5 City of Illusions by Ursula Le Guin

Author:Ursula Le Guin [Guin, Ursula Le]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2011-03-09T05:00:00+00:00

"Over two Werelian years—maybe a hundred and thirty or forty light-years—I was only a boy, a child, prech Ramarren, and some things I didn't understand, and much wasn't told me—"

Falk did not see why this ignorance should embarrass the lad; he was much more struck by the fact that Orry, who looked fifteen or sixteen, had been alive for perhaps a hundred and fifty years. And himself?

The Alterra, Orry went on, had left from a base near the old coast-town Tevar, her coordinates set for Terra. She had carried nineteen people, men, women and children, Kelshak for the most part and claiming Colonist descent: the adults selected by the Harmonious Council of the Empire for training, intelligence, courage, generosity, and arlesh.

"I don't know a word for it in Galaktika. It's just arlesh." Orry smiled his ingenuous smile. "Rale is… the right thing to do, like learning things at school, or like a river following its course, and arlesh derives from rale, I guess."

"Tao?" asked Falk; but Orry had never heard of the Old Canon of Man.

"What happened to the ship? What happened to the other seventeen people?"

"We were attacked at the Barrier. The Shing got there only after the Alterra was destroyed and the attackers were dispersing. They were rebels, in planetary cars. The Shing rescued me off one. They didn't know whether the rest of us had been killed or carried off by the rebels. They kept searching, over the whole planet, and about a year ago they heard a rumor about a man living in the Eastern Forest—that sounded like it might be one of us…"

"What do you remember of all this—the attack and so on?"

"Nothing. You know how lightspeed flight affects you—"

"I know that for those in the ship, no time passes. But I have no idea how that feels."

"Well, I don't really remember it very clearly. I was just a boy—nine years old, Earth style. And I'm not sure anybody could remember it clearly. You can't tell how—how things relate. You see and hear, but it doesn't hang together—nothing means anything—I can't explain it. It's horrible, but only like a dream. But then coming down into planetary space again, you go through what the Lords call the Barrier, and that blacks out the passengers, unless they're prepared for it. Our ship wasn't. None of us had come to when we were attacked, and so I don't remember it, any—any more than you, prech Ramarren. When I came to I was aboard a Shing vessel."

"Why were you brought along as a boy?"

"My father was the captain of the expedition. My mother was on the ship too. You know, otherwise, prech Ramarren—well, if one came back one's people would all have been dead, long long ago. Not that it mattered—my parents are dead, now, anyhow. Or maybe they were treated like you, and… and wouldn't recognize me if we met…"

"What was my part in the expedition?"

"You were our navigator."

The irony of that made Falk wince, but Orry went

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