Marune Alastor 933

Ollave called him and indicated a tall glass case. "What do you think of this?"

"Who are they?"

"An eiodarkal trismet."

"Those words mean nothing to me."

"They are Rhune terms, of course; I thought you might recognize them. An

'eiodark' is a high-ranking baron; 'trisme' is an institution analogous to marriage. 'Trismet' designates the people involved."

Pardero inspected the two figures. Both were represented to be tall, spare, dark-haired, and fair of complexion. The man wore a complicated costume of dark red cloth, a vest of black metal strips, a ceremonial helmet contrived of black metal and black fabric. The woman wore garments somewhat simpler: a long shapeless gown of gray gauze, white slippers, a loose black cap which framed the white starkly modeled features.

"Typical Rhunes," said Ollave. "They totally reject cosmopolitan standards and styles. Notice them as they stand there. Observe the cool and dispassionate expressions. Notice also, their garments have no elements in common, a clear signal that in the Rhune society male and female roles differ. Each is a mystery to the other; they might be members of different races!" He glanced sharply at Pardero. "Do they suggest anything to you?"

"They are not strange, no more than the language was strange at Carfaunge."

"Just so." Crossing the chamber to a projection screen, Ollave touched buttons.

"Here is Port Mar, on the edge of the highlands."

A voice from the screen supplied a commentary to the scene. "You view the city Port Mar as you might from an aircar approaching from the south. The time is aud, which is to say, full daylight, with Furad, Maddar, Osmo, and Cirse in the sky."

The screen displayed a panorama of small residences half-concealed by foliage: structures built of dark timber and pink-tan stucco. The roofs rose at steep pitches, joining in all ma

The Majars, with the Rhunes, named the planet, which originally was known as

'Majar-Rhune'. The Rhunes, arriving upon Marune, decimated the Majars, but were expelled by the Whelm into the eastern mountains, where to this day they are allowed no weapons of energy or attack."

The angle of view shifted to a hostelry of stately proportions. The commentator spoke: "Here you see the Royal Rhune Hotel, invariably patronized by those Rhunes who must visit Port Mar. The management is attentive to the special and particular Rhune needs."

The view shifted across a river to a district somewhat more modern. "You now observe the New Town," said the commentator. "The Port Mar College of Arts and Technics, situated nearby, claims a distinguished faculty and almost ten thousand students, deriving both from Port Mar and from the agricultural tracts to the south and west. There are no Rhunes in attendance at the college."

Pardero asked Ollave, "And why is that?"

"The Rhunes prefer their own educational processes."

"They seem an unusual people."

"In many respects."

"And I am one of these remarkable persons."

"So it would seem. Let us look into the Mountain Realms." Ollave consulted an index. "First I'll show you one of the autochthones: the Fwai-chi, as they are called." He touched a button, to reveal a high mountainside patched with snow and sparsely forested with gnarled black trees. The view expanded toward one of these trees, to center upon the rugose brown-black trunk, which stirred and moved. Away from the tree shambled a bulky brown-black biped with a loose pelt, all shags and tatters. The commentator spoke: "Here you see a Fwai-chi. These creatures, after their own fashion, are intelligent, and as such they are protected by the Co

"The Fwai-chi are placid, but not helpless if provoked too far; indeed they are said to possess important parapsychic competence, and no one dares molest them."

The view shifted, down the mountainside to the valley floor. A village of fifty stone houses occupied a meadow beside the river; from a bluff a tall mansion, or castle, overlooked the valley. To Kolodin's eye, the mansion, or castle, evinced an archaic overelaboration of shape and detail; additionally the proportions appeared cramped, the construction disproportionately heavy, the windows too few, too tall and narrow. He put to Pardero a question: "What do you think of this?"

"I don't remember it." Pardero raised his hands to his temples, pressed and rubbed. "I feel pressure; I want to see no more."

"Certainly not," declared Ollave jauntily. "We'll go at once." And he added:

"Come up to my office; I'll pour you a sedative, and you'll feel less perturbation."

Returning to the Co

At last he asked Kolodin: "How soon can I go to Marune?"

"Whenever you like," said, Kolodin, and then added, in the tentative voice of a person hoping to persuade a captious child: "But why hurry? Is the hospital so dreary? Take a few weeks to study and learn, and to make some careful plans."

"I want to learn two names: my own and that of my enemy."

Kolodin blinked. He had miscalculated the intensity of Pardero's emotions.

"Perhaps no enemy exists," stated Kolodin somewhat ponderously. "He is not absolutely necessary to your condition."

Pardero managed a small sour smile. "When I arrived at the Carfaunge spaceport, my hair had been hacked short. I considered it a mystery until I saw the simulated Rhune eiodark. Did you notice his hair?"

"It was combed straight over the scalp and down across the neck."

"And this is a distinctive style?"

"Well - it's hardly common, though not bizarre or unique. It is distinctive enough to facilitate identification."

Pardero nodded gloomily. "My enemy intended that no one should identify me as a Rhune. He cut my hair, dressed me in a clown's suit, then put me on a spaceship and sent me across the Cluster, hoping I would never return."

"So it would seem. Still, why did he not simply kill you and roll you into a ditch? How much more decisive!"

"Rhunes fear killing, except in war: this I have learned from Ollave."

Kolodin surreptitiously studied Pardero who sat brooding across the landscape.

Remarkable the alteration! In a few hours, from a person uninformed, vague, and confused, Pardero had become a man purposeful and integrated; a man, so Kolodin would guess, of strong passions under stern control, and after all was not this the way of the Rhunes? "For the sake of argument, let us assume that this enemy exists," said Kolodin laboriously. "He knows you; you do not know him. You will arrive at Port Mar at a disadvantage, and perhaps at considerable risk."

Pardero seemed almost amused. "So then, must I avoid Port Mar? I reckon on this risk; I intend to prepare against it."

"And how will you so prepare?"

"First I want to learn as much as possible about the Rhunes."

"Simple enough," said Kolodin. "The knowledge is in Chamber 933. What next?"