“And you claim to have witnessed a crime on your home level?”
“A most grievous and disgraceful crime, sir,” Ferbin said.
“But you are unwilling to have the matter dealt with on your own level, despite the fact you claim to be the rightful ruler, that is, absolute chief executive, of this realm.”
“I am unable to do so, sir. Were I to try, I would be killed, just as the two knights today tried to kill me.”
“So you seek justice… where?”
“A sibling of mine is attached to the empire known as the Culture. I may gain help there.”
“You travel to some part, ship or outpost of the Culture?”
“As a first step, we thought to find one human man called Xide Hyrlis, whom we last heard was a friend of the Nariscene. He knew my late father, he knows me, he has — I hope and trust — still some kind sympathies for my family, kingdom and people and may himself be able to aid me in my fight for justice. Even if he cannot help us directly he will, at the least, I feel sure, vouch for me to the part of the Culture called Special Circumstances within which my sibling is located, allowing me to contact and appeal to them.”
The Nariscene stopped dead, becoming quite perfectly stationary in the air. “Special Circumstances?” it said.
“Indeed,” Ferbin said.
“I see.” The Nariscene resumed its orbit, sailing silently through the oddly scented air while the two humans stood patiently, swivelling their heads as the creature circled slowly round them.
“Also,” Ferbin said, “it is imperative that I get a message to my brother Oramen, who is now the Prince Regent. This would have to be done in the greatest secrecy. However, if it was possible — and I would hope that the mighty Nariscene would find this neither beneath nor beyond them—”
“That will not be possible, I think,” the Nariscene told him.
“What? Why not?” Ferbin demanded.
“It is not our place,” the Acting Craterine Zamerin said.
“Why not?”
Alveyal Girgetioni stopped in the air again. “It is not within our remit.”
“I am not even sure I know what that means,” Ferbin said. “Is it not right to warn somebody they might be in mortal danger? For that is—”
“Mr Ferbin—”
“Prince, if you please.”
“Prince Ferbin,” the Nariscene said, reinstating its slow circling. “There are rules to be observed in such interactions. It is not the duty or the right of the Nariscene to interfere in the affairs of our developing mentorees. We are here to provide an overall framework within which a species like that to which you belong may mature and progress according to their own developmental timetable; we are not here to dictate that timetable or hasten or delay any such advancement taking place along that timeline. We merely maintain the superior integrity of the entity that is Sursamen. Your own fates are allowed to remain your own. They are, in a sense, within your own gift. Our gift is that already stated, of overarching care for the greater environment, that is to say the Shellworld Sursamen itself, and the protection of your good selves from undue and unwarranted interference, including — and this is the focus of my point — any undue and unwarranted interference we ourselves might be tempted to apply.”
“So you’ll not warn a young fellow he may be in mortal danger? Or tell a grieving mother her eldest son lives, when she is in mourning for a dead husband and a son as well?”
“Correct.”
“You do realise what that means?” Ferbin said. “I’m not being mistranslated, am I? My brother could die, and soon. He will die in any event before he is of an age to inherit the full title of king. That is guaranteed. He is a marked man.”
“All death is unfortunate,” the Acting Craterine Zamerin said.
“That, sir, is no comfort,” Ferbin said.
“Comforting was not my intention. My duty is to state facts.”
“Then the facts tell a sorry truth of cynicism and complacency in the face of outright evil.”
“That may seem so to you. The fact remains, I am not allowed to interfere.”
“Is there no one who might help us? If we are to accept that you will not, is there anybody here on the Surface or elsewhere who might?”
“I cannot say. I do not know of anyone.”
“I see.” Ferbin thought. “Am I — are we — free to leave?”
“Sursamen? Yes, fully free.”
“And we may pursue our aims, of contacting Xide Hyrlis and my sibling?”
“You may.”
“We have no money about us with which to pay our fare,” Ferbin said. “However, on my accession to—”
“What? Oh, I see. Monetary exchange is not required in such circumstances. You may travel without exchange.”
“I will pay our way,” Ferbin said firmly. “Only I cannot do so immediately. You have my word on this, however.”
“Yes. Yes, well. Perhaps a cultural donation, if you insist.”
“I would also point out,” Ferbin said, gesturing at himself and Holse, “that we have nothing else, either, save what we stand up in.”
“Systems and institutions exist to aid the needy traveller,” the Acting Craterine Zamerin said. “You will not go without. I shall authorise such provisions as you may require.”
“Thank you,” Ferbin said. “Again, generous payment will be forthcoming when I have taken charge of what is rightfully mine.”
“You are welcome,” Alveyal Girgetioni told them. “Now, if you will excuse me…”
The Baeng-yon Crater was of Sursamen’s most common type, supporting a water- and landscape filled with a gas mixture designed to be acceptable to the majority of oxygen breathers, including the Nariscene, most pan-humans and a wide spectrum of aquatic species. Like most of the world’s Craters it had an extensive network of wide, deep canals, large and small lakes and other bodies of water both open and enclosed providing ample living space and travel channels for seagoing creatures.
Ferbin looked out from a high window set in a great cliff of a building poised over an inlet of a broad lake. Steep-pitched hills and outbreaking cliffs and boulder fields were scattered everywhere amongst a landscape mostly covered in grass, trees and tall, oddly shaped buildings. Curious obelisks and pylons that might have been works of art were dotted about, and various lengths and loops of curved transparent tubing lay draped between and across nearly every feature. A giant sea creature, trailed by a shoal of smaller shapes each twice the length of a man, floated serenely along one of these conduits, passing between gaudily coloured buildings and over some form of steamless ground vehicle to dip into the broad bowl of a harbour and disappear beneath the waves amongst the hulls of bizarrely shaped boats.
All about, Nariscene moved through the air in their glittering harnesses. Overhead, an airship the shape of a sea monster and the size of a cloud moved slowly across a distant line betokening an immensely tall and steep-sided ridge, its barely curved top a serrated row of tiny, regular, jagged peaks. All lay under a startlingly bright sky of shining turquoise. He was looking towards the Crater Edgewall, apparently. An invisible shield held the air inside the vast bowl. It was so bright because a vast lens between the sun and the Crater concentrated the light like a magnifying glass. Much of what he looked at, Ferbin thought, he didn’t even start to understand. Much of it was so strange and alien he hardly knew how to frame the questions that might provide the answers which would help explain what he was looking at in the first place, and he suspected that even if he did know how to ask the questions, he wouldn’t understand the answers.
Holse came through from his room, knocking on the wall as he entered — the doors disappeared when they opened, petals of material folding away into the walls. “Decent quarters,” he said. “Eh, sir?”