“Just as you like, sir.”
Glawen left the premises of Shoup and Company. Once out on the sidewalk he examined the label. It read:
Melvish Keebles
Argonaut Art Supplies
Crippet Alley, Tanjaree, Nion
Pharisse VI ARGO NAVIS 14-AR-366
Glawen returned to his hotel at the Division City airport. From his room he called Fair Winds, but there still had been no word from Wayness.
“I can't imagine where she has taken herself!” Pirie Tamm fretted. “No news may be good news, but it also can be very bad news."
“I agree,” said Glawen. "What's worse, I can't take the time to go look for her; circumstances simply don’t allow it. I'm going off-world at once."
"As for me, there is nothing I can do but wait," gloomed Pirie Tamm.
“Somebody has to stay at home,” said Glawen. “When Wayness calls, tell her that I’ve gone off-world, up another rung of the ladder, and that I will be back as soon as possible."
At Tammeola Spaceport near Division City, the ticket agency's integrator sorted through routes, schedules, layovers and connections and computed for Glawen the most expeditious passage to the world Nion. The readout was valid only for a single hour's time-slot, after which circumstances might or might not change. There were also provisos in regard to transit between junction points. If the scheduled service were late, altered or canceled, then the carefully computed passage must be modified. In short, the element of luck still controlled circumstances. Glawen’s adversary had a day’s head start — which might mean much or nothing, and Glawen refused to speculate in regard to possibilities.
Glawen boarded the Madelle Azenour which would convey him to the junction at Star Home on Aspidiske IV at the head of the Argo Navis Sector. At Star Home he would travel by local feeder packet to Mersey on Anthony Pringle's World, where another local packet would take him outward, through the Jingles, into the most remote parts of the Reach and finally down to the city Tanjaree on Nion, by the yellow-white sun Pharisse.
Aboard the Madelle Azenour tlme went by smoothly and pleasantly, with nothing to do but eat, sleep, watch the stars slide past, and enjoy such recreation facilities as were available. Glawen studied his fellow passengers with care, since quite possibly his adversary might be aboard the same ship. In the end he decided that the young man who had deceived Miss Shoup so heartlessly had chosen either another route or another schedule."
In HANDBOOK TO THE INHABITED WORLDS Glawen learned that Nion had first been explored in the remote past, during the first great surge of men across space. The human tilde had slackened and then receded, notably from the far side of the Jingles, leaving Nion in near-isolation for thousands of years.
Nion, according to the HANDBOOK, was a medium-large planet (diameter: 13,000 miles; surface gravity: 1.03 Earth normal; sidereal day: 37.26 hours), attended by a numerous retinue of satellites. While the climate was generally mild, the topography was diverse and the habitable areas separated by deserts, steep-sided plateaus, tracts of weird wonderful forests and water-fields. “These latter were suspensions of pollen blown from forests and 'flower-fields' into areas originally lakes and seas, where the sedimented pollen became the substance known as 'pold.'
The fauna, principally insects, is of no great consequence. The HANDBOOK declared: "In order to understand the intricacies of life on Nion, one must understand pold. There are hundreds of types of pold, but basically they are either: dry derived from loess-like beds of pollen and spores transported by the wind, drifted and ultimately compacted; or the 'wet’, from deposits laid down in the ancient lakes and seas. The sub-varieties of pold derive from age, curing and blending, the action of morphotic agents, and thousands of secret processes. Pold is ubiquitous. The soil consists of pold. Beer is brewed from pold. Natural raw pold is often nutritious, but not always; some deposits are poisonous, narcotic, hallucinogenic, or vile-tasting. The Gangrils of the Lankster Cleeks are experts; they have built a complex society upon their manipulation of pold. Other peoples are not such connoisseurs, and eat pold like bread, or pudding, or as a substitute for meat. The flavor of pold depends, obviously, upon many factors. Often it is bland, or somewhat nutty, or even sour, like new cheese.”
“By reason of pold, everywhere available, hunger is unknown. Still, for a variety of reasons, the population remains scarce.”
“Visitors to Nion will find it hard to avoid the consumption of pold, whether dining at a fine restaurant or one less esteemed, for the simple reason that pold is plentiful and easy to prepare, and the tourist will complain in vain.”
“A warning may properly be inserted here. Due possibly to the plenitude of pold, the work ethic is little in evidence, and the tourist must be prepared for casual service at even the best hotels. ‘The easy way is the best way': this is the basic premise of Tanjaree society. Be prepared, and control your temper the folk of Tanjaree are actually agreeable, if a trifle vain and self-conscious. Social status is all important, but it is based upon subtleties and conditions which are quite incomprehensible to the visitor. To make a crude generalization, status derives from avoiding work and, with an ineffably cavalier flourish, inducing someone else to undertake the task. Hence, at an outdoor restaurant on the Mall, the patron will try to give his order to one of the three waiters on duty, all of whom will ostentatiously tum away, until the patron cries out for attention and perhaps starts to make a scene. To participate in an undignified altercation is to lose tremendous face. The nearest waiter reluctantly condescends to take the order, but service will be slow and the order will eventuality be served by a kitchen flunky while the waiter stands with hands clasped behind him, absorbing status at the expense of the exasperated patron, the other waiters and the debased kitchen flunky.”
“A second warning, even more urgent, may be in order: Tanjaree is the single cosmopolitan center of Nion. Other settlements are controlled by local conventions which the tourist will find strange, sometimes unpleasant and not infrequently dangerous. Should the tourist foolishly attempt to enforce his own theories upon the local population. On Nion human life — especially that of the off-worlder — is not considered sacrosanct. The tourist is warned not to go off on solitary expeditions into the outback without local advice and assistance. Many hundreds of tourists have suffered some very peculiar fates by ignoring this warning.”
“As a consequence of the environment, the early inhabitants had evolved without interaction or mutual coherence. In the process societies of considerable disparity were formed. The first inhabitants of Tanjaree had included a clique of biologists dedicated to the creation of a super-race through genetic manipulation."
“The descendants of these so-called 'Over-men’ survived in the Great Tangting Forest, where they had become freaks and monsters with savage intelligence and horrifying habits.”
The HANDBOOK continued: "At the present time, these beasts have become the focus of touristic interest, and are no longer in danger of extermination. A tube of clear glass conduits a road twenty miles long through the Tangting forest, along which caravans convey parties of tourists in safety, while the monstrous 'Over-men’ scream and slaver and lunge at the glass and perform obscene antics for the titillation of the tourists.”
“Elsewhere, the various folk of Nion continued to follow their ancient conventions, oblivious to the strange off-world people who came to marvel at them and to buy, purloin, seize or otherwise gain possession of their handiworks and sacred tokens. Certain of the peoples had become surly and even hostile toward strangers and remain so to the present day. Some are actively dangerous, notably the rock-workers of Eladre, who have carved their delicate and intricate city from the substance of a mountain. The shadow-men become murderers during certain lunar phases. The Gangrils not only subsist upon pold but transform it into mysterious new substances, with unpredictable psychic effects. For many centuries the Gangrils had maintained a subservient caste assembled from kidnapped off-worlders, tourists, and the like, which functioned to test the drugs derived from their 'pold.' This particular habit, among others, has gained them an unsavory reputation. Despite their seemingly benign manners, they are regarded with suspicion, and tourists are warned never to approach the Gangril settlements alone. There have been too many reports of naive off-worlders accepting what they thought to be hospitality from the blandly smiling Gangrils, only to discover that they had ingested an experimental drug, and that were being closely scrutinized for clues as to the drug's effect.”