the truth. It had become a kind of prophecy, in the pure sense of being a teaching. I therefore had a feeling that somewhere in those pages would be some kind of internal guidance about the lottery prize. It was this I needed, because there was no logical reason for refusing it. My doubts came from within.
But as the ship moved into hotter latitudes, my mental and physical sloth increased. I left my manuscript in my cabin, I postponed any thoughts about the prize.
On the eighth day we came to open sea, with the next group of islands a faint darkening on the southern horizon. Here was one of the geographical boundaries and beyond it lay the Lesser Serques, with Muriseay at their heart.
We made only one islandfall in the Serques before Muriseay, and by the early afternoon of the next day the island was in sight.
After the confusion of islands behind us, arriving off Muriseay was like once again approaching the coast of a continent. It seemed to stretch forever into the distance beyond the coast. Bluegreen hills ran hack from the coastline, dotted with white-painted villas and divided up by winding, curving highways that strode across the valleys on great viaducts. Beyond the hills, almost on the horizon as it seemed, I could see brown-purple mountains, crowned with cloud.
At the very edge of the sea, following the coastline, was a ribbon development of apartments and hotels, modern, tall, balconied. The beaches below were crowded with people, and brightly coloured by huge sunshades and cafeterias. I borrowed a pair of binoculars and stared at the beaches as we passed. Muriseay, seen thus, was like the stereotype of the Archipelago depicted in films, or described in pulp fiction. In the Faiandland culture the Dream Archipelago was synonymous with a leisured class of sun-loving emigres, or the indigenous islanders. Depictions of the sort of small islands I had been passing were rare; there was more plot material in a heavily populated place like Muriseay. Roniantic novels and adventure films were frequently set in a never-never world of Archipelagan exotica, complete with casinos, speed-boats and jungle hide-outs. The natives were villainous, corruptible or simple; the visiting class either wealthy and self-indulgent, or scheming madmen. Of course, I recognized the fiction in this fiction, but it was nevertheless potent and memorable.
So in seeing at last an island of real economic substance I viewed it with a kind of double vision. One part of me was still receptive and involved, trying to see and understand everything in objective terms. But another part, deeper and more irrational, could not help but see this concrete-slab coastline of Muriseay with the received glamour of popular culture.
The beaches were therefore crowded with the indulgent rich, tanning themselves in the golden sunshine of Muriseay's legendary heat. Everyone was a tax-exile, philanderer or remittanceman; the modern yachts moored a short distance offshore were the scenes of nightly gambling and murder, a place for playboys and high-class whores, corrupt and fascinating. Behind the modern apartment blocks I visualized the squalid hovels of the peasant islanders, parasitic on the visitors, contemptuous of them, yet servile. Just like the films, just like the cheap paperbacks that filled the bookstalls of Jethra.
Thorrin and Dellidua Sineham were on deck, standing beside the rail further down the ship. They too were gazing interestedly across at the shore, pointing at the coastal buildings, talking together. The tattily romantic version of Muriseay faded, and I walked down and lent them the glasses. Those villas and apartments would be mostly occupied by decent, ordinary people like the Sinehams. I stayed with them for a while, listening to them talk excitedly of their new home and life. Thorrin's brother and his wife were already here, and they were in the same village, and they had been getting the apartment ready.
Later, I went back to my place alone and watched the terrain change as we moved further south. Here the hills came down to the sea, breaking as cliffs, and the blocks of flats were hidden from view; soon we were passing shores as wild as any I had seen in the islands. The ship was close inshore, and through the glasses I could see the flash of birds in the trees that grew to the edge of the cliffs.
We reached what I first assumed was the niouth of a river, and the ship turned and headed upstream. Here the water was deep and calm, a stupendous bottle green, the sun shafting down through it. On either bank was dense jungle of monstrous aroids, unmoving in the humid silence.
After a few minutes in this airless channel it became clear that we had turned inland between an offshore island and the mainland, because it opened out into a vast, placid lagoon, on the far side of which was the sprawl of Muriseay Town.
Now, with the end of the long voyage imminent, I felt a strange sense of insecurity. The ship had become a symbol of safety, the object that had fed me and carried me, that I returned to after venturing ashore. I had grown used to the boat, and knew my way about it like I knew the apartment I had left in J
ethra. To leave it would he to take a second step into strangeness. We impose familiarity on our surroundings; from the deck of the ship the scenery merely passed, but now I had to disembark, set foot in the islands.
It was a return to the inner-directed self I had temporarily lost when I boarded the ship. Unaccountably I felt nervous of Muriseay, yet there was no logical reason for this. It was just a transit, a place to change ships. Also, I was expected in Muriseay. There was an office of the Lotterie-Collago here, and the next leg of the journey was one they would arrange.
I stood in the prow of the ship until it had docked, then went back to find the Sinehams. I wished them luck, said goodbye, then went down to my cabin to collect my holdall.
A few minutes later I was heading up the quay, looking for a taxi to take me into town.
7
The offices of Lotterie-Collago were in a shaded side street about five minutes' drive from the harbour. I paid off the taxi driver and he drove quickly away, the dusty old saloon car bouncing noisily on the cobbles. At the far end of the street the car turned into the harsh brilliance of sunlight, joining the chaos of traffic that roared past.
The offices were like a large showroom, fronting the street with two plate glass windows. Behind, there were no lights on but at the far end, away from the doors and behind a small forest of potted plants, there was a desk and some cabinets. A young woman sat there, looking through a magazine.
I tried the doors, but they were locked. The young woman heard me, looked up and acknowledged me. I saw her take down some keys.
I was still only a few minutes away from the lulling, lazy routines of shipboard life, but already Muriseay Town had instilled in me an acute sense of culture shock. Nothing I had seen in any of the small islands had prepared me for this busy, hot and noisy city, nor was it like anywhere I knew at home.
Muriseay, experienced raw, seemed like a chaos of cars, people and buildings. Everyone nloved with astonishing yet mysterious purpose. Cars were driven faster than anyone would have dared in Jethra, accompanied
