Man Of The World

Epilogue

1: The Observatory

If the greatest fulfilment in life is to have one’s job and one’s hobby the same, the Serenth Observatory’s staff were the luckiest folk in Korm.

Golden sunlight beat down upon the peaceful dome, pouring marmalade crescents through the curved slits in the walls and into the chamber where Cosmographer Sayor and his apprentice worked. Day after day, in accordance with a meticulous survey plan, the telescope had been targeting point after point upon the upward curving surface of the world, searching out the secrets of Outer Matter.

Even at night there was work to be done, the automatic camera being set to record the transient glows and flashes which might betoken the presence of life elsewhere in this great hollow of the universe. By day the instruments were manned in continuous relays; the archives swelled with fresh photographs and with the finer though subjective details recorded on the sketch pad. At hourly intervals the person at the eyepiece would descend from the gimballed chair, to cede it to the next observer and take on the other tasks – operating the dome, instructing the guide motors, coping with the occasional visitor and keeping the place tidy and clean.

Sweeping floors is all right, reflected the daydreaming apprentice, Kren, provided that the floors are here. He never for a moment regretted spending half his days in this isolated, monastic environment, miles from the centre of Serenth, so long as he could take his turn at the refractor. Soon now, his old mentor Sayor would stop blinking at the eyepiece and the moment for the change-over would be at hand. Time at the ’scope was shared fifty-fifty, despite the fact that it was only recently that Kren had turned up at the door for the first time, as a gauky young amateur, to apply for the post he now held.

Turning as he swept, the apprentice glanced through a window, and what he saw made him straighten up. Visitor – I think, he called out.

For, against the background of the sun-drenched hills, a caped human figure made a tiny swirl of darkness on the path that wound up from the city. Kren felt gleeful. Here was something to look forward to: a chance to impress a member of the public.

Sayor continued calmly sketching. Bald, comfortably round, and nearing retirement, he was every bit as conscious as Kren of the fantastic luck that had given him a place among the elite who enjoyed a vocation in life, but his love for his job had mellowed beyond the thrill-prone stage, and he no longer derived quite such a boost from showing off the Observatory to strangers.

What kind of tourist have we got this time? he drawled. He did not turn round; his eye remained locked into its to-and-fro checking rhythm as his pen traced the smoky outline of what might be a mountain range about four hundred thousand miles away.

Kren seized binoculars and peered at the approaching stranger’s rich cape and lordly stride.

A Splasher, by the looks of him. Striding along as though he owns the world.

(We’ve never had one of that set here before. Thinks he’s going to impress us?)

A tall, aristocratic idler could look big, but only when pictured in a small enough frame. Seen out here, where fading distance tempted the eye into the legendary lands behind the sun –

Nobody could seem big here.

2: Midax Rale

Sayor finally looked down from his work when the stranger had got close enough for a naked-eye appraisal.

Cap, cape and all…. we’ll brush him off inside ten minutes.

But why? asked Kren. Why repel him? A visitor! Doing us the honour –

"You’ll see. He’ll brush himself off. By which I refer to his attention span."

Presently the visitor stood in the doorway.

Close up, neither of the cosmographers liked what they saw. Or rather, it was not so much what they saw as what they sensed through a fog of hostile and uncomfortable feelings, because of the way the stranger loomed, almost as if it were possible to swagger when standing still.

Tall and superciliously handsome, he seemed to smirk down at them, as if to say: How amazing that you can work out your lives in this deserted spot. How fortunate for you that I am standing here, wafting a breath of the city to refresh your deprived little selves.

All this without a word being spoken. Then at last came some actual sound – words which almost slipped past the attention of the listeners, so hard it was to realize that all the man was in fact saying was:

I am Midax of the house of Rale. I would work for you here, if work can be found.

Work? Who ever heard of a Splasher wanting steady work?

Can’t, replied Sayor bluntly.

Inside his head and Kren’s, the visual impressions of Splasher arrogance were buzzing far louder than any actual sounds uttered by the fellow’s technically innocent mouth.

Hence although, come to think of it, Midax Rale was not physically grinning, yet he was somehow grinning with his stance, with his head-tilt proclaiming, Surely I can not have heard aright; how can a pair of artisans like you possess the cheek to refuse me?

You’ve come to the wrong kind of place, went on Sayor.

The nobleman shrugged sadly. I thought I might ask.

Here, emphasized the scientist, we have something which not even one of your set can walk in and ask for.

The stranger made a small gesture of disappointment. A mere shrug, hardly more. But again, it was exaggerated in the perceptions of Kren and Sayor. The tiniest ripple of sleeve – a moment’s tremor of irritation – swelled fast in their imagining, into a full-blown condescending wave.

And the words that followed were unfortunate, too.

Now please understand, the Splasher chided crisply, "you have encapsulated the precise motive for my application. I want the sort of thing I can’t just walk in and ask for. A concluding smile. So you see, you are ill-advised to posit as an objection, the very point which for me comprises the principal recommendation."

Kren looked nonplussed, while Sayor also was taken aback, even in danger of being impressed, by the confident flow of patronising polysyllables. You had to give these wealthy drones their due: they could certainly talk.

A short pause ensued, while the old scientist sat brewing his counterblast. Then his voice rumbled into action.

"Listen, Midax Rale. You are not playing Rhetorical Counters here. I have told you the truth, that there are no vacancies, and besides, do you seriously believe you could stand this? Sayor’s eyes became sharper lit and his face grimmer with pride, as he wheeled his arm to indicate the limits of his working world. Day after day? Monitoring minute variations in the appearance of lands hundreds of thousands of miles away? Perhaps making it your life’s work to add your own personal fraction to the photometry of one of the smudgy bays around the lip of the Silver Stain? Can you see yourself sticking to it? You, an idler whose duties are as intermittent as rainstorms? And those rare duties, when they do occur, are administrative only, never creative or scientific, so come on, Splasher – in a very few days you would thank us for throwing you out."

The cosmographers watched the drain of hope from the tall man’s face.

I am reluctant, Midax finally remarked, to contemplate the picture you’re holding up in front of me, but you’re the experts, so….

Kren spoke up. It’s not the end of the world, you know, if you can’t get in here, I mean, you could try the Olamic Institute, it’s an outfit much larger than ours, and they’re holding an Open Day tomorrow….

Midax lifted his brows. And their entrance requirements are less stringent than yours?

We can’t guarantee that, unfortunately, answered Sayor, his voice stony and unmoved – the tone of a man who was determined to be fair rather than kind, all the more so as he did at last sense that this hopeless dabbling tourist might be sincere. "It’s possible, you might get in; but my guess is, by this time tomorrow you’ll be just as disappointed with them as you are with us. In which case, Splasher, treat it as a sign that you must go back to your banquets and pleasure-boats, and stop trying to indulge your type’s occasional urge for a meaningful life."

The expression on the face of Midax Rale became extra specially mild.

Thank you, he replied with gentle, self-possessed despair. That sounds like a feasible idea.

3: End of the Open Day

A day and a half later Midax was dawdling on the steps outside the stately double doors of the Olamic Institute, as he reflected upon what had again gone wrong.

The Open Day was over and the chattering flood of visitors was streaming away towards the bright terraces of the residential districts of town, on the other side of the gentle valley in which Serenth lay. Midax gazed over their heads, to the colourful roofs dotting the hillside, so bitingly clear in the eternal zenith light.

Freedom, his mind murmured, is like money. If you spend some, in making a decision, in acquiring a commitment, you are left with less of it than before. But that’s fair, since you get something in return for your purchase. Whereas I, having got nowhere, still possess my hoard. My useless idle hoard. I don’t want this kind of riches. I want the other!

That morning, the prospect of being accepted by, and belonging to, a project with an aim transcending everyday life, had beckoned to him with promise. His heart had developed a faster beat as he approached the elegant Olamic building, a seemingly eternal structure whose age extended beyond historical or even mythical memory. Midax had seen a few old buildings before. Not many; for most Serenthian edifices, when they showed signs of disrepair, were demolished and replaced; but there were some which had been allowed to grow old in appearance and so he knew about signs of age: dilapidation and the erosion caused by that rare thing, weather. But the Olamic Institute, being of an altogether different order of antiquity, was kept pristine. And it must logically be so; in order to survive cycles upon cycles of civilization the structure had to be maintained by instinct. That part of the human spirit which worked in its sleep, with unconscious willpower, continually ensured the Olamic’s upkeep. Midax noted, with as much reverence as a Splasher ever could, the inward-leaning outer walls which allowed the zenith sunlight to cascade down the stonework, a cheerful, welcoming glory for the queue shuffling up the drive.

Inside, he scanned the display stands in the lobby. They detailed the presentations on offer, and helped him decide which of them to attend. Soon he found himself sitting in a laboratory-classroom with about twenty other members of the public.

A lecturer began, "You have to understand, ladies and gentlemen, that the word light can mean many things…."

The audience enjoyed it when the lecturer held up some colourful, glowing, pretty jars and poured and mixed their contents to the accompaniment of technical patter, vastly oversimplified. It was a celebration of Light, that strange physical force, familiar yet ultimately mysterious like any other fundamental aspect of life. Flavours, textures of light; light at different speeds; light coiling and struggling against other light, in the shallow boxes on the demonstration bench. A fun show.

By the time the bell rang for the interval Midax could think of several criticisms to make, but he refrained. The presentation – well, it had been superficial, but so what? So what if the whole thing were only a tincture of truth? A truth far out of reach – and that great distance was nobody’s fault. Many a fantastic theme had to be introduced in homely ways, if no other method was available…. though his fellow-Splashers would be sure to sneer.

That last thought made Midax look round the other rows of seats….

Alas! A few rows further back, there lounged a man he recognized, in crackly broad-shouldered jacket, none other than the trend-spotter Harlei Dapron, writer for the news-sheet. Now slumped with arms folded across his chest, cheeks round with contempt, Harlei was almost the last person whom Midax would have wished to meet here.

It was the interval between presentations, when many of the staff and audience had drifted off to the canteen. Midax now wished he had done the same.

However, Harlei would have spotted him anyway, sooner or later. And although Harlei was not exactly a Splasher himself he was familiar with the aristocratic scene and would be sure to report Midax’s presence at this Olamic Open Day and to make a joke of it. Oh, well. The mood of enchantment was already spoiled. Just the sight of Harlei’s brimming white teeth as he returned the stare…

Midax decided, there’s nothing for it but to take the initiative. He sauntered over to Harlei and said, Here I am. Another datum for you.

Having a good time?

Not only that. I intend to apply to join.

As expected, Harlei bared his teeth anew at that statement. But then he replied with words that were not at all predictable:

I have beaten you to it.

"You what?"

I myself have joined the organization, already. He grinned with no surprise. I see you don’t believe me. Well, you’ll find out how very true it is. I am now an Olamic trainee and staff member, fully inscribed, and in fact I have been for four days. No more news-sheet reporting for me! And no more interviewing Splashers about trivia.

This, said Midax frankly, is hard to credit. I suppose, he added, that may not sound very polite.

It doesn’t need to be, said Harlei, and now Midax noticed something else, something new about this man who had always been self-satisfaction incarnate: he had lost that odious quality; he looked shiningly happy.

That evening, looking back on his own failure, Midax kept asking himself, why oh why did they accept Harlei and not me? It was not that he resented the other fellow’s success; he wished him well, approved of his inner transformation and did not doubt that he deserved admittance to the Olamic. That, though, was the point. If he deserves it, I deserve it more. No one, surely, had ever yearned so longingly as Midax himself now did, to escape from idleness into purpose and meaning.

Many might have thought it odd, in view of his fortunate social position, that he should be afflicted with this restlessness. But he was not rejecting the vividness he had: far from it. Who in his right mind would reject the scene that was his to rove and relax in – this luminously lovable world? Go back, the Observatory man had said, to your banquets and pleasure-boats – in other words, go back to the rich social life that Splashers lived. Ah, but whenever he indulged in contemplation he possessed so much more, far beyond the habitable region of the people of Serenth: he sun-bathed his intellect in the wider grandeur of Korm.

Korm – the world – the entire globular hollow a million miles in radius, a world lit centrally by the suspended Sun. It was worth repeating the great dumb facts of existence, the wonderful reality which allowed him his life. Levitation kept that Sun suspended, which lit his day; kept the glowing orb fixed at the exact mid-point of the only known ball of space in infinite Matter, so as to shine in all directions onto Korm’s immense surface, including this tiny, habitable parch called Sycrest, the exquisite oasis of complexity and life, eighty miles in diameter, amidst which lay Serenth the eternal city; and at the centre of that little human settlement there spurted the luminous Fount, the Time-Tree, the source of Complexity itself. Endlessly, Midax mused on these great facts. With the temperament of a philosopher, he took nothing for granted, and marvelled at the familiar. He contemplated the mystery of the Fount, of how it sustained the biological and social efflorescence that rippled from that point and thinned and waned out to the Blerdon, Sycrest’s boundary forty miles away. Yes, forty miles from the Fount, atoms cease and matter becomes infinitely smooth… and that shows the local greatness of the Fount, by marking the limit of its strength and power.

The known cosmos – so caressable by the imagination – with its eighty-mile spot of history amid the wider eternal silence, invited endless pottering mind-play.

Yes, it would be easy to spend a lifetime in mental browsing of the produce of history and cosmology, the multi-million-day tale that ran on and on under a securely everlasting sky and a static zenith Sun.

So since he could not be bored, why was he dissatisfied?

The age-old wonders, the familiar mysteries, why weren’t they enough for him?

He knew why. They weren’t enough because they drew him on, to want more – to go beyond appreciation –

To do something personal to respond to their greatness.

He had tried to convince both the Observatory and the Institute that he would readily invest his life in whatever vocation they could provide, if only they’d admit him, if only they’d allow him the chance to show he was sincere. Unfortunately – as he now realized, several hours too late – his style was at variance with his aim. His manner seemed to cause an allergic reaction on the part of those whose support he was seeking.

He grimaced at the memory of unwise victories; of points which he would have done better not to score.

The afternoon presentation on Institute Aims had begun with a discussion that was open to the floor. Accustomed as he was to the verbal fencing of Splasher society, Midax had been slow to realize that here was not the place for it, here the organizers expected a more deferential audience.

His most unfortunate point-scoring occurred at the end of a talk by a certain Lecturer Inellan.

Inellan was an elderly, grey-garbed historian with a gravelly voice whose theme was entitled, A Meditation upon Magnitude.

It began with highly technical stuff: relative abundances of non-particulate and particulate matter. Inellan spoke without notes, which was a point in his favour. On the other hand he erm’d and ah’d in a vague and rambling manner which suggested that his mastery of the subject – or his confident belief in that mastery – had made him lazy.

Midax, for a while, restrained his own impatience. He reminded himself that Splasher standards of presentation did not apply here, and that the substance of the talk was interesting enough. What Inellan seemed to be saying, was that the matter-abundances (if some scanty bits of evidence from previous cycles were to be believed) might actually have altered, perceptibly, during the span of recorded history. From such dry crumbs of evidence, an awesome conclusion could perhaps be drawn, namely that the ever-lengthening time-frame of human experience was beginning to cover a noticeable fraction of the lifetime of the cosmos.

Quite a haunting idea, Midax conceded.

He was unsure how far he believed it; could there really have been any perceptible general changes since records began? Then he became irritated, distracted by a trivial verbal thing: Inellan’s habit of using the adjective chronic in lieu of chronological. Chronic this, chronic that; an infuriating drip-drip. Midax winced every time the word came up. In the end he crazily allowed himself to spring his trap.

Sir, he had asked brightly from the floor, "in view of all this chronically vast antiquity, would it be plausible to assume that the Olamic Institute must have evolved so far, that its original Founders would no longer recognize its current purpose?"

Up on the dais, Inellan’s craggy face beamed. Evolved beyond was a phrase he liked. He clasped his hands behind his back, rocked slightly on his heels and replied, Yes, I absolutely agree. I can well imagine that the Founders would feel quite lost in the Institute of today. An institution must evolve; just as an individual during the course of his life must change physically and mentally, eventually replacing every atom, so an organization may, given time, replace every attitude….

All of a sudden, he stopped. He heard laughter rustling through the auditorium. Awareness of Midax’s real manoeuvre had just popped into every head that had been in attendance during the other long session, the late-morning one, where the Splasher had prepared the ground; for the fact was that Midax had asked the same lecturer the same question on that other occasion, except he’d asked it much more crudely, receiving the hot denial, Of course we haven’t ‘forgotten what we’re up to’….

And now he’d been tricked into saying more or less the opposite of that. Midax hardly bothered to smile. It had been so easy.

But it would have been better not to have done it.

Why had he done it, anyway? Why in the name of the Fount must he stupidly offend those whose favour he wished to gain? He supposed, on reflection, that in some way he must have been staking out emotional ground, seeking reassurance that, in the new life he wished to lead, his old attitudes could be allowed to persist.

Well, they wouldn’t be. He couldn’t bring that sort of baggage with him if he came to lodge here.

The decisive blow fell in the last session. Efficiently, swiftly, applications were processed from members of the public who were interested in becoming Olamic trainees. Midax was rejected on the spot. He was turned away without even being given a form to fill in.

We’ll get in touch – if we should ever need a Splasher, said the official at the desk, with a far-too-straight face.

….Now the crowd of visitors was dwindling down the hill and behind him he heard the main doors scraping shut. He refused to turn his head. No point in looking back at those who had rejected him. Continuing for a while to lean his back against one of the fat columns of the portico, he commanded himself to face the truth. Two failures in a row. Yesterday he had applied to join the Observatory and failed. Today he had applied to join the Institute and failed.

….Shoving himself erect, he began to walk, telling himself sardonically that he might as well follow the rest of the general public. Down the sloping avenue he strode, he drifted… The useful part of the day was almost over. The sky was as usual cloudless, but it held a lot less light than an hour ago. The colours of the city were becoming muted as the zenith sun grew fainter, like a ceiling light with a dimmer switch that is gradually being turned to off. In this analogy the Fount is the switch, meaning that the overhead change of brightness in Korm’s sun is driven by the change at ground level in the Serenthian Fount, or Time-Tree.

Like any Serenthian citizen Midax could tell the time of day instinctively from the quality of scattered light, without even having to look directly at the sparkling geyser which aimed upwards to power the sun. It would not be safe, in any case, to look directly at the Time-Tree. A source of energy which could daily rekindle the sun, and which could, via that central orb, distribute light throughout the whole of space, was unlikely to be safe for the naked eye at close quarters; and besides, the sight of such solid power would make an observer feel himself to be, in comparison, disturbingly tenuous, like a ghost.

In any case, you didn’t have to see it; the closer you approached the centre of the city the more easily you could sense the pulse of the Fount, or Time-Tree, even with your eyes shut. Midax’s perceptions were keen, and though about a mile away from it he soon detected the throb of that cosmic shaft of force. Its background beat was ever subtle and pervasive, albeit reduced at present due to the lateness of the hour. He began, in his depressed state, to toy with the idea of plunging into the Fount’s transcendent flame. Seeking oblivion; or perhaps something greater than oblivion? After all, it was nothing like ordinary fire. The flame and the light of the Fount were mere by-products of a higher dimensional impingement on the world. It did not deal out death; its progeny was Life. Inevitably so, for its true nature was a geyser of REALITY – an outbreak, a link to the source, of Complexification itself. That was why people born closest to it were Splashers… So, if he jumped into it, might he not find, though his body were instantly vapourised, that his soul (that is to say, the qualitative aspect of Midax Rale) was promptly recycled elsewhere and elsewhen, perhaps into a properly fulfilling role? Or maybe it would be eternal oblivion but at least it would count as a donation – he’d be giving one unused spark of complexity back to the Source. Refund himself. Cast himself back into the treasury of the universe.

What a grand gesture that would be, he thought with a sudden sneer.

No – he did not wish, after all, to be a man of gestures.

Far better simply to carry on, to allow the weary heart and soul to ride the mood of the hour, trusting the day to die and be reborn, as it has done a million million times.

His self-mockery and self-knowledge having saved him from suicide, Midax ambled homewards, focusing his mind away from his woes, switching his attention to the majestic visual music of the day’s decline.

Gradually as the cosmic fount abated towards midnight all hues would fade, wakeful people’s minds would blur, and the shapes of bodies would lose some definition – less or more according to their distance from the Time-Tree, the ones most affected being the simpletons who lived in the outlying farms, the ones least affected being the aristocratic Splashers like Midax who owed their sharp vividness to an accident of birth: that is, birth close to the Fount.

The fade into night and stillness would continue for hours until, with an upward surge of the Fount, a new day dawned, and full complexity was restored.

Meanwhile most of the citizens of Serenth had entered their homes for supper; Midax found he had the street to himself. Consequently, there were no witnesses to the shocked manner in which he halted his stride and stared at a patch of lawn.

4: The Harbinger

As lawns went in Serenth it was reasonably luxuriant. It averaged perhaps one blade of grass per square inch, enough to give the ground a fuzzy green tinge. Normally, a passer-by would do no more than appreciate that general effect.

Midax, however, had noticed something else, something he had never expected to see, but which he straightaway understood.

It meant goodbye to all previous days. It was a cut-away point in history, screening off all moments up to and including the moment before. On the past side of that barrier, he had been living a life which, despite all its discontents, shone now in a sudden retrospect of pearly light, out of reach, idyllic – replaced by the new knowledge which slithered against him.

Alas, I cannot un-see what I see –

Midax’s ability to register detail was what had put him at this spot of destiny. Every Serenthian was born with the photographic ability to recognize, individually, every stalk, petal or leaf of each separate plant in the known and visited world: literally every single separate thing that grew in Serenth itself and in the surrounding hills of Sycrest. But this awareness of detail was perhaps keener in Midax than in most. At any rate it was he who made the discovery, here on Rheddon Avenue, on this quiet evening of Day 143,206,645:

Two blades of grass had fused into one. That was all. Two separate clean-lined blades had ceased to be. And where the pair of blades had formerly stood, just one rather coarse and smudgy blade existed. One tiny change.

As of this instant, the world will never be the same.

Midax had never thought that he would ever happen to live through one of those rare vertiginous moments called historic. Now his skin prickled with the truth while his mind’s eye soared to picture the implications of that truth for the world he knew: all of Sycrest out as far as the Blerdon, the vague boundary, about forty miles distant, where the diminishing influence of the Time-Tree fell below the level necessary to nurture the complexity called life. How tiny and helpless the entire oasis appeared! He reeled at the perspective, at the coldly implacable fate in store.

Sycrest lay powerless as it awaited its doom. Nothing could prevent the onset of the Winter of Simplicity, of which the grass-blade fusion was the first sign – the Winter of Simplicity, which folklore had named, in brutal accuracy, Sparseworld.

A mythical condition, said skeptics whose disbelief had grown with the ages. A mere bogey to frighten simpletons –

Until this evening. Now, proof had appeared. Now Midax must bear the news to the authorities.

Why? Why must he believe?

Just a pair of grass-blades fused! Must the implication be so dire?

No room for doubt, nor indeed for any surprise at the rapidity of his own understanding. He had no choice but to understand. The deeper the truth, the more adapted it was to one’s deep self; and complexity was the most fundamental topic of all.

Complexity. An affinity for it, a knack for gauging its precise degree, and a warning instinct for changes in its trend, were natural talents for a people who dwelt in one isolated life-spangled patch surrounded by millions of miles of smoothness. Sparseworld is on its way. Midax set his limbs in motion.

He must force himself first of all to carry out a check. A few minutes could be spared for this. Briskly he wandered up and down and across this section of avenue, examining his surroundings while repressing a pit-of-the-stomach disorder that sent him paging through his mental dictionary for the obscure word fear.

Finally assured that the rest of the lawn was normal, he next gazed at the trees which lined its border. He examined them in dread lest he see any of them devolved into crude lollipop shapes.

No, thank the Fount, the trees still had twigs and leaves, complex as ever.

Not that this was any real comfort. According to all the legends, Sparseworld was destined to approach stealthily, and furthermore the Olamic Institute, which had always known that this nightmare was no legend, had always taught that it would start with a deceptive trickle of minor changes.

Midax began loping back up the avenue, back towards the Institute building. His eyes swept the scene like searchlights as he ran a weaving route, examining structures on both sides, noting with relief the unimpaired complexity of cornices and façades. Further up the hill he took the time to jog round in a full loop, to face back for one last comfortable view over the city. Anything peculiar? Distant spots of reassuring motion: airmills’ giant propellers, spinning with stroboscopic verve, furnishing the breezes for bright-coloured sails, scudding along frictionless canals. Thank the Fount, the same old kaleidoscopic pattern as of yore. It would be a while before Sparseworld smudged all this.

If only his glance could have rested there. Unfortunately, to be realistic, he must continue to lift his eyes. Above the city’s far edge, into the up-curving dimness beyond, his spirit was quelled by the sad fact that perspective is not to blame for the blurring of far-off things, here in this world of Korm. Not mere distance but a real lessening of detail is what turns those clouds into mere round bubbles, and, as for the ground beyond the Blerdon, milky smoothness reigns, save for rare mineral discolourations where the universal pre-atomic kolv is alloyed with occasional drifts of more advanced matter. Or save for the even rarer fissures or cracks in the englobing surface, such as the oft-studied Silver Stain is supposed to be; or, saddest of all – some thirty thousand miles away – the dull patch called Icdon, which, millions of days ago, used to be a city.

Midax could visualize the Icdonians sprawled like crude abandoned dolls among the sagging waxlike lumps that used to be buildings: people, or rather former people, eyes half-closed showing an occasional flicker from the embers of their souls, all fine detail of personality lost as if a novel were abridged to a paragraph.

He shook his senses free of these horrors, refusing to shudder at the fate of Icdon, the impending fate of Serenth. Instead, in defiance and irony, he actually found reason to smile.

For he was once again approaching the Olamic Institute threshold and he still had that coin of freedom jingling in his pocket.

This time they would have to let him buy.

5: Admission

The main double door was shut, but the small door, set inside the left frame, was ajar. Haste propelled him towards it, far more urgently than the caution which plucked at him as he stepped across the threshold.

The thoughts that tramped through his head were shouting contradictions – this should be the opportunity of my life yelled one inner voice; not at all – this is a historic crisis, not a personal one, yelled another. My own needs? Forget them! They are of no importance at such a time. Above all I must avoid another personality clash –

The reception hall appeared empty at first. Not quite silent, though. One of the ventilators purred in an alcove. And around that little corner, some lamplight spilled.

Midax advanced a step or two.

From the alcove emerged a young man carrying a folder. His pale abstracted features glimmered in profile as he carried the folder to the desk; only then – squarely behind his rampart – did the official turn to face Midax.

Recognition sparked between them: this was the very same official, the offhand clerk who had refused to hand Midax an application form earlier that day.

Now a smugness spread over the man’s face as if to say, Back for another try? Get past me if you can. I am in, and you are out.

Out loud the man spoke heartily:

Good evening, Splasher! What can I do for you this time? His mouth, by now, had sagged into an outright gloat as he went on, Did you leave something behind? Unfortunately, the lost property office –

– Is now closed, Midax finished for him, leaning forward. He balled his fists, placed his knuckles on the desk and pronounced the syllables: I – have – some – in – for – ma – tion – for – you.

Oh really, let’s have it then.

Sparseworld is on its way, said Midax.

Ever so slight was the start the man gave, hardly losing his equilibrium for more than a split second.

Of course it is, he replied; we all know that some day –

Careful now, said Midax. "Listen again: Sparseworld is on its way. And I mean perceptibly."

The official could do nought but stare.

Midax added, I found the first trace.

The words rolled around in the silence. The official seemed paralyzed except for his jerking eyeballs.

Midax’s nerves drew tighter until he cried out, I know you don’t want this, but so what? Move! Get somebody higher up! Aren’t you lot supposed to be the greatest organization in existence? Somebody should be interested!

As soon as the words had left his mouth Midax would have recalled them had he been able, since he immediately saw that by his vehemence he had given the official some sort of handle. The young fellow a moment ago had been frantically evasive; now his face once more displayed a comfortable grin.

Don’t get so excited, Splasher. Your case will be dealt with when its turn comes up, I promise. We get heaps of anomalies reported by members of the public, amateur naturalists or amateur cosmographers who are often quite emotionally exercised by what they think they have found. In every case so far, we have been able to reassure them. Now, I’ll just give you an Observation Form, you can go home and fill it in at your leisure, and next time you happen to pass this way, simply hand it in. All-rightee?

You know, said Midax slowly, in a voice that seemed to himself to be coming from an extremely great distance, you have just lost an opportunity. Inside him some vast greyness far beyond anger was gathering itself into an implacable wave. Without counting the cost, he prepared to walk forward.

As if the opposition were no more than smoke – as if he could will it to be smoke – he did step forward, at this moment no longer worried that to cause a scuffle here would outrage the dignity of the Institute and get him banned from its hallowed halls forever.

Quite unaware, in that instant of blind determination, of the terrible expression which had appeared on his face, he was mildly astonished when he noticed that the official had staggered back several yards. What was the clown doing, tottering like that?

At that moment a slit of light appeared further up the hall.

Midax’s heart sank at the thought that he had caused some kind of commotion. He wasn’t sure – had he actually struck the idiot who had barred his way?

The silhouette of a second official increased in sharpness as more light came on in the further reaches of the hall. The figure padded forward, to reveal itself as a large, untidily-dressed man with a craggy, lantern-jawed face.

Lecturer Inellan.

Midax cursed silently: this was going from bad to worse – this fellow whom he had shown up and mocked, reappearing now of all moments, as fat-headed Fate again mismanaged the way stuff happened.

Well, Ervar, said Inellan to the shaken clerk, do we shut up shop, or is there a little matter to clear up here? And the Lecturer gazed equably from face to face.

The Splasher has come back, mumbled Ervar.

The one whose application we turned down – yes, I see. Inellan’s voice sounded different from earlier in the day; its lazy imprecision was gone. He locked eyes with Midax. And he’s smirking at us again….

Midax, with a rueful head-shake, replied: No, Inellan, I was just chiding myself. I seem to have gone about things the wrong way. Trouble is, I don’t quite know what I should have done. Can you tell me what’s the procedure, if one has to bring the news that the thing which you people been warning the world against for millions of days has finally come in sight? He shrugged, Just curious, you know…

Go on, said Inellan, voice now stony. Repeat your message.

Sparseworld is approaching. I spotted a trace, announced Midax in his most factual tone. Want to come and look? It’s about two hundred yards down the road.

For a stiff moment the lecturer glared, then his shoulders drooped. He muttered, We must assume that you may know what you are talking about. Seeing the stricken look on Ervar’s face he added, You have to give the Splashers their due, they do keep their eyes open.

Ervar whispered, So what do we do now, sir?

We’re going to need witnesses, sighed Inellan. Find who’s left in the building. I think you’ll get the Judge, and possibly Ultrisk. And get Rersh if you can.

Ervar darted away. He was gone for a couple of minutes, during which Inellan brooded at the floor, Midax could think of nothing to say, and each idle instant was a limbo for the wafting seeds of fear.

Voices grew audible further down the hall. Back into sight came Ervar, followed by three others. Ultrisk was a shaggy-fringed, dome-headed, portly man of middle age, shorter than Inellan. Jaekel was a middle-aged woman, lean and rangy, with a long face and thin humourless mouth. A third official, male, heavily muscled, only slightly older than Midax, was the enforcer named Rersh.

To all of them Inellan said, Midax Rale – whom some of you have met earlier in the day – has claimed a sighting.

You really mean – began Jaekel.

Inellan held up his hand. Turning to Midax he said: I haven’t even asked you what type of manifestation you claim to have seen. This is no time to rely upon subjective descriptions. Lead us to the spot.

Out through the Institute door, down the steps between the columns, and onto the rougher surface of the avenue, Midax strode while the others kept up, their hard silence causing him to wonder what they would do if it turned out that he was bringing them on a fool’s errand.

Logic told him that they must be used to false alarms. Therefore the penalties for getting it wrong would not be too severe. Imagination, however, refused to listen to logic. A cartoon built up in Midax’s mind, of him being surrounded and squeezed flat as paper and slid into an envelope marked unrecorded punishment. However, he repeated to himself, his was not a fool’s errand. He glanced at the muscle-bound figure of Rersh jogging beside him, and thought: I know why they brought you, my chunky friend, but you aren’t making any arrest tonight.

This is the spot, said Midax and pointed exactly at the fused grass-blades, still visible in the twilight.

The others gathered round, saw, and bowed their heads at this herald of a doom that towered above all personal concerns.

Midax’s sense of triumphant vindication was scattered away on the breeze that moaned over the grass. Down there at their feet grew the little trembling portent of that no-longer-mythical condition, Sparseworld, and no one could think of point-scoring in front of that sign.

Inellan broke the silence. We had better get to work.

Ultrisk remarked, Final Stage Plan One, looks like.

Jaekel’s lips stretched wider and thinner and the words cracked out of her: "So we padlock the past, by broadcasting the truth we hoped never to see… Brrr, she shivered. Sorry," she added.

Ultrisk growled, So long as it’s planned out...

Inellan made a gesture of irritation. "It is. Don’t doubt that. The work has been done. The plans are all made; we just have to make sure we implement them... Let’s get back inside. I’m starting to freeze out here."

Ultrisk said, And by the by, we haven’t yet congratulated our young discoverer friend.

Inellan slid a hand inside his coat. I intend to do more than congratulate him. He said to Midax, I brought something along for you, Discoverer, thinking you’d want it.

I do, said Midax, watching for the hand to re-emerge.

Sure of yourself, aren’t you?

In some things, yes.

Here you are. The hand came out holding sheets of folded paper. Midax took them, glanced at them. The application form.

Report to reception in the morning. Inellan turned to go, then half-turned back. How much do you actually know about what you’re letting yourself in for?

"Only that it’s big – that big," said Midax, pointing at the faint structural outline which loomed a mile beyond the Olamic building.

Inellan’s lip quirked: A box big enough for a Splasher, maybe?

Bleak chuckles from the other officials faded into a wry silence.

Rersh chipped in with, That’ll be the day.

That’s the point, commented Inellan. "When you get in the box, that is the day."

6: Parting

Midax Rale walked homewards in the deepening darkness, sharply aware that this was the last night before his career began. The last few hours of leisured goodbye to his old lax aimless life, and then - purpose. An infinitely exciting thought, not merely marvellous but a true fist of a thought, to punch through the dry rot of old problems.

Better not let your excitement rampage all night, though. Better get some sleep.

His sense of direction guided him off the avenue and through a medley of lesser streets which meandered around small parks. The familiar trees, with their exact count of leaves, loomed vaguely, rustling as the darkness prickled around him, as his thoughts darted and churned. Some ideas he did not want, knowing as he did how vital it was to judge matters to a nicety when events were speeding him round a sharp corner: anything that threatened his balance must be rejected. Behold, here came a long-forgotten, juvenile belief in personal destiny, enticing him anew. Squash it back down, immediately! Shove it back into its grave, that mischief-maker Destiny which goes around laying tripwires for fools; no need for it anyway. He himself had taken all the action needed to change the direction of his life. A fresh start. A life no longer stale. Taking one’s own chances with one’s own wits and skills. All this was far more satisfying than subservience to some overarching destiny.

Turning the last corner, he entered his home street, which was now almost invisible, so dim was the light; a fact which hardly slowed him at all since he knew the area so well. He could almost guide his steps by the clunk of boot-sole on each individual cobblestone. Indeed he felt grateful towards the shrouding dimness, for it was allowing him a calm space in which to postpone his farewells.

He reached his front door and, as always, he sensed that the silent welcome, the greeting of home, embraced him invisibly in the hallway with its offer of comfort and familiarity, as though the house were an old friend or nurse who had never let him down, and who now advised him to give his overactive mind a firm nudge towards sleep. So he went straight upstairs, took his boots off on the landing, went into his bedroom and flopped heavily on the bed – in the hope that his buzzing brain would take the hint. He commanded his inner clock to allot him the right number of hours’ rest and no more.

Having thus set his mental alarm he knew that when he re-opened his eyes the sun would have brightened once more. Doubtless it would be at that point, with the sunlight bathing the view from the window, that nostalgia would hit him. But if he rode his emotions competently, in accordance with the Splasher code that you do not make a fuss, the nostalgia could be channelled. For although his life had taken a new direction he still followed the Splasher code, the urbane ethic of self-control.

Not that his former cronies had much of a name for self-restraint in their pursuit of pleasure; but to give them their due they abominated all forms of self-indulgent emotional display. They might allow themselves to be uproarious, but they never gushed, were never maudlin or hysterical. The perpetual commanding undertone in all their frolicking was, you must be smooth. And he, Midax Rale, would stay smooth tomorrow.

What a pity that his fellow Splashers invariably took their smoothness-ethic to mean that they must never talk about anything interesting, never go in for anything inspiring, never get really excited by an idea. That was why he had to quit the whole boring scene – retaining, however, Splasher self-possession in his mental luggage, so as not to break down and cry at the thought that he might never be idle and carefree again.

With that assurance he at last relaxed, allowing his thoughts to jostle weakly before they took their dive into exhaustion, popping like bubbles, down into a dreamless blank.

He woke with that bright pressure on his eyelids, the light of momentous morning, for which he had emotionally prepared. His wits at the ready, he opened his eyes, sat up and looked around his room. If any sneaking regret for the old free-and-easy days were to try to drag him back, now would be a likely moment for the attempt.

Lamp, table, shelf of books, a mantelpiece display of rare stones…. he wondered which of these would try a sneak raid on his mind.

To some people this simple immaculate room might have seemed bare and commonplace, but he regarded it all the more tenderly for that. Limitless Splasher wealth had not, in his case, ever been invested in a bulge of accumulated belongings. Why should it? The whole city was his home; he had free access to the treasury, access due to his status – which no one could revoke – as one who had been born within yards of the Time-Tree.

Splashers were the mostly-idle rich. The not always idle rich. The very occasional troubleshooters.

Over millions of days, the regular economic functions of the citizens of Serenth had become as instinctive as breathing, but there still remained the occasional administrative decision, or the even rarer political one, which had to be made and carried out consciously. How to deal with that? Most of the population did their tasks in a trance during working hours, and as for those who did not – the vividians who stayed awake all day – the only serious ones among them, namely the scientists and artists, were uninterested in practical problems. But someone had to cope with practical problems. Infrequent though they were, they could not simply be ignored. Hence the enormous latitude granted to the non-vocational vividians, the Splashers, who stayed awake all day but ninety-nine per cent of the time had no work to do.

Well, it wasn’t their fault that society was the way it was, functioning with such efficiency as to run itself almost all the time without conscious human effort; and Midax had no moral objection to idleness anyway. It would have been easier if he had.

Regrets can lie in wait.

The stone was the first sneak. The polished stone on the left of the mantelpiece.

He had collected it on a picnic.

Sudden memory of that made him think of the Blerdon – the boundary region, idyllic for picnics, where the soil and rock of Sycrest fades out into the smooth substance of the universe: non-particulate kolv, bland and continuous for ever and ever. The stone on his mantelpiece was indeed pure kolv: tests on it had shown that its translucent variations from green to grey-green were not due to impurities but, instead, reflected some absolute trend within its nature. You could chip it but you couldn’t analyse it. Infinite subdivision makes no change to a substance which is not built up of atoms.

It seemed to be calling to him:

Me, I’m kolv, you can split me forever and I will stay the same. But you, Midax Rale, what are you? A jumble of atoms! You have to be careful; if you get rearranged, you’re different! A rearranged you would no longer be you, and aren’t the Olamic bound to try it, in their struggle against Sparseworld? Their anti-simplicity campaign will sprout new complexities inside yourself, as part of their plan to save Serenth. Then won’t your identity be gone? And even if part of your personality survives the processing, do you really want that mould growing inside you?

As if it really had been the stone speaking, rather than his inner fears, Midax hit back.

His first action was to stride to the window.

The bright street was already astir; the early shifts were allowing the work-trance to take hold of them, to ease them out of their front doors, to draw them along the streets towards their offices, farms, road-repairs or mills.

Midax watched as the tranced workers paraded unconsciously by. He saw folk across the entire range of complexity. At the lower limit were the most primitive simploids (or Simplenns), with their stiff walk, their neckless bullet-heads, their sketchy features. They could be quite fine-looking in their way, as a semi-abstract sculpture with a spare allowance of basic shapes might render a polished, general symbol of humanity. Yet though handsome, they were simploids. Physical and mental simpletons. No use trying by means of euphemism to hide the gulf between them and the opposite extreme – those who had been born close enough to the Fount, to emerge as fully distinct men and women.

Gotcha, he retorted to the mantelpiece stone.

He had moved to this district eighteen hundred days ago in the vague hope that living in such a location, mid-way between the city’s complex centre and its simple periphery, he just might find – perhaps in an