We are here to provide an overall framework within which a species like that to which you belong may mature and progress according to their own developmental timetable; we are not here to dictate that timetable or hasten or delay any such advancement taking place along that timeline. We merely maintain the superior integrity of the entity that is Sursamen. Your own fates are allowed to remain your own. They are, in a sense, within your own gift. Our gift is that already stated, of overarching care for the greater environment, that is to say the Shellworld Sursamen itself, and the protection of your good selves from undue and unwarranted interference, including — and this is the focus of my point — any undue and unwarranted interference we ourselves might be tempted to apply.”
“So you’ll not warn a young fellow he may be in mortal danger? Or tell a grieving mother her eldest son lives, when she is in mourning for a dead husband and a son as well?”
“Correct.”
“You do realise what that means?” Ferbin said. “I’m not being mistranslated, am I? My brother could die, and soon. He will die in any event before he is of an age to inherit the full title of king. That is guaranteed. He is a marked man.”
“All death is unfortunate,” the Acting Craterine Zamerin said.
“That, sir, is no comfort,” Ferbin said.
“Comforting was not my intention. My duty is to state facts.”
“Then the facts tell a sorry truth of cynicism and complacency in the face of outright evil.”
“That may seem so to you. The fact remains, I am not allowed to interfere.”
“Is there no one who might help us? If we are to accept that you will not, is there anybody here on the Surface or elsewhere who might?”
“I cannot say. I do not know of anyone.”
“I see.” Ferbin thought. “Am I — are we — free to leave?”
“Sursamen? Yes, fully free.”
“And we may pursue our aims, of contacting Xide Hyrlis and my sibling?”
“You may.”
“We have no money about us with which to pay our fare,” Ferbin said. “However, on my accession to —”
“What? Oh, I see. Monetary exchange is not required in such circumstances. You may travel without exchange.”
“I will pay our way,” Ferbin said firmly. “Only I cannot do so immediately. You have my word on this, however.”
“Yes. Yes, well. Perhaps a cultural donation, if you insist.”
“I would also point out,” Ferbin said, gesturing at himself and Holse, “that we have nothing else, either, save what we stand up in.”
“Systems and institutions exist to aid the needy traveller,” the Acting Craterine Zamerin said. “You will not go without. I shall authorise such provisions as you may require.”
“Thank you,” Ferbin said. “Again, generous payment will be forthcoming when I have taken charge of what is rightfully mine.”
“You are welcome,” Alveyal Girgetioni told them. “Now, if you will excuse me…”
The Baeng-yon Crater was of Sursamen’s most common type, supporting a water- and landscape filled with a gas mixture designed to be acceptable to the majority of oxygen breathers, including the Nariscene, most pan- humans and a wide spectrum of aquatic species. Like most of the world’s Craters it had an extensive network of wide, deep canals, large and small lakes and other bodies of water both open and enclosed providing ample living space and travel channels for seagoing creatures.
Ferbin looked out from a high window set in a great cliff of a building poised over an inlet of a broad lake. Steep-pitched hills and outbreaking cliffs and boulder fields were scattered everywhere amongst a landscape mostly covered in grass, trees and tall, oddly shaped buildings. Curious obelisks and pylons that might have been works of art were dotted about, and various lengths and loops of curved transparent tubing lay draped between and across nearly every feature. A giant sea creature, trailed by a shoal of smaller shapes each twice the length of a man, floated serenely along one of these conduits, passing between gaudily coloured buildings and over some form of steamless ground vehicle to dip into the broad bowl of a harbour and disappear beneath the waves amongst the hulls of bizarrely shaped boats.
All about, Nariscene moved through the air in their glittering harnesses. Overhead, an airship the shape of a sea monster and the size of a cloud moved slowly across a distant line betokening an immensely tall and steep- sided ridge, its barely curved top a serrated row of tiny, regular, jagged peaks. All lay under a startlingly bright sky of shining turquoise. He was looking towards the Crater Edgewall, apparently. An invisible shield held the air inside the vast bowl. It was so bright because a vast lens between the sun and the Crater concentrated the light like a magnifying glass. Much of what he looked at, Ferbin thought, he didn’t even start to understand. Much of it was so strange and alien he hardly knew how to frame the questions that might provide the answers which would help explain what he was looking at in the first place, and he suspected that even if he did know how to ask the questions, he wouldn’t understand the answers.
Holse came through from his room, knocking on the wall as he entered — the doors disappeared when they opened, petals of material folding away into the walls. “Decent quarters,” he said. “Eh, sir?”
“They will do,” Ferbin agreed.
They had been escorted to this place by one of the judicial machines. Ferbin had been tired and — finding what he took for a bed — slept for a while. When he woke a couple of hours later, Holse was inspecting a pile of supplies in the middle room of the five they had been assigned. Another machine had appeared with the loot while Ferbin had been asleep. Holse reported that the door to the outside corridor was not locked. They appeared to be free to go about their business if they so desired, not that Holse had been able to think, offhand, of any business to go about.
They had more clothes now, plus luggage. Holse had discovered a device in the main room that brought entertainments into it; as many different entertainments as there were pages in a book, and seemingly there in the room with them. Almost all were utterly incomprehensible. After he’d muttered as much under his breath the room itself had talked to him and asked if he wanted the entertainments translated. He had said no, and been studious in not talking to himself since.
He’d also discovered a sort of chilly wardrobe full of food. Ferbin found himself to be remarkably hungry, and they ate well of the foods they recognised.
“Sirs, a visitor would meet with you,” a pleasant voice from nowhere said in a well-bred Sarl accent.
“That’s the voice of the room,” Holse whispered to Ferbin.
“Who is this visitor?” Ferbin asked.
“A Morthanveld; Tertiary Hulian Spine Strategic Mission Director General Shoum, of Meast, of Zuevelous, of T’leish, of Gavantille Prime, Pliyr.”
“Morthanveld?” Ferbin said, latching on to almost the only word in all this that he actually understood.
“She is some ten minutes away and would like to know if you’d care to receive her,” the disembodied voice said.
“Who exactly is this person?” Ferbin asked.
“The director general is currently the highest-ranked all-species office-holder on Sursamen and most senior Morthanveld official within the local galactic region. She is charged with oversight of all Morthanveld interests within approximately thirty per cent of the Tertiary Spine. She is present on Sursamen Surface in a semi-official capacity but wishes to visit you in an unofficial capacity.”
“Is she any threat to us?” Holse asked.
“None whatsoever, I’d imagine.”
“Kindly tell the directing general we shall be happy to receive her,” Ferbin said.
