Glawen prompted him: "And what are the new goals?"

Kirdy gave Glawen a crafty side glance.

"I can trust no one.

This I now know. Of all the realities, it is most certain:

the purest, sweetest and only truth. I am I. All else is stink, slime and crawl space."

Glawen had no immediate response to make. Presently he said:

"If your goals are creditable, who should they be secret?"

"No matter. I will not think along these lines just now. One day you will learn the scope of my concept."

Glawen said coldly: "I doubt if I will be interested."

Kirdy eyed him with a blue gaze, cold and opaque, which at one time had seemed so candid and mild.

"You must not be sure of anything. Change is everywhere. I even notice changes in myself. At one time I was hard and impermeable. I saw with total penetration, as I had never seen before. I defined the deceit behind every pretense. I saw people in bitter fact for animals prancing and sidling in ridiculous clothes. Before, such messages came to my subconscious, which kindly barred them from my frontal mind. Now this subconscious is my frontal mind and the new clarity of my view is uninhibited. All is lucid. Even you, Glawen! Your postures hide nothing from me."

Glawen laughed shortly.

"If they offend you, I suggest that you return to Araminta Station by the first ship out of Poinciana. I can fl manage well enough alone. Is that posture clear enough, or should I make it even more clear?"

"Unnecessary."

"Well--what will you do? Return to Cadwal?"

"I will consider the matter."

The Sagittarian Ray decelerated from inter split passed to the side of the blue star Blaise--the "Blue-eyed Devil"--and descended upon Natrice. Looking down from the promenade, Glawen saw a world of modest size, half in, half out of the blue glare of Blaise. Small polar ice caps showed as dazzling white blotches; other aspects of the

topography were blurred by a dense atmosphere and high mists of ice crystals which reflected most of Blaise's harmful actinics.

In the great saloon of the Sagittanan Ray the stewards had set up a large geographic globe representing Natrice.

Glawen, studying the globe, had learned that the hemispheres were roughly symmetrical. A narrow equatorial sea, the Mirling, girdled the globe, with a coastal plain flanking each shore. To north and south the landscape tilted and folded to become first temperate uplands, then tall mountains, then tundra to the ice caps. In the north hemisphere, the regions beyond the coastal plain were the Lanklands; the corresponding areas to the south were the Wild Counties. The population of Natrice, through historical circumstances, was not large. A few small cities faced each other across the Mirling, of which the largest was Poinciana, also the site of the spaceport. Next in importance was Halcyon, almost directly across the Mirling.

The first permanent settlers had arrived while Natrice still lay "Beyond"--which meant past the recognized boundaries of the Gaean Reach. These folk were retired pirates, slavers, fugitives and desperados of every stripe, along with a leavening of ordinary criminals. They were united by a desire to enjoy their wealth in peace, secure from the persecutions of the IPCC. To this end they established comfortable estates along the shores of the Mirling, using an architecture in perfect harmony with the environment.

Wide low domes of foamed concrete created vast areas of cool dim space, rich with muted colors. The mansions were surrounded by shaded pools and wonderful gardens; the fascinating native flora coexisted with equally remarkable imports. There were palms of every description, yellow umbrella trees, black sky-spikes; salmatics with drooping branches and heart-shaped blue-green leaves; sweet limes with dark green foliage, perpetually in bloom and yielding exquisite fruit; jasmine, hinano, kahalaea; rami folia standing high on ten crooked legs; batter-brain, with branches terminating in clublike knots; sky grass, with pink, blue, green and violet stalks, used to border paths;

silver fern and black fern, crying out when touched together; lattice dendrons dangling hundreds of carmine flower-gongs; rose-wisteria hybrids; balloon vines and flame flowers from Cadwal; red, black and white-striped golliwog barrels.

In such surroundings the cutthroats, tomb-robbers, slavers and scoundrels became the Pairunes of Natrice. They conducted their lives in full propriety, taught honor, duty and virtue to their children and distanced themselves from old associate's, who tended to borrow money, or reminisce, or even ask advice on how best to commit some atrocious crime. To avoid these episodes, the Famines adopted the

manners of aristocrats and trained their children in patrician aloofness, and so the centuries passed. The Patrunes became aristocrats indeed, with their origins now the subject of humorous conjecture, or even rueful pride.

When the Gaean Reach enveloped Mircea's Wisp, a surge of immigrants moved into Natrice, not at all to the satisfaction of the Patrunes. Most numerous were the Sanart Scientists: an order of naturopathic philosophers who settled the Lanklands. They arrived from every where across the Gaean Reach in a continuing flood, which at last prompted the Patrunes to close the Poinciana spaceport to further immigration. The Scientists paid no attention to the proscription and opened their own spaceport on an upland meadow; the influx continued, with the Patrunes powerless to interfere. Finally the tide dwindled and stopped, apparently because all the Sanart Scientists of the Gaean Reach had now arrived on Natrice, in numbers of over a million. They framed small acreages, smelted enough metal and cut enough timber to meet their needs, and in general kept to themselves, making no attempts to disseminate their creed, which was considered a self-evident truth.

In this assumption they were possibly correct, since the Sanart philosophy was disarmingly simple. Gaean man, so they asserted, was constituted a natural creature built of natural stuffs; his health, goodness, strength and sanity depended upon full synchrony with the "slow sweet harmonies of nature," as they expressed it. These few words summed up the Idea, from which the Sanart Scientists derived other more or less elaborate corollaries. They rejoiced in elemental processes: thunder, lightning, the flow of water, the warmth of sun light, the rich substance of the soil, the flux of the seasons. Natural pleasures and natural foods were deemed good and worthy of enjoyment Synthetic foods, artificial entertainments, unnatural habits, i abstract aesthetics these were considered bad and to be avoided, or even, in some cases, expunged. Loyalty, fortitude, persistence and ;

austerity: all were good, all contributed to Truth and the Idea. Intern:

perance, overindulgence, indiscriminate tolerance were bad, along , with gluttony, waste, excesses of luxury and sensuality.

The Idea was never urged or advocated. It was a concept of natural power, though still a human thought on a human scale. Above all else, the Sanart Scientists despised mysticism. They abhorred priests and their religions, which the Scientists considered so stultifying and preposterous as to verge upon criminal foolishness.

Almost equally to be deplored was the hedonism and idle luxury enjoyed by the Patrunes, who were parasites upon the yield of invested wealth. The ordinary tendency of the Sanart Scientist would be to shrug stonily and turn away, perhaps with a grim smile. Let the Patrunes wallow in their debasement as they liked--were it not for a disturbing circumstance: their frivolities and delightful revels set a bad example for impressionable young folk when for one reason or another they wandered into town. They would return to the Lanklands full of silly nonsense no longer in full accord with the Idea. Some "went bad," and tried to implement their new notions. When reproached or corrected, certain of these "bad ones" became defiant and left the Lanklands altogether. The situation was not improving; rather, the new notions were infecting ever more young folk of the Lanklands like a vile disease.

Every three years district delegates met at a World Synod.

At the last few of these, strong language had been used in connection with the Patrunes, who were identified as the source of the troubles. The most intemperate voices urged forthright action to rid Natrice of its "degenerates, whose lives are like septic sores!"

The proposals, when put to a vote, were always defeated, but by decreasing margins. An uneasy tension was abroad in the Lanklands.

Along with the Sanart Scientists a miscellany of other folk had come to Natrice, bringing new skills, new talents, new enterprises. Upon gaining wealth, the newcomers, to the disgust of the Scientists, put on airs and attempted the Patrune life-style, but the more they exerted themselves the more sedulously were they snubbed by the Patrunes, until at last they made the best of their inferior status.

The Sagittarian Ray landed at the Poinciana spaceport.

Glawen and Kirdy disembarked directly into a canopied carry-all which whisked them across the field, through the noonday glare of Blaiselight to the terminal. At a tourist information booth they were recommended to the Hotel Rolinda.

"This is a resort of the highest style," stated the tourist adviser, a fashionable young gentleman who had carefully draped his body in loose white garments, after the casual Patrune style.

"The Rolinda is absolutely modern and adheres to the highest cosmopolitan standards."

Kirdy made a soft sound of melancholy recollection.

"Floreste favored Mirlview House for the Mummers."

"Definitely and distinctly inferior," declared the adviser.

"The emphasis is upon achieving tolerable results with minimal effort. It is the resort of the Sanart Scientists when they visit the city; need I say more?"

"The Mirlview was indeed somewhat severe!" mused Kirdy.

"Still,

those were wonderful times! In those days I had so much to learn, and so much yet to undergo." His voice dwindled away.

"Quite so," said the adviser.

"I cannot in good conscience recommend the Mirlview. Persons of judgment and high connection inevitably select the Rolinda. True, it is expensive, but what of that? If disbursing a dink et or two causes a person pain, he should best stay home, where his frugalities will not offend members of the travel industry.

Are you in agreement?"

"Of course," said Glawen.