THE THREE-CORNERED WHEEL

"No!"

Rebo Legnor's-Child, Marchwarden of Gilrigor, sprang back from the picture as if it had come alive. "What are you thinking of?" he gasped. "Burn that thing! Now!" One hand lifted shakily toward the fire in the great brazier, whose flames relieved a little the gloom of the audience chamber. "Over there. I saw nothing and you showed me nothing. Do you understand?"

David Falkayn let fall the sheet of paper on which he had made the sketch. It fluttered to the table, slowly through an air pressure a fourth again as great as Earth's. "What—" His voice broke in a foolish squeak. Annoyance at that crowded out fear. He braced his shoulders and regarded the Ivanhoan squarely. "What is the matter?" he asked. "It is just a drawing."

"Of the malkino." Rebo shuddered. "And you not even belonging to our kind, let alone a Consecrate."

Falkayn stared at him, as if anyone of Terrestrial descent could read expressions on that unhuman face. Seen by the dull red sunlight slanting through narrow windows, Rebo looked more like a lion than a man, and not very much like either. The body was only roughly anthropoid: bipedal, two-armed, but short and thick in the torso, long and thick in the limbs, with a forward-leaning posture that reduced a sheer two meters of height to approximately Falkayn's level. The three fingers had one more joint than a man's, and narrow black nails; the thumbs were on the opposite side of the hands from those of Genus Homo; the feet were digitigrade. Mahogany fur covered the entire skin, but each hair bore tiny barbs, so that the effect was of rough plumage. The head was blocky and round-eared, the face flat, noseless, with breathing apertures below the angle of the great jaws and enormous green eyes above an astonishingly sensitive, almost womanlike mouth. But whatever impression that conveyed was overwhelmed by the tawny leonine mane which framed the countenance and spilled down the muscular back, and by the tufted tail that lashed the ankles. A pair of short scaly trousers and a leather baldric, from which hung a wicked-looking ax, enhanced the wild effect.

Nevertheless, Falkayn knew, inside that big skull was a brain as good as his own. The trouble was, it had not evolved on Earth. And when, in addition to every inborn strangeness, the mind was shaped by a culture that no man really understood . . . how much communication was possible?

The boy wet his lips. The dry cold air of Ivanhoe had chapped them. He didn't lay a hand on his blaster, but he became acutely aware of its comforting drag at his hip. Somehow he found words:

"I beg your pardon if I have given offense. You will understand that foreigners may often transgress through ignorance. Can you tell me what is wrong?"

Rebo's taut crouch eased a trifle. His eyes, seeing further into the red end of the spectrum than Falkayn's, probed comers which were shadows to the visitor. No one else stood on the floor or behind the grotesquely carved stone pillars. Only the yellow flames acrackle in the brazier, the acridity of smoke from unearthly wood, stirred in the long room. Outside—it seemed suddenly very far away—Falkayn heard the endless wind of the Gilrigor uplands go booming.

"Yes," the Marchwarden said, "I realize you acted unwittingly. And you, for your part, should not doubt that I remain friendly to you—not just because you are my guest at this moment, but because of the fresh breath you have brought to this stagnant land of ours."

"That we have perhaps brought," Falkayn corrected. "The future depends on whether we live or die, remember. And that in turn depends on your help." Well put! he congratulated himself. Schuster ought to have heard that. Maybe then he'd stop droning at me about how I'll never make merchant status if I don't learn to handle words.

"I will not be able to help you if they flay me," Rebo answered sharply. "Burn that thing, I say."

Falkayn squinted through the murk at his drawing. It showed a large flatbed wagon with eight wheels, to be drawn by a team of twenty fastigas. All the way from the spaceship to this castle, he had been aglow with visions of how awed and delighted the noble would be. He had seen himself, no longer Davy-this-and-Davy-that, hey-boy-c'mere, apprentice and unpaid personal servant to Master Polesotechnician Martin Schuster: but Falkayn of Hermes, a Prometheus come to Larsum with the gift of the wheel. What's gone wrong? he thought wildly; and then, with the bitterness common at his seventeen years: Why does everything always go wrong?

Nevertheless he crossed the floor of inlaid shells and cast the paper into the brazier. It flared up and crumbled to ash.

Turning, he saw that Rebo had relaxed. The Marchwarden poured himself a cupful of wine from a carafe on the table and tossed it off at a gulp. "Good," he rumbled. "I wish you could partake with me. It is distressful not to offer refreshment to a guest."

"You know that your foods would poison my race," Falkayn said. "That is one reason why we must transport the workmaker from Gilrigor to our ship, and soon. Will you tell me what is bad about the device I have illustrated? It can be easily built. Its kind—wagons, we call them—were among the most important things my people ever invented. They had much to do with our becoming more than—"

He checked himself just before he said "savages" or "barbarians." Rebo's hereditary job was to keep such tribes on their proper side of the Kasunian Mountains. Larsum was a civilized country, with agriculture, metallurgy, towns, roads, trade, a literate class.

But no wheels. Burdens went on the backs of citizens or their animals, by boat, by travois, by sledge in winter—never on wheels. Now that he thought about it, Falkayn remembered that not even rollers were employed.

"The idea is that round objects turn," he floundered.

Rebo traced a sign in the air. "Best not to speak of it." He changed his mind with soldierly briskness. "However, we must. Very well, then. The fact is that the malkino is too holy to be put to base use. The penalty for transgressing this law is death by flaying, lest God's wrath fall on the entire land."

Falkayn struggled with the language. The educator tapes aboard the What Cheer had given him fluency, but could not convey a better idea of semantic subtleties than the first expedition to Ivanhoe had gotten; and those men hadn't stayed many weeks. The word he mentally translated as "holy" implied more than dedication to spiritual purposes. There were overtones of potency, mana, and general ineffability. Never mind. "What does malkino mean?"

"A ... a roundedness. I may not draw it for you, only a Consecrate may do that. But it is something perfectly round."

"Ah, I see. A circle, we would call it, or a sphere if solid. A wheel is circular. Well, I suppose we could make our wheels slightly imperfect."

"No." The maned head shook. "Until the imperfection became so gross that the wheels would not work anyway, the thing is impossible. Even if the Consecrates would allow it—and I know quite well they will not, as much from hostility to you as from dogma—the peasants would rise in horror and butcher you." Rebo's eyes glowed in the direction of Falkayn's gun. "Yes, I realize you have powerful, fire-throwing weapons. But there are only four of you. What avail against thousands of warriors, shooting from the cover of hills and woods?"

Falkayn hearked back to what he had seen in Aesca, on his westward ride along the Sun's Way, and now in this stronghold. Architecture was based on sharp-cornered polygons. Furniture and utensils were square or oblong. The most ceremonial objects, like Rebo's golden wine goblet, went no further than to employ elliptical cross-sections, or mere arcs of true circles.

He felt ill with dismay. "Why?" he choked. "What makes a ... a figure ... so holy?"

"Well—" Rebo lowered himself uncomfortably to a chair, draping his tail over the rest across the back. He fiddled with his octagonal ax haft and didn't look at the other. "Well, ancient usage. I can read, of course, but I am no scholar. The Consecrates can tell you more. Still . . . the circle and the sphere are the signs of God. In a way, they are God. You see them in the sky. The sun and the moons are spheres. So is the world, however imperfect; and the Consecrates say that the planets have the same shape, and the stars are set inside the great ball of the universe. All the heavenly bodies move in circles. And, well, circle and sphere are the perfect shapes. Are they not? Everything perfect is a direct manifestation of God."

Remembering a little about Classical Greek philosophy—even if the human colony on Hermes had broken away from Earth and established itself as a grand duchy, it remained proud of its heritage and taught ancient history in the schools—Falkayn could follow that logic. His impulse was to blurt: "You're wrong! No planet or star is a

16

true globe, and orbits are ellipses, and your damned little red dwarf sun isn't the center of the cosmos anyway. I've been out there and I know!" But Schuster had drilled enough caution into him that he checked himself. He'd accomplish nothing but to stiffen the enmity of the priests, and perhaps add the enmity of Rebo, who still wanted to be his friend.

How could he prove a claim that went against three or four thousand years of tradition? Larsum was a single country, cut off by mountain, desert, ocean, and howling savages from the rest of the world. It had no more than the vaguest rumors of what went on beyond its borders. From Rebo's standpoint, the only reasonable supposition was that the furless aliens with the beaks above their mouths had flown here from some distant continent. Reviewing the first expedition's reports of how upset and indignant the Consecrates at Aesca had gotten when told that its ship came from the stars, how hotly they had denied the possibility, Schuster had cautioned his fellows to avoid that topic. The only thing which mattered was to get the hell off this planet before they starved to death.

Falkayn's shoulders slumped. "My people have found in their travels that it does not pay to dispute the religious beliefs of others," he said. "Very well, I grant you wheels are forbidden. But then what can we do?"

Rebo looked up again with his disconcertingly intelligent gaze. He was no ham-headed medieval baron, Falkayn realized. His civilization was old, and the rough edges had been worn off its warrior class, off peasants and artisans and traders, as well as the priest-scribe-poet-artist-engineer-scientist Consecrates. Rebo Legnor's-Child might be likened to an ancient samurai, if any parallels to human history were possible. He'd grasped the principle of the wheel at once, and—

"Understand, I, and many of my breed, feel more than simply benevolent toward your kind," he said low. "When the first ship came, several years ago, a lightning flash went through the land. Many of us hoped it meant the end of ... . of certain irksome restrictions. Dealing with civilized outlanders should bring new knowledge, new powers, new ways of life, into this realm where nothing has changed for better than two millennia. I want most sincerely to help you, for my own gain as well as yours."

Besides the need for tact, Falkayn hadn't the heart to answer that the Polesotechnic League had no interest in trading with Larsum, or with any other part of Ivanhoe. There was nothing here that other worlds didn't produce better and cheaper. The first expedition had simply come in search of a place to establish an emergency repair depot, and this planet was simply the least unsalubrious one in this stellar neighborhood. The expedition had observed from orbit that Larsum possessed the most advanced culture. They landed, made contact, learned the language and a little bit of the folkways, then asked permission to erect a large building which none but visitors like themselves would be able to enter.

The request was grudgingly granted, less because of the metals offered in payment than because the Consecrates feared trouble if they refused. Even so, they demanded that the construction be well away from the capital; evidently they wanted to minimize the number of Larsans who might be contaminated by foreign ideas. Having completed the job and bestowed an arbitrary name on the planet, the expedition departed. Their data, with appropriate educator tapes, were issued to all ships that might take the Pleiades route. Everybody hoped that it would never be necessary to use the information. But luck had run out for the What Cheer.

Falkayn said only: "I do not see how you can help. What other way can that thing be moved, than on a wagon?"

"Could it not be taken apart, moved piece by piece, and put back together at your ship? I can supply a labor force."

"No." Damn! How do you explain the construction of a unitized thermonuclear generator to somebody who's never seen a water-wheel? You don't. "Except for minor attachments, it cannot be disassembled, at least not without tools which we do not carry."

"Are you certain that it weighs too much to be transported on skids?"

"Over roads like yours, yes, I think it does. If this were winter, perhaps a sledge would suffice. But we will be dead before snow falls again. Likewise, a barge would do, but no navigable streams run anywhere near, and we would not survive the time necessary to dig a canal."

Not for the first time, Falkayn cursed the depot builders, that they hadn't included a gravity sled with the other stored equipment. But then, every ship carried one or more gravity sleds. Who could have foreseen that the What Cheers would be out of commission? Or that she couldn't at least hop over to the building herself? Or, if anybody thought of such possibilities, they must have reasoned that a wagon could be made; the xenologists had noted that wheels were unknown, and never thought to ask if that was because of a law. A portable crane had certainly been provided, to load and unload whatever was needed for spaceship repair. In fact, so well stocked was the depot that it did not include food, because any crew who could limp here at all should be able to fix their craft in a few days.

"And I daresay no other vessel belonging to your nation will arrive in time to save you," Rebo said.

"No. The . . . the distances we cover in our travels are great beyond comprehension. We were bound for a remote frontier world-country, if you prefer—to open certain negotiations about trade rights. To avoid competition, we left secretly. Nobody at our destination has any idea that we,are coming, and our superiors at home do not expect us back for several months. By the time they begin to worry and start a search—and it will take weeks to visit every place where we might have landed—our food stocks will long have been exhausted. We carried minimal supplies, you see, in order to be heavily laden with valuables f or—uh—"

"For bribes." Rebo made a sound that might correspond to a chuckle. "Yes. Well, then, we must think of something else. I repeat, I will do anything I can to help you. The building was erected here, rather than in some other marchland, because I insisted; and that was precisely because I hoped to see more of your voyagers." His hand went back to his ax. Falkayn had noticed before that the heads of implements were heat-shrunk to the handles. Now the reason came to him: rivets would be sacrilegious. The fingers closed with a snap and Rebo said harshly:

"I am as pious as the next person, but I cannot believe God meant the Consecrates to freeze every life in Larsum into an eternal pattern. There was an age of heroes once, before Ourato brought Uplands and Lowlands together beneath him. Such an age can come again, if the grip upon us is broken."

He seemed to realize he had said too much and added in haste, "Let us not speak of such high matters, though. The important thing is to get that workmaker to your wounded ship. If you and I can think of no lawful means, perhaps your comrades can. So take them back the word—the Marchwarden of Gilrigor cannot allow them to make a, a wagon; but he remains their well-wisher."

"Thank you," Falkayn mumbled. Abruptly the darkness of the room became stifling. "I bad best start back tomorrow."

"So soon? You had a hard trip here, and a short and unhappy conversation. Aesca is so far off that a day or two of rest cannot make any difference."

Falkayn shook his head. "The sooner I return, the better. We have not much time to lose, you know."

II

A fresh fastiga—slightly larger than a horse, long-eared, long-snouted, feathery-furred, with a loud bray and a piny smell—waited in the cruciform courtyard. A remount and pack animal were strung behind. A guardsman held die leader's bridle. He wore a breastplate of reinforced leather, a helmeting network of iron-studded straps woven into his mane, and a broad-bladed spear across his back. Beyond him, lesser folk moved across the cobblestones: servants in livery of black and yellow shorts, drably clad peasants, a maneless female in a loose tunic. Around them bulked the four squat stone buildings that sheltered the household, linked by outer walls in which were the gates. At each corner of the square, a watchtower lifted its battlements into the deep greenish sky.

"Are you certain you do not wish an escort?" Rebo asked.

"There is no danger in riding alone, is there?" Falkayn replied.

"Gr-rm ... no, I suppose not. I keep this region well patrolled. God speed you, then."

Falkayn shook hands, a Larsan custom, too. The Marchwarden's three long fingers and oppositely placed thumb fitted awkwardly into a human grasp. For a moment more they looked at each other.

The bulky garments Falkayn wore against the chill disguised his youthful slenderness. He was towheaded and blue-eyed, with a round face and a freckled snub nose that cost him much secret anguish. A baron's son from Hermes should look lean and dashing. To be sure, he was a younger son, and one who had gotten himself expelled from the ducal militechnic academy. The reason was harmless enough, a prank which had been traced to him by merest chance; but his father decided he had better seek his fortune elsewhere. So he had gone to Earth, and Martin Schuster of the Polesotechnic League had taken him on as an apprentice, and instead of the glamor and adventure which interstellar merchants were supposed to enjoy, there had been hard work and harder study. He had given a whoop when his master told him to ride here alone and arrange for local help. It was vastly disappointing that he couldn't stay awhile.

"Thank you for everything," he said. He swung himself into the saddle with less grace than he'd hoped, under a gravity fifteen percent greater than Earth's. The guard let go the bridle and he rode out the eastern gate.

A village nestled below the castle walls, cottages of dovetailed timber with sod roofs. Beyond them that highroad called the Sun's Way plunged downhill toward the distant Trammina Valley. It wasn't much of a road. The dirt surface was rough, weed-tufted, bestrewn with rocks which melting snows had carried, down year after year from the upper slopes. Not far ahead, the path snaked around a tor and climbed again, steeply.

Falkayn glanced southward. The depot gleamed white on a ridge, like Heaven's gate before Lucifer. Otherwise he himself was the only sign of humankind. Coarse gray grass and thorny trees stretched over the hills, with here and there a flock of grazing beasts watched by a mounted herder. At his back, the Kasunian Mountains rose in harsh snow peaks, a wall across the world. One great moon hung ghostly above them. The ember-colored sun had just cleared the horizon toward which he rode.

Wind roared hollowly, thrusting at his face. He shivered. Ivanhoe was not terribly cold, in this springtime of the middle northern latitudes; the dense atmosphere gave considerable greenhouse effect. But the bloody light made him feel forever chilled. And the fastiga's cloven hooves beat the stones with a desolate sound.

Forgetting that he was Falkayn of Hermes, merchant prince, he pulled the radio transceiver from his pocket and thumbed the switch. Hundreds of kilometers away, an intercom buzzed. "Hullo," he said rather thinly. "Hullo, What Cheer. Anybody there?"

"Si." Engineer Romulo Pasqual's voice came from the box. "Is that you, Davy muchacho?"

Falkayn was so glad of this little company that for once he didn't resent being patronized. "Yes. How's everything?"

"As before. Krish is brooding. Martin has gone to the temple again. He said it would probably be no use trying to talk them out of their prohibition on the wheel that you called us about last night. I?" Falkayn could almost see the Latin shrug. "I sit here and try to figure how we can move a couple tons of generator without wheels. A sort of giant stoneboat, quiza?"

"No. I thought of that, too, and discussed the notion with Rebo, when we spent a lot of the dark period hunting for ideas. Not over a road like this."

"Are you certain? If we hitch enough peasants and animals to the thing-"

"We can't get them. Rebo himself, if he drafted all the people and critters he can spare—remember, this is the planting season in a subsistence economy, and he also has to mount guard against the barbarians—he doubts if there'd be enough power to haul such a load over some of these upgrades."

"You said that quite a few of the caballero class were disgruntled with the priests. If they contributed, too—"

"It'd take a long time to arrange that, probably too long. Besides, Rebo thinks very few would dare go as far as he will, to help us. They may not like being tied hand and foot to Consecrate policy, when there's a whole world for them to spend their energies on. But quite apart from religious reverence, they're physically dependent on the Consecrates, who supply a good many technical and administrative services . . . and who can rouse the commoners against the Wardens, if it ever came to an open break between the castes."

"So. Yes, Martin seemed to think much the same. We also were threshing this matter last night. . . . However, Davy, we should have at least a few score natives and a couple of hundred fastigas at our disposal, if Rebo is willing to help within the letter of the damned law. I swear they could move a stoneboat over any route. They might have to use winches—"

"Winches are a form of wheel," Falkayn reminded him.

"Ay de mí, so they are. Well, levers and dikes, then. The Mayans raised big pyramids without wheels. The task would not be as large, to skid the generator from Gilrigor to Aesca."

"Oh, sure, it could be done. But how long would it take? Come have a look at this so-called road. We'd be many months dead before the job was finished." Falkayn gulped. "How much food have we got if we ration ourselves? A hundred days' worth?"

"Something like that. Of course, we could five without eating for another month or two, I believe."

"Still not time enough to get your stoneboat across that distance. I swear it isn't."

"Well ... no doubt you are right. You have inspected the terrain. It was only a rather desperate idea."

"Wagon transport is bad enough," Falkayn said. "I don't think that would make more than twenty kilometers per Earth-day in this area. Faster, of course, once we reached the lowlands, but I'd still estimate a month altogether."

"So slow? Well, yes, I suppose you are right. A rider needs more than a week. But this adds to our trouble. Martin is afraid that even if we can arrange something not forbidden by their law, the priests may have time to think of some new excuse for stopping us."

Falkayri's mouth tightened. "I wouldn't be surprised." His fright broke from him in a wail: "Why do they hate us so?"

"You should know that. Martin often talked to you while you rode westward."

"Yes. B-but I was sent off just a couple days after we landed. You three fellows have been on the scene, had a chance to speak with the natives, observe them—" Falkayn got his self-pity under control barely in time to avoid blubbering.

"The reason is plain," Pasqual said. "The Consecrates are the top crust of this petrified civilization. Change could only bring them down, however much it might improve the lot of the other classes. Then, besides self-interest, there is natural conservatism. Martin tells me theocracies are always hidebound. The Consecrates are smart enough to see that we newcomers represent a threat to them. Our goods, our ideas will upset the balance of society. So they will do everything they can to discourage more outworlders from coming."

"Can't you threaten revenge? Tell 'em a battleship will come and blow 'em to hell if they let us die."

"The first expedition told them a little too much of the true situation, I fear. Still, Martin may try such a bluff today. I do not know what he intends. But he has gotten . . . well, at least not very are-friendly with some of the younger Consecrates, in the days since you left. Has he told you of his lectures to them? Do not surrender yet, muchacho."

Falkayn flushed indignantly. "I haven't," he snapped. "Don't you either."

Pasqual made matters worse by laughing. Falkayn signed off.

Anger faded before loneliness as the hours wore on. He hadn't minded the trip to Gilrigor Castle. That had been full of hope, and riding on animals purchased with gold from a wealthy Aescan, through an excitingly exotic land, was just what a merchant adventurer ought to do. But Rebo had smashed the hope, and now the countryside looked only dreary and sinister. Falkayn's mind whirled with plan after plan, each less practical than the last—recharging the accumulators by a hand-powered generator, airlifting with a balloon, making so many guns that four men could stand off a million Larsans. . . . Whenever he rejected a scheme, his father's mansion and his mother's face rose up to make his eyes sting and he clutched frantically after another idea.

There must be some way to move a big load without wheels! What had he gone to school for? Physics, chemistry, biology, math, sociotechnics . . . damn everything, here he was, child of a civilization that burned atoms and traveled between the stars, and one stupid taboo was about to kill him! But that was impossible. He was David Falkayn, with his whole life yet to live. Death didn't happen to David Falkayn.

The red sun climbed slowly up the sky. Ivanhoe had a rotation period of nearly sixty hours. He stopped at midday to eat and sleep awhile, and again shortly before sunset. The landscape had grown still more bleak: nothing was to be seen now but hills, ravines, an occasional brawling stream, wild pastures spotted with copses of scrubby fringe-leaved trees, no trace of habitation.

He woke after some hours, crawled shivering from his sleeping bag, started a campfire and opened a packet of food. The smoke stung his nostrils. Antiallergen protected him against such slight contact with proteins made deadly alien by several billion years of separate evolution. He could even drink the local water. But nothing could save him if he ate anything native. After swallowing his rations, he readied the fastigas for travel. Because he was still cold, he left the lead animal tethered and huddled over the fire to store a little warmth in his body.

His eyes wandered upward. Earth and Hermes lay out there-more than four hundred fight-years away.

The second moon was rising, a mottled coppery disc above the eastern scarps. Even without that help, one could travel by night. For the stars swarmed and glittered, the seven giant Sisters so brilliant in their nebular hazes that they cast shadows, the lesser members of the cluster and the more distant suns of the galaxy filling the sky

with their wintry hordes. A gray twilight overlay the world. Off in the west, the Kasunian snows seemed phosphorescent.

Hard to believe there could be danger in so much beauty. And in fact there seldom was. Nonetheless, when a spaceship ran on hyper-drive through a region where the interstellar medium was thicker than usual, there was a small but finite probability that one of her micro-jumps would terminate just where a bit of solid matter happened to be. If the difference in intrinsic velocities was great, it could do considerable damage. If, in addition, the lump was picked up in the space occupied by the nuclear fusion unit—well, that was what had happened to the What Cheer.

I suppose I'm lucky at that, Falkayn thought with a shudder. The pebble could have ripped right through Me. Of course, then the others would have been all right, with no more than a job of hull patching to do. But at his age Falkayn didn't think that was preferable.

He had to admire the way Captain Mukerji had gotten them here. By commandeering every charged accumulator aboard ship, he'd kept the engines going as far as Ivanhoe. Landing on the last gasp of energy, by guess, God, and aerodynamics, took uncommon skill. Naturally, the sensible thing had been to make for Aesca, the capital, rather than directly for Gilrigor. One did not normally bypass local authorities, who might take offense and cause trouble. Who could have known that the trouble was already waiting there?

But now the spaceship sat, without enough ergs left in her power packs to lift a single gravity sled. The accumulators in the depot were insufficient for transportation; besides, they were needed for the repair tools. The spare atomic generator couldn't recharge anything until it had been installed in the ship, for it functioned integrally with engines' and controls. And a thousand wheelless kilometers separated the two. . . .

Something stirred. One of the fastigas brayed. Falkayn's heart jumped into his gullet. He sprang erect with a hand on his blaster.

A native male trod into the little circle of firelight. His fur was fluffed out against the night cold and the breath steamed from below his jaws. Falkayn saw that he carried a rapier and—yes, by Judas, there was a circle emblazoned on his breastplate! The flames turned his great eyes into pools of restless red.

"What do you want?" Falkayn squeaked. Furiously, he reminded himself that the Ivanhoan's hands were extended empty in token of peace.

"God give you good evening," the deep voice answered. "I saw your camp from afar. I did not expect to find an outlander."

"N-n-nor I a Sanctuary guard."

"My corps travels widely on missions for the Consecrates. I hight Vedolo Pario's-Child."

"I, I. . . David, uh, David Falkayn's-Child."

"You have been on a visit to the Marchwarden, have you not?"

"Yes. As if you did not know!" Falkayn spat. No, wait, watch your manners. We may still have a chance of talking the Consecrates into giving us a special dispensation about wheels. "Will you join "me?"

Vedolo hunkered, wrapping his tail about his feet. When Falkayn sat down again, the autochthon loomed over him on the other side, of the flames, mane like a forested mountain against the Milky Way. "Yes," Vedolo admitted, "everyone in Aesca knew you were bound hither, to see if that which your fellows laid in the sealed building was still intact. I trust it was?"

Falkayn nodded. Nobody in the early Iron Age could break into an inertium-plated shed with a Nakamura lock. "And Marchwarden Rebo was most kind," he said.

"That is not surprising, from what we know of him. As I understand the matter, you must get certain spare parts from the building to repair your ship. Will Rebo, then, help you transport them to Aesca?"

"He would if he could. But the main thing we need is too heavy for any conveyance available to him."

"My Consecrate masters have wondered somewhat about that," Vedolo said. "They were shown around your vessel, at their own request, and the damaged section looked quite large."

That must have been after I left, Falkayn thought. Probably Schuster was trying to ingratiate us with them. And I'll bet it misfired badly when they saw the circular shapes of things like meter dials—stiffened their hostility to us, even if they didn't say anything to him at the time.

But how can this character know that, unless he followed me here? And why would he do so? What is this mission of his?

"Your shipmates explained that they had means of transport," Vedolo continued. "That makes me wonder why you returned this quickly, and alone."

"Well. . . we did have a device in mind, but there appear to be certain difficulties—"

Vedolo shrugged. "I have no doubt that folk as learned as you can overcome any problems. You have powers that we thought belonged only to angels—or to Anti-God—" He broke off and extended a hand. "Your flame weapons, for instance, which the earlier visitors demonstrated. I was not present in Aesca at the time, and have always been most curious about them. Is that a weapon at your belt? Might I see it?"

Falkayn went rigid. He could not interpret every nuance in the Larsan voices, so strangely unresonant for lack of a nasal chamber. But— "Nol" he snapped.

The delicate lips curled back over sharp teeth. "You are less than courteous to a servant of God," Vedolo said.

"I. . . uh . . . the thing is dangerous. You might get hurt."

Vedolo raised an arm in the air and lowered it again. "Look at me," he said. "Listen carefully. There is much you do not understand, you bumptious invaders. I have something to tell you—"

In Ivanhoe's thick air, a human heard preternaturally well. Or perhaps it was only that Falkayn was strung wire taut, trembling and sweating with the sense of aloneness before implacable enmity. He heard the rustle out in the brush and flung himself aside as the bowstring sang. The arrow buried its eight-sided shaft in the earth where he had been.

Vedolo sprang up, sword flashing free. Falkayn rolled over. A thornbush raked his cheek. "Kill him!" Vedolo bawled and lunged at the human. Falkayn bounced erect. The rapier blade snagged his coat as he dodged. He got his blaster out and fired point blank.

Light flared hellishly for an instant. Vedolo went over in smoke, with a horrible squelch. Afterimages flew in rags before Falkayn's eyes. He stumbled toward his animals, which plunged and brayed in their panic. Through the dark he heard someone cry, "I cannot see, I cannot see, I am blinded!" The flash would have been more dazzling to Ivanhoans than to him. But they'd recover in a minute, and then they'd have much better night vision than he did.

"Kill his fastigas!" called another voice.

Falkayn fired several bolts. That should make their aim poor for a while longer, he thought in chaos. His lead animal reared and struck at him. Its eyeballs rolled, crimson against shadow-black in the streaming flame light. Falkayn sidestepped the hooves, got one hand on the bridle, and clubbed the long nose with his gun barrel. "Hold still, you brute," he sobbed. "It's your life, too."

Feet blundered through the brush. A lion head came into view. As he saw the human, the warrior yelled and threw a spear. It gleamed past, flattened shaft and iron head. Falkayn was too busy mounting to retaliate.

Somehow he got into the saddle. The remount shrieked as two arrows smote home in its belly. Falkayn cut it loose with a blaster shot.

"Get going!" he screamed. He struck heels into the sides of his beast. The fastiga broke into a rocking gallop, the pack animal behind at the end of its reins.

An ax hewed and missed. An arrow buzzed over his shoulder. Then he was beyond the assassins, back on the Sun's Way, westward bound again.

How many are there? it whirled in him. Half a dozen? They must have left their own fastigas at a distance, so they could sneak up on me. I've got that much head start. But no remount anymore, and they certainly do.

They were sent to waylay me, that's clear, to cause delay that might prove fatal while the others wondered what had happened and searched for me. They don't know about my radio. Not that that makes any difference now. They've got to catch me, before I get to Rebo's protection.

I wonder if I can beat them there.

With hysterical sardonicism: Anyhow, I guess we can forget about that special dispensation.

III

The What Cheer sat in a field a kilometer north of Aesca. By now thousands of local feet had tramped a path across it; the Ivanhoans were entirely humanlike in coming to gape at a novelty. But Captain Krishna Mukerji always rode into town.

"Really, Martin, you should, too," he said nervously. "Especially when the situation has all at once become so delicate. They don't consider it dignified for anyone of rank to arrive at the, er, the Sanctuary on foot."

"Dignity, schmignity," said Master Polesotechnician Schuster. "I

should wear out my heart and my rump on one of those evil-minded animated derricks? I rode a horse once on Earth. I never repeat my mistakes." He waved a negligent hand. "Besides, I've already told the Consecrates, and anyone else that asked, the reason I go places on foot, and don't bother with ceremony, and talk friendly with low-life commoners, is that I've progressed beyond the need for outward show. That's a new idea here, simplicity as a virtue. It's got the younger Consecrates quite excited."

"Yes, I daresay this culture is most vulnerable to new ideas," Mukerji said. "There have been none for so long that the Larsans have no antibodies against them, so to speak, and can easily get feverish. . . . But the heads of the Sanctuary appear to realize this. If you cause too much disturbance with your comments and questions, they may not wait for us to starve. They may whip up an outright attack, casualties and the fear of a punitive expedition be damned."

"Don't worry," Schuster said. Another man in his position might have been offended; a first-year Polesotechnie cadet was taught not to clash head-on with the basics of an alien culture, and he had been a Master for two decades. But his face, broad and saber-nosed under sleek black hair, remained blandly smiling. "In all my conversations with these people, feeling them out, I've never yet challenged any of their beliefs. I don't intend to start now. In fact, I'm simply going to continue my seminar over there, as if we hadn't a care in the universe. To be sure, if I can steer the talk in a helpful direction—" He gathered a sheaf of papers and left the cabin: a short tubby man in vest and ruffled shirt, culottes and hose, as elegant as if he were bound for a reception on Earth.

Emerging from the air lock and heading down the gangway, he drew his mantle about him with a shiver. To avoid eardrum popping, the hull was kept at Ivanhoan air pressure, but not temperature. Br-r-r, he thought. I don't presume to criticize the good Lord, but why did He make the majority of stars type M?

The afternoon landscape reached somber, to his eyes, as far as he could see down the valley. Grainfields were turning bluish with the first young shoots of the year. Peasants, male, female, and young, hoed a toilsome way down those multitudinous rows. The square mud huts in which they lived stood at no great separation, for every farm was absurdly small. Nevertheless families did not outgrow the capacity of the land; disease and periodic famines kept the population stable. To hell with any sentimental guff about cultural autonomy, Schuster reflected. This is one society that ought to be kicked apart.

He reached the highroad and started toward the city. There was considerable traffic, food and raw materials coming from the hinterlands, handmade goods going back. Professional porters trotted under loads too heavy for Schuster even to think about. Fastigas dragged travois with vast bumping and clatter. A provincial Warden and his bodyguard galloped through, horns hooting, and the commoners jumped aside for their lives. Schuster waved to the troop as amiably as he did to everyone else that hailed him. No use standing on ceremony. In the couple of Earth-weeks since the ship landed, the Aescans had lost awe of the strangers. Humans were no weirder to them than the many kinds of angel and hobgoblin in which they believed, and seemed to be a good deal more mortal. True, they had remarkable powers; but then, so did any village wizard, and the Consecrates were in direct touch with God.

Not having been threatened by war in historical times, the city was unwalled. But its area was pretty sharply defined just the same, huts, tenements, and the mansions of the wealthy jammed close together along the contorted trails that passed for streets. Crowds moved by bazaars where shopkeepers' wives sang songs about their husbands' wares. Trousers and tunics, manes and fur, glowed where the red light slanted through shadows that were thick to Schuster's vision. The flat but deep Ivanhoan voices made a surf around him, overlaid by the shuffle of feet, clop of hooves, clangor from a smithy. Acrid stenches roiled in his nostrils.

It was a relief to arrive at one of the Three Bridges. When the Sanctuary guards had let him by, he walked alone. Only those who had business with the Consecrates passed here.

The Trammina River cut straight through town, oily with the refuse of a hundred thousand inhabitants. The bridges were arcs of a circle, soaring in stone to the island in the middle of the water. (Falkayn had relayed from Rebo the information that you were allowed to use up to one third of the sacred figure for an important purpose.) That island was entirely covered by the enormous step-sided pyramid of the Sanctuary. Buildings clustered on the lower terraces, graceful white structures with colonnaded porticos, where the Consecrates lived and worked. The upper pyramid held only staircases, leading to the top. There the Eternal Fire roared forth,

vivid yellow tossing against the dusky-green sky. Obviously natural gas was being piped from some nearby well; but the citadel was impressive in every respect.

Except for what it cost those poor devils of peasants in forced labor and taxes, Schuster thought, and what it's still costing them in liberty. The fact that thousands of diverse barbarian cultures existed elsewhere on the planet proved that Pharaonism didn't come any more naturally to the Ivanhoans than it did to men.

White-robed Consecrates, most of their manes gray with age, and their blue-clad acolytes walked about the pyramid on their business, aloof in pride. Schuster's cheery greetings earned him little but frigid stares. He didn't let it bother him but bustled on to the fourth-step House of the Astrologers.

In a spacious room within, a score or so of the younger Consecrates sat around a table. "Good day, good day," Schuster beamed. "I trust I am not late?"

"No," said Herktaskor. A lean, intense-eyed being, he carried himself with something of the martial air of his Warden father. "Save that we have been eagerly awaiting the revelation you promised us this morning, when you borrowed that copy of the Book of Stars."

"Well, then," Schuster said, "let us get on with it." He went to the head of the table and spread out his papers. "I trust you have mastered those principles of mathematics that I explained to you in the past several days?"

A number of them looked unsure, but other shaggy heads nodded. "Indeed," said Herktaskor. His voice sank. "Oh, glorious!"

'Schuster took out a fat cigar and got it going while he squinted at them. He had to hope they were telling the truth; for suddenly his little project, which had begun as a pastime, and in the vague hope of winning friends and sneaking some new concepts into this frozen society, had grown most terribly urgent. Last night Davy Falkayn radioed that shattering news about wheels being taboo, and now—

He thought, though, that Herktaskor was neither lying nor kidding himself. The Consecrate was brilliant in his way. And certainly there was a good foundation on which to build. Mathematics and observational astronomy were still live enterprises in Larsum. They had to be, when religion claimed that astrology was the means of learning God's will. Algebra and geometry had long been well developed. The step from them to basic calculus was really not large. Even dour Sketulo, the Chief of Sanctuary, had not objected to Schuster's organizing a course of lectures, as long as he stayed within the bounds of dogma. Quite apart from intellectual curiosity, it would be useful for the learned class to be able to calculate such things as the volumes and areas of unusual solids; it would make still tighter their grip on Larsum's economy.

"I planned to go on with the development of those principles," Schuster said. "But then I got to wondering if you might not be more interested in certain astrological implications. You see, by means of the calculus it is possible to predict where the moons and planets will be, far more accurately than hitherto."

Breath sucked in sharply between teeth. Even through the robes, the man could see how bodies tensed around the table.

"The Book of Stars gave me your tabulated observations, accumulated over many centuries," he went on. "These noontide hours I have weighed them in my mind." Actually, he had fed them to the ship's computer. "Here are the results of my calculations."

He drew a long breath of tobacco smoke. The muscles tightened in his belly. Every word must now be chosen with the most finicking care, for a wrong one could put a sword between his guts.

"I have hesitated to show you this," he said, "because at first glance it seems to contradict the Word of God as you have explained it to me. However, after pondering the question and studying the stars for an answer, I felt sure that you are intelligent enough to see the deeper truth behind deceptive appearances."

He paused. "Go on," Herktaskor urged.

"Let me approach the subject gradually. It is often a necessity of thought to assume something which one knows is not true. For example, the Consecrates as a whole possess large estates, manufactories, and other property. Title is vested in the Sanctuary. Now you know very well that the Sanctuary is neither a person nor a family. Yet for purposes of ownership, you act as if it were. Similarly, in surveying a piece of land, you employ plane trigonometry, though you know the world is actually round. . . ." He went on for some time, until he felt reasonably sure that everybody present understood the concept of a legal or mathematical fiction.

"What has this to do with astrology?" asked someone impatiently.

"I am coming to that," Schuster said. "What is the true purpose of your calculations? Is it not twofold? First, you wish to predict where the heavenly bodies will be with respect to each other at some given date, since this indicates what God desires you to do at that time. Second, you wish to uncover the grand plan of the heavens, since by studying God's works you may hope to learn more of His nature.

"Now as observations accumulated, your ancestors found it was not enough to assume that all the worlds, including this one, move in circles about the sun, and the moons in circles about this world, while the heavenly globe rotates around the whole. No, you had to picture these circles as having epicycles; and later it turned out that there must be epi-epicycles; and so on, until now for centuries the picture has been so complicated that the astrologers have given up hope of further progress."

"True," said one of them. "A hundred years ago, on just this account, Kurro the Wise suggested that God does not want us to understand the ultimate design of things too fully."

"Perhaps," Schuster said. "On the other hand, maybe God only wants you to use a different approach. A savage, trying to lift a heavy stone, might conclude that he is divinely forbidden to do so. But you lift it with a lever. In the same way, my people have discovered a sort of intellectual lever, by which we can pry more deeply into the motions of the heavenly bodies than we ever could by directly computing circles upon circles upon circles.

"The point is, however, that this requires us to employ a fiction. That is why I ask you not to be outraged when I lay that fiction before you. Granted, all motions in the sky are circular, since the circle is the token of God. But is it not permissible to assume, for purposes of calculation only, that they are not circular . . . and inquire into the consequences of that assumption?"

He started to blow a smoke ring but decided against it. "I must have a plain answer to that question," he said. "If such an approach is not permissible, then of course I shall speak no more."

But of course it was. After some argument and logic-chopping, Herktaskor ruled that it was not illegal to entertain a false hypothesis. Whereupon Schuster exposed his class to Kepler's laws and Newtonian gravitation.

That took hours. Once or twice Herktaskor had to roar down a Consecrate who felt the discussion was getting obscene. But on the whole, the class listened with admirable concentration and asked highly intelligent questions. This was a gifted species, Schuster decided; perhaps, intrinsically, more gifted than man. At least, he didn't know if any human audience, anywhere in space or time, would have grasped so revolutionary a notion so fast.

In the end, leaning wearily on the table, he tapped the papers before him and said from a roughened throat: "Let me summarize. I have shown you a fiction, that the heavenly bodies move in ellipses under an inverse square law of attraction. With the help of the calculus, I have proved that the elliptical paths are a direct consequence of that law. Now here, in these papers, is a summary of my calculations on the basis of our assumption, about the actual heavenly motions as recorded in the Book of Stars. If you check them for yourselves, you will find that the data are explained without recourse to any epicycles whatsoever.

"Mind you, I have never said that the paths are anything but circular. I have only said that they may be assumed to be, and that this assumption simplifies astrological computation so much that predictions of unprecedented accuracy can now be made. You will wish to verify my claims and consult your superiors about their theological significance. Far be it from me to broadcast anything blasphemous.

"I got troubles enough," he added in Anglic.

There was no uproar when he left. His students were as wrung out as he. But later, when the implications began to sink in—

He returned to the ship. Pasqual met him in the wardroom. "Where have you been so long?" the engineer asked. "I was getting worried."

"At the lodge." Schuster threw himself into a chair with a sigh. "Whoof! Sabotage is hard work."

"Oh ... I was asleep when you came back here for noon, and so did not tell you. While you were out this morning, Davy called in. He is on his way back."

"He might as well return, I suppose. We can't do anything until we get an okay from on high, and that'll take time."

"Too much time, maybe."

"And maybe not." Schuster shrugged. "Don't be like the nasty old man in a boat."

"Eh?"

"Asked, 'How do you know it will float?' Whereupon he said, 'Boo!' to the terrified crew and retired to the cabin to gloat. Be a good unko and fetch me a drink, will you, and then I'm going to retire myself."

"No supper?"

"A sandwich will do. We have to start rationing—remember?"

IV

The scanner alarm roused Schuster. He groaned out of his bunk and fumbled his way to the nearest viewscreen. What he saw brought him bolt awake.

A dozen Sanctuary guards sat mounted below the gangway. The light of moon and Pleiades glimmered on their spears. A pair of acolytes were helping a tall shape, gaunt in its robes, to dismount. Schuster would have known that white mane and disc-topped staff anywhere this side of the Coal Sack.

"Oi, vieh" he said. "Get your clothes on, chumlets. The local Pope wants an audience with us."

"Who?" Mukerji yawned.

"Sketulo, the Boss Consecrate, in person. Could be I've lit a bigger firecracker than I knew." Schuster scuttled back aft and threw on his own garments.

He was ready to receive the guest by the time that one had climbed to the air lock. "My master, you honor us beyond our worth," he unctuated. "Had we only known, we would have prepared a fitting-"

"Let us waste no time on hypocrisies," said the Larsan curtly. "I came so that we could talk in private, without fear of being overheard by underlings or fools." He gestured at Pasqual to close the inner door. "Dim your cursed lights."

Mukerji obeyed. Sketulo's huge eyes opened wide and smoldered on Schuster. "You being the captain here," he said, "I will see you alone."

The merchant lifted his shoulders and spread his palms at his shipmates but obediently led the way—in Larsum the place of honor was behind—to that cabin which served as his office on happier occasions. When its door had also been shut, he faced the other and waited.

Sketulo sat stiffly down on the edge of a lounger that had been adjusted to accommodate Ivanhoan bodies. His staff remained upright in one hand, its golden circle ashimmer in the wan light. Schuster lowered himself to a chair, crossed his legs, and continued to wait.

The old voice finally clipped: "When I gave you permission to instruct the young astrologers, I did not tbink even you would dare sow the seeds of heresy."

"My master!" Schuster protested in what he hoped would be interpreted as a shocked tone. "I did nothing of the sort."

"Oh, you covered yourself shrewdly, by your chatter of a fiction. But I have seldom seen anyone so agitated as those several Consecrates who came to me after you had left."

"Naturally the thought I presented was exciting—"

"Tell me." Sketulo pursed his wrinkled lips. "We will need considerable time to check your claims, of course; but does your hypothesis in truth work as well as you said?"

"Yes. Why should I discredit myself with boasts that can readily be disproven?"

"Thus I thought. Clever, clever . . ." The haggard head shook. "Anti-God has many ways of luring souls astray."

"But, my master, I distinctly told them this was a statement false to fact."

"So you did. You are reported to have said that it might, at best, be mathematically true, but this does not make it philosophically true." Sketulo leaned forward. Fiercely: "You must have known, however, that the question would soon arise whether there can be two kinds of truth, and that in any such contest, those whose lives are spent with observations and numbers will decide in the end that the mathematical truth is the only one."

I certainly did, Schuster thought. It's exactly the point that got Galileo into trouble with the Inquisition, way back when on Earth. A chill went through him. I didn't expect you to see it this fast, though, you old devil.

"By undermining the Faith thus subtly, you have confirmed my opinion that your kind are the agents of Anti-God," Sketulo declared. "You must not remain here."

Hope flared in Schuster. "Believe me, my master, we have no wish to do so! The sooner we can get what we need from our warehouse and be off, the happier we will be."

"Ah. But the others. When can we expect a third visit, a fourth, fleet after fleet?"

"Never, God willing. You were told by the first crew that arrived, we have no interest in trade—"

"So they said. And yet it was only a few short years before this vessel came. How do we know you tell the truth?"

You can't argue with a fanatic, Schuster thought, and kept silence. Sketulo surprised him again by changing the topic and asking in a nearly normal tone:

"How do you propose to move that great object hither?"

"Well, now, that is a good question, my master." Schuster's forehead went wet. He mopped it with his sleeve. "We have a way, but, uh, we have hesitated to suggest it—"

"I commanded that we be alone in order that we might both speak frankly."

Schuster sucked in a lungful of air, reached for a pad and penstyl, and explained about wagons.

Sketulo didn't move a muscle. When at length he spoke, it was only to say: "At certain most holy and secret rites, deep within the Sanctuary, there is that which is moved from one room to another by such means."

"We need not shock the populace," Schuster said. "Look, we can have sideboards, or curtains hanging down, or something like that, to hide the wheels."

Sketulo shook his head. "No. Almost everyone, as an unwitting child, has played with a round stick or stone. The barbarians beyond the Kasunian Range employ rollers. No doubt some of our own peasants do, furtively, when a heavy load must be moved and no one is watching. You could not deceive the more intelligent observers about what was beneath those covers; and they would tell the rest."

"But with official permission—"

"It may not be granted. God's law is plain. Even if you were given leave by the Sanctuary, most of the commoners would fear a curse. They would destroy you despite any injunctions of ours."

Since that was what Falkayn had quoted Rebo as saying, Schuster felt that perhaps Sketulo was telling the truth. Not that it mattered if he wasn't; he was obviously determined not to allow this thing.

The merchant sighed. "Well, then, my master, have you any other suggestion? Perhaps, if you would furnish enough laborers from the Consecrate estates, we could drag the workmaker here."

"This is the planting and cultivating season. We cannot spare so many hands, lest we have a famine later."

"Oh, now, my master, you and I have an identical interest: to get this ship off the ground. My associates at home can send you payment in metals, fabrics, and, ^yes, artificial food nourishing to your type of life."

Sketulo stamped the deck with his staff so it rang. His tone became a snarl: "We do not want your wares! We do not want you! The trouble you started today has snapped the last thread of my patience. If you perish here, despite that accursed rescue station, then God may well persuade your fellows that this is not a good place for such a station after all. At least, come what may, we will have done God's will here in Larsum ... by giving not a finger's length of help to the agents of Anti-God!"

He stood up. His breath rasped harshly in the narrow metal space. Schuster rose, too, regarded him with a self-astonishing steadiness, and asked low: "Do I understand you rightly, then, my master, that you wish us to die?"

The unhuman head lifted stiffly over his. "Yes."

"Will your guard corps attack us, or would you rather stir mobs against us?"

Sketulo stood silent awhile. His eventual answer was reluctant: "Neither, unless you force our hand. The situation is complex. You know how certain elements of the Warden and trader classes, not without influence, have been seduced into favoring somewhat your cause. Besides, although we could overcome you with sheer numbers, I am well aware that your weapons would cost us grievous losses—which might invite a barbarian invasion. So you may abide in peace awhile."

"Until you think of a safe way to cut our throats, hm?"

"Or until you starve. But from this moment you are forbidden to enter Aesca."

"Nu? That would not be so good an idea anyway, with all those rooftops and alleys for an archer to snipe from. Well—" Schuster's words trailed off. He wondered, momentarily frantic, if this mess was his fault, going so boldly forward, fatally misjudging the situation. . . . No. He hadn't foreseen Sketulo's precise reaction, but it was better to have everything out in the open. Had he known before what he did now, he wouldn't have sent Davy off alone. Got to

warn the kid to look out for assassins. . . . He grinned one-sidedly. "At least we understand each other. Thanks for that."

For an instant more he toyed with the idea of taking the Larsan prisoner, a hostage. He dismissed it. That would be a sure way to provoke attack. Sketulo was quite willing to die for his faith. Schuster was equally willing to let him do so, but didn't want to be included in the deal. A wife and kids were waiting for him, very far away on Earth.

He led the old one to the air lock and watched him ride off. The sound of hooves fell hollow beneath the moon and the clustered stars.

V

It seemed to Falkayn that he had been riding through his whole life. Whatever might have happened before was a dream, a vapor somewhere in his emptied skull, unreal . . . reality was the ache in every cell of him, saddle sores, hunger, tongue gone wooden with thirst and eyelids sandpapery with sleeplessness, the fear of death battered out of him and nothing left but a sort of stupid animal determination to reach Gilrigor Castle, he couldn't always remember why.

He had made stops during the night, of course. A fastiga was tougher than a mule and swifter than a horse, but it must rest occasionally. Falkayn himself hadn't dared sleep, though, and saddled up again as soon as possible. Now his beasts were lurching along the road like drunks.

He turned his head—the neckbones creaked—and looked behind. His pursuers had been in sight ever since the first predawn paling of the sky made them visible. When was that—a century ago?—no, must be less than an hour, the sun wasn't aloft yet, though the blackness overhead had turned plum color and the Sisters were sunken below Kasunia's wall. There were four or five of them—hard to be sure in this twilight—only two kilometers behind him and closing the gap. Their spears made points of brightness among the shadows.

So close?

The knowledge rammed home. Energy spurted from some ultimate source, cleared his mind and whetted his senses. He felt the dawn wind on his cheeks, heard it sough in the wiry brush along the roadside and around the staggering hoofbeats of his mount, saw how the snow peaks in the west were reddening as they caught the first sunrays; he yanked the little transceiver from his pocket and slapped the switch over. "Hello!" "Davy!" yelled Schuster's voice. "What's happened? You okay?" "So far," Falkayn stammered. "N-not for long, I'm afraid." "We been trying for hours to raise you."

He'd called the ship while he fled, to relate the circumstances, and contact was maintained until— "Guess I, I got so tired I just put the box away for a minute and then forgot about it. My animals are about to keel over. And . . . the Sanctuary boys are overhauling me."

"Any chance you can reach the castle before they get in bowshot?" Falkayn bit his lip. "I doubt it. Can't be very far to go, a few kilometers, but— What can I do? Try to make a run for it on foot?" "No, you'd be ridden down, snot in the back. I'd say make a stand."

"One of those bows, God, they've got almost the range of my gun, and they can attack me from every side at once. There's no cover here. Not even a clump of trees in sight."

"I know an old frontier stunt. Shoot your animals and use them for barricades." "That won't protect me long."

"It may not have to. If you're as near the castle as y6u say, Ivan-hoan eyes ought to spot flashes in the air from your shots. Anyhow, it's the only thing I can suggest."

"V-v-v—" Falkayn snapped his teeth together and held them that way for a second. "Very well."

Schuster's own voice turned uneven. "I wish to God I could be there to help you, Davy."

"I wouldn't mind if you were," Falkayn surprised himself by answering. Now that was more like how a man facing terrible odds ought to talk! "Uh, I'll have to pocket this radio again, but I'll leave the switch open. Maybe you can hear. Root for me, will you?"

He reined in and sprang to the ground. His fastigas stood passive, trembling in their exhaustion. Not without guilt feelings, he led the pack carrier around until it stood nose to tail with the mount. Quickly, then, he set his blaster to narrow beam and drilled their brains.

They collapsed awkwardly, like jointed dolls; a kind of sigh went from the loaded one, as if it were finally being allowed to sleep, but its eyes remained open and horribly fixed. Falkayn wrestled with the legs and necks, trying to make a wall that would completely surround him. Scant success . . . Panting, he looked eastward. His enemies had seen what he was about and broken into a trot, scattering right and left across the downs before they stopped to tether their spare animals. Five of them, all right.

The sun's disc peered over the ridges. Wait, the more contrast, the more visible an energy flash will be. Falkayn fired several times straight upward.

An arrow thunked into fastiga flesh. The boy went on his stomach and shot back. He missed the retreating rider. Crouching, he glared around the horizon. Another Larsan was drawing a bow at him, less than half a kilometer distant. He sighted carefully and squeezed trigger. The gun pointed a long blue-white finger. An instant later it said crack! and the Larsan dropped his bow and clutched at his left arm. Two other arrows came nastily near. Falkayn shot back, without hitting, but it did force the archers out of their own range for a little while, which was something.

He hadn't many charges left in the magazine, though. If the Consecrates' hired blades kept up their present tactics, compelling him to expend his ammunition— But did they know how little he had? No matter. They obviously were not going to quit before they finished their job. Unless he was lucky enough to drop them all, David Falkayn was probably done. He discovered he was accepting that fact soberly, not making much fuss about it one way or another, hoping mainly that he would be able to take some of them on hell road with him. Rough on Mother and Dad, though, he thought. Rough on Marty Schuster, too. He'll have to tell them, if he lives.

Two guards pounded down a grassy slope toward him, side by side. Their manes streamed in the air. When they were nearly in gunshot, they separated. Falkayn fired at one, who leaned so low simultaneously that the bolt missed. The other got off an arrow on a high trajectory. Falkayn shot at him, too, but he was already withdrawing on the gallop. The arrow smote, centimeters from Falkayn's right leg where he sprawled.

Nice dodge, he thought with the curious dispassion that had come upon him. I wonder if they've met my kind of defensive maneuver before, or are just making a good response to something new? Wouldn't be surprised if that last was the case. They're brainy fellows, these Ivanhoans. While we, with our proud civilization, we can't respond to so simple a thing as a local taboo on wheels.

Shucks, it should be possible to analyze the problem-Two others were galloping close from the right. Falkayn narrowed his blaster beam as far as he could, to get maximum range, and shot with great care. He struck first one fastiga, then another: minor wounds, but painful. Both animals reared. The riders got them under control again and wheeled aWay. Falkayn turned about in time to fire at the other two, but not in time to forestall their arrows. Misses on both sides.

—and figure out precisely what a wheel does, and then work out some other dodge that'll do the same thing.

Where was the fifth Larsan, the one who'd gotten winged? Wait ... his fastiga stood riderless some distance off. But where was he? These bully boys weren't the type to call it a day just because of a disabled arm.

I got good grades in math and analytics. My discussants told me so. Now why can't I dredge something I learned back then, up into memory, and use it? I could solve the problem for an exam, I'll bet.

Most likely the wounded one was snaking through the taller bushes, trying to get so close that he could pounce and stab.

Of course, this isn't exactly an examination room. Analytical thinking doesn't come natural, most especially not when your life's involved, and it's very, very odd that T should begin on it at this precise moment. Maybe my subconscious smells an answer.

The four riders had gotten together for a conference. They looked like toys at this distance, near the top of a high ridge paralleling the road and sloping down to its edge. Falkayn couldn't hear anything but wind. The sun, fully risen now, made rippling violet shadows in the gray grass. The air was still cold; his breath smoked.

Let's see. A wheel is essentially a lever. But we've already decided that the other forms of lever aren't usable. Wait! A screw? No, how'd you apply it? If any such thing were practical for us, Romulo Pasqual woould've thought of it by now.

How about cutting the wheel in slices, mounted separately? No, I remember suggesting that to Rebo, and he said it wouldn't do, because the whole ensemble viewed from the side would still have a circular outline.

The riders had evidently agreed on a plan. They unstrung their bows and fastened them carefully under the saddle girths. Then they started toward him, single file.

What else does a wheel do, besides supply mechanical advantage? Ideally, it touches the ground at only one point, and so minimizes friction. Is there some other shape which'll do the same? Sure, any number of 'em. But what good is an elliptical wheel?

Hey, couldn't you have a trick mounting, like an eccentric arm on an axle that was also elliptical, so the load would ride steady? M-m-m, no, I doubt if it's feasible, especially over roads as dreadful as this one, and nothing but muscle power available for traction. The system would soon be jolted to pieces.

The leading Sanctuary guard broke into a headlong gallop. Falkayn took aim and waited puzzledly for him to come in range of a beam wide enough to be surely lethal. The transceiver made muffled squawkings in Falkayn's pocket, but he hadn't the time for chatter.

Same objection, complexity, inefficiency, and fragility, applies to whatever else comes to mind, like say a treadmill-powered caterpillar system. Perhaps Romulo can flange something up. But there ought to be a foolproof, easy answer.

Crouched against the neck of his fastiga, the leading guard was nearly in range. Yes, now in range! Falkayn fired. The blast took the animal full in the chest. It cartwheeled several meters more downhill, under its own momentum, before falling. Its rider had left the saddle at the moment it was struck, before the beam could seek him out. He hit the ground with acrobatic agility, rolled over, and disappeared in the brush.

By the time Falkayn saw what was intended, he had already shot the second. It crashed into the barrier of the first. The third rushed near, frightened but under control.

"Oh, no, you don't," the human rasped. "I'm not going to build your wall for you!" He let the other two pound by. As they slued about, exposing their riders to him, he had the bleak pleasure of killing an enemy. The fourth escaped out of range, jumped to earth, and ran toward the dead animals, leading his own but careful to stay on its far side.

Falkayn's bolts raked the slope, but he couldn't see his targets in the overgrowth and it was too moist in this spring season to catch fire. The third Larsan got to the barrier and slashed his fastiga's throat. It struggled, but hands reached from below to hold it there while it died.

So three warriors had made the course. Now they were ensconced behind a wall of their own, too thick for him to burn through, high enough for them to kneel behind and send arrows that would arch down onto him. Of course, their aim wouldn't be good—

The shafts began to rise. Falkayn made himself as small as possible and tried to burrow under one of his own slain fastigas.

Something which . . . which rolls, and holds its load steady, but isn't circular—

The arrows fell. Their points went hard into dirt and inert flesh. After some time of barrage, a leonine head lifted above the other barrier to see what had happened. Falkayn, sensing a pause in the assault, rose to one knee and snapped a shot.

He ought to have hit, with a broad beam at such close range. But he didn't. The bolt struck the barricade and greasy smoke puffed outward. The Larsan dove for cover.

What made Falkayn's hand jerk was suddenly seeing the answer.

He snatched out the radio. "Hello!" he yelped. "Listen, I know what we can do!"

"Anything, Davy," said Schuster like a prayer.

"Not for me. I mean to get you fellows out of here—"

The arrows hailed anew. Anguish ripped in Falkayn's left calf where he crouched. He stared at the shaft that skewered it, not really comprehending for a moment.

"Davy? You there?" Schuster cried across a thousand kilometers.

Falkayn swallowed hard. The wound didn't hurt too much, he decided. And the enemy had ceased fire again. They must be running low on ammo, too. The road was strewn with arrows.

"Listen carefully," he said to the box. It had fallen to the ground, and blood from his leg was trickling toward it. A dim part of him was interested to note that human blood in this light didn't have its usual brilliance but looked blackish red. The rate of flow indicated that no major vessel had been cut. "You know what a constant-width polygon is?" he asked.

A Larsan ventured another peek. When Falkayn didn't shoot, he rose to his feet for an instant and waved before dropping back to shelter. Falkayn was too busy to wonder what that meant.

"You hurt, Davy?" Schuster pleaded. "You don't sound so good. They still after you?"

"Shut up," Falkayn said. "I haven't much time. Listen. A figure of constant width is one that if you put it between two parallel lines, so they're tangent to it on opposite sides, and then revolve it, well, the lines stay tangent clear around the circumference. In other words, the width of the figure is the same along every line drawn from side to side through the middle. A circle is a member of that class, obviously. But—"

The Larsan whose left arm had been scorched to disability sprang from a clump of bushes along the road. There was a knife in his right hand. Falkayn caught the gleam in the corner of an eye, twisted about, and snatched for his blaster where it lay on the ground. The knife arm chopped through an arc. Falkayn shrieked as his own hand was pinned to earth.

"Davy!" Schuster cried.

Falkayn picked up the blaster with his left. The muzzle wavered back and forth. He shot and missed. The guard cleared the barrier at a jump, drawing his sword as he sprang. The blade swept around. Probably he had closed his eyes at the moment the gun went off, for he struck with accuracy. The weapon spun clear of Falkayn's lacerated grasp.

The human yanked out the knife that pinned him, surged to his feet, and attacked left-handed. His voice rose to a shout: "A circle's not the only one! You take an equi—"

His rush had brought him under the Larsan's guard. He stabbed, but the point slithered off the breastplate. The native shoved. Falkayn lurched backward. The guard poised his rapier.

"Equilateral triangle," Falkayn sobbed. "You draw arcs—"

A horn sounded. The guard recoiled with a snarl. On the hillside, an archer rose and sent a last arrow at Falkayn. But the human's hurt leg had given way. He went to his knees, and the shaft whirred where he had been.

Another arrow, from another direction, took the sword-wielder through the breast. He uttered a rather ghastly rattling cough and fell on top of a fastiga. The surviving Sanctuary agents pointed frantically at the circles on their cuirasses. But arrows stormed from the riders who galloped out of the west, and the episode was over.

Rebo Legnor's-Child drew rein at the head of his household warriors and sprang from the saddle in time for Falkayn to crumple into his arms.

VI

Mukerji entered the wardroom to find Schuster alone, laying out a hand of solitaire. "Where's Romulo?" he asked.

"Off in his own place, quietly going crazy," Schuster said. "He's trying to figure out what Davy was getting at just before—" He raised a face whose plumpness looked oddly pinched. "Heard anything from the kid?"

"No. I shall let you know the minute I do, of course. His set must still be on, I hear natives speak and move about. But not a word from him, and everyone else is probably afraid to answer the talking box."

"Oh, God. I sent him there."

"You could not have known there was any danger."

"I could know the ship was the safest place to be. I should have gone myself." Schuster stared blindly at his cards. "He was my apprentice."

Mukerji laid a hand on the merchant's shoulder. "You had no business on a routine mission like that. Fighting and all, it was routine. Your brains are needed here."

"What brains?"

"You must have some plan. What were you talking to that peasant about, a few hours before sunrise?"

"I bribed him with a trade knife to carry a message for me to the Sanctuary. Telling Herktaskor he should come out for a private conference. Second in command of the astrology department, you may recall; a very bright fellow, and I think more friendly than otherwise to us. At least, he doesn't have Sketulo's fanatical resistance to innovation." Schuster found he was laying a heart on a diamond, cursed, and scattered the cards with a sweep of his hand. "Obviously Rebo showed up, having seen the gun flashes, and dealt with Sketulo's killers. But did he come in time? Is Davy still alive?"

The scanner hooted. Both men leaped to their feet and ran out the door to the closest viewscreen. "Speak of the devil," Mukerji said. "Take over, Martin. I shall go back and hunch above the radio."

Schuster suppressed his inward turmoil and opened the air lock. A cold early-morning wind, laden with sharp odors, gusted at him. Herktaskor mounted the gangway and entered. His great form was muffled in a cloak, which he did not take off until the door had closed again. Beneath, he wore his robes. Evidently he hadn't wanted to be recognized on his way here.

"Greeting," said Schuster in a dull tone. "Thank you for coming."

"Your message left me scant choice," said the Consecrate. "For the good of Larsum and the Faith, I am bound to listen if you claim to have an important matter to discuss."

"Have you, ah, been forbidden to enter the ship?"

"No, but it is as well not to give the Chief the idea that he should forbid it." Herktaskor squinted against an illumination which he found blindingly harsh, though it had been reduced well below normal to conserve the small amount of charge left in the accumulators. Schuster led the being to his own cabin, dimmed the fights further, and offered the lounger.

They sat down and regarded each other for a silent while. At length Herktaskor said, "If you repeat this, I shall have to call you a liar. But having found you honorable"—that hurt a little; Schuster's plans were not precisely aboveboard—"I think you should know that many Consecrates feel Sketulo was wrong in immediately banning your new mathematics and astrology. Could he show by Scripture, tradition, or reasoning that they contravened the Word of God, then naturally the whole Sanctuary would have joined him in rejecting your teachings. But he has made no attempt to show it, has merely issued a flat decree."

"Are you permitted to argue with him about the matter?"

"Yes, the rule has always been that full-rank Consecrates may dispute freely within the bounds of doctrine. But we must obey the orders of our superiors as long as those are not themselves unlawful."

"I thought so. Well—" Schuster reached for a cigar. "Here is what I wanted to tell you. I wish the cooperation of the Sanctuary rather than its enmity. In order to win that cooperation, I would like to prove to you that we are no danger to the Faith, but may rather be the instruments of its furtherance. Then perhaps you can convince the others."

Herktaskor waited, impassive. Yet his eyes narrowed and seemed to kindle.

Schuster started the cigar and puffed ragged clouds. "The purpose of your astrology is to learn God's will and the plan on which He has constructed the universe. To me, this implies that the larger purpose of the Consecrates is to search out the nature of God, insofar as it may be understood by mortals. Your theologians have reached conclusions in the past. But are those conclusions final? May there not be much more to deduce?"

Herktaskor bowed his lion head and traced a solemn circle in the air. "There may. There must. Nothing of importance has been done in that field since the Book of Domno was written, but I myself have often speculated— Go on, I pray you."

"We newcomers are not initiates of your religion," Schuster said. "However, we, too, in our own fashion, have spent many centuries wondering about the divine. We, too, believe," well, some of us, "in a single God, immortal, omnipotent, omniscient. . . perfect. . . Who made all things. Now maybe our theology varies from yours at crucial points. But maybe not. May I compare views with you? If you can show me where my people have erred, I will be grateful and will, if I five, carry back the truth to them. If, on the other hand, I can show you, or merely suggest to you, points on which our thought has gone beyond yours, then you will understand, and can make your colleagues understand, that we outlanders are no menace, but rather a beneficial influence."

"I doubt that Sketulo and certain other stiff-minded Consecrates will ever concede that," Herktaskor said. His voice took on an edge. "Yet if a new truth were indeed revealed, and anyone dared deny it—" His fists unclenched. "I listen."

Schuster was not surprised. Every religion in Earth's past, no matter how exclusive in theory, had had influential thinkers who were willing to borrow ideas from contemporary rivals. He made himself as comfortable as possible. This would take a while.

"The first question I wish to raise," he said, "is why God created the universe. Have you any answer to that?"

Herktaskor started. "Why, no. The writings say only that He did. Dare we inquire into His reasons?"

"I believe so. See, if God is unbounded in every way, then He must have existed eternally before the world was. He is above everything finite. But thought and existence are themselves finite, are they not?"

"Well . . . well . . . yes. That sounds reasonable. Thought and existence as we know them, anyhow."

"Just so. I daresay your philosophers have argued whether the - sound of a stone falling in the desert, unheard by any ears, is a real phenomenon." Herktaskor nodded. "It is an old conundrum, found on countless planets, I mean in many countries. In like manner, a God alone in utter limitlessness could not be comprehended by thought nor described in words. No thinking, speaking creatures were there. Accordingly, in a certain manner of speaking, He did not exist. That is to say, His existence lacked an element of completion, the element of being observed and comprehended. But how can the existence of the perfect God be incomplete? Obviously it cannot. Therefore it was necessary for Him to bring forth the universe, that it might know Him. Do you follow me?"

Herktaskor's nod was tense. He had begun to breathe faster.

"Have I said anything thus far which contradicts your creed?" Schuster asked.

"No ... I do not believe you have. Though this is so new-Go on!"

"The act of creation," Schuster said around his cigar, "must logically involve the desire to create, thought about the thing to be created, the decision to create, and the work of creation. Otherwise God would be acting capriciously, which is absurd. Yet such properties—desire, thought, decision, and work—are limited. They are inevitably focused on one creation, out of the infinite possibilities, and involve one set of operations. Thus the act of creation implies a degree of finitude in God. But this is unthinkable, even temporarily. Thus we have the paradox that He must create and yet He cannot. How shall this be resolved?"

"How do you resolve it?" Herktaskor breathed, looking a little groggy.

"Why, by deciding that the actual creation must have been carried out by ten intelligences known as the Sephiroth—"

"Hold on!" The Consecrate half rose. "There are no other gods, even lesser ones, and the Book does not credit the angels with making the world."

"Of course. Those I speak of are not gods or angels, they are separate manifestations of the One God, somewhat as the facets of a jewel are manifestations of it without being themselves jewels. God no doubt has infinitely many manifestations, but the ten Sephiroth are all that we have found logically necessary to explain the fact of creation. To begin widi the first of them, the wish and idea of creation must have been coexistent with God from eternity. Therefore it contains the nine others which are required as attributes of that which is to be created—"

Some hours later, Herktaskor said farewell. He walked like one in a daze. Schuster stood in the lock watching him go. He himself felt utterly exhausted.

If it turns out I've done this to him, to all of them, for nothing, may my own dear God forgive me.

Mukerji hurried from the wardroom. His feet clattered loudly on the deck. "Martin!" he yelled. "Davy's alive!"

Schuster spun on his heel. A wave of giddiness went through him, he leaned against the bulkhead and gasped weakly.

"His call came after you went off with that Brahmin," Mukerji said. "I didn't know if I would do harm by interrupting you, so— Yes. He was wounded, hand and leg, nothing that won't heal, you know we need not worry about any local microbes. He fainted, and I imagine that he went directly from a swoon to a sleep. He could still only mumble when he called from Rebo's castle, said he would call back after he had gotten some more rest and explain his idea. Come, Romulo and I have already broken out a bottle to celebrate!"

"I could use that," Schuster said, and followed him.

After a few long swallows, he felt more himself. He set down his glass and gave the others a shaky grin. "Did you ever have anybody tell you you were not a murderer?" he asked. "That's, how I'm feeling."

"Oh, come off it," Pasqual snorted. "You are not that responsible for your apprentices."

"No, maybe not, except I sent him where I could have gone myself— But he's okay, you say!"

"Without you here on the spot, that might make very little difference," Pasqual said. "Krish is just a spaceman and I just an engineer and Davy just a kid. We need somebody to scheme our way out of this hole. And you, amigo mío, are a schemer by trade."

"Well, Davy seems to have thought of something. What, I don't know." Schuster shrugged. "Or maybe I do know—some item I learned in school and forgot. He's closer to his school days."

"Assuming his idea is any good," Pasqual said with a return of worry. "I have not made any feasible plans myself, but believe me, I have thought of many harebrained ones."

"We'll have to wait and see. Uh, do you have any more details on the situation in Gilrigor?"

"Yes, I spoke directly with Rebo, after Davy had shown him how the radio works," Mukerji said. "The assassins were killed in his attack. He said he ordered that because he suspected they were indeed Sanctuary guards. If he had taken any of them prisoner, he would have been bound to release them again, or else face an awkward clash of wills between himself and Sketulo. And they would promptly have taken word back here. As it is, he has avoided the dilemma, and can claim his action was perfectly justified. At arrow-shot distance, he could not see their insignia, and the natural assumption was that they were bandits—whom it is his duty to eradicate."

"Excellent." Schuster chuckled. "Rebo's a smart gazzer. If he finds an excuse not to send a messenger here, as I'm sure he can, we'll have gained several days before Sketulo wonders what's happened and sends someone else out to inquire—who's then got to get there and back, taking still more time. In other words, by keeping our mouths shut about the whole business, we turn his own delaying tactics on him." He looked around the table. "And time is what we need right now, second only to haulage. Time for the Sanctuary to get so badly off balance, so embroiled internally, that no one can think up a new quasi-legal gimmick for stopping us."

"Be careful they are not driven to violence," Mukerji said.

"That's not too likely," Schuster replied. 'The attempt on Davy was by stealth; I'm pretty sure Sketulo will disown his dead agents when the news breaks. Any decision to act with open illegality is tough for him, you see. It'd give people like Rebo much too good a talking point, or even an excuse to fight back. Besides, as I already remarked, time should now begin to work against the old devil."

Pasqual cocked his head at the merchant. "What have you been brewing?"

"Well—" Schuster reached for the bottle again. Liquor gurgled cheerily into his glass. "First off, as you know, I introduced Newtonian astronomy. I disguised it as a fictional hypothesis, but that just makes it sneakier, not any less explosive. Nobody can fool himself forever with a pretense this is only a fairy tale to simplify his arithmetic. Sooner or later, he'll decide the planetary orbits really are elliptical. And that knocks a major prop out from under his belief in the sacredness of circles, which in turn will repercuss like crazy on the rest of the religion. Sketulo foresaw as much, and right away

he forbade any use of my ideas. This simply delays the inevitable, though. He can't stop his astrologers from thinking, and some of them from resenting the prohibition. That'll make tension in the Sanctuary, whichll occupy a certain amount of his time and energy, which'H therefore be diverted from the problem of how to burke us."

"Nice," Mukerji frowned, "but a little long range. The revolution might take fifty years to ripen."

"Admitted. The trend helps our cause, but not enough by itself. So today I got Herktaskor here. We talked theology."

"What? You can't upset a religion in an afternoon!"

"Oh, sure. I know that." Schuster took a drink. His grin broadened. "The goyim have been working on mine for two or three thousand years and got nowhere. I only pointed out certain logical implications of the local creed and suggested some of the answers to those implications which've been reached on Earth."

"So?" Pasqual asked wonderingly.

"Well, you know I'm interested in the history of science and philosophy, like to read about it and so forth. Because of this, as well as some family traditions, I've got a knowledge of the Kabbalah."

"¿Que es?"

"The system of medieval Jewish theosophy. In one form or another, it had tremendous influence for centuries, even on Christian thought. But believe you me, it's the most fantastically complicated structure the human race ever built out of a few texts, a lot of clouds, and a logic that got the bit between its teeth. Jewish Orthodoxy never wanted any part of it—much too hairy, and among the Chasidim in particular it led to some wild emotional excesses.

"But it fits the Larsan system like a skin. For instance, in the Kabbalah there are ten subordinate emanations of God, who are the separate attributes of perfection. They're divided into three triads, each denoting one male and one female quality plus their union. There hasn't been much numerology here before now, but when I reminded Herktaskor that three points determine a circle, he gasped. Each of these triadic apices is identified with some part of the body of the archetypal man. One more Sephirah encircles the lot, which also accords nicely with Larsan symbolism, and the conjunction of them produced the universe. ... Well, never mind details. It goes on to develop techniques of letter rearrangement by which the inner meaning of Scripture can be discovered, a doctrine of triple reincarnation, a whole series of demonologies and magical

prescriptions, altogether magnificent, glittering nonsense that seduced some of the best minds Earth ever knew. I gave it to Herktaskor."

"And—?" Mukerji asked very softly.

"Oh, not all. That'd take months. I just told him the bare outlines. He may or may not come back for more. That hardly matters. The damage has been done. Larsan philosophy is still rather primitive, not ready to deal with such strong meat. Religion is theoretically a pure monotheism, in practice tainted with the ghosties and ghoulies of popular superstition, and no one so far has given its premises a really thorough examination. Yet theology does exist as a respectable enterprise. So the Consecrates are cocked and primed to go off, in an explosion of reinterpretations, reformations, counterreformations, revelations, new doctrines, fundamentalistic reactions, and every other kind of hooraw we humans have been through. As I've already said, the Kabbalah sure had that effect on Earth. In time, this should break up the Sanctuary and let some fresh air into Larsum."

Schuster sighed. "I'm afraid the process will be bloody," he finished. "If I didn't think it was for the long-range best, I wouldn't have done this thing, not even to save our lives."

Pasqual looked bewildered. "You are too subtle for me," he complained. "Will it?"

"If we can move that generator here within the next few weeks, I'm certain it will. Herktaskor is no fool, even if he is a natural-born theologian. After what happened about the calculus, he'll be discreet about who he picks to talk my ideas over with. But those are good brains in the Sanctuary, hungry to be used. If fact is denied them to work with, theory will serve. The notions will spread like a shock wave. Questions will soon be openly raised. Sketulo can't lawfully suppress discussion of that sort, and the others will be too heated up to obey an unlawful order. So he's going to have his hands full, that gazzer, for the rest of his life!"

VII

Rebo, Marchwarden of Gilrigor, reined in his fastiga on the crest of Ensum Hill. One hand, in an iron-knobbed gauntlet, pointed down the long slope. "Aesca," he said.

David Falkayn squinted through the day-gloom. To him the city was only a blot athwart the river's metal gleam. But a starpoint caught his eye, and his heart sprang within him. "Our ship," he breathed. "We are there."

Rebo peered across kilometers of fields and orchards. "No armed forces are gathered," he said. "I think I see the townsfolk beginning to swarm out, but no guards. Yet undoubtedly the Sanctuary has had word about us. So it is plain they do not intend to resist."

"Did you expect that—really?"

"I was not sure. That is why I brought so large a detachment of my own warriors." The cuirassed figure straightened in the saddle. The tail switched. "They would have been the ones breaking the law, had they tried to fight, so we would have had no compunctions. Not only the Wardens have chafed at the Consecrate bridle. My troop will be almost sorry not to bloody a blade this day."

"Not I." Falkayn shivered.

"Well," Rebo said, "peaceful or no, you have done more harm to them than I ever could. The world will not be the same again. So simple a thing as wagons—less toil, more goods moving faster, the age-old balance upset. And I will use some of that released power to overrun the Kasunians, which means I will be one to reckon with in the councils of the realm. Ever will your people be welcome in Gilrigor."

Falkayn dropped his glance, guiltily. "I cannot lie to you, my friend," he stumbled. "There may never be any more of us coming here."

"I had heard that," said Rebo, "and ignored it. Perhaps I did not wish to believe. No matter now." Pride rang in his tones. "One day our ships will come to you."

He raised his ax in signal. His riders deployed and the huge wagon lumbered over the ridge, drawn by twenty fastigas. The generator and crane lashed atop it glowed under the red sun.

The driver lowered his drag brake, a flat log, so the vehicle wouldn't get away from him on the downhill stretch. Groaning, squealing, banging, and rattling, the thing rocked onward.

It moved on eight rollers. They revolved between planks, the forward pair of which was adjustable by square pegs to permit turning. There were bumpers fore and aft to prevent their escape on an incline. As each roller emerged from the rear, two hooks caught two of the oblong metal eyes which ringed the grooves cut near either end of the log. These hooks were shrunk onto a pair of cross-

braced, counterweighted arms mounted high on the wagon bed. The arms were held in place by leather straps within a frame that stopped sidewise motion and pivoted on shapeless leather pads atop their posts. A couple of workers hauled lustily. The arms swung high. At the limit of their permissible arc, the carefully shaped hooks slipped out of the eyes and the roller fell onto a wooden roof that slanted downward to the front. Two other natives, equipped with peavies, stood there to make certain of its alignment. It boomed quickly between its guideboards and dropped to the road behind the front bumper. The wagon passed over it, the arms dipped in time to catch the next log, and the cycle began anew.

Each roller had three curved sides.

Draw an equilateral triangle, ABC. Put the point of your compasses on A and draw the arc BC. Move to B and describe AC, then to C and describe AB. Round off the corners. The resulting figure has constant width. It will roll between two parallel lines tangent to it, maintaining that tangency for die whole revolution.

As a matter of fact, the class of constant-width polygons is infinite. The circle is merely a limiting case.

To be sure, Falkayn thought, the rollers on this Goldberg of his would wear down in time, approach the forbidden cross section and have to be replaced. Or would they? Someone like Rebo could argue that this proved the circle was actually the least perfect of all shapes, the degenerate product of a higher-order form. As if the poor old Consecrates didn't have theological problems enough!

He clucked to his mount and rode on ahead of the wagon, toward his ship.

NOTES TOWARD A DEFINITION OF RELATEDNESS

Before space flight it was often predicted that other planets would appeal strictly to the intellect. Even on Earthlike worlds, the course of biochemical evolution must be so different from the Terrestrial —since chance would determine which of many possible pathways was taken—that men could not live without special equipment. And as for intelligent beings, were we not arrogant to imagine that they would be so akin to us psychologically and culturally that we would find any common ground with them? The findings of the earliest extra-Solar expeditions seemed to confirm science in this abnegation of anthropomorphism.

Today the popular impression has swung to the opposite pole. We realize the galaxy is full of planets which, however exotic in detail, are as hospitable to us as ever Earth was. And we have all met beings who, no matter how unhuman their appearance, talk and act like one of our stereotypes. The Warrior, the Philosopher, the Merchant, the Old Space Ranger, we know in a hundred variant fleshly garments. We do business, quarrel, explore, and seek amusement with them as we might with any of our own breed. So is there not something fundamental in the pattern of Terrestrial biology and in Technic civilization itself?

No. As usual, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes. The vast majority of planets are in fact lethal environments for man. But on this account we normally pass them by, and so they do not obtrude very much on our awareness. Of those which possess free oxygen and liquid water, more than half are useless, or deadly, to us, for one reason or another. Yet evolution is not a random process. Natural selection, operating within the constraints of physical law, gives it a certain direction. Furthermore, so huge is the galaxy that the random variations which do occur closely duplicate each other on millions of worlds. Thus we have no lack of New Earths.

Likewise with the psychology of intelligent species. Most sophonts indeed possess basic instincts which diverge more or less from man's. With those of radically alien motivations we have little contact. Those we encounter on a regular basis are necessarily those whose bent is akin to ours; and again, given billions of planets, this bent is sure to be found among millions of races.

Of course, we should not be misled by superficial resemblances. The nonhuman remains nonhuman. He can only show us those facets of himself which we can understand. Thus he often seems to be a two-dimensional, even comic personality. But remember, we have the corresponding effect on him. It is just as well that the average human does not know on how many planets he is the standard subject of the bawdy joke.

Even so, most races have at least as much contrast between individuals—not to mention cultures—as Homo Sapiens does. Hence there is a degree of overlap. Often a man gets along better with some nonhuman being than he does with many of his fellowmen. "Sure," said a prospector on Quetzalcoatl, speaking of his partner, "he looks like a cross between a cabbage and a derrick. Sure, he belches H2S and sleeps in a mud wallow, and his idea of fun is to spend six straight hours discussin' the whichness of the wherefore. But I can trust him—hell, I'd even leave him alone with my wife!"

—Noah Arkwright, An Introduction

to Sophontology