who wished to pump me dry of all my detailed memories of Earth. Then I got busy – pleasantly busy, despite my sorrow on Vic's behalf. I settled into a routine whereby every day I turned up at a special wing of the hospital where the medicos gathered to fire endless questions at me, and I had more talking to do than I had ever had in my life, but the pay was generous, the hours were easy, and it was, moreover, comforting to think that my Earthly experiences lived on, if only in the hospital archives at Savaluk.
    The generosity of the Upland State extended further. I was given a flat, at a specially reduced rent. I was told that this arrangement could continue after my contract had expired, provided I found another post within the next 180 days. (By this time I was comfortable with what “Day” means in Topland, and could easily sense the main direction of the light, as the invisible Sun circled below the horizon like a clock-hand.)
    In this secure position, treated in all respects as an adult citizen, I took a social step. I joined a hikers' club.
    To make friends, possibly find myself a girlfriend: that was part of it. But there was more to the idea. Like a cat will stake out its territory, depositing its smells, I had to follow my own basic need which was to connect with the countryside of Topland, to kit myself out with that portable spiritual home which familiar countryside can provide. On Earth I had taken it for granted. Here, I had to bring it about, weld it to my imagination.
    At first, on my days off, I went on half-day rambles from village to village on the periphery of Savaluk, dependent on the local bus-routes for transport to and from the starting points. You couldn't call it wild countryside, but it was outdoor freshness and an abundance of green, and a way of getting to know people.
    On one of these hikes, as the group we were in was making its way over a stile, I happened to be at the back of the queue to climb over, and I found myself standing next to another newish member of the group, who was waiting beside me: a slim, olive-complexioned girl, whom I had noted to be a winsome, shy type. Now, however, I heard her mutter a word:
    “Fraudulent!”
    No one else had heard. I turned to her. “Pardon?”
    “Cut-and-paste job.”
    “Explain?”
    “Stiles, dry-stone walls, inn signs, lifted from your British countryside and plonked here on this crazy world – fraudulent.”  
    “No,” I said.
    I suppose she picked on me in the first place because there was something intense about me too; yet when I gave her my earnest “No”, she looked at me in surprise.  
    When we had got over the stile I resumed:
    “The 'cut-and-paste', as you call it, is just what I like about it. Just what reassures me that we're not on some 'other' world. We're on our world, and it's our job to get used to it.”
    “But Earth is our world!”
    “Earth is – was – ” I picked my words carefully – “a high-energy state of the collective conscious.”
    “Wow!” she laughed. “Where did you get that from?”
    I told her what I had heard from Vic, the analogy with the energy states of the hydrogen atom, the ground state and the higher state. I added, “I'm Duncan, by the way.”
    “I'm Cora. Listen, I don't care what your uncle says, I say this Kroth place is nuts, it's crap.”
    I learned she was nineteen (two years older than I), and three-quarters Greek – I had guessed she wasn't British; her pronunciation was far too good, especially the posh way she pronounced swear words. Like me, she was a case of “oneirogeocentrism”: her clearest memories were of Earth.  She did not feel at home on Kroth, and what was more – this is where we differed seriously – she did not want to be at home on Kroth. She resented being here.
    This was what gave me mixed feelings about Cora: I definitely did not want to be pulled away from my plan to integrate with this world. But she was certainly attractive, though moody and sullen.
    On our second encounter she let slip that she had been engaged to a young man on Earth whom she had lost sight of since the Awakening. The same tragic story as with Vic and Reen. I said I was sorry to hear it; but I couldn't say anything useful, or at least, not directly. I was fairly sure of the strategy she needed to pursue, but did not feel qualified to talk strategy to a bereaved person.
    Weeks passed, I went on with my life, I made other friends, and I saw little of Cora. Then, when I heard that the group was arranging a special long-weekend jaunt into the Mulkut Hills on the fringes of Topland – an area of woodland, moorland and fells, reaching to heights of between a thousand and thirteen hundred feet, which is high as “mountains” get on Kroth – my first thought was, great! this is just what I want; and my second thought was, why not tell Cora that this will do her good, too?
    I said to her: “It's going to be a wonderful week-end, Cora! Have you ever been to Exmoor, or the Derbyshire Peaks?”
    “Yes, I have seen them.”
    “Well then, in the Mulkuts we'll be in countryside which you can at least pretend is compensation for the world you have lost.”
    “What about the man I have lost?” she asked.
    I was prepared for this point. “One sorrow feeds into another,” I shrugged. “Grief for a person.... grief for a world....”
    She absolutely staggered me then – she leaned forward and kissed me! A reward, I suppose, for showing some understanding. But I could sense that most of her bitterness remained. Still, she agreed to come along.

                                                   *

Our group leader, the man who knew all the paths, was a hale sixty-year-old called Pete Upton. I asked him before the start: would we – when we got up into the hills – be able to detect the Slope? “By 'the Slope' I don't mean the hill slopes,” I added.
    He knew what I meant. “'Fraid we won't,” he replied. “We'll still be only about fifty miles from the Pole, which is not far enough South to sense the beginning of the world's gradient....”
    He thought I was disappointed. He didn't realize that he'd just rid me of my only worry. Now that I could trust that there would be no chance of sensing the dreaded world-tilt, I was raring to go, confident that nothing could mar the trip.
    There were fifteen of us in the group that set off by bus for Twelgrem, the village at the foot of the Mulkuts. I was the youngest but not by much; we represented an assortment of ages and occupations, and this, together with the beautiful and varied scenery that passed the window, gave me what I had to have: the promise of reliable normality, of a pool of rightness deep and credible enough for a satisfying life!  And I was going to get more!  Something in me hoped and wanted to go further, to grasp all that there was of the patch of trustworthy goodness around me, even if this must involve feeling my way to its borders… That vague risk was countered by an equally vague insistence – a pig-headed insistence that I knew what I was doing.
We got off at Twelgrem and shouldered our packs.  Quite heavy they were, with their rolled-up sleeping-bags.
    We set off along the hill-path, and soon were getting into uncultivated countryside.  Like upland Britain it wasn’t absolutely “wild” in the sense of being untouched by humanity but, while affected by man's activities, it nevertheless allowed Nature’s moods to reign. Knobbly with protruding rocks, the thin grassy soil suited the sheep that grazed around us as we made our way up the lower slopes. The path became a track.
    For a while I refrained from joining in to the conversation of my companions.  The talk concerned stuff that I did not wish to know about – stories that had appeared in the papers during the past couple of days, of the sort that reminded me of the international tensions and crises which had afflicted Earth, only here it was “the Southern powers” getting restless and threatening. Some day I would have to get my head round all this dismal geopolitics.  At the moment, my attitude to any mention of the South was: forget it! South = Slope = Shudder. Not what I wanted right now.
    Instead, I fell into step beside Cora. She was quite willing to chat; her mood seemed brighter than it had been. Encouraged, and wanting her to share my optimism, I determined to bring our conversation round to my positive views about life on Kroth: in particular its hard-to-pin-down but unmistakably bright and cleanly spacious cultural aura... As can happen sometimes when you can't quite express the real good or bad point about something and so you pick on a less important but more describable point instead, I found myself making remarks about the economy! Not really what I wanted to talk about at all!  Yet, as things turned out, it led me towards what I did want to say.
    “Pete, over there,” I nodded towards our leader, “is an accountant, but – imagine – Savaluk, the capital city of the entire world, needs so few accountants, that he only works part-time. What do you make of that?”
    “Simpler tax laws, I suppose.”
    “But it's the attitude!” I said admiringly, in a tone that expressed my love and respect for the culture I found myself in. “I guess a world where accountants only have to work part-time can't be all that bad! I was fooled at first,” I added.
    “Fooled – how?”
    “In thinking the economy here was like the one I was in on Earth. But this Krothan set-up is just a – a skeleton.”
    “Go on.”
    “Superficially it's similar to the economy of Earth's 'West'; the consumer goods most Westerners took for granted – like TVs and laptop computers – are equally well-known on Kroth. But – and here's the difference – they're not amassed. In Savaluk if you want to watch TV, you don't switch your own set on, because you don't have one; instead, you go out, don't you? You go to the local TV centre, like you would go to a cinema! Most people here don't have a TV in their homes. Same for the use of a computer: you hire the use of one, and use it more rarely. It is as though technology were rationed.”
    “You think that's good?”
    “Wait – it's not actually rationing. It's natural rarity. It's the same for any kind of advanced machinery, including industrial plant: rarer here than on Earth because it's much more expensive to maintain, and that's because, for some reason, machinery is much less reliable here, so that it requires multiple redundancy and backup. Look at the way cars so often travel in pairs.”
    “And that pleases you.”
    “Well, look, you must have noticed yourself, the rareness of TV is a pretty great boon to the art of conversation! Here to my amazement is a world where, for people my age, the idea of a fun evening is to book a table somewhere and have a merry chinwag, rather than get boozed up and – ”
I interrupted myself and glanced at her to see how I was doing. She seemed willing to listen. So far so good – and because I was coming out of my own shell and wanted to bring her out of hers, I dared to go ahead and say:
    “To me the great thing about the Toplanders is that they aren't soaked in that yucky tolerance that amounts to a slobs' charter on Earth. For example: you don't get publicly drunk, or take forbidden drugs, in Savaluk. You just don't. If you did, you'd never live it down....”
    She wasn't walking beside me any more. She had halted, scowling, as though she had decided not to go another step with me. Had my views angered her that much? But then I saw that the rest of the group had stopped too. Pete Upton up ahead was reading the small print on a notice posted at a fork in the path.
    The large print said: NO ACCESS TO SUMMIT. Above the words a symbol showed an irregular black line, approximately an inverted “V”, depicting, presumably, a mountain top. Above that, half a dozen dagger-points stabbed down towards the line.
    Some of our group clustered round the notice and read the small print as Pete had done, but Pete meanwhile set off, obedient to the notice, keeping along the lower path, towards the pass between the summits. The rest of us soon followed him. We, likewise, were shunning the higher path.
    Cora came stamping forward to catch up with me. “Now isn't that just typical. Meekly doing what we're told.”
    “But we weren't headed for the summit anyway. We want the pass to Strelk – ”
    “So what? Why aren't we at least discussing what that sign said?”
    “Quite honestly, I don't want to know,” I replied. “I'm new here, at least my conscious mind is new here, and I'm not about to question any keep-out signs, at least not right now. As far as I'm concerned – ”
    “All right,” she snapped, “I get the picture.”
    I was as furious with her as she was with me, but maybe this is where I ought to have let her have the last word. After all, she was right in one respect: I had been a little disappointed that we had not made the easy detour up the higher path, to see the view from thirteen hundred feet, which is as high above ground as you can get on this world.
    “No,” I contradicted her, “you don't get the picture at all. You don't have to assume I'm a conformist 'square' just because I obey a signpost.”
    “Don't I?” she sneered.

                                                   *

Pete led us over the ridge of the pass, about nine hundred feet up amid grass, boulders, gorse and hawthorn that rustled in a cool wind. From this breezy point we scrambled down into a surprisingly steep valley, which became even steeper close to the bottom – it became a gorge, and the path became a flight of stone steps with a handrail financed and constructed by the Mulkuts Wilderness Trust. We clutched that rail as we felt our way down the last hundred yards while the shadow all around us deepened. By the time we reached the bottom we needed our torches.
    Nowhere from Topland can you ever see the Sun, because it orbits only fifteen thousand miles from the equator of Kroth, so that the curve of the planet is bound to hide it at very high latitudes. But in general the polar daylight is still bright enough, like a few minutes after sunset on a clear summer evening on Earth.  Therefore, normally, you can't see the stars either. On the floor of Strelk Gorge, however, conditions are exceptional.
    By torchlight we unrolled our sleeping bags, unzipped them and spread them out as groundsheets, so we could lie down on them and look up at the sky: for this is the one place in Topland from which you can see stars. In that restricted crack of sky I counted about thirty of them at least as bright as Sirius.
    One lanky, bearded young man in our group, named Rida Sholkov, was a physics student. (Somebody told me that he was Russian-Egyptian, whatever that may mean in Krothan terms; there must be cultures galore in the Krothan longitudes and latitudes which I have never visited, all of which, perhaps, have been reflected on Earth.) Now, pillowing his head on his backpack, he identified the individual stars for us by name.
    “How far away are they, Rida?” I heard someone ask.
    He answered, “Millions of miles.”
    “Is that all?” asked Cora's voice. “Only millions, not trillions? Rather small for a universe!” Her scornful remark fell flat; Rida did not respond; neither did any of the others. I, likewise, kept my thoughts to myself.
    You're wrong, Cora, it's not small, because here when you look up, you really look up, and a million miles high is standing over you, towering over you, whereas a trillion miles away – well, the number might be bigger but the personal connection is absent: “away” is just away into nothing.
    We explored a certain distance up and down the gorge, a small fraction of its entire length (it reaches most of the way through the Mulkuts); then we came back for a picnic and a rest preliminary to climbing back out. I heard a little voice behind me:
    “Sorry I lost my temper.”
    I turned quickly and she went on, “Duncan, look, there's a space. Eat with me. I'll let you win the argument this time.”
    I grinned and said, “That is real sweet of you, Cora. Mustn't leave our quarrel unfinished.”
    Indeed, after we had finished our sandwiches, we did argue some more. Because we were the only two in the group whose memories were Earth-centred, it was natural for us to compare notes, but whenever we did so our opinions clashed. I accused her of hankering after the grooviness of Earth. To her, what she called the “social taboos” of Kroth were a sinister restriction on freedom. She sneered at “straightlaced” Krothan youngsters who went a-courting in old-fashioned style, and Krothan repression and “priggish condemnation” of anyone who abused himself with alcohol or drugs.
    “Rubbish,” I said, angry and fierce in the defence of my new world. “In this place, a jerk like my stepfather would never have been given the chance to harass my mother to her death.”
    “But I thought you said your stepfather was like he was due to an accident. Knocked his head in a car smash, didn't he?”
    “So what? If I ever have an accident like that, I hope they snuff me.”
    That was too much for Cora. As soon as we had packed our picnic things she withdrew again, and I shrugged, perfectly well aware that to her my company was in any case only a fifth-rate substitute for the man she had lost.
    We all climbed out of the gorge and went on further through the Mulkut Hills, hiking along ridges and down to pleasant villages on the other side of the range. Before we got too tired we took a vote as to where we should sleep: we could return to the gorge, where it would be dark, or circle round to a moorland plateau which would be less damp but daylit.
    “The gorge, the starlit gorge!” said Cora, loudly. “So romantic!”
    “But is it romantic to get wet?” asked Rida.
    “Tcha,” scoffed Cora. “You can't have everything.” But she seemed more good-humoured than before.
    I abstained in the vote. The outcome: we all slept on the plateau.
    Next “day”, circling round, we came back eventually to our former path, retracing it in the other direction. Soon in the distance I again saw that NO ACCESS TO SUMMIT signpost up ahead. It not only reminded me of my quarrel with Cora, it roused my curiosity, more than it had the previous time. As we approached it, I kept my eye on the forbidden path. The sign, with its upside-down “V” sketch of a mountain-top, and its halo of daggers stabbing down at it – what could it possibly mean? I thought of forbidden things on Earth: army firing ranges, electricity installations, nuclear test sites. Perhaps I should go and read the small print.
    I broke away from the group and jogged up to the notice. I was about to examine it when my eye caught a moving glint of silver coming into view around the nearest curve of that forbidden higher path. Shock froze me as I found myself staring at what looked like men in spacesuits; half a dozen of them, carrying their helmets.
    With my left hand I gripped the signpost while I summoned the defiant impudence, the refusal to budge, that allowed me to raise my right hand in greeting. If possible I would show a certain person that I wasn't as meekly conformist as she thought I was.
    I half expected my fellow hikers to call out to me to retreat, and I more than half expected the men coming down the path to threaten me with the guns I saw belted around their suits. But when I raised my arm, one of them raised his, hailing me in response. This particular grim-faced man was one whom I hadn't seen for three weeks although he had been allotted a flat in the same block as mine, and he now seemed almost a stranger.
    He and his companions reached our group and mingled with it, and I was aware of words being exchanged between their leader and Pete Upton, but I determined to 'buttonhole' (spacesuit notwithstanding) the man who had responded to my greeting:
    “Have you been to the top, Uncle?”
    “We have,” said Vic heavily, swinging his helmet with one hand. He looked more grizzled, and his face more lined than I had ever noticed before.
    “Isn't it forbidden?”
    He grasped my elbow, steered me back close to the signpost where I could read the small print, and pointed to where it said: The public must keep clear of the edge of the atmosphere....
    “Members of the public,” he explained, “don't have the right equipment.”
    “The edge of space....” I said, awed by the thought of being within walking distance of the shores of infinity. Just thirteen hundred feet up – the edge of space! And my uncle virtually a spaceman just for having climbed to the top of the Mulkuts! I had known that he had returned to his old job of science correspondent, but this, I now realized, could be a cover for just about anything.
    Vic's leader, a stout bushy-bearded chap with glasses, looked like a scientist, but the rest of his group had a military feel to it – the way they stood and moved and spoke, quite apart from the fact that they were armed.
    “Do guns fire in space?” I asked.
    “You're not thinking, Duncan. Come on, or we'll get left behind.” Vic and I strode after the enlarged group which had set off down the path towards Twelgrem. He went on, “Forget about 'space' – there isn't any.”
    “But the sign said 'the edge of the atmosphere'....”
    “Which is where you need oxygen and body-armour to survive, yes. Because of what's beyond. But it's not space. What do you think keeps the air around Kroth from dropping away?”
    Oh dear me, was this a rug-pulling episode? Was yet another of my preconceived ideas about to be tripped up? Evidently so; I recognized the signature voice-tone. I was in for some unwelcome education; a reminder of the Slope, or some other nasty consequence of this universe's absolute up and down.
    “What keeps the air up? Er – humph! Well now,” I retorted, “what keeps the world up, for that matter?” In my mood of irritation, I almost said Gotcha. “Yeah - if everything falls downward, why doesn't Kroth itself blinking well fall too, so that we're all in free fall? And what keeps the Sun up, circling round us? You can't have it both ways!” My voice became quite punchy.
    “Is it all my fault, then?” grinned Vic.
    “Not if your next speech makes everything as clear as crystal,” I said shortly.
    “I shall do my humble best.”
    We were still some yards behind the rest of the group, the men in silvery-armoured suits and my hiking companions all strung out together in a line down the path towards the village from which we had started out the previous day. In the middle distance I could now see the village green where our bus stop must be, and already a big vehicle was waiting there, but it was not our bus. It was an olive-green armoured car. Had we seen too much? Were we being politely shepherded towards military detention? My wayward mind began to construct all kinds of dramatic fantasies, concerning the secrets that Vic and his group might have uncovered.
    He continued: “You asked for the reason why Kroth stays up. The experts explain it this way: Kroth's planetary mass brings it into the uni-positional category of objects. You know, back on Earth, some organizations such as the big banks were 'too big to fail'? Well, here, planets are 'too big to fall'; they're not subject to the downward force.”
    “And the Sun?” I asked, trying to concentrate, trying to sound intelligent.
    “No, not the Sun. Planets only – nothing else is unipositional. Everything else falls, or....”
    “But the Sun doesn't fall.”
    “Let me finish. The Sun, far smaller here and far less massive than Earth's Sun, would fall but for Kroth's biogenic field, for which Kroth's Sun is the complementary particle. The biogenic field keeps it in orbit around Kroth's biosphere. Gosh, Duncan, you should see your face.”
    “No, actually, I believe what you're saying. My face looks skeptical only because I got the habit from you.”
    He laughed. “Good, but are you also going to believe me when I explain about the air? It's rather more important.”
    “Easy,” I guessed: “'biogenic field', as you said before. Same way as it keeps the Sun orbiting, it keeps the air wrapped round us.”
    “No, that isn't the reason in this case.”
    While he spoke I saw a second armoured car pull up beside the first, and from it a figure emerged, a very tall man, who then went to the first car and put his head at the side-window, at the same time making an emphatic, arm-dropping gesture towards us. Then he went back to his own car, got in, sat and waited.
    Seconds later, I heard a beep and one of Vic's silver-suited colleagues – the one I took to be the leader, the stout fellow with glasses – raised a mobile phone to his ear. It was the first time I had seen such a gadget on Kroth.
    Then the silver-suited man turned and called up the path to Vic: “That was General Faraliew! Confirmation – time's run out!”
    “Nice of him to tell us what we already knew!” Vic roared back.
    “And he wants you to report to him!”
    Vic, by way of answer, simply waved. Then, his voice reduced to normal level, he continued his talk with me as though nothing had happened.
    “If the worlds of this cosmos floated in empty space, their atmospheres, because of the universal up-and-down, would drop off and fall away,” he explained, “just as water runs down-slope, just like any other loose object can get tipped off Kroth's equator; but our atmosphere, luckily for us, is imprisoned, because in this cosmos there is no empty space.”
    “Imprisoned by what?”
    I was being serious now, not “punchy” any more. I recalled the rumours, to which I had shut my ears before my departure for this weekend hike – the rumours of crisis in the South. And whatever my uncle was mixed up with, I could hardly avoid the belief that it implied some connection between the hostilities brewing in lower latitudes and the physical dangers of the upper air.
    “The world's air is held in place by more air. But not by atmospheric, breathable air. It can't be.”
    “Why not?”
    “Think!” he said, impatiently.
    “I am doing,” I replied. Maybe not successfully, but I was paying attention more intently than ever, determined not to miss anything of what he said, for I felt in my bones that this might be our last conversation for some time.
    “All right – then do more than think – try realistically to imagine! Filled with atmosphere, wouldn't the universe be so hazy, that no one would be able to see the stars?”
    “Ah,” I nodded.
    “Therefore, because at night (in Kroth's lower latitudes) one can see the stars, what's out there must be a kind of invisible air, utterly transparent – it has mass, but it is as un-breathable as empty space would be. You can use the old-fashioned term 'ether' if you like.” His face grew ruddy with enthusiasm. “Fascinating stuff, but dangerous. Part of the danger lies in the fact that this – ether – doesn't always form a smooth boundary at the edge of our atmosphere; it can make jagged inroads into it, like icicles or splintered floes. And the analogy with ice comes even closer to the truth, for the ether tends to assume a crystalline form.”
    “You obviously know a heck of a lot about all this, Uncle.”
    “Well, at one time I was commissioned by the military to head a group for the investigation of the ether boundary, to chart it and to predict its patterns, with the aim of making air travel practical. And recently they recalled me....”
    “Why?”
    “The Awakening has weakened us – and our enemies are stirring. They're not going to miss this opportunity to attack.”
    The babyish part of me pleaded, Too soon! I don't want this! Not yet! In fairness to myself I will add that this was mixed into a larger fear, an aching concern for the land and culture I had fallen in love with.
    A wider view of that love came upon me then, as a main reason for it flashed upon my understanding.
    I had become immersed in a civilization in which popular culture did not disgust me. On Earth I had been so used to the disgust, that I had taken it for granted. Older men who feel it are allowed to express it in words; they belong to an accepted category, “grumpy old men”. But what can a young man do? A young man is not supposed to have had enough time to notice that the world has gone to pot; so what can he do if (aided by the perspective of literature and classic movies) he does notice? Repress – that's all he can do; so that on the surface he continually pretends, even to himself, that the Britons he knows have merely “changed with the times”, or that the clean heroes of olden times had not really been so clean anyway…. meanwhile he buries deep the obvious truth, which all the voices he admires are shouting at him – that the present is a disgrace to the past. But now I was in Topland, and Topland was not a disgrace. All right, there was quite a bit of crime, according to the newspapers, especially during the days of greatest disturbance just after the Awakening, but it was a good country, a paradise compared to yobland. I must not lose such a wonderful second chance! I must fight for this land if necessary! All this blazed through my mind like lightning while Vic's voice went on.
    “This time,” he explained, “we were hoping to get round the ether-boundary problem quickly enough so as to be able to build an air force. Unfortunately, we're not going to be given enough time.”

                                                   *

For months since the Awakening I had lived under the empty skies of Kroth, and yet I had not given a thought to the lack of aircraft. Now that the thought had come, I felt a tremendous attraction for the idea of flying – or floating, or hovering – immune to the Slope's downward pull. That should nicely beat the one fearful disadvantage of living on Kroth.
    The snag, according to what I'd just heard, was that the air-force idea had come too late.
    Then I thought of something else –
    “This military job of yours, you talk as though you began it quite a while ago.”
    “Yes, a thousand days or more.”
    Perhaps some of my readers have been impatiently wondering for quite some time, about the status of Kroth before the Awakening. I belatedly considered this question now. When Earth occupied our consciousness, where in the scheme of things was Kroth? Was it empty? Of course not! As soon as I forced myself to think, the answer was blindingly obvious. All these roads and buildings and the entire culture of Kroth could not possibly have sprouted into existence in the second of the Awakening! It – we – our Krothan selves – must have lived here all along, simultaneously with our existence on Earth. Our two worlds, our two identities, had been running concurrently, so that, for instance, Vic-on-Kroth had been pursuing his researches on the Krothan atmosphere boundary even while Vic-on-Earth was writing articles for British and American journals.
    Since this must have been true; since the two worlds could exist together; could Earth still be in existence now?
    It wasn't that I particularly wanted to get back there, even if a way could be found. But I would like it to exist!
    In a hurry I put this idea to Vic.
    “No,” he said sadly. “The ground state exists during the higher-energy states, but not the other way round. That's what the boffins say, and I have to believe them. Yes, dual existence lasted during the Dream of Earth, so we lived our regular lives as Krothans even while we lived also in the stoked-up frequency of Earth-people. But when Earth winks out, it’s gone.”
    “But how do the boffins know?”
    Vic didn't answer straightaway and I thought that was it, end of conversation. We had reached the village green and he was walking towards General Faraliew's car. I held back and said, “Good-bye then, Uncle.”
    “Not so fast,” he said, retracing a step, catching my arm and hauling me forward. “I think it might be a smart idea for you to meet the General.”
    Ahead of us the door of the car opened and I saw Faraliew extricate himself, uncoiling his great height – he must have been about six foot eight: a thin, leathery, unsmiling man in his seventies.
    The giant spoke. “I want you on my staff, Chandler.”
    “We've been through this before, General. I won't accept any commission.”
    “Not even when the Gonomong come up en masse?”
    “I'm not cut out – ”
    “Then be a civilian adviser, dammit!”
    “Agreed.”
    “And is this the nephew?”
    “Yes. General Faraliew, meet Duncan Wemyss, the Earth-mind with total recall.”
    “Interesting. He might do.”
    Vic recoiled visibly. “Now, General, I also am an Earth-mind. You don't need two of us – ”
    “Who says so?” retorted Faraliew. “Lots of wastage likely in this war!  Besides, he may have something you haven't.”
    “What could that possibly be?” scoffed Vic.
    “Ignorance!” blared Faraliew. “Or to put it another way – unbiased vision. I've known that sort to be useful on campaign.”
    “You're having me on, General.”
    Faraliew unexpectedly smiled, a kindly smile. “Yes, perhaps I am. I know, after all, why the purely Earth-minded are likely to crack up down South.” He focussed his gaze on me and I noted a twinkle under his shaggy grey brows.  “Are you petrified, Wemyss?”
    “Yes, sir,” I replied, fatalistically.
    “But not by the thought of battle, eh? It's the Slope you can't face, eh?”
    “You've read my mind, sir.”
    “Well,” he said, “I might have been the same if Fate had dealt me that particular hand of cards. You can still contribute to the war effort although you have to stay up here in Topland. There is plenty for you to do.”
    Vic eagerly chipped in, “Exactly, General. He could become a boffin. He's got the brains. We were just talking about the asymmetric relationship between Earth and Kroth.”
    “Ah yes?” And to my utter amazement, the busy General stood there listening while Vic resumed where he had left off, prattling to me about cosmology. I could only conclude that I was being tested in some way.
    “....I've heard the asymmetry has something to do with so-called cross-over phenomena. For example, Anaxagoras in the fifth century BC gave his idea of the size of the Sun by saying it was 'larger than the Peloponnese'. Well, the Peloponnese was, what, a hundred or so miles long? Something like that. And the Sun – the Sun here – is about a hundred and forty, hundred and fifty miles across. So we can assume that Anaxagoras' Krothan self was leaking the information to his Earth self, via the racial unconscious.  What do you reckon, Dunc?”
    “Could just be coincidence,” I remarked, playing along.
    “Not when the Krothan Anaxagoras confessed to a dream of his Earth counterpart!  Ah, you didn't know that?  Well, he did.  And there are a lot more examples; think of all those writers and thinkers who have believed in the ether.  It used to work both ways, but now of course the line from Earth has gone dead, there being nothing to leak from that way any more.” He paused. “It's unfortunate, because Kroth could do with some inspiration at the moment.”
    “What's up - at the moment?”
    “The Gonomong.”
    Oh. That word again. That sad word.
    The General then spoke, uttering a few sentences which sounded quite routine – and yet for me they tipped a balance: “Gentlemen, this conversation is of interest, but I must go and borrow Harrison's mobile, make some more appointments, go my rounds. See you at my HQ, Chandler. Good luck, boy.” And he strode off.
    So in one simultaneous breath I was “gentleman” and “boy”. And he was a general who did not possess his own mobile phone but must borrow one from a scientist. Going his rounds, getting to know his human resources. In a society without yobs and without red tape. A culture which possessed the wizardry of advanced technology and science but which kept it as a delicacy to be savoured rather than a crutch to be leaned on. A civilization of honourable human beings that consoled me for the loss of Great Britain, the decent realm lost before I was born, lost as Atlantis.
    Certainly a country to die for – but –
    More than that: Topland was a country, I now knew, for whose sake I was willing at last to face the accelerating, downward curve of the far southern Slope. I would face it, haunted though it was by what lurked beyond. Not that I yet knew how, but I peeked into the future and guessed that not even the terror of the ultimate clutching void would prevent me from joining up, becoming a soldier and fighting the Gonomong.

>>  7: Southward