didn’t bother to examine those. He could see at a glance they were the genuine article sold by reputable manufacturers. Nobody made a mint off his mint, but demand for new specie was always sufficient to support a few. Or, rather, there had been such a demand while the economy of the Gathering was expanding.
“I’ll go into town and look about,” the man remarked. “Quite a spell since I was here last.” The reason was his work, which among other things required him to seek out native leaders for conference. Virtually none stayed in Sehala, except when an assembly met. This was not a capital city; in many human senses, it was not a city at all. It was merely the largest, most prosperous of the areas where certain activities and institutions concentrated, therefore usually the most convenient rendezvous. Sparling maintained that the South Beronnen phrase for those territories where civilization was represented in force had been mistranslated and should go into English as “the Gathering at Sehala.”
Both suns were still aloft, but an overcast had removed glare and a wind with a hint of rain to come blew cool off the river. He didn’t mind that, in the absence of streets, he must now walk a few kilometers. Indeed, he wanted to see for himself how matters stood these days. Humans who came here oftener were apt to be blind to many things beyond their special concerns. That was understandable. The concerns required close attention: for instance, working with scholars to understand an old chronicle, or talking with skippers to find out what they could tell of widely strewn countries. However—
The inn stood near the docks. It was typical of buildings where a fair number of people might stay, rising square and sheer around a central court which included a garden and a pond. The first four stories were mortared stone: the remaining eight, adobe with perdurable phoenix half-timbering, a surface varied enough to be pleasing despite the severe outline. That variation was increased by a cookhouse and storage shed; by covered ramps going up from the court; by balconies jutting forth on the outside from every room.
Good architecture, Sparling thought. The heavy walls gave insulation as well as strength. The patio was always cool and the central well gave, through the main gate, a stack effect which louvers on inside windows used to help keep rooms comfortable on a hot day. Balconies, and the battlemented flat roof, gave residents the sunshine their symbiotic plants required, while not exposing them to danger. For the building was more than a thousand years old; it had withstood attack in the last disaster time, and might have to do so again.
Its front entrance looked down a slope to the broad brown river, docks and warehouses, workers, ships which had not unloaded at Liwas on the delta but continued here, lesser craft of the inland waterways. Noise, shouts, thuds, creak of wheels and derrick cables, boom of barrels rolled over gangways, drifted to Sparling. The scene was small and leisured when he recalled, say, Havana. But here was the center of a civilization, the best hope of a race he believed might someday mean more to the galaxy than his. If the red curse could be lifted…
He started walking south. At first he was on a trail among fields. Unlike any case he knew of on Earth, towns in Beronnen fed themselves off agricultural hinterlands, actually traded their produce for meat and much else from the ranches. The latter held economic and social primacy. Several in these parts, between them, effectively owned Sehala.
Through Sparling’s mind passed a theory he had once heard Goddard Hanshaw advance. In younger days, the mayor had been a cultural xenologist. “I think we’ve got a twofold reason why the rural sectors lord it over the urban. And no, I don’t mean the fact that most of the chieftains who make up an assembly of the Gathering are from cityless places. The Gathering is a historical newcomer. I mean the development of the mother civilization itself.
“First, pastoralism seems to be more efficient on Ishtar than on Earth. Post-mammalian livestock gets more out of a hectare than cows or pigs can. And agriculture is less efficient. If nothing else, herders survive an Anu passage better than farmers; but also, those storms and Hoods and droughts every millennium have spoiled a lot of land for crops. Then too, I think probably herding is more congenial to the average Ishtarian temperament. (Though that’s a plain guess of mine—and maybe at heart most humans would rather be cowboys than nesters.)
“But second is the matter of commute time. That’s what made it possible for a fairly high culture to develop among scattered ranches.
“Look. Throughout Earth’s history, the range of everyday activity has been limited by how long it takes to go between home and work. It’s always been just about the same time, roughly an hour. That’s true whether a Babylonian peasant was walking to his most distant field or a bureaucrat in Mexico City catches an airbus from his villa outside Guaymas. You can find exceptional individuals and exceptional circumstances, yes. But by and large, it doesn’t pay us to spend more than about one twelfth of an Earth rotation going to and fro. Whenever we had to do that as a regular thing, we’d soon move closer to the worksite, maybe founding a new settlement, or we’d get work closer to home. Even primitive hunters camped near where the game was. Even electronic communications haven’t abolished the principle, merely changed its application to certain classes of society.
“Things are different on Ishtar. The Ishtarian afoot can travel faster than a man, including a man on a horse, and for much longer at a stretch without tiring. He can see quite well by night, so the shorter day is no inconvenience. He rarely needs shelter, and if need be he can live indefinitely off whatever herbage grows along his path. It’s no particular bother to camp out on the job. In short, he’s a better traveler than we are, with more speed and scope.
“Therefore, ranchers could carry out many different kinds of operation over very wide areas. When they got to the point of wanting fixed marts, at spots where it was desirable to locate other sedentary industries, why, they went ahead and started ’em. The town, the city can send its farmers out far enough to keep itself fed and produce a surplus. Certain kinds of specialists live there. But mainly the population is floating, because for most Beronnen families the ranches are a better, actually a more interesting environment.
“It’s a misnomer to speak of ‘civilization’ on this planet. Shucks, the word doesn’t have fewer syllables than ‘literate culture.’ But I guess we’re stuck with the habit.”
Sparling continued. Presently he was in among buildings. There was no city wall, such as defended the communities like Port Rua (or lost Tarhanna) that doubled as military strongpoints. War had been absent from this territory for a very long while. Today it was still not considered worthwhile providing more defense than a legion. Should that be defeated, Sehalans would have a better chance in scattering to live off the countryside, than letting themselves be boxed in by an enemy who could do likewise and whose camp would not suffer providential epidemics. Most of the wealth was out on the ranches anyway.
In fact, there was no city plan. Builders chose their sites at will. Regularly used routes between became trampled, rutted lanes, except where it had been convenient to pave a few sections. Mostly, structures stood well apart, amidst lia, bushes, trees. No type of dwellers or industries occupied any particular area. Many quarters were simple booths or tents, brought in by visitors who didn’t care to pay for lodgings. Permanent buildings were large by ancient human standards—to accommodate a larger species—and, while a majority more or less resembled the inn, some were startlingly artistic, whether monumental or exquisite.
Sehala sprawled.
It did not stink, nor was it littered. Sanitation was less of a problem for Ishtarians. whose water-hoarding systems discharged no urine and comparatively little of a dry fecal matter, than had been the case for man. Nevertheless, whoever was in charge of an establishment disposed of wastes and rubbish, if only because otherwise his neighbors would have sued him for making their environs offensive. Odors were of smoke, vegetation, sharp male and sweet female scents.
Folk who saw Sparling saluted him courteously. whether they had met him before or not, but didn’t stop to talk. Thrusting chitchat upon a person who might be in a hurry was considered bad manners. Fewer were in sight than usual.
He found out why as he was passing the Tower of the Books. “Ian!” bawled a voice. Larreka, commandant of Zera Victrix, overtook him. They clasped shoulders, and each read signs of trouble upon the other.
“What’s wrong?” Sparling opened.
Larreka’s tail lashed his ankles. Whiskers bristled above fangs. “Plenty,” he growled, “both here and in Valennen, and I don’t know which is worse. Word last night, a call from Port Rua. A regiment sent to regain Tarhanna, bushwhacked and wiped out. Wolua himself—you remember Wolua, my first officer?—he got killed. The barbarians’ ransom demand for their prisoners isn’t gold, it’s weapons; and whoever drew up that list knows exactly what he needs to damage us the most.”
Sparling whistled.
“So Owazzi called the assembly together again this morning,” Larreka continued. “Soon I couldn’t take any more speeches and walked out.”
