This second novel by multiple award-winner Vernor Vinge, from 1976, is a fast-paced adventure where galactic policies collide and different cultures clash as two scientists and their faith in technology are pitted against an elusive race of telekinetic beings.
Marooned on a distant world and slowly dying of food poisoning, two anthropologists are caught between warring alien factions engaged in a battle that will affect the future of the world's inhabitants and their deadly telekinetic powers. If the anthropologists can't help resolve the conflict between the feuding alien factions, no one will survive.
This edition features sixteen full-page illustrations by Doug Beekman.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Release date:
November 28, 2006
Publisher:
Tom Doherty Associates
Print pages:
224
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One
Fall had come to Bodgaru-by-the-Sea, and winter was not now far away. All up the sides of the mountains that sheltered Bodgaru's northern flank, the tri-crowned pines stood green and snowy white in the fading sunlight. The town itself was still free of snow, but the cutting edge of the sea wind blew up off the beaches to lay sand and dust across the frosted brown grass that separated the townspeople's stone houses. Only the furry terns were about in the out-of-doors these days: they screaked and scrawked as they glided between the houses. The townspeople were Summerfolk, and when the weather turned cold, many of them moved south where summer was forever. Those who stayed kept indoors, and worked their mines buried thousands of feet within the mountains.
Parapfu Moragha looked out upon the scene, and silently cursed the day he had been appointed prefect of Bodgaru. Oh, at the time it had seemed quite a coup. His stone mansesat large and imposing on the ridge line that shielded the terminus of the Royal Road from the mountains to the north; he ruled a land larger than some duchies. But his vast "domain" was a cold, ugly borderland of the Summerkingdom. Bodgaru was seven leagues north of the equator--a short ride on the road, but more than two thousand miles as pilgrims walk it. The glaciers and mountains and snow-covered deserts that stretched from Bodgaru away to the North Pole were all claimed by the Snowking.
Moragha turned away from the thick quartz window to eye his visitors with barely disguised distaste. A half-wit, a Guildsman, and a common miner. It was outrageous that he should be bothered by the likes of these on the eve of the prince-imperial's visit, a visit that might be his last chance to persuade his friends at court to get him a new assignment. He eased himself onto the fur cushions that covered his stone chair, and said, "Really, Prou, why are you here?"
Thengets del Prou returned his accusing look with characteristic blandness. Only the glint in his eyes told Moragha that the tall, dark-skinned Guildsman was really laughing at his discomfiture. "I am within my covenanted territory, My Lord. Bodgaru is less than eight leagues from Dhendgaru."
Theso Lagha, first speaker of the miners' association, bobbed his head respectfully. He, at least, showed proper courtesy. "I asked him to come here tonight, My Lord Prefect. It seemed to me that what Hugo saw was important, so important that you might need the Guild immediately."
Moragha grimaced. Covenant or no, he feared the Guild. And he trusted Prou even less than the average Guildsman; the dark-faced smart aleck was of desert stock, with a practically unpronounceable name. Moragha wished that the miners didn't need Prou's senging quite so often, that theGuildsman would stick to his assigned city. "Very well, good Theso, just what did your man see?"
Lagha urged the third visitor toward Moragha's throne. "Yes, My Lord. Hugo here is indentured to our association as a woodcutter. Tell My Lord Prefect what you saw, Hugo."
Hugo was obviously a half-wit and a witling. His eyes wandered aimlessly about the room as he fiddled nervously with the sewn bladders of his slicker; Lagha and Prou at least had the grace to leave theirs by the pool. After several incoherent garglings, the old man finally managed: "May it please M'lord, I cut wood ... for freeman and his friends, them that pull the rock from the hills. Mostly, I cut tri-crown pine over ... over ..."
"Over northeast of town, away from the prospecting hills," put in Lagha.
"Yea ... nice up there. No people. No things, excepting paddlefeet sometimes ... and that only after the snow comes all the way into town ... ." He paused for a long moment but his owner did not prod him on. Finally he recovered his chain of thought. " ... But this last nineday, before the first snow, there's been some ... thing so strange up there. Lights, faint. Like you see over Bilala's marsh at night sometimes in the summer. I thought it might be same thing, but no, the lights stay and stay. Pretty. I go closer last night. Come in from the north ... . Quiet, quiet. There are people there, M'lord, watching us, watching town."
"How many?" snapped the prefect.
The witling's face twisted in concentration. "Hard to say. Two, I think ... they have a little house there and they sit and watch us from inside. And they're strange. One's so big, so tall ... much taller even than the honored Guildsman." He nodded at Thengets del Prou. " ... I go close, closer, quiet like the paddlefoot, and then ..."
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