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It was a day and an hour when I had to perform the regulatory observances. I set out the objects on the rugs of the floor, arranged colours as they should go, put garments on myself in a certain way, adjusted my earrings, and observed the hour exactly, standing quietly there alone at the top of the great tower, enclosed in the snow’s white hush… it was very difficult. I knew by the resistance of the time and the substance about me that I was contending with a great deal: many times had I performed these rituals, since the failure of the Lock, had performed them on this or that continent, and in several different ma
I had just finished what I had been instructed to do, when the curtains of the door were yanked back, and the man I had seen on my first evening stood there.
“Canopus,” he said. “You are on sufferance here and that does not allow you to kill our officials.”
What I was feeling as I stood up to face him surprised me: it was exactly the same tone or taste as what I felt when with Nasar. There was no mistaking that sensation, a resonance. I had told myself that Nasar had gone bad: but I had not gone on to understand what it might mean that he had been captured by Shammat, was Shammat.
I said nothing, but stood before him in my slight white robes, the luminous metal circlets on my upper arms, the metal band on my head of the same softly shining silvery gold, a metal foreign to Sirius, which I did not know, and my heavy golden earrings.
As he took in what I was wearing, his dull stonelike eyes stared, and he involuntarily took several steps forward. He was still wearing the golden earrings.
I was preserving a distancing and detached ma
Before I could move he had again advanced, and now stood immediately in front of me, arms akimbo, legs apart. Seen thus, I had every opportunity for a full scan of this species, enabling me on my return to furnish the biologists with ample details. The most remarkable feature was the wide slit of a mouth, co
“Ornaments of this kind are not permitted in this city!”
And as his stone eyes seemed to swallow the artifacts, so that I was enveloped in a glitter of cupidity, I felt he was again trying some rather crude technique of hypnotism. But there was more to it: he was testing me, trying to elicit from me some kind of show of authority—was that it? Something he had been accustomed to find in Nasar? At any rate, I felt his triumph—and then, in myself, a weakness of fear because of this triumph in him. I knew that I had failed in some test he had applied.
My mind was racing. I turned from him casually, and moved away, my back to him, stood a few moments glancing out of the window, then sat down on a low chair. There are few places in the Galaxy where superiors do not sit, while supplicants or inferiors stand. As I sat, an idea flashed into my mind unrelated to the present situation—very clear my thoughts were, because of the aligning practices just concluded, and because of this situation of danger.
“How long has it been,” I enquired, “since this city was allowed to spoil its original design?” For I had understood that this city, as it had been designed, had consisted solely of the conical towers, in a certain alignment—probably interlocking arcs—and that the huddle of poor buildings around their bases, and the spreading suburbs, were a dereliction of an original purpose. Memories of what I had been told of the ancient mathematical cities, speculations that were never far from my mind as to what their function was—these were in my mind, and my distance from this situation and this stone slab of a man was genuine.
His response was immediate: sullen, and this meant a genuine a
He stood still. Very still. The heavy eyes seemed to glow. What I had said, not idly, but certainly not with any crushing intention, had made him remember past—warnings? Threats?
I remained where I sat, watching him. In my mind two were models of behaviour—one was Nasar, and everything that I felt was needed by this situation dismissed him. The other was Klorathy, who I understood as I thought of him would not regard this little servant of even the most horrible power with anything but—at the most—a detached dislike. So I said mildly, even with humour: “As for your colleague, he is of course not dead. He will recover, if he has not already…” and I rose again, as if dismissing him, and returned to the window, for I wanted to look around at these spiring towers with my new ideas in mind, and to imagine this city as it had been. For what purpose?
But I heard a humming, or vibration just behind me, and turning, there he was, that slit mouth of his thrumming: I knew now that that wordless sound had meaning, but knew, too, that I could not allow him to think I did not understand it. I leaned on the ledge there, and saw the towers dark against the pale falling sky.
“You are to come with me. I have authority. In this city I have the authority,” he insisted, and I believed him: it was part of some agreement that Canopus had allowed.
“I shall change my clothes,” I said.
“No,” he said, slamming it out, and he again ate my headband, the armlets, my earrings, with his eyes. I remarked: “But it is cold tonight.”
“You have a cloak.”
“I take it we must be expected at some very fine function indeed,” I said, smiling. And his lips’ rapid quiver conveyed to me that this was the case.
“I can only hope that you have a good reason to take me there tonight,” I remarked, as I took up the great black cloth and enveloped myself in it, “for I had other plans. Canopus has work to do.”
“I understand perfectly, perfectly,” he said, hurried and placating, and I knew that while he had not expected that he would fail to get his way, he was at least relieved he had got it: and was afraid that I might find some reason to give him the slip. And all the time everything about this creature emanated greed, so that I thought back to the visit, long ago, by the hairy avid Shammat-brutes: they were the same breed, different though they were. And I was not going to ask what he must be expecting me to know: Are there many different kinds on that Shammat of yours? Or are you from Puttiora itself? Well, I learned later he was from Puttiora: the cities of this plain were policed by Puttiora, and not by its subject planet Shammat—but that is part of another story.