The Rise: Kroth 3

Kroth 3:

The Rise

Robert Gibson

First Published by Mirador Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 by Robert Gibson

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First edition: 2015

Any reference to real names and places are purely fictional and are constructs of the author. Any offence the references produce is unintentional and in no way reflect the reality of any locations involved.

A copy of this work is available though the British Library.

IBSN : 978-1-910105-33-7

Also by Robert Gibson:

Kroth 1: The Slant

Kroth 2: The Drop

Valeddom – Mercury Awaits

1: Life Down Under

Go aaarn, mate, said one of the voices behind me, it’s dead simple, just push the hendle. And although I made no move, it went on, Yis, that’s right, just push it.

Yesss, goaded another, quieter voice, without the vowel change, and with a steely softness. Notice, it addressed the others, how he moved of his own accord; he’s made a good start; now let us see whether he spoils it. I could picture that speaker, the misshapen one, his lip curled in mild amusement at the ridiculous spectacle I presented – I was misshapen by his standards, after all. The others were built like me, but they, likewise, might be judging my efforts pathetic, as I confronted the simple task of opening a door.

Determined at last to go ahead and do it, I put forth my right hand.

But the moment my fingertips touched the door, my resolve weakened to nothing. It was as if the charge of my will were dissipated at contact with the wooden slats.

Go arn, go aaarn…. repeated the first voice.

All very well for that old veteran dangler. He had lived here all his life; whereas I, at age eighteen, had yet to take my first step over the southern hemisphere sky.

I was acutely aware that the moment I stepped outside I would do more than know of it, I would see it. See the yawning gulf of infinite blue, where a sky ought not to be. See it beneath my boots.

At the thought of this, a whole parade of excuses waved for attention in my head. I was ill. I was not yet up to it. I was untrained for conditions here. I was in fact completely lacking in experience of life under this overhanging country. To try to face it too soon was to risk a lethal setback. In short, I did not feel inclined to go arn –

And yet, even less was I inclined to disappoint the voice.

So, to get some decision one way or the other, I turned my head to glance back at the encouragers. My hope was, that either the sight of them might spur me on, or my poor bewildered face might move them to relent.

Les Bucklaw, the elderly red-haired fellow with lantern jaw and seamed face, confirmed his go arn with a nod. Friendly but impatient, he was not the sort to understand if I backslid. No relenting there. Nor from the other two members of the reception committee. They propelled me with their stares. Dr Stoom’s regal posture gave out the message that one need only be firm with the universe; treat the universe with authority and it would not dare try any nonsense. As for Farambolank – I received the strong impression that the legless spider man, he of the quiet voice, who hung from a ceiling rail with all four hands, was not terribly interested in what might happen to me. His head drooped, partially concealing his bored smile.

The danglers, I thought, are all waiting to see what I’m made of.

Well, since I’m here, I have got to be a dangler too.

To demonstrate that I was safety-conscious, I made sure that my left hand continued to grasp one of the plentiful ceiling straps that clustered close to the door, while with my right hand I jabbed down at the door-handle and gave it a shove.

*

To be fair, I ought to explain at this point that my apprehensions and my meticulous caution were not stupid. Admittedly, an explanation is due. The reader who has followed my adventures down the flank of the world might think it crazy that I shrank from a glimpse of the sky below me, after the shattering experience which I had recently undergone. After all, I had that very morning been dropped into the blue void, from the place of execution at the vertical equator of Kroth. I had expected with absolute certainty to die of cold after days of a fall into infinity, as I plummeted further and further from Kroth’s Sun. In the event, my fall (and that of my companions) had lasted approximately fifteen minutes before we were rescued against all expectation by a colossal net which the inhabitants of the Southern Hemisphere somehow maintained; but those fifteen minutes had surely been the ultimate, the furthest extent to which terror can be stretched by vertigo. Compared with that, what did I have to be afraid of now? I was safe among my rescuers. I had been received into a humanized habitat full of railings and straps to hold onto, and its settlements and enclosures themselves must be firmly anchored under the overhanging surface of the planet. To live Down Under might seem fantastic, but these people had managed it for centuries. So what was I so worried about?

What nagged my spirit now?

Answer: the juxtaposition.

It is one thing to be tossed plumb into infinity without a hope. In such a circumstance you are nothing, because in your fall through the wideness and depth of nothing you yourself are diluted to that same nothing; or, even if this is not quite true, even if something does remain of your personality, it has curled up, hedgehog-like, to huddle into a fatalistic acceptance which is neither sanity nor insanity according to the usual definitions. But to border infinity is quite another thing. If you border it, if you live not the fact but the risk of it, you experience an altogether different pull or stretch, as you juxtapose that ultimate inhuman immensity with familiar daily life. Instead of falling free, you stand quivering on an edge. You’re still in the game but on the verge of a final loss, so panic threatens as you clutch that edge. If you have any sense you shrink back.

*

At the same moment that I shoved at the door, I did my old trick of deliberately de-focussing my eyes.

The door swung wide open. I saw a fuzziness which (as yet) held no dangerous hint of blue. I re-focused, thinking, so far, so easy. As my gaze roved I understood that I was looking at a station platform. It was quite narrow and short, just the size of a small-town country station in England. Fortunately the ends of it were blocked right and left by large obstructions, which helped to reassure me that I was not yet out in the open. A long sign at eye-level glowed with strip-lighting. It said:

KLETTERWEGGLE

That name helped me. It was a homely reminder of names like Wagga-Wagga which I had seen on maps of Australia back in the Dream of Earth. Also helpful was the fact that the gap between carriage and platform was only an inch or so wide. I had the sense not to look down at it as I stepped across.

Now standing on the platform, I smothered the impulse to look back at the train from which I had just emerged, for although I knew it must be a vertical train, a plummeting north-south train, I preferred, just for the moment, to take my culture shocks in manageable doses. Better to go slow and sip comfort from the idea, station platform. The familiarity of the phrase could counterweigh its real context, so I hoped, so I tried – but I was still confused, on the one hand knowing that I was tremendously lucky to be alive, on the other hand apt to emit cry-baby emotions of complaint at being let down by the difference between this place and an honest-to-goodness Earthly train station. As if memories of Earth mattered now. Earth, as I very well knew, did not exist, for we had all wakened from Earth, though (the random thought came) there are such things as recurring dreams…. but meanwhile I must quieten the inner baby, for in my situation mental discipline might prove to be a matter of life and death. So – for instance – stamp hard on what you’re about to think about the obstruction a few yards to your left –

But how? Impossible to ignore the fact that the wall which closed off the platform in that direction was actually the body of the planet.

It was a brownish rock-wall, softened by a few tufts of grass and ferny growths. I could not mistake it. I looked away. For it meant that Kletterweggle Station must stick out from the planet like a jetty into the three-D ocean of emptiness. Yes, true, but stamp the thought out, picture it in different terms or look at something else –

Up above my head I saw the planks of a wooden ceiling; to my right a fat grey shaft. A staircase spiralled like a solenoid round the shaft. Shaft and staircase ran up and down, to disappear into ceiling and floor, obviously continuing to the other levels of the station, one level for each carriage; how else could a vertical railway system be organized? It was the reason I understood the shaft to be an elevator – it had to be one. And beyond it was the outer wall. Beyond that – yes, I could accept it – a partly-obscured patch of sky blue. Reasonable to expect a window in the outer wall.

Behind me, Dr Stoom must be assessing my reactions. I glanced leftwards again, at the rough wall that was the surface of the world. That same world which, thousands of miles up from where I was, curved back to the north-polar horizontal home which I could not hope to see again.

Well, no use lamenting that loss. Topland was just a remote golden memory. Here was I in (or rather, under) Hudgung, the southern hemisphere, my home henceforth, no matter how incredibly fantastic it might seem. Acceptance – that was the name of the game. Do something intelligent, Duncan.

I turned to the right, and took some steps towards the elevator, for there was nowhere else to go. Perhaps this was the stroke of common sense the watchers had been waiting for. I heard their footsteps and felt the boards under my boots creak and quiver slightly – which was unfortunate for me in my precarious state of mind. The physical reminder that this whole building must dangle was too much for me just then. Dr Stoom and Les must have witnessed my convulsion at the moment of insight, for they rushed forward to grab me.

Sorry, sorry, I whispered as they held me up. I was feebly anxious to apologize. A blip...

Dr Stoom said curtly, in her unaccented voice, Relax. You have done well.

Ah – oh? I was still groggy, virtually electrocuted by that flash of terror.

I mean it, she insisted; you are doing fine, and I could tell it was no polite fib. Apparently, because I had opened the carriage door and had taken a few strides in the right direction, I had passed some crucial psychological test.

Relax, she repeated. We can look after you now.

Yeah, chipped in Les, you’ve done your bit, mate. Not bed, not bed at all by the stendards of your everidge immigrant. You’re up to par, I’d say. Take it easy.

As they walked me to the lift, I resolved to cease my use of the words dangle and dangler. Nip that habit in the bud – show some tact towards myself. In my old identity as an Earthman I might have considered the idea of a literal Down Under existence quaint, and I might legitimately have coined the fun term dangler to denote a person who must live in such a place, but that didn’t make it a wise word to use. Far better to use a more dignified term, such as…. antipodean. Think of the Antipodes, the upside-down lands, the legend out of medieval books. The legend has turned out true and real, but still, keep the thought of it rooted in those old books, so that from such roots the reality can stem, full of academic sap, picturesque and calm. Layers of fear must be appeased. Especially the lower, volcanic ones. The cosmos isn’t funny. And the Dream of Earth is long gone.

*

When we reached the elevator, sufficient strength and balance had returned to me, to allow me to step unsupported into the cage. It did have one troublesome aspect: a window on the far side, coinciding with the fact that the shaft itself, likewise, had windows on that same side. So, more of that unsettling colour, sky blue, a lot closer this time; however, I could look at it without shaking – I must be getting better at this…

We went up some floors and then out onto another platform, with access to a different part of the train. I looked at the train properly this time, and saw that it included a vertical cylinder alongside the carriage, doubtless a corridor wide enough for passengers to move between all the carriages above and below – an observation which could if necessary be filed under possible escape route.

In here, said Les, diverting my attention one way as he opened a door in the station building, but then came a different diversion:

I leave you now, announced the much softer voice, the less-heard voice. The best of luck to you.

Wondering at it, not yet used to the way its final syllables chomped and clacked, and slow to understand that the words had been spoken to me, I delayed to turn my head, and when I did look, Farambolank had swung away. I would still have called out a reply, but for a strong impression that the creature could not wait to be off.

Les nodded at me: Yis, Ferembolenk hes finished his chore.

You mean – he’s off home, duty done?

Right, smiled Les. He nivver hengs round longer than he hes to.

Powerfully, again, I had that sense of being observed and assessed. Les and Dr Stoom had been instantly willing to stop at this threshold and answer my questions. Their eagerness to watch while I bumped from one puzzlement to another showed that I was being tested every step of the way, or, rather, watched while I tested myself, like a child pulling itself up by the bars of its playpen.

I asked, Why did he come, then? – still curious about the motives of the spider-man.

You sid it yoursilf. Duty. Thet alone is what makes those denglers attind the wilcoming committee.

DANGLERS!

No way out of it! The word was current! The word I had coined! I breathed deep. Face it, Duncan, it’s the natural word to use, and you’re not going to be able to avoid it, so you might as well be thankful that you’re so tuned in to this dangling culture, that you came up with the term independently… Go for it, be a wholehearted dangler. That way you’ll survive.

I spent one final glance on Farambolank, the omong, the ultimate in adaptation to this scene. He had reached the platform end, adjacent to the planet’s surface, and, while swaying from a ceiling rail which he clutched with three hands, used the fourth hand to pull open an exit door.

Not a bit phobic about spiders, I do not mind seeing a big one walk upside-down on the ceiling, and therefore neither should I object to a race of men who hang from rails, and besides, he was disappearing from my sight – so, I told myself, cross him off your list of worries, and cross the next threshold.

*

A waiting room? Inadequate description. A place to lift the heart. My gaze swept over my companions, fellow-adventurers, fellow-survivors. Every single one of them was present, seated in easy-chairs around low round tables. I beamed; we sure were an invincible bunch. Fortune clearly refused to abandon us whatever the odds. Snatched not only from the jaws of death but right down death’s gullet, we had been brought, alive, to this dangling haven – a peculiar place, yes, but liveable.

All of us were dressed in the same government-issue pyjamas, as though this were some prison hospital convention, but no minor oddness could dampen my joy at the sight. I could have hugged them all, were it not for my enfeebled state; I could have babbled, except that this was not a private meeting: close by each of them sat an attendant. It looked deliberate, the way it was arranged, my own crowd interspersed with another. The attendants, or nurses or minders, both men and women, were dressed in distinctive beige, so that the view I had was of mingled stripes and beige.

Last but not least, cried my uncle Vic Chandler amid widespread cheers at my entrance. He lifted his arm in ebullient welcome. Siddown, Duncan. You look terrible.

Thanks a lot, I grinned wanly. In truth, most of them did look to be in better shape than I was. Cora was an exception, pale and badly bruised, barely able to greet me. Another battered case was Dasnidd, the youth who had lost his nerve just before The Drop. He lay slumped in his chair, head lolled so I saw only his ginger mop, but I could guess how he must look from his twitchy shoulders and hands. And then an elegant motion attracted my eye to where Elaine Swinton lifted her head, briefly, to grant me a perfunctory smile. Her right hand rested on the arm of a man who sat in the chair next to hers, and she quickly returned her gaze entirely to him. Full of quiet solicitude, she watched over him – while he, about as responsive as a zombie with catalepsy, sat hunched with downcast stare, so hollow-cheeked that if it had not been for his moustache I might not have recognized him as Prince Rapannaf.

The rest of us were alert and cheerful, if somewhat drained. Physically and mentally, we had come through. The trauma of the immediate past had been swallowed up by our fantastic deliverance. It was, after all, enough to make a person drunk with a sense of his own invulnerability – to have survived being tipped into the universal void. As my guides steered me to a chair, I could not help but hoist a great sail of hope in my mind.

*

They put me at a table next to Vic’s and Wherreth’s. Les Bucklaw sat down with me, presumably as my minder. On my other side were Cora and Orlan; Wulla and the semi-conscious Dasnidd one table further off. Elaine and Rapannaf were a couple of tables away; I could not see them well from where I sat, and I did not particularly wish to. Not that I was jealous of the sick prince, but Elaine had an annoying habit of not being the person I wanted her to be. Right now I didn’t want any emotional complications, not when we immigrants might at any moment have to absorb some vital facts about our new lives.

Dr Stoom walked to a podium, stood beside a lectern and beckoned. Responding to her summons a man rose from among us and came up to the lectern. He was large, deep-chested, but with incongruously hippy hair that swished about in curly ringlets – a hippy gorilla, or Conan the Barbarian turned beatnik. This, said Dr Stoom, is my husband, Oraggalee Stoom. She added in a neutral, distant tone, as if disclaiming responsibility, You have been brought here for an opportunity to listen to him.

She then departed the podium and sat down. Oraggalee Stoom leaned on the lectern and grinned around at us.

Then he began to speak in that flat, nasal, vowel-changing voice which I had heard from Les. Thenk you, Vel. Thet was will put. You might as will listen to what I hev to say, but there’s no compulsion. Only, please beer in mind thet it is a one-off. What you shell hear from me, you shell not hear again, once you hev gone out under the world. For some things are not right to say under normal circumstences.

He paused. I ken see some of you are looking worried. Again his grin panned around the hall, and I thought to myself, he has done this many times before; he is quite sure that he knows our type well.

Worry if you like, he went on, "but don’t overdo it. That’s ectually the whole point, the virry point you’ve been brought to hear me say: don’t overdo anything. And now you are thinking – I ken see it in your faces – ‘he dregged us out of our bids just to hear thet?’ Yip. Ill though some of you are, knocked and bettered about though all of you are, it was considered issintial to interrupt your ricuperation in order thet you imbibe the following pearl of wisdom – moderation in all thoughts and feelings! Believe me, it’s inveluable advice, if you want to start off on the right grip as citizens of the commonwilth of Birannithep. And by ‘moderation’ I don’t mean you hev to be boring and mediocre. I mean you hev to stay in control. Control is everything down here. Why? Because – extreme emotion ken kill.

"Normelly, it is not considered right to talk about this problem. And there is a good reason for thet. Talking about it can cause it. Yis, by talking about how and why emotion ken kill, you ken arouse just thet same didly emotion. So what is to be done?

"Fortunately, talk or no talk, the way it works will soon become obvious.

"Nivertheliss, for you it might not be soon enough. New immigrants can’t be ixpicted to grasp the unwritten rule of Down Under straight away. It takes a bit of gitting used to. So, as a concission, on this one occasion, we allow a peculiar person such as mysilf to spill it out. Here goes. SUICIDE IS FATALLY EASY DOWN UNDER. SO DON’T GET HIT UP ABOUT INYTHING. DON’T GIT DIPRISSED ABOUT INYTHING. ALL IT TAKES IS ONE MOMENT OF LITTING GO, AND YOU’RE GONE.

Hev you got thet? Is it clear enough? Lit’s hope you grasp the idea thet from now on if you lose your timper or give way to diprission, you may be awarding yoursilf the dith pinalty.

He paused to assess the effect of his words.

He may have been satisfied by our solemn looks, but I, for one, could sense that none of us fully believed him. We were tired, we were comfortable in our chairs, and we were full of gratitude towards these wonderful people who had saved our lives. Besides, the vowel-alterations in the man’s accent blurred his message under a veneer of quaintness – at least it did for me.

My words may seem harsh, he continued, overestimating the extent to which he had worried us, "but you’ll look beck and thenk me for them, if you survive. Which no doubt you will. The vast majority of our citizens are hilthily cheerful.

"Just rimimber that those who aren’t cheerful are weeded out pretty smartly – by thimselves. Suicide, in this country, is as easy as sewage disposal, and, I’m sure you’ll egree, thet presints no problem et all. It just takes a moment. One pessionate impulse of dispair, and you lit go, and thet’s thet.

So – lit me say it one last time – stay cool, for your lives. Don’t git obsissed about six, politics or riligion, because if you do, you’ll condimn yoursilves to your own Drop.

*

A silence lengthened to about ten seconds, after which it dawned on all of us that he had finished. I heard several breaths exhaled in relief. Perhaps we had been starting to take him a bit more seriously, and now I felt the relief too, on the lines of, "So that’s all he meant. Obvious. Completely obvious. This is a country where you don’t let go. We can certainly grasp that. Grasp…."

The grasping adaptation had already begun to take root in me, I realized: yes, I recalled that there had been a railing along which my hand had slid during most of my walk towards this room, and nobody had had to tell me. Good old sensible human nature had put me into clutching mode in an environment where it was wise to cling.

Except inside this room. I noted an absence of hanging straps and railings here. But that was all right. A category of special rooms must exist.

Any quistions? said Oraggalee Stoom all of a sudden.

I put my hand up. This room… it’s unusual, isn’t it? Nothing to hold onto….

Jumping ahid, aren’t you? I love it! A smile of pure happiness overspread his face. Yis, this is what we call a ‘spookless din’, marked by thick walls and a double rid stripe round the intrance. Noticed that double rid stripe, did you?

I thought back. Yes, I noticed it.

He went on, "And most important, no windows here: in this ketegory of place we can really relex. You’ll find that in most good houses the bidroom is a dia-lummu (that’s the real Abo word for it), and so are most good lounges and many conference cintres. On the other hend we don’t wanna overdo the relexation, so you’ll also find other ketegories; in fact I could go on and on about architicture and interior design. We have the tolod style window that faces the body of the plenet, the mandamoots that face the blue in the other diriction, and then, and then," Oraggalee raised his brows, "for those who really wanna don the afflong, there’s the bannaff-nomoon where the really hardened types like my woife can look down through the floor. But, he concluded with a gesture of dismissal, you don’t wanna hear me on my tichnical hobby-horses. I’ve made your hids spin enough for now. I won’t keep you much longer."

He paused; his smile faded.

To get back to my main point, I ixpict you’ve all got the missage about keeping the lid on your pessions, but you may will be thinking: ‘easier sid than done’. Eh?

We murmured agreement. I thought back to my last spurt of terror. Certainly if that had happened out in the open, the consequences would have been final. Emotion can kill – but what to do about it?

All right thin, said Oraggalee. We admit the problem. Let’s nerrow it down, git a grip on it. It is time for me to mintion the one big quistion which is bound to occur to all you immigrants, sooner or later.

We all pricked up our ears, eager to hear this key question formulated, but Oraggalee seemed determined to pile on the suspense:

Outside of this room, it’s a silent quistion; you won’t hear it discussed. So, you may ask, how do I know of it? Answer: because although I can’t claim to be a conscious immigrant mysilf – I was too young to remimber – I am the son of immigrants, and what’s more my parents heppened to be unusually frenk people. My mother and father, like you, were slaves in Udrem, and condimned to The Drop. They smuggled me with thim – I suppose they thought I would be bitter off dying with thim then living with the Gonomong. And like you, they and I, after being caught and saved by the Redakka, edepted to life in the Lucky Country. But it was my spicial luck that when The Quistion occurred to me, and I asked my mum and ded, they didn’t till me off. Instead they answered me straight. In fect they anwered me in one syllable. And thet gave me a hid start. I’ve never looked beck since…

We were squirming in our seats by this time.

On he went: "Of course, as a child I framed the Quistion in childish terms. But they knew what I mint. Now for your binifit I shall frame it in adult terms. The quistion is: ‘Is compromise possible?’"

He straightened himself. He had actually said it, after building up to it for so long. Is compromise possible? Or… is it not? He looked down on our spellbound faces. The special genius of the man’s ramblings lay in the way he managed to jolly us all along and make us forget the void below, even while the peril of that void was the very subject of his discourse. He did it by the way he kept us guessing while enlightening us piecemeal, so that our puzzlements were overborne by a temptation to follow his lead. The master knew precisely how fast to go with his pupils. Abruptly he pointed a finger at Uncle Vic.

"Mr Chandler – is compromise possible?"

Vic coolly replied, I’d say no, it isn’t.

Correct. Would inybody like to elaborate on thet? What are we talking about here?

If you like, Vic offered, I’ll finish what I was saying.

Oraggalee Stoom waved a hand. Please go ahid. Explain what the quistion means.

It means – Some is not good enough.

Hey, that’s good. You’ve got it. ‘Some is not good enough.’ You’ll go far. Deepening his tone, Oraggalee addressed us all: "It’s all or nothing, in this invironment. ‘Some’ safety is not good enough. You can’t allow any of the tirror to take hold. It lurks in countless embushes – inny of which ken wipe you out. These are the fects of life Down Under. But, as I sid before, we don’t normally talk about this kind of thing in public. Not even my parents – and they were pretty outspoken – would have dared to bleb to all and sundry, the way I am doing in this room. The closest they came was in a dry, learned article in a psychology journal – an article with the somewhat unexciting title, Digital and analogue courage: a strategic evolution of survival moods. Not too zappy, eh? And as for what it means – yis, Mr Chandler?"

Vic shrugged, ‘Analogue courage’, I guess, must be customised, partial, adjustable to needs and circumstances.

Right. And digital courage….?

Digital courage, on the other hand – is all or nothing. Limitless or non-existent.

Oraggalee remarked, Well, thet’s thet, folks. You heard what the men hes just sid. You either git it or you don’t. One brimful perfect ricord of staying cool – or zero chance of survival. He winked. But you’ll git used to this sort of life. It’s not thet bed rilly.

*

He asked us if we had any quistions, but none of us felt up to asking any. We sat sombrely as we tried to absorb his warnings. Battered in mind and body, I for one could have done without the vague threat implied in the recommendation of perfect courage.

Then our mood perked up because he finished off with some comforting news. Birannithep being a nation that welcomed immigrants, arrangements were being made, he said, to place each one of us with a host family for as long a period as we needed for our adjustment to Biri society. Thus we would all be helped to settle in. Eventually we would find jobs and make our own way; in the meantime we’d be guests for as long as we liked.

It was a generous little speech, and we were even more pleased by the way he finished it off:

Anyhow, it’s time for me to shuddup and for us to leave you folks alone for a while. Vel and I have some edministrytion to git on with, to fix up the nixt stage in your journey. Whereupon not only he and his wife, but also every single one of the attendants or minders left the room.

We – the survivors of the Drop – those of us who were conscious – looked around at each other’s faces as if to say: Comments, anyone?

Some seconds passed before any of us spoke. Apparently, my wish not to be the first to stick my neck out was shared by the rest.

Much of the time that we had spent listening to Oraggalee, we had been enveloped in a charmed glow of good-will, unable to take his warnings seriously. By this time, however, a sense of the truth of them had percolated into our minds.

I wanted to say: All right, this could be tricky. Nevertheless, the main thing is that we are obviously among good people.

But if I said that, Vic might well typically spoil it by saying something like, "Oh, yes, good according to their own lights, no doubt…."

And so I kept quiet.

Thoughtful of them, murmured Vic at last, to allow us this bit of privacy. I…

Hold it, Chandler, entreated Orlan, a stocky man of about fifty with thinning hair and the weakened look of a heart patient. "Are we really private? It seems too easy."

Vic turned to me. What do you think, Dunc?

"What do I think? I sighed noisily. Having survived the Battle of Neydio, the Tokropolians, the Gonomong and the Drop, why should I worry about these friendly antipodeans?"

So you –

I say, trust them. Another deep breath. I felt as a card or chess player must no doubt feel when he sees the chance of winning something big with cautious play. In our case, the prize that loomed was a home. Survival and a home; winning a future. I dare say a lot could still go wrong, but, in my view, success and happiness are in sight.

Orlan nodded. I want to agree with you. Besides, what choice have we?

Then we heard Cora’s enfeebled voice.

Like beads on a string, she gasped out, one crisis after another, all along our descent from Topland…. but the string must stop here. At long last, our relief from it is here.

Elaine Swinton cut in more sharply. Relief is ours if we have the sense to accept it. Orlan sounds as though he suspects the room is bugged and our attitude is being tested. Then let’s be positive and pass the test!

I was astonished at this snappy contribution from the vapid Elaine of all people. Evidently her self-appointed role as nursemaid to a sick prince had put some fire into her veins. Matters must go right, the universe must play ball, and reality would have to co-operate….

Even as I sneered at her in my mind, I agreed with her conclusion. I stuck by my own advice: trust them. That, indeed, was our broad consensus.

My only reservation was one I kept to myself. Oraggalee Stoom, for all his talk of frankness, his pose of being outspoken, had in one vital respect skirted round the question he had raised, insofar as he had evaded any mention of the actual statistics of the suicide rate, that would have illustrated his general warnings against emotion by telling us, for example, how many such deaths occurred among the newest immigrants, compared with the older ones, and with the native born. Of course, he might simply have wanted not to frighten us… but weren’t we entitled to know?

Still, bist not to git obsissed about it.

*

Oraggalee Stoom and the minders bustled back into the lounge. You’ll be gled to hear you can all git going, he announced. Places all sorted. Unfortunately you’ve all got a long train journey ahid of you. That’s unavoidable. There aren’t minny fecilities up here in the Deep North. Few of us Biris like to live right close under the iquator. So this is where we part from the didicated souls who form the permenint staff up here at Klitterwiggle.

Les Bucklaw took this cue to say, As chief steward of the reciption station , on bihalf of all of us here I wish you all the bist of luck.

We expressed our appreciation in a spate of murmurs.

Oraggalee added, One more commint I’ll make bifore we go. While you’re sittling in to your new lives you will of course neturally tind to congrigate with your compenions quite a lot. Birds of a fither flock togither and all that. But ivintually each of you’ll hev to find your own way in our culture, and I’ll like to advise you to make thet sooner rather then later, if you ken. I’m only trying to hilp you by saying that it might be dangerous to linger in an us immigrants" mintality. You don’t wanna perpituate