 
# The Chronicles of Misty

By Ed Hurst

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 by Ed Hurst

**Copyright** **notice** : People of honor need no copyright laws; they are only too happy to give credit where credit is due. Others will ignore copyright laws whenever they please. If you are of the latter, please note what Moses said about dishonorable behavior – "be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23)

Permission is granted to copy, reproduce and distribute for non-commercial reasons, provided the book remains in its original form.

**Cover art** : Misty Forest, public domain.

#  Table of Contents
## Part 1 - The Interstellar Anthropologist

Chapter 1: Travel

Chapter 2: Research

Chapter 3: First Contact

Chapter 4: Welcome

Chapter 5: A Different Place

Chapter 6: The Story

Chapter 7: Not Exactly Eden

Chapter 8: The Shape of Things

Chapter 9: Catching Wind

Chapter 10: Home Unknown

## Part 2 - From Mists to Mysts

Chapter 11: Landing

Chapter 12: Coming and Going

Chapter 13: Packing Up

Chapter 14: The Long Short Way

Chapter 15: Subterfuge

Chapter 16: Cast Adrift

Chapter 17: Stable Flux

Chapter 18: Confusion

Chapter 19: Predators

Chapter 20: Safe Danger

Chapter 21: Fresh Start

Chapter 22: Honor and Secrets

Chapter 23: Night Visit

Chapter 24: Prisons of the Soul

Chapter 25: Second Career

## Part 3 - The Recruiters

Chapter 26: Support

Chapter 27: Floating Foundations

Chapter 28: No Secrets

Chapter 29: Canebrake

Chapter 30: Work and Worry

Chapter 31: Source of Sorrow

Chapter 32: Bits and Pieces

Chapter 33: Judge George Manley

Chapter 34: Gentle Inquisition

Chapter 35: Hidden Home

Chapter 36: Loose Ends

## Part 4 - End Game

Chapter 37: Hope and Frustration

Chapter 38: Rushing to the End

Chapter 39: Casting Seeds

Chapter 40: Proposal

Chapter 41: Back to School

Chapter 42: Buying Time

Chapter 43: Not What One Might Expect

Chapter 44: Arrival

## Part 1 - The Interstellar Anthropologist
## Chapter 1: Travel

In the ancient literature, they called it "hyperspace." Lacking the conceptual tools for discussing the means for spatial displacement which didn't require actually crossing the space, they came up with a word which missed the point, but was still popularly used. The technical explanations were not his specialty, but he was aware enough to be able to say something about the process of cutting across vast physical distances between star systems in modern travel. The mathematics made it seem like grabbing hold of some anchor point and sliding space around until you had brought your destination to you. The process of grabbing that anchor point and moving space took time, and they referred to as "stepping into hyperspace."

Without that means of spatial displacement, there would be no particular need for him to travel. That is, there would really be no place for him to go. Humanity had long ago stumbled upon that technology, and immediately sent probes to places they had only dreamed. At first, they had to send them out, and then bring them back. Information traveled at the speed of light, and this business of stepping aside from space was immeasurably quicker for unmanned machines. Send enough probes into enough distant places, and when they came back, they would have data which hinted at worlds which, as statistical probabilities had long told them, were almost like Earth. Given the vast number of stars, it was inevitable they found quite a few habitable worlds. It was human nature to want to explore these Terran planets first hand, with hopes of colonizing.

It took some years before anyone realized how to pass humans through that experience. First, the machines had to scale down the process of hooking up to those imaginary anchor points. All the previous speculation couldn't guess what it did to the mind of humans, and even now they still weren't exactly sure. The people came back from the initial attempts in all manner of different psychoses. Some were fetal, some permanently unintelligible with irregular noises and gestures which no computer could diagram into consistent patterns. Some were afraid of everything, but the worst were those unafraid of anything. The range was limited only by the limited number of failed attempts. Eventually the scientists simply slowed the process until some invisible threshold was crossed, and folks were able to adjust.

Then the search and classification began in earnest, followed quickly by colonization, and again followed quickly by the wars. For all their brilliance, humans could not tame that instinct, could not breed it out, reason it out, research it out – it was a permanent feature. Oddly, it was the technological advances of war which made colonization easier. They found a way to pass some weapon strikes across the anchoring process without coming out of hyperspace. With weapons came the ability to transmit data, since what's the point of striking if you can't aim the weapon? They discovered it meant adding another variable to the mathematical algorithms, because an anchor point wasn't actually in any one place. As long as the anchor point was validly constructed, so to speak, something could be released from it anywhere in space. It took some doing to figure out a way to calibrate the multiple points of exit, and correlate them with known places for targeting, then receive the feedback, but it all made colonization that much easier and more efficient, since any anchor point could examine any place.

Eventually someone with power or influence got sick of the fighting and convinced others to feel the same way. Then there were truces and pieces of peace, but there was never any really great peace without first an exhausting war across most of human space. This last war was particularly widespread, and many colonies lost contact with each other. Centralizing control would wax and wane with the winds of fashion, but centralized communications seemed always fundamentally essential. So after massive galaxy-wide wars like the last one, the academics who had been waiting for things to calm down would send out their researchers to survey what had changed among the known human systems. When, as was in this case, they stumbled across a colony long forgotten, they were all the more eager.

Dr. Plimick was just such an eager researcher. His specialty was currently referred to as Interstellar Anthropology. Only half-way through his expected life span, he was already a member of several academic boards and associations, and on staff with three different government agencies. They had recently gotten in contact with a world which seemed to have missed the last three wars, which meant even Plimick's grandfather was not alive when this one went out of contact. So it was Dr. Plimick was watching the few instruments he could understand on the ship's command console, indicating the predicted cyclical timing of anchoring, swapping space around, and then releasing the anchor in hailing distance from the recent find. His education and experience indicated caution was essential in their approach to this "lost world."

## Chapter 2: Research

He stared into the darkened ceiling.

The concept of "bureaucratic efficiency" had been an oxymoron since the creation of bureaucrats. His request for a separate space to simply sit and think quietly was almost unheard of in that day and time, so the agency ignored it. Instead, he got a ship like all the others. It was therefore necessary to set the control for sleep mode, darkening the only living space in the ship, while he let his mind wander. Simply closing the eyes didn't do it. He wasn't sure why, but it always worked that way. He would never have considered using the escape pod, as the ship itself was confining enough. Still, this was far better than hitching a ride with a freighter or military transport.

His lack of adventurous spirit was a major factor in his choice of career and his elevated status. His intellect was quite ordinary, but it was sufficient to use the spooler system. His one advantage was what he called "intuition." By any other name, it was simply the mental trick of leaping across logical steps, even stepping outside the path somewhat. At any rate, the process was not entirely logical, but the results were sufficiently useful to give him an edge. He wasn't sure he could teach anyone else how to do it, but that was for the neuromedicine guys, and he wasn't one of them.

As with many things, neuromedicine research had chased a great many false leads before settling into a fairly mature path of progress. As soon as it became possible to make cyborgs by mating computer hardware directly to the neural system, it was performed on a large number of volunteers. Everyone wanted the advantage of improved memory handling and abstract number crunching. But of course, as soon as any hardware was surgically implanted, it was already obsolete. By the time any lab could produce a working prototype, someone else had already discovered a better way to interact with the nervous system.

Then the research chased a rolling upgrade by making the linking hardware modular, but even that became obsolete all too quickly. So they had on the one hand a bunch of test subjects either stuck with unsupported hardware, or undergoing a string of repetitive surgeries. Medical science, for all its advancements, never could find a way to poke artificial holes in people without causing problems of one kind or another. The tissue eventually broke down and refused to heal any more. That, along all the times when the process of "welding" man and machine itself went wrong, made for even greater complications.

Adding wireless technology created a really huge mess, and was still the number one problem some two centuries later. Make the receiver chip too sensitive and people couldn't easily shut off the mass of background noise from proliferating environmental signals. Automated filtering and range, or other attenuations, never quite worked. And what any good lab could do with the best intentions, a criminal lab could pervert with evil intent. So the entire human problem with addictions moved to this new wireless receiver neural implant technology, and each improvement only gave the "dope dealers" a new way to addict their victims. It became possible to stream into the mind an entire virtual existence, and the market in prerecorded fantasy worlds was still the largest economic engine in the galaxy. Connoisseurs could discuss the fine-grained differences between the engines which competed in blending reality with fantasy, so you could be blissfully lost even while normally productive.

It made it also too easy to turn people into the most horrific killing machines. Rather early in the game, some decent worlds became almost uninhabitable from the resulting warfare. It confused things for Dr. Plimick's research, because of the constant shifting alliances and battlefields, markets, and all the other manifestations of mass human madness. For all its good, the cyborg sciences very nearly ended the entire human race more than once. They were currently in a fairly stable and boring cycle, and he greatly preferred that sort of boredom over the alternative.

By the time he was born, Dr. Plimick was in a fairly safe environment. The huge amount of human knowledge which made up the minimum these days required at least some computer assistance, so the spooling system came into use. It was simply a very minimal, very weak wireless receptor which allowed a fairly conservative and routine transfer of factual knowledge into the brain. It did so with a minimum of disturbance to the psyche, and by its very limitations prevented anyone hijacking his mind, though it could hardly help him verify what he was being fed. Verification still depended on the ancient ways of academia, something which thankfully never died out.

But it was often entirely too objective and factual, and seldom gave meaning to all the mass of data. The very safety of the system for learning also made it essentially lifeless. He would have been the same as any other anthropologist that way except for a salutary accident. During a localized power outage which hit in mid-stream of a spool, he found his brain went right on as if the data was still being fed. Having no actual input, there was something which kept processing – not exactly synthesizing and extrapolating, but pulling sense from some "outside" source, but which turned out to be actually inside. Most importantly, it added coloration, a value and a sense of demand which mere spooling data didn't have. He had no words to explain it, so he kept this whole thing to himself. Instead, he tested it carefully, and found it worked best when he was away from other people, and in quiet, low-light settings. While such an environment didn't always bring the process maximally, it was the best shot he had at it.

About the only time he could reasonably do that in the hurried, high efficiency culture around him was during those times when most people were forced to use the pocket spoolers. One day, he simply didn't turn it on, but held it in the usual place so no one would notice he was not spooling, but doing something else with his brain time. Eventually, he would go to a spooling booth and simply keep the transmitter just outside the range of his receiver implant. It was this stepping outside, so very carefully, the mainstream habits of his academic world which gave him the edge over the rest. Given all were accelerated by spooling to the point only a rare few could distinguish themselves, he was an anomaly, but not a threat. When others wasted their time with entertainment spooling, he was doing that other thing, which is how he found himself in competitive standing for one of the survey missions.

When he spooled the prospectus listing of what was known or guessed about these "lost" worlds, one jumped out at him. It was the first time he could recall having such a reaction during spooling. Normally, just about everything which wasn't automated routine physical behavior, or something linked to that behavior, was almost smothered by the process of spooling data into his receiver. But that other hidden process of his seemed to have been waiting in the background like a trap set for a specific prey and it sprang on the one, oldest set of data. But the age of the data was not what called up that other process. It was clearly something germane to the way the process worked itself, because nothing he could identify consciously made it all that special. Yet his intuition shouted this was what he had been waiting for, even though he never knew he had been waiting for anything at all.

He was hoping that process would activate again, giving him some new perspective, during this quiet time in the ship before the alarms notified him it was cycling off the anchor point. He knew intuition had provided that perspective, but this was the first time he sensed it without any obvious, concrete signs in his conscious intellect.

## Chapter 3: First Contact

Caution, indeed.

His data indicated the most common name for the star was Dolores. For a moment Dr. Plimick's mind chased several humorous threads from that name. Ancient literature brimmed with associations. What brought him back quickly was the utter failure of the ship's sensors to detect anything useful about the planet. He checked visual: a fuzzy white ball. Marvelous; it was a cloud world.

The planet spun retrograde to Terran standard, and the gravity was just a tad light at 0.93%. It was the fourth planet from the star, which was marginally larger than Sol, but well within expected habitable standards elsewhere. It's year was a few days longer, so it's orbit was just a bit farther out than Sol-Terra standard. Energy absorption from the star would make the planet a little warm, but the distance made it a little cooler. The magnetic belts were almost invisible.

The ship's sensors were fully automated, of course, and he could see the computers trying different ways to get some readings. Eventually what took shape on the console reminded him of the earliest spool sets in the academic library back home. The data was copied from ancient sources in other formats, and on some of it, the spooling enhancements were more prominent than the actual information. Just so, the data on the planet was sparse.

The computers ran more checks to ensure this was the right star system, the right planet, etc. Eventually, the console reported with some moderate probability a wide equatorial band of nothing. That is, no apparent activity which could be interpreted as humanoid. The northern hemisphere was relatively quiet, and most of the active signs were in the south. Extrapolation would indicate a moderate climate under such dense cloud cover, so polar regions might not be too harsh. There didn't appear to be any actual cities, and most of the land was probably in the southern hemisphere.

This was just a bit more detail than he already had from previous surveys.

By now, most planets would have noticed the scanning and hailed his ship, or even fired on him. The planet below him remained quiet. The ship had also been attempting various forms of signaling, but so far nothing resembling any known signal came back. Then the ship's sensors spotted a tiny artificial satellite, very close in to the cloud cover. It was almost flying as opposed to actually orbiting, since it was bouncing in and out of the thin outer reaches of the atmosphere, and hardly as large as a human body.

He watched the ship's system track, then try to contact the thing. It was part metallic, along with plenty of organic materials, including wings of fabric. The ship sensors guessed the fabric included some sort of passive solar energy conversion. He watched it for awhile, using both visual and sensor displays trained on the thing. It was very slow, very small, and didn't seem to respond. Just as it began to approach the dark side of the planet, the little craft let loose a single squawk of radio signal.

The ship's computers processed it quickly, and noted it was tightly compressed coding of an older standard communication protocol. It was terse, though not exactly dense in terms of language use.

Welcome to Dalorius Four. Safe landing at our southern pole. Please forgive the lack of guidance beacons.

He knew the ship could program itself to cross hyperspace and drop out on the surface at the south pole without the usual landing beacons. He decided to wait one more lap from their flying message pod. Meanwhile, he tried to research the corrected name spelling, and found one peculiar reference to something about a religious group, something unsavory. However, the context of the reference was itself a little unsavory, coming during the last attempt at creating a galactic empire. An incredibly intelligent dynasty of some three men and one woman had managed to gather influence and power. But when the woman took the throne, she decided a means of better unity was religion. It was fairly open, pulling in a broad menu of current and ancient ideas. You could choose just about any flavor you liked, as long as your flavor didn't include teachings contrary to certain imperial doctrines regarding interaction with political rulers.

While the whole thing collapsed in the usual ugly ways all empires fail, one of the episodes of decline included purging dissenting religious groups. The Imperial troops hounded some conscientious objectors, which naturally drove a fresh wave of colonization. One particular group was labeled with all sorts of hideous moral crimes, in a time when such was increasingly the tactic of unreasoning oppression. While every mention of this group was tinged with revulsion for their moral depravity, historians were pretty sure at least some of it was sheer propaganda. The group disappeared from the records just before the empire collapsed into the first of three, truly wide spread wars.

The official name was the Smiling Death Cult, but Dr. Plimick was pretty sure that was part of the propaganda. They didn't seem to have a name for themselves. There were no overt connections to the star's name, but he assumed either one of the leaders was called Dalorius, or it was a word with some peculiar religious significance.

At any rate, he settled back into his intuitive mode while waiting for the ship's sensors to detect the flying message pod again.

## Chapter 4: Welcome

For once, he had actually gotten rather bored. It took quite some time before he saw the flying pod again, or one like it – most of a waking cycle and half the following sleep cycle. He noted the unsurprising repetition of the previous sighting, and then drifted back off to sleep.

He barely ate anything for breakfast and immediately sequenced the ship to anchor in hyperspace and slip the southern pole up under it. Sensors began working before releasing the anchor. Immediate safety checks showed the air was breathable, a light wind with cool temperatures. The humidity was predictably high for a shrouded planet. There were no perceptible threats anywhere near, just a tent some distance away. There appeared some life, but the sensors had trouble getting back much more than white noise. The visual display seemed similarly afflicted, barely making out the tent, beyond which there seemed a fog bank enveloping everything.

It seemed there was nothing left but to don appropriate clothing and step out. The airlock had little to do in this case, and his exit was almost as fast as he could normally move. A built-in platform grating folded out from beneath the portal just before he stepped onto it. His first surprise was the view was much clearer than the sensors indicated, though the clouds hung quite low. He was frankly surprised the sensors could not duplicate actual eye vision. The tent in the distance was sharply defined and the horizon swept away to some low humped ridges in the distance. Glancing about, he noted one quarter of the horizon presented such humps.

The air tasted of the seashore, and a variable breeze blew. The ground was rocky, but the stones were mostly flat and dark, like broken shards of slate, but worn almost smooth. The ship had extended the landing legs fully, so he turned and backed down the ladder attached to one of them. The broken slate seemed rather packed and solid beneath his boots. His coveralls seemed sufficient protection for the ambient air temperature. As he strode in the direction of the tent, his hand checked for the tiny energy weapon in the low breast pocket – it was about the size and shape of any writing stylus.

As he approached the tent, a figure stepped out through the open doorway. There were as many protocols as there were inhabited planets, and many more which vied for the most common use in situations like this. Against his own steady, faintly cautious gate, the fellow from the tent approached with some energy, though not quite in a hurry. Dr. Plimick stopped with just a few paces between them. The other fellow wore a light robe, falling just below the knees, over a comfortable looking tunic of the same length. The coloration was mostly brown and gray, but there were what appeared to be decorative patches and trim of dark red and green. The man's bearded face wore a wide, toothy grin, and closed the distance to about arm's length between them.

The man was a bit taller, clearly older, yet full of life. He quickly bowed slightly from the waist, and then spoke. It was an almost musical, lilting dialect of standard galactic trade language. The vocabulary was fairly old, but Dr. Plimick had no trouble following it.

"Welcome to Dalorius Four, which we like to call 'Misty' for obvious reasons. I am called Elder Manley, but I would prefer you use my personal name, George."

Old Earth names; Dr. Plimick quickly matched George's bow. "My name is Doctor Plimick, and you can call me Fortis."

"We haven't had visitors in a while, Fortis. I'm personally very pleased to see a stranger to our planet, and I assure you that sentiment reflects the sentiment of those I represent." He waved his hands to indicate the landscape around them. "It's a rather dreary place to meet visitors, but it's the simplest and best answer to a very complicated situation. I'll be glad to explain more later. For now, I wonder if you have any traveler's needs."

The man's bubbling sing-song enunciation was matched by wide ranging facial expressions and body language. On the one hand was the thoroughly trained wariness of any anthropologist visiting a foreign world, but this man's mere presence was altogether disarming. Dr. Plimick tried to avoid betraying any of this, but George seemed too aware, almost reading his mind.

"Fortis, please, take all the time and precautions you need to feel comfortable. Here on Misty, you will find us altogether unhurried. It is not merely our culture, but the necessary nature of our existence under this white foamy sky."

His hands indicated the billowing cloud bottoms rolling around above them, seemingly just a couple hundred meters from the ground. Here and there in the distance, an occasional wisp would drift downward to the ground. Then George crossed his arms over his belly and leaned back with a peaceful smile. Such an obvious gesture of patience made Dr. Plimick feel just a little embarrassed.

"My apologies, George. While the wars across the galaxy have quieted a great deal during the past decade, the relative calm seems always to be a brittle shell over something dangerous which never dies. To encounter someone who is utterly open is so rare; we have this gut reaction to be suspicious."

"So we understand from our news gathering birds," George answered quietly. Then with a renewed animation, "But I believe you will find I am a fair representation of what you'll encounter anywhere on the entire planet. Unlike most worlds, we did not develop such a widely diverging mix of cultural array. The population is fairly sparse, living a largely pastoral and agricultural existence. The original colonists were mostly one extended family with only a few extra influences married in, so genetic variation is fairly narrow. There are no urban centers to offer the breeding ground of highly specialized interests, and the resulting rapid shift in language and culture. You will find us quite boring as anthropologists measure things."

Dr. Plimick's eyebrows rose at the mention of his academic specialty. How did this man know?

Again, George seemed to read his mind. "Then you are an anthropologist yourself?" He took Dr. Plimick's half-smile as affirmative. "We had anticipated something like that. Every time trade stops for awhile, and our birds pick up mostly encrypted traffic, we know there is war. Then, after the blood lust has spent itself, it's typical to see explorers of various sorts as the initial restoration of outside contacts. Surely you know there is a bit of the anthropologist in every explorer, whether his underlying motive is trade, war or anything else?"

Dr. Plimick's smile was slowly broadening. "So you are the Anthropologist's Reception Committee?"

"It is among the responsibilities I bear. I was hoping to offer you a summary of things you are likely to find of interest before we go and visit the rest of the planet. We are eager to renew trade, but for us, eagerness means we expect things to get going again in a year or so." He stopped and took on a solemn face. "However, it is my duty to ask you to ensure your ship's computer is able to navigate itself back out past our cloudy envelope without the typical sensing measures. Once out of our atmosphere, everything will work as you expect, but inside the envelope, almost nothing works. Depending on technological specifics, your ship may have trouble leaving. We would be loath for you to find yourself trapped here."

## Chapter 5: A Different Place

It took only a short time to check his ship, and then he approached the tent. Fortis hesitated a moment at the doorway of the tent, blinking. There was artificial lighting inside, but it still took a moment for his eyes to adjust. His attention was drawn to the odd luminescence in patches on the inside face of the sloping tent roof.

"Our eyes seldom encounter direct light on Misty, so we are quicker to adjust to low light conditions. When you feel comfortable, please have a seat." The shadowy form waited for Fortis to sit first. The chair was some sort of fabric stretched over a hard frame. It gave just enough, and seemed slightly springy, yet altogether comfortable, conforming to his own shape. It held his weight easily, but the frame was obviously very light. His hand touched something rare among places he had visited – natural wood grain. He would have to pay at least a month's salary for such a chair back home, if it were available at all.

As George eased into a matching seat almost facing him, Fortis saw a man somewhat older than himself. Unlike the almost generic olive-toned skin of blended races he was used to seeing, the lanky robed man was naturally quite pale where his skin was exposed. George composed himself slowly, then turned to face Fortis.

"I suppose your ship can find its way out of this cloud envelope?"

Fortis half smiled. "The computers say they can't see anything, but would have no trouble reversing the last maneuver, which should be safe, since it was above the orbital plane of your star system."

George's eyes sparkled merrily in the light spilling through the tent doorway. "Isn't it strange how we continue to apply the ancient Terran standards of polarity? Technically, we sit at the very bottom of Misty, but it could as easily be the top. Then it would seem our rotation was normal, instead of retrograde."

Fortis nodded his recognition.

George continued. "I suppose your ship told you something about Misty?"

It took only a few seconds for Fortis to recount the few details, noting it was just a bit more than he had already known before starting his journey.

George shook his head with what Fortis felt was exaggerated humor. Suddenly, the elder's face went rather serious, with a wrinkled brow. "I dare say, your automated systems didn't really read that from the planet itself." Fortis raised his eyebrows in question. "You are aware at one time it was necessary to plant beacons for interstellar navigation?"

"Yes; my ship noted one just outside your star system," Fortis replied.

George half smiled. "Just before the last war started, a military survey ship stopped by, warning us things were heating up. He also told us he would update the beacon's records of nearby inhabited worlds. In those days it was considered highly encrypted. I suppose, given the nature of things, such encryption has been long broken."

Fortis wasn't even aware of any encryption schemes, but noted his ship's computers had no trouble reading the ancient beacon. He was surprised it still functioned.

"And I suppose you didn't perform any directed scanning, but simply allowed the automated system to do its work?" George seemed to be on the verge of delivering a punch line for a joke.

"No. I'm not even sure I would know how," Fortis replied with a shrug.

George nodded sagely. "I'm willing to wager your ship simply told you what it had collated from the beacon." He waited a moment, then stared directly into the eyes of Fortis. "Aside from the visible light spectrum, nothing penetrates Misty's clouds. Nothing. Your energy weapon is utterly useless here. Feel free to carry it, but you couldn't use it."

For just a moment, butterflies tickled Fortis's stomach. But his fascination with the subject pushed them aside. "You can't even transmit radio waves?"

"We once tested a visible light transmitter system, but it won't bounce off the clouds. The lack of range didn't justify what for us was a high investment in materials we can't obtain natively." He allowed that to hang in the air.

Fortis was able to capture a moment with his intuition. "Then you don't have much metal and petroleum here?"

Gesturing with his hands around the tent, George replied, "What you see here is some of our highest technology. It won't appear much immediately, but we have several centuries of careful development of what little we do have." He paused a moment, shifting forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I feel certain your questions will be answered best by the narrative of how we came to colonize Misty."

George stood, a fluid motion, unhurried, yet somehow quick. "Let me offer you some tea. I have a special blend which seems to please visitors from off planet."

## Chapter 6: The Story

Fortis was surprised the tea was so hot, when the cup was simply warm. It looked and felt like ceramic, but was hardly thick enough to explain the insulating effect on his hands. Another question he would have to ask later.

Taking a sip, George gazed into his cup, and then his gaze drifted to the open tent door. "We would like to claim our religion has been around as long as mankind, but it seems all religions claim that, and none can prove it." He turned back to Fortis, who was thoughtfully sipping from his own cup.

"What we can document is a group of families separated themselves somewhat from the established organized religions of their day shortly before the first serious attempt to bring all humanity under a single government. You may recall that attempt unraveled before it was even fully engaged. Had it succeeded, that might have been the end of the story. One element in that first Terran world government was the plan to force all religions to unify under a single institutional authority. The government policies clearly rejected the very thing which distinguished our religion, which was the insistence mankind was not merely body and soul, but there was a distinct third element, a separate faculty we call the spirit. Our religion is largely an attempt to cultivate that other faculty as a means for determining how men should live.

"We managed to establish an existence which did not withdraw us from all human contact, but limited it some while we built a different life. The degree of separation was the major source of conflict with any government we faced. Because our community was so small, we initially escaped much notice. But whenever things grew unsettled for the wider society, our numbers surged. At that, entry was never easy. Our covenant of community was quite demanding compared to the world around us in those days. At some point, tensions with secular governments grew along with our numbers.

"During that first Imperium, things went well for us because His Majesty was too busy worrying about the mere mechanics of asserting control over basic resources. Humans had already begun interstellar exploration, with many colonies across the galaxy. Life on Terra had become almost unbearable as the result of pollution and social breakdown, so we began acquiring ships. They were, of course, the most primitive sort. Still functional, they nonetheless made Spartan accommodations, indeed. When we were almost ready to leave was about the time imperial policy began implementing all sorts of bureaucratic controls on colonization. We were caught in a bind, not quite enough ships for all to leave, but a strong sense we could not wait any longer.

"We held a council. You have to understand, a critical element in our religion is self-denial, a powerful otherworldly focus. In this case, it meant we did not have to struggle to find volunteers who would sacrifice and stay behind. Rather, it was a struggle to convince our strongest leaders to go. The logic of our choices would probably escape you, but the process of choosing very nearly took too long before someone had to take the reins and simply make it happen. A very strong leader rose up and gave orders, which is not something easily done under our religion. But it did save the day. The group left behind was small enough to hide in one of the few places left on Terra which was fairly safe.

"We took some risk packing them temporarily into standing room on the ships, slipping them up into the Arctic zone, and then departing the planet as quickly as possible. The Imperium was not happy, naturally. They rescinded our negotiated plan, and placed troops on our destination, one of the few remaining colonies as yet uninhabited. We found out later the troops all nearly died as the place was marginally livable, at best. The group we left in the Terran Arctic was better off than those troops, by far. Given this situation, we simply stopped for a time near the edge of the galaxy quite a ways from any star system, and held another council.

"To avoid easy detection, we resorted to primitive means. We linked the ships physically and exchanged personnel until enough elders could gather for a quorum in the largest ship, speaking face to face. I suppose it was altogether fortuitous one of our engineers, a convert who had served in the military, insisted we then unlink the ships – 'just in case.' That case arose when imperial targeting drones popped out of hyperspace. Those ships weren't armed, of course. We knew they wouldn't simply destroy our ships and kill us all; they wanted our military aged members for the war they had just declared. This would have been unconscionable for us, and we would have willingly died to a man to prevent it. No soldier fights so hard as a genuine pacifist avoiding war, even if he seeks to avoid killing.

"The only escape was immediately entering hyperspace, but we had to turn off our navigational instruments. On those primitive ships, the instruments would, in effect, broadcast our intended destination. Each ship simply grabbed space and fled. That was the last they saw of each other."

George was quiet, and mood was decidedly somber. He sipped his tea a moment.

"The ship with the elders ended up in this star system. We did find out where we were, but found no name for the star. The chief elder's daughter, a very young child, was singing a song about some event in our holy books, and mispronounced part of it. Instead of 'Dolorosa' she said 'Dalorius' and her father seized on that as the name for the star.

"Prior to the attempted council, we had balanced the ship assignments so each could have formed its own miniature colony, if necessary. In the bargain, the ship which arrived at Dalorius was short a few engineering specialties, most of our former military converts, and a few scholars. While scholars we could replace for the most part, the shortage of engineers and military veterans made all the difference in the world.

"Supplies were short because no one expected to be in those ships that long. The navigation beacon was not directly line of sight, but the presence of its signal bouncing off the planets made everyone nervous that it might report our location. Since it said the fourth planet was habitable, but offered no details, we decided to blindly land. Even if we did turn on our scanning equipment, which would present at the least a risk of broadcasting our location to the beacon, we would not have gotten anything back, as you know. So the pilot simply estimated the surface depth below the clouds for an exit point and brought the ship down inside the envelope. He barely had the means to maneuver once inside the atmosphere and they bumped the ground rather hard. No one was hurt severely, and we disembarked.

"That was several hundred years ago."

## Chapter 7: Not Exactly Eden

Fortis was thinking how the situation resembled a child starting life over with an adult's awareness. "How badly was the ship damaged?"

George grinned. "Should you stay with us long enough, and tolerate the travel, you will get a chance to see it yourself. The place was not level ground, but we were too high above it for the standard thrusters to do more than slow our descent some. The landing gear collapsed on the high side, though, and the whole thing leaned into the slope. The hull was breached where it struck the rocky ground, since even such an old ship was not built to withstand much physical impact."

Fortis remembered the business about energy emissions not working on the planet. "So the impact resistant field generator failed?"

"Completely," George said, shaking his head back and forth. "The generator was working, but there was no field."

Fortis was puzzled. "My own ship does not have the old thruster technology, so I assumed it used the levitation field. Am I mistaken?"

George shrugged. "Most likely your ship had the beacon's data about the exact depth of our cloud layer here at the pole. The military surveyor who visited us last used a ship with extensive failsafe landing capabilities, as most military ships do. I suppose he made note of the atmosphere's depth in his update of the beacon. Departure is much simpler, because it's not based on fields, but on something else entirely.

"At any rate, our ship landed at the edge of the desert belt girdling our planet. According to our religion, the whole thing was miraculous. We couldn't leave because the ship was damaged and our alternative thrust system was spent. In the middle of the desert, we would have died before we could find our way to greener lands. But in the middle of the greener lands were predators we could not fight at that time, since all we had were useless energy weapons. And in the northern hemisphere it's all small rocky islands. Our ship would not have floated in water. Instead, we crash landed on the one place where conditions allowed us the most time to orient ourselves to the situation.

"Equally significant was the good fortune of having the one and only retired engineer with a collection of museum pieces he wasn't supposed to bring. Hand tools, of all things. It's not as if nothing electronic works here. Wherever there is a closed circuit for electrons to flow through solids, it's just fine. But we can't transmit anything across the air, aside from the visible spectrum. Well, just a little into the ultraviolet and infrared, but not far enough for something like a burning laser, even."

Fortis thought for a moment. "So computers work, as I've already noted in my ship, because they are solid nano-circuitry. And you can create heat and light, and use powered tools, but how do you generate sufficient voltage?"

George gestured at the glowing patches on the tent ceiling. "The lighting is a coating extracted from insects. What powers it is the entire tent. Its outer surface is coated with a modified native mildew. It doesn't eat the tent material, but consumes what little energy comes through our cloud layer. It's enough to light the patches, heat the water for tea, and in while, and help prepare lunch. We developed ceramics which heat with the application of a low current."

Fortis realized he was already hungry. It was one of the drawbacks of visiting other planets, because it meant shifting his circadian rhythm, but there was no way to avoid it. "Did you have the means to generate food, as most humans do these days, or have you found the local flora and fauna edible?"

George laughed, tipping his head back. "When we left Terra, most humans were still eating plants and animals in one form or another. We had learned about advances in artificial replacements much later. Again, fortunate it was for us what grows natively here is compatible to human biology. However, it took many years of serious health troubles to discover the absolute necessity of eating the fish here. The lack of sunlight creates a serious deficiency which only the fish satisfy. Our forefathers found them repulsive, which is why it took so long, but it's something we now take for granted.

"It was hardly idyllic. We had the predators, deficiencies, diseases, and were thrown back to prehistoric living without energy weapons." George pointed to a place near the doorway. "I suppose the light from outside prevented you from noticing the archery equipment there."

Fortis turned, held up his hand to block the light from the doorway. Sure enough, there was a curved piece of wood, pulling a line taut between the ends, and a collection of thin wooden shafts clipped together in a neat row. The fletching was not feathers, but something resembling a stiff fabric with small panels joining them across the edges. The heads were hidden by a protective cover. Turning back, he asked, "Do you also have other sorts of melee weapons?"

"All sorts of toys," George replied with a faint smile. "None of them metal. As I said, we have precious little of that here and almost no means of smelting if we did. Because we came with rather modern technology notions, we were fairly quick to develop alternatives. We make fabrics from both plant and animal sources, but with highly advanced variations in properties. The same goes with animal skins, wood, glass and ceramics. We use a great many microscopic plants and animals in the process. If it grows here, we likely have done something to breed it for special uses.

"In the past we have traded these specialties to other worlds in exchange for metal and electronics. Most of what we have is wearing out, and we would like to get more soon. I know you saw the 'bird' circling Misty or you would not have known where to land. That is almost entirely fabric and wood, with one tiny computer and transmitter attached. We use them mostly to harvest the hyperspace radio traffic, which can only be read above our atmosphere. Our welcome signal takes quite a bit of energy, so it's broadcast only twice each lap. The bird absorbs as much energy as possible during the sun exposure, then makes that brief broadcast before having to save power during passage around the dark side.

"We have to do that because there are only three working birds. When we still had a dozen, the message was longer because we could rotate them more often. Now they have to stay aloft until the memory is about full, then it descends down while another slowly makes its way aloft. It takes a couple of our days each way, gliding and climbing the weak updraft over the marginally warmer deserts. We have winds aloft, of course, but they are due mostly to spin, since the temperature is very stable. The other problem is the photo-reactive mildew tends to weaken during exposure to space, so we have regrow it some each time."

Fortis asked, "Have you never considered using an artificial satellite?"

His hands spread out in a powerless gesture, George said, "We thought about that. Bear in mind, for the first couple of centuries we were still fugitives from the Imperium. Why would we want them to find us so easily? Once that threat faded, we found it still very hard to establish regular trade relations. And while we do have a surplus for trade, it's not enough to easily afford something like a full satellite system. We would still need the birds to ferry the data – physical closed circuits only down here."

Fortis couldn't think of anything else to say.

George continued, "We are content for the most part. We are loath to breach what has accomplished so very much in favor of our religion. Frankly, too much technology is the reason we feel the rest of humanity is having such a difficult time, with wars and such. It's not as if we have no wars here, but they don't amount to much. Our culture is the result of our religion, and our stability and peace and..." He paused and took a deep breath. "We hold to a totally different value system. We didn't come here and gain those values because it was the best we could do in a bad situation. We had those values before we left Terra. We believe they come from God, and that it was His plan to put us here to keep them alive, because this world perfectly matched what we believed. We might not have known that so well when we got here, but the realization dawned on us as we made our way."

He locked eyes with Fortis. "Whatever you do, Fortis, I beg you not to take any actions which would destroy what we have here. I have no doubt you are well trained in dealing with us while you are here, observing without interfering. But once you leave to take the knowledge of our world back to your galactic academic network, it would be all too easy for something in your report to precipitate a disaster."

## Chapter 8: The Shape of Things

It had seemed like a good idea to pass one last night on the ship, since it allowed Fortis to file an initial report into the non-destructible memory module. He also ran several simulations before he noticed his circadian rhythm was far out of sync with his host. Barely ready to sleep yet, it was just a few hours before George planned to start taking the tent down. Fortis calculated this would be two hours before the small difference the planet's tilt from vertical would produce a feeble dawn at Misty's southern pole. There was nothing like a hard day's ride on little sleep to make for a good natural nudge to the space lag.

Fortis stood rubbing his sleep deprived eyes, disappointed to find George already had the tent nearly folded. The fabric was far thinner than it had first appeared, and folded quite small. Fortis guessed the wagon he now saw receiving the various folded and packed up items had been the bed he thought he saw in the tent yesterday. Not only was it still quite dark, but George moved with too much skilled practice, and Fortis hardly kept track of the packing. By the time he drew close enough to offer help, none was needed. Before him was a small, light wagon on two wheels, and a harness rig attached to the end tilted into the air.

George strode quickly off toward one of the grassy humps of land barely perceptible on the horizon. Now as fully awake as he would be at any point during that day, Fortis realized it never really got all that dark, but it took some time for him to notice. The clouds of Misty kept the temperature even, with a similar effect on the light level. It had never gotten all that bright, nor really too very dark. Remembering George's comment about lacking direct sunlight, he realized the entire population probably saw almost as much at night as in the day.

Fortis occupied himself poking about the wagon, not moving anything, but noticing how it was primitive in concept, yet with very highly advanced construction. The frame was that hard, light wood he found on his chair the day before. The wheels were similar, but very elegant, with some sort of tire which gave under hard pressure from his thumb. It felt like fabric and skin at the same time. The profile was wide and oval, like modern ground vehicles on many planets, but not designed for any sort of artificial pavement. These wheels had seen plenty of rough ground. Fortis wondered if the packed rocky shale under his feet was some of the better travel surface on Misty.

His reverie was broken by the sound of approaching heavy tread. No, it was not so much sounding as palpable through his feet. The sound came shortly after, of heavy animals with large padded hooves.

George's voice was breathy from mild effort, approaching quickly. "Looks like we lost nothing to predators. That's a blessing."

Fortis noticed the bow and arrows were slung across George's back, as his host turned around to stop the large beasts. On the opposite shoulder he saw a short sword. He wondered what a sword would be made of on a planet where hard metals were rare. George led the largest beast around the wagon, then sidled it over in front of the wagon. It was a quick draw which brought the hitching down on the animal's back, and a few swift motions to cinch a strap under the belly. Then George stepped back to the rear of the wagon, and turned some crank handle Fortis had not seen before. The axle shifted so that just a little bit of weight rested on the animal's harness. One last check of the straps on the load, then George turned to Fortis.

"Have you ever ridden an animal, before?" Fortis had done so only once, as a special treat of some powerful figure on one planet he visited.

George explained, "These are the largest creatures on Misty. It wasn't hard to tame them, and it took only a little selective breeding to produce something with a natural riding saddle built into their backs. It doesn't hurt them, and they don't resist. Indeed, the odd thing would be they seem to lack any temperament at all. That is, until they smell predators. They don't scare easily, but do make a bit of noise until I draw some kind of weapon for defense."

George showed Fortis how to mount the creature, by pulling up a front foot and bending it up for a step. The beast simply leaned a bit so the one front leg bore the weight balanced, and Fortis managed to take a fairly comfortable seat. George mounted quickly and spoke in a sing-song voice words of gibberish. The two mounted beasts proceeded side by side, and the draft animal followed at the same pace. The stride was slow and gentle, so it was quite easy for Fortis to keep his seat. He noticed a faint increase in wan gray light on one horizon.

Ever the mindful host, George began describing what to expect on the journey. "We are actually starting a bit late today. Normally we would be well on our way, but I knew you were out of rhythm for sleeping.

"The reason for this sort of schedule is because of the light gathering mildew on all our tents. We have the means to carry a charge stored up, but it has limits. We try to travel during the first half of the day, then stop and set up our tents to get the current generation going before evening mealtime. Plus, it allows us to charge up the predator fences. We didn't need one out here in the polar flats, because virtually nothing lives here. These mounts were a solid half-hour walk away in the thin grassy hillocks where they could eat and rest, and there the predators could be hunting."

Fortis reminded himself "hour" here, as on every planet, was an ancient term for whatever numerical divisions of the day each culture used. By now they were seeing a few wisps of greenish sprouts here and there, so it was probably at least two kilometers from the ship. The pace of the beasts was easily faster than he could run, but it seemed much slower if he didn't look down. In some ancient time, he supposed a Terran would think of the beasts as camels without the hump, and shorter legs.

George continued his explanation. "Once we enter more occupied lands, we'll keep our mounts inside a charged fence. The predators will smell the charge in the lines and stay away. Only the youngest ones are foolish enough to approach the fence."

Gradually, the grass grew thicker, taller. Fortis strained to see what was ahead in their direction of travel. It seemed there were no mountains anywhere, no sharp or great changes in elevation.

He could have sworn George could read his mind, as the man cited more pertinent data. "Misty has no detectable tectonic activity. The entire surface is relatively flat. The seas are shallow, and everywhere is a rather high water table. The desert in our equatorial belt is simply higher elevation, and thus a hard rocky place. With virtually zero precipitation, a mist rises in the middle to polar latitudes during the night, but there is none at the equator, where the cloud base is a bit higher. Lacking a moon, we have no tides in our shallow seas. The breeze here at the pole is almost an accident, the result of winds elsewhere, which are quite stiff on the equator. We feel sure much of this is due to our star being in a very stable cycle itself, though we lack the means to confirm it."

Fortis promised himself he would find a way to check and let them know, even if only by transmitting the data to the birds.

George was talking again. "This hemisphere has more land, but this still leaves us using boats more than beasts for travel. In a few days we'll reach the shore of this polar island and find the ship I left anchored somewhere just off the coast. Our boats are wide and flat, and many people make their homes on them, seldom walking on land. Storms are exceedingly rare, just a bit of extra wind blowing the water in waves higher than normal. In most places, the currents run one way, the winds the other. It's all in giant loops, so travel is alternating between sailing and riding currents."

They had been climbing almost imperceptibly so far. Then the ground sloped downward just noticeably. They came to a narrow band of still water. Stretching to his full height, Fortis thought it was some odd, narrow inlet of the sea. It smelled of it. Yet it was amazingly shallow, as George never slowed and the beasts and wagon splashed across. The bottom was the same gray, slated stuff near the pole. Turning, Fortis could barely make out his ship, a darker sharp object against a vaguely dark horizon. He surmised the pole was almost a bowl of lifeless ground. Scanning in all directions, he realized they had passed through a low spot on the rim of this giant polar bowl.

George leaned over a bit toward Fortis. "I would like to apologize for not showing you a map yesterday, but was worried you might have absorbed too much already. You'll get a look at one when we stop for the day."

Fortis cocked his head to one side and looked hard at George. "Why do I get the feeling you are reading my thoughts?"

George looked almost sheepish. "Any answer I give would make little sense to you, I'm afraid. It's not as if I am conscious of your thoughts, as it were. I simply speak as it occurs to me. More than that would be hard to put in words, though I intend to try once you have spent some time among us."

Fortis realized for once he was actually just a little scared.

## Chapter 9: Catching Wind

It was on the fourth day and the smell of sea was much stronger. The map Fortis saw the first afternoon, an electronic display sheet George produced when they had set up camp, showed how there were a great many long sea inlets, snaking inland, making the polar island look like a splatter. They had crossed several shallow inlets of varying widths, but none deep enough to more than wet the boots Fortis wore, had he waded across them. George had explained only the polar island was like that, and the map images indicated it was so. However, the islands farther north were themselves rather scattered, randomly shaped, but fairly dense in the southern hemisphere. There was a wide band of continental land masses on the equator, with narrow seas cutting between them. The northern hemisphere was rather more thinly scattered islands, mostly smaller.

"What you notice as a sea smell will soon fade to olfactory accommodation, since it is nearly ubiquitous outside the equatorial lands," George explained.

Fortis settled himself for a long and tedious journey, still tossing around his intuition how George seemed to read his questions. It never dawned on him George, or his entire world, would possess anything like it themselves. Indeed, for all their primitive culture and technology, their mental abilities were far outside the norm, if George was any representative sample. Not in the sense of pure intellectual acumen; Fortis had seen lots of that in his studies. Some cultures encouraged such a high level of intellect one would think they all had the most advanced chip implants, but it went well beyond mere algorithm processing. It was more like a highly advanced process of branching off into new connections, and doing it altogether faster than most of the human race. Such people would have nearly died of boredom in this quiet long journey, because their worlds were filled with constant, rapidly shifting inputs. Here, it was simply on a different plane, as if intellect were itself an afterthought.

For all his rather ordinary intellect, with his secret gift of intuition, Fortis was terribly uncomfortable in those cultures. Yet, rather than the milder case of boredom he expected with George's ebullient and informative chatter, Fortis was stunned as George began to lay out the more shocking map of reality on Misty, the philosophical orientation unlike anything Fortis had seen in his long years of study. After three days of entertaining and encyclopedic discussion of standard anthropological data, Fortis was anything but bored. George halted their progress for lunch.

Over the meal of smoked, dried meat, and a little of the harshly flavored fish Fortis could not yet bring himself to consume, along with various dried fruits and roasted nuts and grain, George remarked rather casually they would not be setting up the tent that day.

"In just an hour from here we'll be at the shore near the boat. We use something like a raft to move the animals out to the ship. They could easily wade out, but then we'd have to lift them aboard. They aren't particularly fond of getting wet, anyway. By nightfall, we'll be within reach of an island with no predators, and a fairly sharp bank so we can tie up directly to it. The currents just north of here are a bit fast and strong, so they create some unusual topography, though nothing dramatic. Tomorrow you'll get a taste of some stronger winds. Still, only in the high deserts, and the shores just near them, are they strong enough to threaten a boat much."

No sooner had they remounted and set out through the scattered sparse grass, when George said something in a totally different tone of voice. It was almost somber. "Some of the data coming back on our birds the past few years make us nervous here on Misty."

Fortis turned to look directly at George, who had been staring straight ahead, almost stony faced. Then the elder's gaze sank to the reins in his hands, sighing deeply. Fortis was paying full attention, now.

George continued, "You are aware several religious temples were destroyed on three different worlds?"

"They weren't really very significant as buildings go," Fortis offered.

"But they were all belonging to a particular sect, or a family of sects. They held to some odd practices, such as chanting, or simply sitting quietly for hours. While the buildings were never large or fancy, they always included the latest sound dampening technology, so you could go inside and not know there was a whole modern world out there roaring away. They practiced a form of meditation."

Fortis remembered, but hadn't given it much thought. "I seem to recall they rejected all implants, insisting whatever they really needed to know could not be reduced to data streams." As soon as he said it, Fortis realized the possible connection to his own use of intuition.

George half smiled. "They roamed the Land without Words." Fortis was slightly amused at how George could make it obvious the words were a proper noun. "The old generic term for such religions is 'mysticism.' Directly experiencing ultimate truth, they would claim, using non-intellectual faculties."

Fortis recognized the quoted standard academic definition. He filled in the rest. "It was regarded as a superstition, something which hindered normal human development. It also tended to make them socially troublesome. Too many of them were elitist, refusing to adapt or negotiate logically with the various social structures in which they lived. It hearkened back to ancient prejudices which have no place in such a far-flung humanity. When mankind went out to the stars, diplomacy was so essential it became hard-wired, something written into the very structure of the standard Galactic language. It's one of the first things infants learn when they begin to vocalize."

George halted his mount. "Whatever they did wrong, this oppressive move threatens to destroy the last hope for humanity." He dismounted.

Fortis realized there was a flat, oblong platform in front of them pulled up some distance from the water's edge. Glancing about, he could see they were on a spit of land just a dozen meters across, and wide expanses of water separated them from any other fingers of land.

George strode to the platform and lifted the end closest to the water. Fortis noted it looked as if the surface was woven grass, with a curved frame providing the oval shape, apparently of that same light, hard wood used for almost everything. Before Fortis could dismount and offer to help, George had waded out a ways and let the platform down in the water. Letting it go, Fortis could see it was still resting partially on the bottom, with the front edge under water.

George called out in that odd gibberish used to direct the beasts' behavior, and the draft animal pulled forward alone, walking slowly toward the platform. George halted it, then stepped quickly behind the wagon and turned the crank which slid the wheel carriage forward until the harness began to pull upward slightly. In one smooth motion he released the harness and allowed the wagon to tip back, raising the arms of the harness skyward. He then directed the beast onto the platform. Fortis was no longer surprised to see something so flimsy looking bear the weight without flexing. Then George bent down and turned some handle Fortis could not see below the edge. There was an audible hissing sound as some sort of bladder inflated under the entire platform, spreading out and raising the whole thing out of the water just a bit, leveling the platform to float. From one side, George pulled up a long pole and pushed the raft away toward the boat some meters off shore. Fortis hadn't really noticed the larger craft before.

It took only an hour to ferry the three beasts and the men together with the wagon. Near the waterline, the boat was almost as flat as the raft, which was now strung behind the boat. Fortis had noticed during their approach and embarkation the underside had smooth, almost shiny pontoons on both sides. Up close, he glimpsed a ribbed structure under the surface, running straight the length of the pontoons. The beasts stood on the lowest deck in the center. Apparently they never laid down; Fortis never saw them when they weren't standing or walking. The wagon was rolled to the stern and locked in a frame made to receive it. Fortis had seen rigging for pleasure craft on many worlds, some with wind sails of all sorts of designs. He noticed this boat had a complicated framework of very stiff sails, which still appeared to be gossamer fabric. They could be turned vertically by a simple control on the foredeck. They had been folded together when he boarded, but George quickly got them spread out and turned to catch the breeze somehow. Almost immediately the vessel began to move.

Fortis sat on a woven fabric seat mounted near the steering station. George sat down facing him once he was satisfied everything was working properly. He kept one hand on the controls while glancing back and forth among the bright sails.

Still looking up, "You know, Fortis, the emperors had special tutors for their children and some of their staff. Among those tutors, it was a long tradition to have one or more of those mystics whose temples were destroyed recently. Legend has it they helped the rulers and close counselors anticipate things a whole planet of scientists could not have guessed. They took the mystics seriously. The imperial policies only failed when someone murdered the staff mystics in fit of political jealousy. While the last emperor of our most recent Imperium hadn't really been paying much attention to the mystics, they still held strong ceremonial importance. Once they were dead, imperial favor for them declined. That trend carried over into the break up, and the council in that sector has been pressing them hard ever since then."

Fortis had not heard all the details, but recognized the story. "I take it something is brewing which you believe requires mystics to discern. Without them, the population of the galaxy is somehow threatened?"

George turned to Fortis with a grin. "Your intuition is quite good."

## Chapter 10: Home Unknown

Fortis noticed George used the small electronic display sheet, on which he had previously displayed the map, for navigation. It was mounted near the steering controls. "George, you don't have the common navigational beacons around this planet, for obvious reasons. How does your navigation system work?"

"Every planet – every celestial body – has a magnetic polarity. The instrument reads it and reports direction, but as you noted, can't tell us much about latitude, since that's not a matter of polarity."

A decision washed over Fortis. This was not a mere intuition, though it seemed to come from the same source inside him. There was no name for it, only a wordless imperative. He asked, "Does electromagnetism work here on Misty?"

"It does, just barely. You may recall that technology was deprecated during the period on Terra just before the discovery of hyperspace. There was a craze with wireless power transmissions and devices proliferated. The fields around most people were so numerous and intense, it caused all sorts of medical problems. Once the scientists realized the connection, and the information got out, popular pressure demanded alternatives. The use of electromagnetic fields became one of those unwritten cultural taboos, though we know very weak ones aren't really so harmful. The problem here is the fields generated are weaker than on most other planets. And the hardware required is an expensive import for us."

So the spooler Fortis carried was not necessarily useless baggage. He tested it and found if he held the device directly against his head, he could read from it. The technology worked both ways, of course, so Fortis spent some hours that first full day of sailing dumping all the anthropological data George had given him. Between the chip in his head and spooler's own artificial intelligence, the information was reduced algorithmically to take up comparatively little memory space on the device, fully indexed and searchable.

He showed the spooler to George. "In the case something should happen to me, I would ask you try to return this thing to my ship. There's a slot near the ladder where you can insert this. The ship's computer will read it automatically. It contains instructions for the ship to return to my home planet on automatic pilot with the data."

George turned it over in his hand. "Not a bad idea. I would surely be willing to try, and will inform others as necessary. So far there is little we've discussed which could return to haunt us here on Misty."

He handed it back and Fortis poked it into the pocket made for it. He announced gravely to George, "I'm not recording anything else. It seems I am forced by circumstances to cross the line, now."

"I could take you back to your ship, if you wish," George offered.

Fortis sat down. "No. Whatever it is I came to do officially is finished, but my own personal mission has just begun."

"You know you can't go back, then. You may be able to return physically, but you will be an alien to your own past." George was quite serious, but his expression held its normal subtle exuberance.

Fortis accepted that without further discussion. "Something tells me mysticism isn't really about predicting the future, as everyone assumed it was for the emperors."

George's smile twisted on one side. "It was never about future, past or present, really. Mysticism is focused on the ultimate reality of things regardless of time and events. The imperial mystical tutors were responding to things science can neither grasp nor explain when they warned of impending threats. Human intellect is rather confined to what can be measured. For all the wonders of advancements in materials, artificial intelligence, medicine, psychology, exploration of celestial phenomena, particles, fields, and such, they still can't reach a grand unified theory of the universe. Such answers lie outside the universe."

Fortis gazed off at the fuzzy horizon. "The old paradox of anthropology is you can't really study it from the outside, but once inside, you can't be truly objective."

Fiddling with the steering controls, George noted, "It's almost the reverse image for mysticism. You don't go into mysticism; you come out of the object realm. So called 'objective reality' is the confined space, a prison you escape."

Fortis cocked his head to one side. "I thought the only way to get outside of reality was to die."

George sat down again. "There is more than one kind of death."

A lot of things died in Fortis, but some rather slowly.

It was his life long exposure to planets with distinct polar climates which made him expect a long dreary voyage northward, but Misty's climate was virtually the same every place. In less than a week they sailed past inhabited islands and spotted other boats sailing the sea. There were no storms, just some times a little more wind. It never rained, but it was always somewhat dampish, especially during the relative darkness of night. He became comfortable sleeping in the open air with a blanket, and under a small awning to ward off the heavy mists of night.

Eventually he forced himself to eat the repulsive little fish necessary to supplement the lack of sunlight. The complete lack of direct sunlight would have been oppressive, depressive even, had he not been so utterly absorbed in the questions brought to life by his embrace of mysticism, and the long discussions with George on the voyage. Thus, while he felt as a bird leaving its cage, he found the cloudy embrace of Misty rather comforting in removing distractions of extreme variability in his surroundings.

Still, even after some three weeks, his eyes fully adjusted, he didn't see as well as George.

"There," George was pointing off into the hazy horizon. "I can see the spire on the hilltop of the southern approach to the largest city in this region. It bears the flag of Clan Johnston."

Fortis strained to see it, but detected nothing through the intervening mist. "You told me there were precious few permanent buildings on Misty. I take it there are some here?"

"Yes. But most of them are simply static frames with the same tent fabric for covering. That's always been enough here on Misty, and we have compelling reasons for clinging to semi-nomadic living. That's not so much a part of mysticism itself, but a peculiarity of our religion."

So far, Fortis had only gained a bare, intellectual view of the dominant religion on Misty. He knew it was based in a very primitive version of Christianity, but there were a plethora of religions in the galaxy claiming that. Yet they were all incredibly varied in ritual and intellectual content of teaching. Most were hardly more than a cultural variation with similar terminology and key phrases. Most still made some reference to the ancient Book, but that seemed about all they had in common. George had not yet said much about doctrine.

Turning back to Fortis, George said, "This city has one of the best academies for our religion, and you'll learn more from them than you would from me. It will be perplexing, to be sure, at first. Still, you've already passed the greatest barrier. Without the mystical approach, you'll never really understand any part of it, except perhaps a confusing array of external manifestations. We still have a great many people among us who can't get that far, but we do our best not to alienate them. They have their place. Misty is their home, too, and mysticism isn't required for full participation in life. You could, given time, grasp what our religion is like for them, but you wouldn't really understand it that way."

In the silence, George stepped back over to the steering station and idly checked the controls. Fortis turned back from the horizon with a half-smile. "So the name of your planet is more a pun."

George threw back his head in full laughter. Still chuckling, "Now I can say to you truly, welcome to Mystical Misty."

## Part 2 - From Mists to Mysts

## Prologue

**A digest from the Anthropologist's report on Dalorius Four:** _Dalorius Four is locally known as Misty. The inhabitants of Misty maintain a fairly stable tribal social and political structure, though internecine warfare is not unknown. The economy is Eastern Feudalism, with a highly evolved form of indirect barter. The primary economic activity is subsistence agriculture and resource extraction. Lacking any significant mineral resources, the primary advancements are in biology, particularly breeding flora and fauna for specific uses. They are noted for having gained significant mastery in using microorganisms to enhance their products. Technology is limited to non-metallic products, such as nano-computer circuitry, and non-metallic electrical generation, storage and transmission. The planet suffers many disadvantages in interstellar trade, sometimes lacking trading partners for long periods. They traditionally prefer to trade through monopolistic proxies. During better times, they export a wide range of luxury goods made from natural materials: woods, fabrics, ceramics and animal hides._

## Chapter 11: Landing

Fortis joined George in the lower deck, feeding, brushing and cleaning up behind the animals. He learned the common term for them was "coursers." During the journey across the polar island, it seemed they ate all the grass they could get. Once on board, they grew eerily quiescent, eating far less of the dried forage stowed below deck for them.

George explained, "This long period of inactivity is very hard on them. When we dock, they'll need some hard riding."

"Does that fit in with our planned activities on Johnston Island?"

"Well, no. They are borrowed, as is the ship and the wagon. The food was provided, as well. Only the tent and a few belongings are actually my personal baggage. So when we land, the Harbor Master will take possession of them and notify the owner." George began gathering the tools and climbed to the rear deck.

Fortis followed. "Give me the bigger picture. Somehow my arrival, or that of any other visitor, must be quite significant, because this represents a substantial investment."

George began pulling his personal baggage out of the wagon, setting it on the deck. "When we discerned the time was ripe for expecting a peaceful contact, the Council of Sheikhs met and decided it was worth ensuring there would always be someone on station at our primitive space port at all times. The task was delegated and elders were selected from each tribe, by clan, and various promises were made for exchange of goods to offset the costs for Clan Johnston. This is the closest clan home to the pole, and all of us selected for the welcome committee are being hosted here," waving his hand at the now visible island.

Fortis saw a low, gently sloping green hump rising from the sea. He had learned to expect trees at the lower elevations, with grass on the higher lands, but nothing much higher than a few meters. Aside from natural springs or wells, the only water was from the sea. While extensive research and development had made desalination a relatively minor task, so that even the ship itself relied on it, there was also an industry in capturing the night mists as cheaper and less troublesome. Water was easier to move and distribute when it was already uphill from the users. George had showed him the water collection tubing built into his tent and the bladder where it was held.

As they drew closer, Fortis could see the clan banner atop a pole mounted on the hill nearest their southern approach. It was yellow, with a purple geometric design. He also saw a large number of wildly colorful fabrics fluttering and moving around the pole, apparently randomly scattered. "Are those water captures?"

Glancing up, George smiled. "No, those are kites. We encourage kite making by students and hobbyists. The wind is a major natural resource, and we are constantly seeking improved means for harvesting its power. Kite design over the centuries has yielded significant advancements, both in materials and shapes. Clan Johnston is a leader in this endeavor."

As George continued loading the loose equipment into the wagon, or stowing on the ship, Fortis stared silently at the kites. "Privilege and reputation is a major item of exchange, then?"

"Very perceptive!" George laughed. "Which brings up an important issue: You are currently the most valuable commodity on this planet."

Fortis turned red with embarrassment. Stammering, "I... I'm used to being treated well... But I hardly see myself..."

"Think in symbols, Fortis. If all you do is send your ship and spooler home, we will in a few years have trade missions coming to visit. Our few surviving metal imports are nearly worn out. It's not just better equipment we need, but just keeping our current level of comfort requires replacement. Naturally, human comfort itself is a mirage from the mystical viewpoint, but keeping ourselves alive and productive is critical to far greater concerns."

"Some rising threat to the galaxy?" Fortis remembered the previous hints, but had respectfully waited for George to discuss it at his leisure.

"That, but you would almost be missing the point if that were the whole matter. We do see a major threat, and we believe we have a solution, in a manner of speaking. But that in itself is the means to a greater end. The threat is a symptom of some deep darkness, for lack of a better term." George finished moving his personal baggage to the foredeck.

Fortis joined him at the steering controls one last time, as the stone and wood dock was now visible as the nearest fixture they were approaching. George continued, "The part you play as a fellow mystic lies entirely in your hands. I'm sure you'll want to learn as much as possible, but at some point the rest of the galaxy needs to know we are here. We must cultivate in others an acceptance for our uniqueness, as we seek to rebuild what has fallen in the wider galactic human culture. There are no words for it, but I believe you already know, in some sense. No one can stop the ultimate end of humankind, but we dare not let the light be extinguished, and the portal to the Other Realm be lost."

## Chapter 12: Coming and Going

There was excited shouting from the pier. Someone was out on the end, calling back to several others in front of the first solid man-made building Fortis had seen so far. He could just make out carefully stacked stones in varying shades of gray on the lower floor, and what appeared pale yellow-brown wood on the second. The peaked roof was almost black, like slate. From inside the large open door on the bottom floor directly facing the pier came running several other figures. Unlike George, with his robe down below the knees, these wore uniformly shorter garments, cut just above their knees. They also had more color than George's somber gray and brown. While the elder had small hints of red and green, these men wore various shades of blue and purple, with yellow trim. Fortis' anthropologist frame of reference drank in the details of the scene.

The young men on the end of the pier were waving and chattering as they lifted long poles grappling hooks. Two were holding the ends of large, tan colored straps. George manipulated the controls and the sails slipped together in stacks. Glancing down into the water, Fortis could see the bottom was sloping gently upward into view. George pulled a lever and there was the sound of splashing under the vessel as it suddenly slowed. They were less than a meter from the end of the pier, still drifting slowly toward it. Once the grapplers had pulled the boat tightly alongside the dock, the straps were snaked around fixtures on the pontoons. Each was anchored in a large roll around a small, narrow drum, with a crank handle. The two men quickly cranked in the slack as the port side pontoon was pulled tightly against some sort of pale colored cushioning of a material Fortis could not identify. The ship was now solidly attached to the dock.

The chatter never slowed. Fortis recognized it as an oddly inflected version of Standard Galactic, but it was clear some of the words were being used differently, rather like slang. There were hugs and back slapping with George and each of the young workers. Finally, George freed himself, stepped back and made a formal introduction Fortis understood. "Gentlemen, I would like you all to meet Doctor Fortis Plimick, Interstellar Anthropologist."

The men bowed half-way to waist level almost in unison. The eldest alone rose and spoke, this time in clear Galactic. "Doctor Plimick, on behalf of Clan Johnston, we welcome you to our home. Please be so kind as to tell us your slightest whims, that we may have the honor of assisting you."

With George's meaningful look, Fortis made a quick estimate of the situation, then bowed somewhat less than the workers had. "Men, I am grateful for your hospitality." Then, straightening up, he assayed a joke. "For now, I believe what would serve me best is getting off this boat."

The men laughed and cleared a path for him, as George gestured Fortis lead the way, bowing slightly himself. As he cleared the knot of men and turned toward the head of the pier, Fortis saw a trio of older men, noted their slightly longer robes, smiling broadly. While certainly more relaxed than most protocols he had seen, Fortis realized there would be a strong undercurrent of ceremony every where he went.

He was glad for the moment the odd flat topography of Misty meant the pier was at least a couple hundred meters long. Turning his face to George, just a half step behind on the left, he spotted the archery bow and sword hilt projecting above the shoulders again. Half smiling, "George, don't let me make of fool of myself."

"You're doing fine, Fortis. The burden of flexibility falls to your hosts, and they would probably laugh at themselves before daring to think anything you said or did was silly. They'll be relieved to find you so relaxed and friendly, because if you were a tyrant, they would be obliged to cater to your demands."

Fortis had met such tyrants, even in his own profession where it was such a hindrance. Behind them they left the sound of men working to unload the animals and wagon, while one trailed a few paces behind them lugging George's gear. With part of his mind, Fortis noted the forest grew within a couple of meters of the shore, but had been cleared back a bit from the small harbor. Across the way stood a pair of shorter piers with a scattering of smaller boats tied up, including one which had no pontoons. It was rather long and sleek, with a ribbed hull, and a single mast for the complicated framework of the stiff curved sails used on Misty. Fortis noticed the boat when he caught out of the corner of his the movement of someone climbing over the side onto the dock, and rapidly pacing toward the head of the short pier. He was dressed more like George than anyone else Fortis could see.

Of the men waiting for them on this pier, Fortis saw two of them, of middling age, with dark blue, and patches of other colors. The other, much older, was wearing mostly black, including leggings. Fortis stopped a comfortable distance away, and they all bowed, bending only slightly at the waist. Fortis matched it, as George stepped forward and made the same formal introduction as before. The eldest man in black was Harbor Master Wendell Johnston. George didn't name the other two. The Harbor Master was just as formal as the eldest worker who first greeted him, with a similar offer of hospitality. He even asked if Fortis had any personal baggage he could carry.

At this, the younger man in blue relieved the worker of George's gear. Fortis held out empty hands, deciding humor was working well with these people. "I haven't lacked for anything so far, but I suppose I shall have to acquire some."

The Master chuckled, and turned to George. "Elder Manley, it's good to know you gave proper care to our esteemed visitor. You will see Francis here about proper equipment before you travel to the city," he said indicating the elder of the pair in blue. He opened his mouth to say more, but was interrupted by a shout. The figure who had left the fancy boat on the other pier was striding quickly toward them. He wore colors which matched the Johnston clan banner, but with large panels of gray. Glancing back at George, Fortis noticed the similarities of style, and decided tentatively the gray was related to their profession or relative position in society, and the other colors marked clan affiliation. It was at least partially confirmed by the greeting.

George stepped forward to intercept the man. "Elder Bradley! How nice to see you again."

Wearing a large grin, this new elder spoke with broad sarcasm. "So, you just couldn't wait for me to come and help. You had to drag this poor visitor up here in a hurry without any of his personal baggage. What is Misty coming to?"

There was hearty laughter all around, the two men in blue stepping back a bit. The Master spoke up, "Elder Bradley, we were just discussing that. Manley, do your duty."

The ritual was familiar by now, and Fortis bowed just slightly from the shoulders, as Elder Bradley bowed from the waist about one-quarter. He decided it was really up to him to discern from the context the proper depth to bow.

Bradley continued, "I suppose there is no hurry now for me to chase the currents and winds to the pole, unless I just want to see the latest technology in space travel."

George produced his electronic sheet, unrolled it, tapped and stroked the face a few times, then showed an image of the ship. Apparently the device served several purposes, rather like personal communication devices, but without the communications. Everyone gathered around to see, but Fortis was suddenly struck by a thought.

"Elder Bradley, did we catch you about to relieve George on his watch at the space port?" Fortis rested one hand lightly on a pocket.

"Indeed! While he prefers the coursers and wagons, I just sail my little craft up the inlet on the far side. It crosses inside the polar flat, leaving me just a day's walk from the pole itself." His accent was much closer to George's than anyone else there.

Fortis turned to George. "Can you zoom in that image closer on the legs?" George did so, and then turned it back for Fortis to see. Motioning Bradley closer, he pointed to the extended platform. "Right next to this, on the right side, is a tiny little circle which opens if you press on it." Bradley signified he understood, with a quizzical look.

Producing the spooler from his pocked, Fortis handed it to the elder. "When you do get there, please press this into that receptacle. Then step away from the ship, as it will disappear, which will create a momentary vacuum. It could kick up some rocks or other debris."

The two elders stared at each other wordlessly. George smiled and gave a single, faint nod of his head. Bradley clutched the spooler in both hands to his chest, and his face took on a very serious look. "I was planning to leave first thing in the morning. I'll be sure to carry out your wishes."

## Chapter 13: Packing Up

For the first time, Fortis noticed insects. The polar island had been devoid of any native life except grass. Though George had mentioned the possibility of predators, they had seen no sign of life other than themselves and the coursers. He had spotted a few sea birds while sailing, and there were just a few more randomly wheeling over the harbor. He wondered if any of flying insects would bite, but no one else seemed concerned, not even bothering to wave them off. They were simply there.

The man called Francis led Fortis and George through the large open doorway of the shipping warehouse. Through the gloom of the windowless open space, Fortis spied another opening on the opposite side, a rather solid gate over a doorway too wide for simple human traffic. The other side must have been somewhat open, because in the light he could see wisps of dried grass scattered on the stone floor, rather like the fodder they had given the coursers during the voyage north from the polar island. The three of them mounted an airy but solid wooden stairway up, Fortis trailing. He heard the sound of the coursers planting their heavy feet on the pavement, then watched them being led in the wide doorway as one of the young workers trotted ahead to open the gate. From this angle, over the backs of the animals he could also see the warehouse was filled ceiling to floor with racks and shelves, and broad aisles. His last glimpse was of long, thin curved planks, and what appeared to be the tip of a pontoon.

They entered the upper story almost dead center in the long building. A row of chairs backed on the railing, similar to the chairs George left packed in the wagon, but with heavier frames. The fabric was more carefully tailored to accommodate the human form, and there were armrests. The chairs faced an unpolished, but very finely crafted wooden counter, separated by a wide space of what looked like seamless ceramic flooring, buffed in the center where traffic was the heaviest, semi-reflective elsewhere. After arranging the baggage on the counter, Francis ducked behind a curtained opening into a back room.

Fortis glanced out the back window over the stairs and saw a tent awning over what he took to be the corral. To his left was on open doorway and what appeared to be offices of some sort. In the other direction was a partially enclosed dining area, with an open buffet of some sort, as steam was rising from parts of the counter. Brightly colored serving handles stood at various angles just barely in line of sight. Smells of cooked food teased him. Three large tables with stools scattered about them were currently empty. Fortis estimated the evening meal was not so far off, and wondered what combination of workers or guests ate here. There was a window on the far wall. In the distance were several tents, some over frames he guessed were permanent.

His attention returned to the counter as Francis brought out first two very slender pack frames, which Fortis recognized by the curvature. There were a number of quick release straps of various widths. An assistant brought out another frame with small wheels, and a folded handle. He placed it on the floor at the end of the counter, disappeared inside the curtain only to pop back out with two slender bags, colored bright orange.

George turned to him, with one hand on the counter. Pointing to the rig where Francis was fastening the folded tent over the long orange bags, "Those are hammocks. In the forest the insects and other creatures like to climb into your warm bed if you are on the ground, or even on a raised cot. Forest rangers maintain camping spots where there are pairs of large trees spaced for tents and hammocks. The bright color is to prevent them getting lost in the half light of morning when we pack up."

Fortis fingered the padding on one of the pack frames on which now a bedroll and a near empty pack was attached. Fortis had never been an athlete, nor had he been particularly lazy. But the extent of his physical exertions until now had been the automated training devices which stimulated the muscles while he laid quiescent, spooling yet more anthropological studies into his brain. Once or twice he had visited planets where walking was more common, but nothing like several days of hiking. He had already discovered new muscles on the journey so far, and his body seemed to respond, but he was past his prime. Still, he was determined to face whatever was ahead, seeing George was obviously quite a bit older.

George responded to the unspoken question on Francis' face, "Lance." He turned to Fortis. "I take it you have nothing which resembles military training?"

Both his eyebrows shot up as Fortis shook his head. "Only the typical rough and tumble of boys and their wild imaginations of improbable combat skill."

George chuckled. "In my experience, people with virtually no skill can still make reasonable use of these." Francis laid a pole made of that marvelous light wood along the length of the counter. The center half was textured for gripping, and the diameter was a comfortable grip, indeed. One end slightly tapered, with an abrupt, dull point. The other end smoothly tapered to a pale off-white tip. Rising back from this sharp point was a wicked trio of blades, long as an extended hand, each a half-finger width at the back, and barbed.

Fortis touched an edge lightly with his finger. It was sharp, but not like a razor. "What is this material?"

"Specialized ceramic. Only in the desert region can we produce enough heat to fuse the ingredients together, but it's as hard as almost any metal, without being brittle."

Fortis grasped it below the tip, leaned a little weight on it. Tilting his head toward it, "And just why is it so important I carry a weapon?"

George looked falsely pained by the implication he was hiding something from him. "Why, Fortis – there are predators in the forest." Then he smiled slyly. "More than one kind."

## Chapter 14: The Long Short Way

Fortis tried on his backpack, and then they piled everything in a corner near the door. George shrugged out of his weapon harness and placed it on top of the pile. He turned to Fortis. "Hungry?"

Francis hurried past them into the dining area and prepared two large platters. Fortis had no idea what some of it was, but realized he was quite hungry, and it smelled inviting. Rather than the mostly dried fare on their journey, and the boiled fish he forced himself to eat, this was much nicer food. Travel food was okay, even good, but nothing replaced the smell of fresh hot bread and seasoned stew.

Francis disappeared and the two ate almost silently. Fortis was sucking on some kind of fruit, while George gazed out the window. "We have just enough time to reach the village. We'll need the tent to set out for a day to fully charge, and it will give us time to arrange an escort."

Fortis dropped the empty fruit husk on his otherwise empty platter. "Soldiers?"

George chuckled. "No, there are no standing armies here. Each clan does have one House at Arms, traditionally a single extended family whose men are professional warriors, but they generally serve as bodyguards for the sheikh. There are forest rangers and field rangers, and they do have police powers, but their work keeps them too busy for much else. We will be seeking hunters, men who get paid mostly for hides of selected wild animals. However, they also get commissions to ferret out troublemakers."

"So there's no such place as Paradise, where everyone behaves nicely?" Fortis remembered the hundreds of types of criminals scattered about the galaxy.

Rising, George pushed his stool neatly under the edge of the table. Fortis copied the action. They had hardly reached their piled gear when the sound of many feet pounded up the stairs. The crew was coming to dinner. Francis' assistant barely managed to clear their platters before the tables were filled with the men who worked in the harbor. Fortis and George exchanged goodbyes with the men who had met them on the pier, while everyone eyed Fortis.

He realized his coveralls and light jacket were probably utterly foreign, as everyone Fortis had seen wore tunics and robes. His own suit was a standard issue to anthropologists. The high tech fibers worked to keep in sufficient moisture in dry climates, keep out excess wetness in swamps and rain, changed shades of gray to meet the glaring heat of sunny worlds, and generally acted like a second skin. Here on Misty, it remained resolutely slate colored. Most bacteria were neutralized and he could wear it for long periods without bathing, if necessary. He had followed George's example of washing from a small tub and simply dealt with the shocking cold of wet skin in the breeze of the cool climate this close to the pole.

The men here all wore beards, some trimmed in various ways, some not trimmed, but none shaved. Their hair was typically down on the collar. George had lighter hair, a medium brown visible in the gray, compared to a rather darker brown on men native to Johnston Island. Fortis had nearly blond hair, but had his face surgically denuded of hair follicles when young, as was the fashion in college. The only other completely smooth face he had seen was a fellow with darker skin and almond shaped eyes. Surely the clans on Misty were varied ethnic backgrounds, who mixed on some level. Still, Fortis made it a point to keep in mind his appearance naturally drew stares.

He and George lifted the little cart between them and walked down the stairway. Out on the open pavement, George pulled the cart and turned towards the wood line. In the rocky shore, larger rocks had been carefully laid to form a solid, flat road leading in a broad curve toward the trees. Fortis shifted the lance a couple of times between his hands. The backpack was comfortable enough, but he had never worn anything that heavy on his shoulders. He would be sore by tomorrow, even after only the short hike he was promised would take them to the nearest village.

George seemed utterly at peace. "We aren't likely to see any wild predators this close to so much human activity, at least not until after nightfall. Even then, they would be too small to do much harm, and they don't run in herds. It's the humans we need to watch for."

George adjusted his weapons, now mounted on his pack frame. "Specific customs vary from clan to clan, but in general, there are three types of people who might trouble us on the road. There are men with training who went rogue, men exiled for some crime which did not warrant execution or prison, and the third kind is some local punk who hasn't yet grown up. The last are the easiest to handle. They run in packs, but run if you resist well. The exiles are executed if caught harassing anyone, period. The rogues are the most dangerous. They are also exceedingly rare, because they have a price on their heads."

They had gone a couple hundred meters into the woods, when George stopped. "Take a good notice of the smells." He waited a few moments. "The sea air is gone. By tomorrow, the smell of it will be gone from our clothes. I want you to become conscious of the background smells, noises – the full environment wherever you are. Most of the time, when there is trouble, something in that background will change enough to give you some clue. Your subconscious mind will tell you, if you learn how to listen."

Fortis made a note to begin cataloging more than standard human effects around him. He wasn't quite ready to move, but George abruptly began walking again. The rocks paving the road had disappeared under a thin covering of pulverized vegetation. On the edges of the narrow road, the vegetation was still visible as leaves, twigs, and such. Aside from the muffled sounds of their feet on this surface, the walk was altogether silent. Fortis struggled slightly to match the long stride of George's lanky legs. The elder's pack was heavier, and he drew the little cart behind him, but it was clear he had done this for years.

It was some two hours when the trees parted on a wide open circle, filled with tents of all sizes. Only two lacked the obvious internal framing. There was a single stone building off to one side. In the center was a large cistern, a stone wall waist high. Above it was a complicated framework with fabric panels tilted at various angles – a mist collector. There was some space between the tents and the fencing Fortis now recognized. They passed between two tall posts where strands of the charged fencing was rolled up, waiting to be connected at nightfall. At various points around this oval perimeter, nearly a half kilometer across the longest section, were small vertical windmills just high enough to capture the breeze at the tops of the trees.

George walked to an open area not far from the cistern and began unpacking the tent. A few children ran up to watch, shyly staring at Fortis. George began singing some strange little ditty, obviously a song for children, but the words were in that odd local patois. They began chiming in, dancing and prancing, performing silly dramatic moves in unison. The noise blended in with the background sounds of people and a few domestic animals. There were smells of late cooking, baking perhaps. Fortis congratulated himself on trying to be conscious of these things. He also noticed most of the children lost interest, drifting away, only a pair left sitting with their backs against the cistern still watching.

The tent was rather compact, not fully extended as on the polar island. George dragged his baggage inside the tent, and Fortis followed suit. Almost immediately upon closure of the entrance, a female voice outside sounded, "Helloooo!"

George motioned Fortis to stay, and stepped to the entrance. They chattered in the local dialect, which Fortis was just beginning to follow somewhat. He unrolled a thin double layered fabric mat which would fill slowly with air by itself. The glow patches were already starting to put out some feeble illumination, and Fortis guessed the batteries were still carrying a charge after nearly a month. While the technology was surely different, they must have been at least as good as those available anywhere in the galaxy. Picking at his pack frame, he discovered it folded open to form a back rest.

George turned and closed the curtain over the entrance. "The village busybody. Actually, it's her job to keep track of visitors, because some would have to pay a fee, as it were. As we are on Council business, she was much more interested in our mission. Too interested, if you ask me, but I've come to expect it, passing through here at least twice each year for the past decade. I wasn't going to lie. I simply didn't tell her everything. Don't know if she keeps track, but I'm a week early. Our rotation on the Welcome Committee is every four weeks. With travel time between here and pole, it means I pass through here one way at the beginning of the southern winter, and the other way at the beginning of spring."

"So it's not quite spring." Fortis rolled this in his mind a bit. "The axial tilt of Misty isn't that large, so this close to the pole, the temperature variation is slightly greater than in the lower latitudes. But it's slightly cooler in the first place. That means just a few degrees warmer in the summer?"

"You would hardly notice," said George. "The winds come up just a bit more."

Fortis suddenly looked up. "You don't have much time to go very far from here the rest of the year."

George smiled. "My wife and I stay near the capital. The Welcoming Committee has a small village out in a meadow. Most of us teach at the academy, but a few contract out other skills during our time on the Island."

"Do all of you hike between the city and the harbor?"

"No, most of them take a ferry. Two fellows keep coursers because they want to travel alone. They take the open routes on higher ground, which is much longer distance wise."

Fortis sat on the ground, and leaned back on his pack frame. "You normally travel alone, too." Fortis was wondering if this would drag any more revelations from the elder.

"The biggest risk for you is not actual danger to your well being, but the rather high likelihood of being kidnapped. Aside from the handful of men at the harbor, no one knows you have, in effect, already notified your superiors of what you found here. I suggest we keep it that way for now, because it will keep you alive."

George busied himself making his own bed. That done, leaning back against his own pack frame, he looked directly at Fortis. "At the same time, I have to confess you are a pawn. I am utterly certain it will all turn out well, but we do have two of our thirty eight clans playing intrigue games. We aren't sure which they are."

Fortis ventured, "So if anything happens on the way, you narrow down who it might be because of the connections with who knows."

George smiled proudly. "Brilliant!" Then, "The mystic knows, in human society, you cannot trust any other human, because you cannot trust yourself. Yet mystics of all people know we must act. And you still have to give others room to act, and sometimes justice means waiting until they do the wrong you know they are planning. In the middle of our deep concern for the whole of humanity, we still have to fight human lusts in our midst."

Closing his eyes, George let his head fall back to rest against the cushion on the pack frame. Fortis' legs were quite stiff, and his bottom was numb. But he hardly noticed his body as George continued. "It's unlikely the two sheikhs are involved themselves, but people highly placed in both of these two unidentified clans are seeking an inappropriate leverage against the others. The Council itself is unaware of this; it's something only the mystics have caught onto."

"Is there some sort of shadow council of mystics?"

Shaking his head, George snorted. "You know better than that." He sat up, folding his long legs in front of him. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he gazed directly at Fortis. "Mystics among themselves never organize except ad hoc. We have no official authority as mystics, only that each of us here holds various roles which grant us an opportunity to act in small ways. Normally all we would do is watch and see what happens and compare notes. We've been doing that through the routine traffic across Misty."

George took a sip from his water bag. "If this crazy cabal succeeds, they will prevent any of us leaving Misty. In times past, that was not an issue, but the other mystics in the galaxy are being crushed. We must infiltrate mystics into other worlds. Without at least a few shreds of mysticism, the entire human race will destroy itself. With just a little, we can change the flavor of all humanity."

## Chapter 15: Subterfuge

Fortis was running through the forest, ducking under limbs, darting through underbrush, jumping over fallen logs. They were behind him and gaining. In a small clearing, he spotted a tiny hut. He ran inside and closed the door firmly behind him. Turning around, he saw it was a bakery, and the smell of fresh bread was strong. Would it cover his scent?

Then he sat bolt upright in his bed. Fortis blinked; he was stiff and sore, but not immobile. Turning his head, he saw George holding a half-eaten small loaf of freshly baked bread, a mug in the other hand.

"So, you have escaped. What was chasing you?"

Fortis began fumbling for his boots. "Giant insects with human faces."

"That would do it. I'd run, too. Your thrashing the last half hour provided a perfect cover. Fortunately you weren't vocalizing, as that would ruin my story." George took another bite of bread, set down the mug and pulled a few dark berries from a bowl.

"Cover story? To whom and regarding what?" Fortis noted the fresh bread was the strongest smell coming from the basket between them.

"That busybody woman. She nearly ran me over trying to barge in here with this marvelous breakfast. She's never given me a second glance in the past few years, but today she makes a desperate ploy of to get inside the tent. Your thrashing allowed me the excuse you were still dressing, and indecent. I barely restrained her."

Fortis found the stiffness hardly restrained his impulse to dig into the food. But the faint cool on the sea became a bit of chill in the forest, so he reached for his jacket.

George held up his hand, "Wait. I want you try out the forest cloak in your bag."

"Forest cloak?" Fortis opened the top of his pack and found a large rolled bundle of fabric. Pulling it out, he saw an interesting cloth of mixed colored threads, resulting generally in a brown appearance. He shrugged into it and found it fairly light, yet feeling substantial and warm. "Nice. Why?"

George finished off his food, pushed the basket toward Fortis and sat back on his bed. As Fortis began pulling out warm bread and cheese, George poured him a mug of tea, and refilled his own. "We need to stay together, but I need to find where the old men gather. In a village this size, there are always a few retired woodsmen or something, men who know what's going on, and can help us find some hunters for our escort. Someone in this village really wants to get a look at you, so while we are out, you should wear the hood."

Fortis felt behind is neck for it, then continued eating. Life on Misty created an appetite he never knew could be so powerful. Between mouthfuls, "Is there some danger in them seeing me?"

"I don't know, but whomever it is seems to think it matters, so we'll deny them if we can." George stood and strapped on his sword. It hung just off his right shoulder, and it occurred to Fortis George was probably left-handed.

It didn't take long to find a knot of older men gathered in front of an open tent. A middle aged man stood behind a counter with his heating plates, one supporting a sizzling skillet, two with lidded pots, and a tall urn from which a young woman repeatedly drew mugs of tea for their guests. The men sat on short benches turned at random angles away from tables to allow them a sort of circle, chattering away in their local dialect.

George and Fortis took seats at a table just inside the tent opening, which was a bit shadowy in the wan light of early morning. The young lady approached with a pair of mugs for them, exchanged a few words with George, and then left them alone. Fortis caught one word he thought meant food and a negative. He then turned his attention to the patois of the old men's chatter, finding there were a few words he could decipher now and then. After a few minutes, George stood while motioning Fortis to stay put. He approached the knot of old men with his mug in one hand.

George spoke in Galactic, "Good men, could you tell me where I might find a couple of hunters? I am in need of an armed escort for a few days."

The men maintained their dialect. From the ensuing conversation, Fortis gathered there were a couple of young hunter apprentices up for licensing in the coming summer, sons of someone named Farrell. But the conversation was interrupted. From the other side of the entrance, a balding man stood and approached the group. Speaking plain Galactic, he addressed himself to George. He placed a palm on his own chest.

"Sir, I am a hunter – a senior hunter at that. I have business in the city and was planning to leave today, very shortly. I submit to you, one highly experienced hunter would be the equal of two apprentices. And I won't charge any fee, since I'm already going that way."

George's face was impassive. "Well, we can't leave right away. Our tent needs a full day to charge."

The stranger was quick. "Oh, but I have a spare battery pack, fully charged. There's no need to delay. We can be well on our way by nightfall."

"No, really, we aren't in a hurry..." It seemed George was almost making excuses.

The stranger betrayed just a tad of impatience. "Come on, old fellow! What are you waiting for?"

George rose to his full height, crossing his arms over his chest. "Show me your sword," he said coldly.

The stranger's eyes diverted downward, and it was his turn to stammer. "I... I'm just a hunter, Sir. Elder, please forgive my impertinence."

There was a long silence as the muscles in his jaws flexed a few times. George remained frozen. Finally, the man turned quickly and stomped away. He passed close by the table where Fortis sat. The latter tilted his hooded head forward a bit to meet his mug. George watched the man until he disappeared between two tents.

Turning back with mildness to the old men, he said, "Please be so kind as to inform the sons of Farrell I will offer a premium for their services. We depart with the dawn tomorrow."

Setting his mug on a table, George looked at Fortis and began moving slowly away. Fortis hurried to join him. George maintained his regal demeanor, scanning the street and open courtyard of the village until they entered their tent. Fortis noted the basket which had brought their fine breakfast, and which they had then placed just outside the entrance, was now gone. George checked his baggage, then Fortis' pack. Fortis checked his bedding, then his jacket. Nothing seemed to have changed; nothing was gone, nothing added.

They sat down on their beds facing each other. Fortis ventured, "So the sword is a mark of social standing."

"These days it is mostly symbolic, but I have used it a time or two." He reached back and drew it out, confirming Fortis' guess about being a lefty. The off white ceramic blade betrayed nothing of its history, as George cradled it in his hands. It was clearly designed more for thrusting than slicing. "That man may know how to do some hunting, but he's no hunter. He slipped three times."

Fortis thought a moment. "I suppose the 'old fellow' was a breach in protocol. Did he forget he was playing a lower rank?"

"Indeed. Plus, the batteries are thin sheets built into the fabric of travel tents. Most tents used as homes do have external hookups, but a hunter would know the difference. Since I helped in making this one," he waved his right hand to indicate their shelter, "I knew precisely what was involved. There is no way to add external power without destroying the high efficiency of the meager current this thing generates."

"What was the third item?"

George half smiled, "Did I say where we planned to go?"

Fortis caught it. "No, but he did. Are there other places likely?"

"Oh, yes. There is a second academy with a large village, a different direction from here. It's a business school, supported by a shipyard, and three logging houses. While the harbor we used does minor repairs, the staff shipwright there mostly performs inspections. A few kilometers farther east is the shipyard. This very village is mostly a bedroom for the woodsmen whose cutting feeds it. Take the narrow track northeast of here and you'll find a logging camp. This part of the forest is pretty much limited to selected species of tree for lumber. A ways north of here we'll be passing through one of the largest natural forest preserves on Misty. That's where the predators are more likely to appear."

"Both kinds, I suppose," Fortis said.

"We will surely have at least one encounter. If Farrell's boys are any good at all, we'll be fairly safe. I surmise whatever is working against us has been too hastily arranged, so it won't amount to much. When I refused to grant that stranger forgiveness, he surely realized I was on to him, so there will have to be a Plan B."

Fortis cocked his head to one side. "You seem awfully relaxed about all this. I suppose it's part of mysticism, though – a sense of detachment."

George chuckled. "It is, but there's much more to it than that."

## Chapter 16: Cast Adrift

George sheathed his sword, and then took off the harness. After shifting things around a bit, he sat on the end of his bed, leaned back against the pack frame. "I am by no means a teacher of religion. But I do share your interest in anthropology, even if I lack your wide, hands-on experience. You may not embrace a faith like mine, but I feel comfortable trying to explain it in academic terms."

Fortis settled himself somewhat like George.

Looking at the ceiling, George began, "On purely intellectual terms, I assume you are like many out there in the more advanced society of the galaxy. You are aware of religion as a subject of study, without which no man can hope to fathom even a sliver of human nature. Humanity is religious, regardless of whatever word they use to denote a belief in something beyond human ken."

Looking again at Fortis, "You probably have some vague religious feelings yourself."

Fortis nodded. He fingered the spare spooler he had been keeping in case there were more significant details worth adding to his initial report.

"I'm going to guess you haven't really given it much thought, but your reflex is to believe it's unknown, but only partially unknowable. Belief should meet certain rational guidelines to avoid being a mere delusion. So you probably can respond to religious talk, and you are familiar with the vocabulary."

"Your intuition is better than mine," Fortis smiled.

George grinned. "Lots of practice, since all I have is the data from our birds. We understand there are a vast horde of varied religions out there, and plenty of them use variations of 'Christian' in the title or it appears in the summary explanation of them. Our religion here is one more. You also are probably aware of the Book, in various versions and translations, as ancient literature. Perhaps you are familiar with a major figure named Noah."

Fortis nodded, "The guy with the giant boat and all the animals."

"Quite so. While our religion holds the story contains literal elements, it is largely meant to be read as symbols. The ancient culture which produced the Book is what we attempt to emulate. Noah is associated with a particular set of Laws only vaguely referenced in the pages of the Book, but we know the very detailed laws of another character are a specific application of the more general Code of Noah. You would recognize the second fellow as Moses."

"Ah, the father of Judaism, and a few other derived religions," Fortis recalled.

"Exactly. Many religions diverge, and then merge again, and it's all very mixed up. The point is this: We find in our holistic reading of the Book there is a set of standards for human government revealed in the Codes of Noah and Moses. Not so much in the words, as many religions assert, but for us the primary interest is the cultural and intellectual assumptions. That being, as you know, Eastern Mysticism. More precisely, Ancient Near Eastern Mysticism – Early Hebrew Mysticism. The context of those terms is mostly forgotten now, but the labels still work. The entire culture and religion of Misty, while ostensibly Christian, adheres to a fundamental epistemology derived from what we can perceive of the ancient world of Noah, and to some degree, Moses."

George rolled a bit to one side, resting on his elbow as he gazed through the narrow gap between the curtains over the tent doorway. Fortis said, "But you can't really teach mysticism."

George rolled back to face Fortis. "No. We can't even really call it a way of knowing, but a way of arriving at a decision. The mystics have strong input on the development of the legal code here on Misty. Most of us serve as judicial advisers to sheikhs or their vassals. While the religion is carefully guarded against significant drift, the most important thing we do is prevent changes to the basic social structure. Agitating for change is a good way to get in serious trouble. When sheikhs call out the troops, it is most often to quash that."

George rose to his feet. With an oddly quite voice and dramatic gestures, "We are so very firm with such things because by mystical means we have concluded it is absolutely necessary. So important, we would destroy the planet before allowing fundamental changes in the tribal feudalism. We can offer rational proof this serves the purpose of reaping the promises of God's Laws, but that would miss the point. God is sovereign. What He commands, we do, regardless of the costs to us. Whatever comes of it is in our best interest."

For all his jolly, bubbly energy in the past, Fortis had never seen George quite so lit up. It was not fanaticism, but a quiet passion, an assurance of such depth there were no words. George sat back down, still glowing.

"So, this trip through the forest to the city is tied to this struggle to lay the groundwork for sending missionaries out into the galaxy?" Fortis was surprised at his own question.

George beamed. "Yes." He patted his palm on the ground between them. "Yes a thousand times." It was almost a whisper. "You can go your own way any time you like. If you choose to follow me to the city, you will learn far, far more. Not so much in the sense of volumes of data as you did in your professional studies, but a massive depth which will shift the entire universe under you."

"Rather like the technology of hyperspace which brought me here," Fortis thought outloud.

"Where do you think that technology came from?"

Fortis shrugged, having never given it much thought.

George went on. "One of the retired technicians of our community who stayed behind on Terra described a conversation he had with the men who developed that drive. They were having trouble with the algorithms, and he suggested they reverse their mental image of it. He was just a lab assistant then, on his first job after getting his degree, but he was a mystic. They laughed him off at first, but later embraced it as the only way to make things work."

Fortis found himself swimming in vast sea of thought. There were no words, no time, and no reality; just he cast upon a vast sea alone. He closed his eyes. Perhaps seconds, perhaps minutes or hours passed. Slowly, he realized he was not alone. Not in the sense of George just a meter away, but someone else was in that endless ocean with him. Unseen was this Presence, but there nonetheless. He knew he would not drown.

How long he had sat thus, he couldn't guess. A part of him knew when George slipped out of the tent, but it didn't matter. When at last he opened his eyes again, he realized he was a stranger to himself. So much so, he could find no words for it.

## Chapter 17: Stable Flux

Eventually, Fortis rose to his feet and wandered to the doorway of the tent. Whatever this change was would require time to filter down into his conscious mind. He felt the need for a temporary distraction.

George was standing, almost blocking the doorway. Between the half-open curtains, just over George's shoulder, Fortis spotted the clan banner he had seen on their approach from the sea. When they marched inland, they left behind the high knoll on which it stood somewhere west of the harbor. Now and then the breeze moved the treetops just enough to glimpse the kites. The brightly colored panels of fabric were displayed in just about every imaginable configuration, but they had one thing in common – most of them were quite stationary in the winds aloft.

"Do the kites remain in the sky day and night?"

George turned his head a bit toward the southwest. After a moment, "That's one of the objectives. Fancy loops and artistic whirling might be more interesting to watch, but stability is what pays the bills, so to speak. They are supposed to self-adjust for variations in the wind to remain stationary."

Fortis considered this for a few moments. "This village... Aside from the cultural bias in favor of orderly living, how do they maintain the social boundaries? I saw a sample of things when you confronted the self-proclaimed hunter, but I don't quite understand how it works in this setting."

George turned so he stood sideways to the entrance, facing Fortis in the interior gloom of the tent. "The largest tent here belongs to the village chief. When my people first began to spread out across Misty from our crash landing, we were in discrete family units. Most villages remain so, but we don't pretend every man's son will love his father's business. Social stability depends entirely on the familial feel, the interdependence so essential to keeping order. Here, only half the village is blood kin, while the other half must enter a covenant to live as if they were kin. It's not highly involved, but is taken with deadly seriousness. Once a man or household moves to this village, they become kin-in-effect, interacting as family and adapting themselves to minute local variations in how the families interact.

"The village chief is neither precisely hereditary, nor elected. Certain assumptions regarding the natural order of things are given – revealed, so to speak. Anyone stepping outside those boundaries is given ample opportunity to self-correct. The community itself is deeply obliged to maintain the process. Everyone is dealt with individually; not two people are treated precisely the same. It's not so important what one does or says, but whether the sum total of those things points to a commitment to keep the family stable, prosperous and safe." George counted those last three items on his fingers, to emphasize them as specifics. "That commitment is utterly personal, and person to person. The chief here is head of a very large household."

"And visitors stand out," Fortis concluded.

"Very much so. Various factors complicate things, based on covenants of loyalty through a complicated chain of privilege and mission, but we camp here only at the sufferance of the chief. That we have not seen him simply indicates he is busy, and that busybody woman is probably his primary point of contact for visitors. On my first visit a decade ago, I presented myself formally with proper credentials regarding the importance of my social position and my mission. Since I place no noticeable burden on his daily affairs, it is altogether appropriate for him to ignore us socially. It's up to me to demand more attention from him."

Fortis crossed his arms, looking down at George's feet. "So right now you are trying to keep a balance between too much and too little."

"Only because in my feeble imagination, it appears there is some threat to the mission. That mission is much larger than either of us. We can only act on what we perceive in the light of what God shows us." Lifting his chin a bit, George oriented on something across the square. He took a few paces out into the normal lane of traffic. After a few minutes, two rather smaller young men approached and bowed low to him.

Fortis noticed they wore axes across their backs. He estimated the ceramic blades were too broad and thin for serious wood chopping. Their cloaks were mottled brown, green and black, but they wore some sort of tied scarf around their temples, brightly striped purple and yellow, the clan colors. The two young men were identical twins, differentiated only by the scar running across the nose of one. George led them close to the tent, and one produced a pocket device like George's, but folded instead of rolled.

Fortis was getting better at following the local dialect, and he understood they were discussing routes. Fortis caught glimpses of the map displayed. He noted the forest was several kilometers across, a wide flat valley with some hills on either side. It ran generally northward with few breaks, and ended in a series of low hills clustered near the center of the island. Markings on those hills he took as indicating the city.

Stepping back, he tried to visualize a city of mostly tents, somewhat like a very large version of this village. George had said permanent structures were mostly outlawed on Misty. Frames were a compromise barely tolerated, and cultural traditions made much of genuine nomadic living. Buried utilities and such were out of the question. He recalled George mentioning whole cities were moved from time to time, based on a number of factors which included waste build-ups and such. George had said something about honoring God by respecting His creation. Fortis took that to mean a high degree of ecological awareness, though perhaps less than the various nature worshipers.

George seemed pleased with the meeting, as he stepped inside after the young men bowed quickly and walked away. "Those are good men. We are blessed." He clasped his hands together for a moment, vacantly staring at the ground. Looking up suddenly, "Pull up your cowl and let's find some lunch. And while we're at it, we need to get some dried food for the hike. Your load will get heavier." That last came with almost a smirk, as he shrugged into the sword harness.

## Chapter 18: Confusion

They went back to the tea tent. After a solid lunch of stew, pan bread and berries, the man behind the counter brought out a cloth bag filled with various sized bulges. George pulled from his robe a similar bag which was empty, except for a few smaller ones inside. He then showed the man something on the screen of his pocket computer. The fellow pulled out a somewhat thicker flat version of the device, poking and stroking it a few times. He looked up with a smile, then bowed and walked away.

As they left, George handed the bag to Fortis. It was not as heavy as he expected, but heavy enough. "That should get us to the city with some to spare," George said with a smile. Fortis was suddenly freshly aware of the stiffness in his muscles. Yet something inside was eager to test the limits of physical endurance.

Back inside the tent, George was removing his sword harness. "I don't want to break our circadian rhythm, but if you are able to sleep, taking a nap would be a good idea."

Fortis was loading the food into his previously light pack. "Sneaky plans ahead?"

"Sneaky, indeed. I need to explain now, because when the time comes, we will need silence." George sat down on his bed and began removing his boots. "We are going to arise about midnight, take down the tent, and prepare to leave."

"Midnight," Fortis muttered.

"But we won't leave for awhile. Going through any gate at that time of night would require waking a warder to open the electric fence. We need to slip out unnoticed, if possible. So we'll add a little confusion to whoever is watching us; it cannot be very many in a village like this. Likely the fake hunter is working alone here, with just a small amount of assistance from the busybody woman. She would probably believe whatever wild story he concocted for her. The tea man told me he had packed that breakfast basket to order for the stranger, who also returned it empty."

"So he was still at the tea tent waiting for us. We all leave tracks unawares," Fortis offered.

"Oh, yes. But we need not make a bunch of noise about it." George produced something Fortis thought looked like thick woolly socks with drawstrings. "Slip these over your boots before we leave. A little nap now, dinner, then we pre-pack and set everything up to move quickly at midnight. We'll meet the boys near a work gate and wait for the loggers to leave before dawn."

Fortis lay back and swam in the ocean of thoughts. Perhaps it met no previously accepted definition he knew, but he realized he was praying, conversing with the presence of that Other in his soul. It was a conversation without words.

After dinner, George took him through a few exercises using the lance. There was barely any room inside the tent, but Fortis was assured that was a critical part of the training. The simple drills were repeated until Fortis was aglow and perspiring. Then they dry-bathed from a folding cloth washtub, and packed everything, each item thoughtfully positioned for quick and silent departure.

Of course, it helped if one was fully alert when executing such plans. Fortis had long experience with shifting his circadian rhythm, but it was never previously accompanied by so much physical exertion. Midnight came too soon, of course. George was patient, but Fortis could not quite shake his embarrassment at being so slow and clumsy. He wondered if all the trouble for silence had not been wasted by his fumbling.

Even having seen it so many times, he was still surprised at how quickly and efficient George triggered the built-in tent frame to collapse, each section going limp when George pinched some part to turn off the charge which made it harden. With the ceiling caved in, George stepped out, pinched two places at once, and the tent collapsed, almost folding itself. In seconds it was packed and strapped on the cart. George had borrowed Fortis' jacket to cover the bright orange hammock bags.

The pack with it's new load was not yet too heavy. Fortis recalled that first hike inland to this village, how the load was there, but his body had ignored the signal until he took it off. The muscles had suddenly complained loudly after the fact. With lance in hand, and muffled boots, Fortis followed George as they wound around past a couple of large tents, slipping in behind one where a low awning stood. George ducked under the edge, left his cart standing, and sat down with his pack still on, leaning back against it in the dark. Fortis did his best to follow suit.

He was startled by a whispered voice just beside him, and realized the young hunters were there. George responded in kind. "Yes, I would." Leaning over to Fortis, "I recommend you take some of their jerky. We won't be stopping for breakfast."

Fortis accepted the bundle of rough, dried meat. It smelled of spices, very tempting, but he decided to stuff it into the inside pocket of his cloak. Stroking the fabric idly, he realized he liked the cloak better than his jacket, much better suited to the climate and circumstances. In the ensuing silence, he dozed.

A hand shaking his shoulder brought him back to awareness only slightly less confused than when they rose earlier. It was George's unmistakable precise Galactic telling him, "Rise to your knees. In a few moments a group of men will walk by and we will join them as they exit the small gate. Make sure you stay close to Stephen here" – his hand was guided to a shadowy form in front of him. "Stanley and I will be behind you. We'll break from the workmen without warning."

The vague thrill of fear brought Fortis to full awareness.

## Chapter 19: Predators

Because the woodsmen were generally large, and their ax heads narrower and thicker, Fortis had little trouble distinguishing his guide once they were out from under the awning. The warder was an aged man. He was yawning and stretching under the blanket draped across his shoulders. His arms were crossed before his face, hands clutching the corners of the cover, elbows extended high, and his head was turned slightly. Clearly the man would rather still be in bed. Fortis barely heard the sound of the gate being closed as the herd of boots in front of him mixed with a few words in the local patois, and the occasional snort of laughter.

Fortis kept his attention on Stephen in front of him, as the lad seemed very much just another part of the workforce. At one point the path narrowed between several pairs of large trees, and Stephen slowed a bit, opening space between himself and the workers, then suddenly darting left in the middle of the defile.

They labored forward on a narrow path for a while as the gray light of dawn filtered through the trees. Fortis realized Stephen had a small pack bulging low under his cloak, and the ax handle rested against it on one side. Stephen kept his right hand in front of him, holding something Fortis could not see. The pace was quick enough he didn't want to risk turning to see, but he heard the muffled footfalls of George and Stanley behind him.

It was full daylight when they halted at a wide spot in the trail. Stephen turned, and it was then Fortis saw he held a small, light crossbow in front of him. His was the nose with the scar. He smiled at Fortis, but said nothing. It was not quite a whisper when George said they could remove the cloth booties. Standing his lance against the nearest tree, Fortis took a moment to balance himself with the load on his back, but managed it. George took the booties and stuffed them in Fortis' pack. He then produced his water jug and offered it around.

"Are you doing well, Fortis?"

Nothing was hurting, but he knew his muscles were going to scream if they stopped for too long. "I'm okay for now." He remembered the jerky and began gnawing on a stick, which suddenly awakened his hunger.

George reclaimed his water jug and took a long drink. His brow was slightly damp, compared to Fortis' dripping. The two hunters showed no evidence of having done more than a light stroll. George reached out and readjusted something on Fortis' pack. "Keep your water handy, especially while you eat that jerky. Drink a little between each piece, but don't guzzle." Fortis felt to make sure his hand could find it.

"In less than a kilometer we'll join a wider road. It's not the main road, and it's not much used. Still, if we are going to have trouble, that's where it is most likely." With that, George pulled out his bow, and placed three arrows in the clips near the grip. The hunters checked their crossbows and bolts. Then Stephen turned and strode off down the trail. Fortis grabbed his lance and followed.

Once on the road, Stephen slowed a bit, drifting to the left side. He glanced back and indicated with his hand for Fortis to remain in the middle, several steps back. Glancing behind, Fortis saw George several meters back and Stanley on the right farther back still.

While the others obviously paid close attention to their surroundings as they marched on, Fortis focused his mind on George's advice about registering a full awareness of the background noises and smells. The road was moderately hard packed, but carpeted in pine needles. There was the faintest crunching sound from twigs generously mixed in, and the strong smell of resinous sap. There were birds, unseen but making occasional calls. The insects flying around didn't seem to make any noise Fortis could hear.

But his mind was poorly trained for this, and a part of him returned to swim in that ocean. He lost awareness of the time passing, and was brought up short when Stephen suddenly raised a hand. The young hunter's stride changed and he stepped quietly forward, looking off into the trees. Fortis gripped his lance in both hands nervously. Satisfied it was nothing, Stephen seemed ready to move on. He had half turned when his body snapped back around and he fired off a bolt.

Fortis found his heart hammering, watching the wood line, but knowing he was unlikely to see anything the others missed. He glanced at George, who was studying the place Stephen's bolt had gone.

The tension still high, Stephen motioned them to continue forward. Slowly and warily at first, they eventually returned to a more watchful march. Off in the woods behind them, there was a faint, whining growl. Fortis glanced back at George, who mouthed the word, "predator." Fortis surmised Stephen had wounded the creature and it fled.

While it didn't lessen his fear, he assumed it was another when it was Stanley's turn to whip around the other side of the road and fire into the woods. But this time George and Stephen joined in, as they sent several missiles in short succession into the trees. A couple of them struck wood, but there was the distinct sound of bipedal running and human panting. Fortis caught a glimpse of movement; nothing more.

In a stage whisper, George spoke, "Excellent shooting, lads!"

The twins merely grinned in response. The three took care to re-supply their ready clips. Then, after a few more moments of silent celebration, they continued their march. George moved up close to Fortis, placing a hand on his cowled head.

"The predators are all over the place, so we are bound to see at least one every day. We are bigger than even the largest, and four of us together make them cautious. We wounded the first one, so it won't be back. But the time it took to deal with it allowed whoever was following us to catch up, and approach from the other side. We didn't strike him, but he won't be back before we stop, if at all. At the same time, he'll have to deal with the predators."

"And we will have our little electric fence?"

"Of course. But we are going to push just a little today, so lunch will be late. Would you like me to get you some more food or water?"

Fortis took him up on the offer. He knew when they finally stopped, he would be too tired to eat.

## Chapter 20: Safe Danger

Fortis decided he really liked hammocks.

It was hard to get out of it, but not because of the design. It was simply very comfortable on his aching muscles. The long nap after they first stopped and set up the tent was not long enough, but George insisted he train some more with the lance before dinner.

While they were thus engaged, the twins slipped away into the trees. They returned with a collection of game fowl, which made a marvelous dinner. That, despite what Fortis considered a very ugly butchering and cleaning process. But the boys handled it all themselves.

They rarely spoke. Fortis thought at first it was simply deference, but George mentioned how much he liked hunters because they were so quiet. So it was something natural to their work, obviously. Finally, Fortis recognized the small gestures, a highly subtle and abbreviated sign language.

"You know we have advanced medically to the point almost no one born deaf stays that way. Even here on Misty we do aural circuit implants. Still, we have maintained an official sign language. It's taught in every academy, particularly useful for working in the desert where the high winds make conversation difficult." He glanced at Fortis from his own hammock. "My clan home borders part of the desert belt."

He was silent a moment. "But these boys are using a rather private version, with only a vague resemblance to the official one. I recognize the patterns, but not the meanings. I assume it's a benefit of growing up so close to someone your whole life who thinks and acts the same."

Fortis watched them awhile at the other end of the tent. Their hammocks were much lighter, but obviously well used. Nothing but a thin net, the end spreaders went stiff when pinched, like the tent frame. Fortis luxuriated in the denser fabric panel of his own hammock with the solid wood spreaders. It gave just a bit to accommodate an elbow or his aching back, yet held its basic shape, hugging him warmly. When he moved to roll out, it seemed to give just enough to make for an easy exit.

And while he was in no hurry to do so each morning, well before dawn, he knew it was necessary. Part of the reason he loved the hammock, though, was because the soreness in his back, especially, was somewhat less than when he slept on the mattress on the ground. Too bad it required sturdy trees for the tent to withstand the load strung from the spines running in the ceiling. The spines wouldn't break, of course, but the whole tent would simply fold under the weight were it not firmly guyed to fat solid trees.

The five days passed quickly in this routine. During that time, the twins killed two predators, one which had dared to face them on the road. It was about half his size, Fortis estimated, after they told him it was a big one. Its forelegs were long and thin, ending in a triple hooked claw, and two vestigial digits on either side. They ran on their knuckles, with the claws tucked under. The hind legs were thicker and shorter, and this one easily reared on them to threaten with the claws. The dark brown hair was thick, streaked with faint variations in shade. The snout took up half the face, round and not particularly long.

The twins skinned the two they killed, salting the pelts down and rolling them for travel, but stretching them for drying in the evening. They carried a bunch of clips with thin net bags. The skins were hung from a limb first thing, with the clipped bags filled with rocks stretching them. In the morning, the boys would scrape off insects trapped in the gooey underside. They sprinkled on more chemicals, and then rolled the pelts tightly into a peculiar cloth cover they carried for the purpose. George explained the pelts had some value, but only insects and birds cared for the meat.

Four other predators were chased off, perhaps wounded. There were no more encounters with the human kind. Thus, he was puzzled when George insisted they set up camp, on schedule, just five kilometers from the hilly grassland rising up to the city.

As they lay in their hammocks after lunch, George stared at the ceiling. "Stanley is certain we were still being followed until this morning. Most likely that means whoever it is has gone on ahead into the city."

"If the predators were such a chore for us, how did our pursuit handle them?"

"Slept in the trees, using a hunter's hammock like the boys. There is a range of much more expensive and ultra-light military equipment for extended survival. I'm betting it's a ranger. Not quite so specialized as the boys, but highly trained in tracking people, avoiding capture, moving fast and consuming very little for long periods. He would carry a terribly expensive Gauss weapon, lots of metal; one of the few still functioning after all these years without replacements or parts. They take a lot of power, so with the feeble daylight of Misty, even a fully charged battery pack" – he paused just a second – "would mean something just slightly more effective than our weapons, but far more compact, using tiny metal darts for ammunition."

With the advent of such highly efficient energy weapons in the rest of the galaxy, Fortis had seen few Gauss weapons, mostly museum pieces. Nothing on Misty could replace the bare minimum wiring necessary to create a powerful electromagnetic field. Here, then, they would just barely work.

George went on, "Their importation here has been strictly controlled. Given our barter rate in the past, each one would equal over a ton of our products, so it's not hard to track the few we could possibly buy. Any clan with a significant number of them would have too great an advantage in battle. The temptation to take over would prove too irresistible."

Fortis digested this in silence for a few minutes. "So you and others suspect this is what these two clans plan to do, if they can somehow seize control of some part of the future trade."

George smiled broadly. "You never fail to bless me with your quick intuition, Fortis." He turned his head to face Fortis. "So tell me – why would I want us to wait here, now that this nameless ranger has surely gone into the city to meet with his confederates?"

"They'll try to stop us." Fortis felt that tiny chill again.

"But because we don't come waltzing into town this afternoon, they'll have to come look for us. Did you notice we came farther off the road than usual to set up camp today?"

Fortis had thought it was because the trees weren't quite right near the road. He nodded.

"This will be another midnight move. The boys aren't hunting dinner, but scouting right now. For our enemies to mobilize a search, they'll have to move. Regardless of their ostensible reason for leaving their other duties, it would mean a coordinated departure from the city. We will trap them by notifying trusted authorities. While we would hardly catch them all, it will throw things into disarray for them. We'll slip into a village not too far from here, where an old friend of mine has a very light-footed daughter. She can enter the city without attracting attention, and knows a few other friends of mine at the academy."

Fortis didn't sleep at all that evening. His body rested, but his mind drifted all over that ocean of thought. It was no longer fear, because he felt confident Elder Bradley would do his part, and whatever happened to him now was his own personal adventure. That sense of the Other's presence was not particularly comforting, but his fear seemed to drown in the fascination for the intrigue. It was as if his life had become a very engaging adventure story. George's confidence the real threat was capture, not death, was plausible. By the same token, Fortis was certain dying to avoid being used as a pawn for evil was not such a bad thing, even if George and he alone knew they were just a couple of weeks away, at most, from his spacecraft returning home.

With the first spooler almost off planet, he began reliving his adventures and recording them on his secondary spool.

He found himself praying again.

## Chapter 21: Fresh Start

He was surprised when George left the tent standing, but realized someone could come back for it after it had served as a decoy. They even left the packs, carrying only water and weapons. Remaining in close formation, they dodged through the trees, moving as quickly as they could without noise. Predators were quite unlikely this close to the city, but not impossible.

Still, it took quite a while to clear the forest. The trees gave way slowly to scrub, then tall grass as the slope rose ever so gently. George took the lead. It was nearly dawn when they reached a fenced animal yard. A few diminutive herd animals greeted them quietly near the fence, but not touching it. George said they called these things "goats" despite their stubby legs, rather like the coursers. They did have wicked twin horns, and Fortis wondered if they really needed the fence for protection.

George left him there to wonder about it, with the silent twins keeping watch. It was only a few minutes later he saw a slender figure darting across the crest of the hill. A bit later, he heard voices in jovial chatter, this time mostly Galactic. Around the corner of the fence came George with a fellow wearing a broad brimmed hat, an equally broad smile, and mostly green clothing. The usual bits of yellow and purple were there, of course.

George introduced Fortis, but ignored the twins. The man bowed low, calling himself simply Tom, making the usual offers. Fortis realized how very tired he was, and said so. "Now that you mention it, Tom, do you have a spare space beneath one of your awnings for a tired visitor from across the galaxy? I could use a nap myself."

Turning to the twins, George said, "Boys, would you rather watch the fun?" They smilingly nodded. "Try the wind tower about a half-kilometer that way," he pointed over the rolling grassy hills, splitting the difference between the direction they had come and where the girl had gone. They strode off, grinning.

Fortis remembered Tom and George continuing to chatter as they led toward the large tent, but little else. Once he dropped into the soft grassy pile under an awning, he was gone.

It was all too soon when he had to come back. There was a fresh lunch on a small folding table near him. He struggled to consciousness and didn't even have to think about being hungry. The brightness of the sky told him it must be mid-day. George and Tom were laughing, and Fortis assumed it meant good news. Swallowing some cold fruity liquid from a cup standing near the food, he waited for a break in the conversation. "How many were arrested?"

George guffawed, "The girl decided to stay and see the fireworks. Within just an hour, the sheikh's bodyguard came back with a dozen. They added one more when someone on the chamberlain's staff made too much of a fuss. They'll sort it out eventually." Then he got more serious. "Sadly, none of them match the description or our fake hunter."

"Too smart to be caught?"

"Likely. Which means we have to promote him in our minds to ranger captain. And which would explain his slip, since that's roughly equivalent to my rank, socially. It's worth dispatching a few message birds to other parts of the island. Oh, how I wish I had had an excuse to capture his image."

Fortis rather liked the rougher, darker bread, and guessed the farmer grew it himself. Fields nearby looked to him like grain stubble. It reminded him of George's description of each city being confined to the size and population the land around it could carry. The mainstay of food, drink and waste removal had to be within a day's walk. "Do you mean something like the proverbial carrier pigeons?"

George leaned back on a packed lump of dried grass. "A mechanical version of them, one of the results of our kite technology. Not quite so large as the bird you saw on your screen from space, but the same idea, minus the radio. Computer navigation, tilting the wings to take advantage of the wind, carrying standard memory chips. It's our primary means of communication here on Misty."

George suddenly jumped to his feet and walked away. Fortis followed him with his eyes and caught a glimpse of the bright headbands worn by the twins. Then he saw they were lugging all the baggage, plus the cart, all smartly repacked. Impressive service, indeed! When they stopped near Tom and Fortis, George asked, "Ready to go? We have to go meet the sheikh."

Fortis stood, and then bowed in thanks to Tom. The farmer flushed red and got to his feet, bowing in return and to George. There was some cryptic exchange about meeting in the light before George led the way on a path running over the crest of the nearest hill. Not much later, they came within sight of a tall structure of wood, with multiple windmills spinning next to a cluster of tents. Fortis could imagine the twins climbing this thing and sitting near the top. Apparently it offered good line of sight to where the old road they used came out of the forest.

George retold the story. "The local conspirators apparently met before dawn and broke into teams to search. When one bunch found the tent, they came back out and signaled with a lamp to whoever was directing the search. It took awhile to gather their whole force to attempt a capture. By the time they moved, it was daylight. The Bodyguard was alerted and simply went in after them."

Fortis smiled tiredly. "So your skepticism about their ability to organize a response to surprises proved accurate. I'll bet you knew the ranger would be able to follow us out of the village, too."

"That merely confirmed the level of his skills. Had we lost him, it would have been a wholly different situation. This confirms the two clans are in league with rogues, using them as proxies. We know what sorts of things they might be able and willing to do in the future. I'm glad you felt like playing along."

Fortis thought for a second. "Your faith in God is infectious, and your faith in me was a further encouragement. So what does it mean to meet the sheik? What do you suppose comes next?"

George hooked a thumb toward the twins walking easily behind them. "First order of business is to see these two are properly rewarded. Perhaps full hunting licenses, fancier weapons they could never afford, other marks of favor. Certainly food for their return trip. Lord willing, we'll see them again, and will surely need their help."

"Good men, indeed," Fortis agreed. "Tell me why you know Johnston is not part of the plot."

George shook his head, laughing. "Sharp, my friend. First, they are an obvious target of suspicion, and someone has already tried to implicate them falsely. So the sheikh has been fastidiously transparent. Further, he has already promised severe and quick action against anyone found with sufficient evidence of involvement in the cabal. Those arrested today will be lucky to survive the night."

Fortis' eyes widened in surprise.

George went on. "Second, he's a true mystic. We talk of sending missionaries, but the ostensible structure will be a foreign service academy. Where do you suppose it makes the most sense to build one?"

"Oh, I don't know. How about Johnston Island?" Fortis tried out some sarcasm.

With even broader and more dramatic sarcasm, George responded. "Why, what a fine idea! But wait... we need someone to teach the fine cloistered Misty folks how to mingle as ambassadors with other cultures. Hmmm. I wonder if we know anyone familiar with the vast array of different cultures across the galaxy."

Fortis turned bright red. "That would be me."

"Glad you offered, Professor Plimick! You'll make a great university founder."

A few minutes later, as they began to see the tops of a huge number of tents over the tall grass, Fortis asked, "I suppose I may not see the rest of Misty, after all."

George laughed heartily. "Don't be silly! We will have to mount a very strong recruiting campaign. It means visiting every clan." George looked about furtively, then with a dramatic stage whisper, "And maybe we can help discover who is doing all this sneaky stuff."

Fortis took out his spooler and recorded some narrative.

## Chapter 22: Honor and Secrets

Fortis was completely surprised by the odd mixture of formal and casual elements to their reception. Even as they began approaching the outermost cluster of tents, heavily armed men, all quite large and imposing, greeted them. Without exchanging any words, the troops simply bowed, then fell in as escorts. Glancing back, Fortis saw the bemused look on the twins' faces. It took quite a while to actually reach the sheik's court. The tent was huge, and people were busy all around it. As they neared the door, the soldiers led them under an ornate awning, mostly in clan colors.

Some fellow, whose colorful robes were near ankle length, and a staff of neatly attired servants, met them there. They were all quickly relieved of their burdens, which were gathered and placed at the feet of four alert soldiers who stepped forward for the purpose of solemn guardianship. In very short order, they were also relieved of their travel robes and given very nice replacements, also nearly reaching the ground. These were joined in the front by some sort of catchments, with the neck open to expose what they wore beneath. The twins kept their head wraps.

The servants also wiped their faces and hands with warm damp cloths, brushed off their boots, and then waved some sort of censor around them. The aromatic smoke clung to them. Then the man in charge led them to the main entrance on one end of the tent. Two more burly guards pulled back the curtains. They were met by an even more richly dressed man wearing an oddly shaped hat. Fortis would have called it huge floppy beret, hanging off the left side. This man smiled wordlessly, brought George forward, placed Fortis directly behind him, and the twins abreast at the rear, some three paces back. He then turned, positioned himself alongside to their left, and marched them all down the length of the wide open space. Various functionaries were scattered around the sandy floor.

There was a huge carpet covering the sand at the end of this huge area. As they drew closer to it, Fortis realized the focus of attention was on the right hand side ahead of them. The man with the funny hat led them to the edge of the carpet, and then ducked to one side. With a fluid sweep of the hand, he motioned them to continue. The pattern on the carpet indicated something to George who walked to it, turned quickly and bowed to the waist. Fortis slowed, confused, but George quickly reached out his hand to catch Fortis by the shoulder and turn him to face the sheikh, whose throne was in a chamber off to the side, curtains drawn back.

He copied George's bow, and heard himself introduced formally once again. He rose to see a man about George's age sitting on a fancy folding chair. He wore a very fine, smooth purple cap with a thin, bright yellow border on it. His beard was oiled, and his robe only slightly fancier than the fellow who led them inside, but it had a train on it, which was pulled to one side.

The simplicity of his greeting is what surprised Fortis. In a rather mild voice he said, "Welcome Fortis. George, it's so good to see you again. I owe you both a debt of gratitude for all you've done."

George took this as his signal. The twins were still standing on the edge of the carpet. George gestured them forward. They strode forward abreast, turned in unison directly to Fortis' left, turned and dropped to one knee in unison without a word. George spoke, "My Lord, without these men, we would not stand before you now: Stanley and Stephen, sons of Charles Farrell. They were our escorts the entire way, and acquitted themselves with honor."

The sheik smiled. "They shall be honored, indeed. Arise, lads."

The twins stood smartly.

"I welcome you this day to the ranks of Master Hunters of the Clan." Their eyes widened in surprise. "Our armory is open to you. Do not leave it empty handed. Let it be published the household of Farrell is tax free in Clan Johnston. Go now and change your attire to that of freemen. We are blessed to see you and expect that pleasure again soon."

They smartly dropped to their knees again, then rose and marched out. On cue, several members of the court applauded, even cheering a bit. George took the opportunity to lean over and remark, "Master Hunter is a special privilege on top of everything else, with numerous benefits. That and freeman status makes them eligible to carry swords."

Once they were off the carpet, all eyes turned back to the sheikh. He clapped his hands once, and everyone relaxed. It was as if ceremony was turned off instantly. Almost everyone receded respectfully from the throne. George pulled Fortis forward as the sheikh rose, shrugged off the encumbering robe, and spoke first. "George, it is good to see you are safe." They embraced warmly, and then the Sheik went on, "So we didn't catch the ranger. I suppose we didn't really expect it. But if those boys detected his movements, they are his equal, if only lacking some experience. We need them in the proper frame of mind to carry the burdens they'll soon face."

His eyes drifted downward a moment as he considered something. Turning to face Fortis, "So, in two weeks your superiors will know about us. The sooner the better. Did George mention our little project for future trade relations?"

Fortis decided he could dare a little humor. "George lays a better trap than any of his enemies."

George guffawed, and the sheikh bent just a little in his own laughter. When he had recovered, "I'm glad he caught you." Turning to George, "You didn't tell me he was so sharp minded."

"He surprises me often, Sir."

At that moment, they were interrupted by one of the many aides in the Sheik's Court. He leaned very close to the sheikh. "My Lord, we shall have serious trouble creating a double for this one," politely indicating Fortis.

Without glancing at the aide, the sheikh said quietly. "Do what you can." Fortis was struggling to guess what a double would be for, but was not prepared for what came next. The sheikh drew them physically close.

"Fortis, we are going to dispatch someone looking like you and George northward on a fast ship. They will be leaving within the hour. I'm afraid we will have to ask you to disappear again. My staff will outfit you two as servants before you leave, and you'll need to be sure to wear that cowl again." He sighed deeply, but then smiled. "The things we have to do to save the human race." Stepping back, he said in a louder voice. "I sincerely hope things slow down in a week or two; we never get to talk, George."

With that, the sheikh walked away and disappeared in a sea of purple-and-yellow clad servants. The aide who had interrupted earlier still stood by, and George turned to him. "Okay, take us away."

## Chapter 23: Night Visit

Darkness came more slowly in the city of tents, because it was higher ground and no trees blocked the sky. Fortis and George had slipped into the academy, one of two permanent structures in the area. The ancient stone building was simple, though quite large. They had been placed in a room on the third floor, and Fortis sat on the tiny balcony. The wind was cool, but the night dampness had not yet begun. His mind swam in that wide ocean again.

Some part of him remembered to absorb his environment. The wind across the low peaked roof of slate made odd noises. He could have sworn he heard for a moment something like the sound he recalled the sails making during their long voyage from the pole. Was that movement on the roof?

Too slowly he turned to look, and faced the glint of a Gauss weapon in the hands of a shadow on the roof above him. Fortis froze.

The shadow spoke in a stage whisper. "Good idea. I have no intention of harming you, so not moving will keep me from having to think about it. Step over here to the railing."

Fortis moved slowly to the place where the roof met the framework of the balcony. The shadow climbed down and sat on the railing next to him. Somehow, the Gauss weapon never strayed from pointing at him. He was now just a few feet from the barrel.

The shadow removed his cowl. Fortis was hardly surprised to see the fake hunter from the village. "Your hunters just about finished me back there in the woods. I wish I could recruit them, but I don't have time for such things." He seemed quite relaxed, almost friendly. "They deserved their awards. And you aren't such a slouch yourself. Past your prime and you still manage to keep up with everyone else, load and all. I'm impressed."

Fortis was not sure how genuine such praise could be. But the weapon was relaxed, and the man leaned near him, as if he feared nothing at all.

"Again, this has nothing to do with hurting you, or anyone else. I decided to take a chance and just talk. Frankly, if you wanted to run back inside, I would not stop you. What I hope for is just your ears for a few minutes. I want you to hear an honest account of the other side."

Fortis sighed, and then added quietly, "I'm listening."

"Good. I knew you were too intelligent to swallow everything you hear without a few questions. This isn't some evil cabal plotting to take over Misty. We just want a chance to be heard, and so far, no one will listen. We are shot on sight, mostly."

"So I've heard," Fortis agreed.

"That part was true enough. All we really want is for someone to consider the safety of our paradise here. We have no standing army, and the few troops we have are tied down. Most of the rangers are tied up chasing punks or preventing prisoners escaping the northern islands."

Fortis bit his tongue to keep from asking about that.

The man continued. "It's gotten pretty tough, lately. Quite a few are getting much closer to escaping. My associates are catching more and more of them trying to slip across the open water to the deserts. Twice in the past year, they chased little groups across the plateaus, even though letting them go would have left them to die in the desert. No man on this planet can carry enough water to make it.

"So what's going to happen if the outsiders send their troops? You know better than I do. Rangers are stretched too thin. Don't you think we need some effective defense to keep ourselves safe? If nothing else, let them see a deterrent force at the pole. All we are asking is that the first shipments include some more weapons, better stuff that works here, like the old chemical explosive based rifles. They make these" – holding up the short Gauss rifle – "look like toys. We know they can be made, and we are sure they'll work here. With no energy weapons working here, we would always have the upper hand."

Fortis placed the fingers of one hand on his chin, resting the elbow in the other hand. He hoped he looked a lot more relaxed than he felt. "I suppose you would recruit men like the twins as part of your larger ranger force."

"Yes. We can surely afford to field a couple of new regiments. Of course, it would require a central command to run it, but this planet has more than enough wealth to support at least that many. We just need an independent force so the sheikhs will quit hindering our efforts to protect the planet. They keep finding unimportant errands for us, like they don't have enough slaves running around already."

Fortis was pretty sure this was not entirely accurate, but let it pass. "I suppose you have something you'd like me to do."

"Of course. Just take me back with you. I'm sure your ship has room, no?"

Fortis juggled the risks, but decided honesty was the best answer. "There is room. However, the ship is going to leave without me, so there would be plenty of room for you."

"What?" The man stared hard at Fortis.

"I estimate within twelve or thirteen days, Elder Bradley will reach the ship with a device which will instruct it to leave immediately without me. I can't imagine you'll get there fast enough to do any good."

The man froze, staring. Then he jerked upright at the sound of a door handle rattling. With a quickness that left Fortis staring, the man jumped back up onto the roof and disappeared over the peak. A few seconds later, something like a kite rose almost invisible in the night air. With its dark fabric, Fortis barely made out the shape, as it filled with air, then drifted away.

George's face peeked around the door. "I'm going to bed..." He stepped out hurriedly. "Are you unwell? What has made you so pale?"

"Our fake hunter came to visit." Fortis still stared off into the dark over the peak of the roof. "I didn't know the kites could be used as gliders."

George looked, too. "It's extremely risky. Only a very few can afford the time to master them. Most who try as a hobby end up dead or maimed. It began as a way to gain elevation for human eyes with the rangers, especially search and rescue. That's from a static line which provides some safety. Free flight is vastly different. The winds aloft are very unstable compared to what we experience with sails and windmills. A skilled wind-rider must face into the wind, rise to altitude, and as soon as it starts bucking and before the glider breaks up they must glide downward a ways, then repeat the process. It's exhausting, so just a few kilometers are about the limit for most."

They stepped inside the little room. George continued, "Did you have a nice conversation with our ranger?"

Fortis looked just a little sheepish. "I told him the ship was leaving when Elder Bradley got to it."

George smiled. "I suppose now is as good a time as any for him to learn that. If he were able to muster the incredible endurance, he just might fly there that fast with his glider kite, but the winds won't give him much of a lift down near the pole. He would have to approach in a very wide circle, making at least a couple of loops around the polar island. So it's not likely any man could get there, and Bradley would surely try to kill him before he landed. He's a much better archer than I."

George stepped into the hall and called someone as he walked, then thumped down the stairs. Fortis stayed in the room, staring out the window at the eternally starless sky of Misty. He could hear George talking to whoever answered his call. The ranger captain might easily escape, but there was little he could do now. Perhaps this would shut down all their plans? He hoped so.

## Chapter 24: Prisons of the Soul

George returned shortly, and Fortis gave him a digest of the conversation.

George closed his eyes, hugging himself, dropping his chin against his chest. After a few moments, he opened his eyes, moved his hands together and clasped them in front of his face, resting his nose on the tips of his fingers, his chin on his thumbs. Finally, dropping his hands, he spoke. "I don't know which is more disturbing – that he would be lying to you on purpose, or actually believe any part of what he said."

George paced back and forth across the room slowly. "Given his actions, it seems most probable he believes it. It's hard to act with such desperation for a lie. This means I was right to warn the runner of that little visit. I wager our ranger friend will attempt flying to the pole right away. I can't warn Bradley, because the messenger birds can't get there any faster than a skilled human on a glider. We'll have to trust God on this one."

George sat down on his bedroll, leaned back and gazed at the dark ceiling. There was a feeble lantern for each of them standing on the floor, standard lighting on Misty anywhere glow patches weren't feasible. Fortis sank down onto his own bed, but crossed his legs and leaned forward on his elbows. The muscles in his back and legs complained but he hardly noticed.

"Perhaps I can untangle this for you." He sighed, and then began. "Our founders back on Terra made a covenant. We still have it today, as a fundamental part of our laws. Not so much for what it says directly, but what it conveys. The covenant recognized not everyone would be able to embrace mysticism or faith in God. But it assumes those are essential to discerning how we should live. It becomes necessary to vest someone with power to keep things together under faith and mysticism, and to provide certain unalterable principles. People who, for whatever reason, lack faith and insight must have something they can cling to in order to remain among us. We do our best to teach the higher meaning, but we back it up by laws which no man can mistake.

"Throughout human history, every system breaks down, sooner or later. What we do here is preserve the context in which law is most likely to succeed, that it will work as well as it can. That context is this: our enforced primitive culture and lifestyle you see. We make it a matter of religion first, then culture, but finally it has to be enforced.

"We accepted the peculiar qualities of Misty as God's way of saying He supported that commitment by bringing us to a place where it is easier to enforce. A very significant part of that commitment is, aside from our tweaking the gene pool of flora and fauna through entirely natural means of selective breeding, should the entire population of Misty disappear, future visitors would have little idea who or what was here. It would be virtually unspoiled. That's our commitment to letting God recycle this planet for the next inhabitants, should He so choose. We are committed to consciously maximizing His freedom to act in our lives, and in the lives of others.

"Those of us who study that covenant, and commit ourselves to keep it alive have already committed ourselves to die sacrificially. But not just individually, we are willing to lose the entire planet at God's behest. Yes, we presume to make that decision for everyone here, because that's what brought us here, and what has made everything we are and have, and is only reason we have for continuing to exist. There is nothing we can do with our hands worth saving, if we do not portray that sacrificial love which took God's Son to the Cross."

George rose to his feet again. "We have had those chemical explosive weapons. The ammunition for them does not store well on Misty. For the high cost of getting them, we ended up with useless weapons requiring constant re-supply at very high expense, because every shipment degraded within a few months. Gauss weapons, at least, continue to work. Again, the cost is exceedingly high, and we reserved their use to rangers, simply because anywhere they go, numerical advantage will never be theirs. That's the nature of their role. That we could have a captain spout such nonsense shows his training is broken in the area of law."

Fortis interjected, "Or that someone has seduced them to another way of thinking."

"Yes. But there is almost nothing we can do about that. All humanity is broken, damaged in some way. Those of us who are granted higher faculties realize we are trapped between two worlds. There can be only one reason for struggling here to keep things together – it's still a useful tool for pointing to that higher plane of existence. If we discover any part of this stops working, we discard it immediately. Things have changed since our landing on this planet. Some parts of our charter have been loosened and other things added or tightened. The mechanism cannot be eternal, but the higher purpose is never anything less. We fix what we can and trust God for the rest."

Fortis shifted to relieve the tense muscles. "So in the end, our ranger captain is left to figure it out for himself. You could easily have killed him back there in the forest."

George smiled. "I told the boys to miss, and they shot well. The man's perceptions are his own worst enemy, his own prison. Tell me, what would happen if he boarded your space craft before it left?"

Fortis didn't hesitate. "Without evidence someone in authority approved his use of the ship, he'd be a stowaway. He'd be arrested by men and women using energy weapons, immobilized in a stasis field. Very humane and painless, but unfailingly effective."

George tilted his head to one side. "So it would be here, but we lack the energy weapons and stasis fields. We are very reluctant to execute. We would rather give folks a chance to negotiate terms of peaceful coexistence. We really don't even try to muzzle heretics, just make sure their lies are countered by truth. No one has the right to attempt reshaping the mind of another adult. All we can do is demand terms of sufferance."

"So your northern hemisphere is somehow a prison?" Fortis recalled the ranger's comments.

"It serves. There are precious few resources there to harvest. We take our rejects there and give them just enough basic survival equipment. We don't know how it happened, but most of the islands look like cut pieces of higher ground. Precious few trees, none with the enhanced properties of selective breeding, and nothing big enough to make a raft. They can fish, catch birds, eat insects and vegetation, and the weather pattern is the same as on the rest of the planet. They'll spend almost every waking hour just trying to stay alive, even without much in the way of predators. They get a sealed water filter rig which makes just about enough to drink for daily use, and it will stop working if they try to open it. They are left alone on their own island. They could swim to another if they want, but they might have to fight sea predators.

"As for escaping across the desert? Not a chance. On the northern shores of the equatorial continents there is almost no land at all where you can live. The dry plateaus rise almost straight up from the sea, and climbing is very challenging. The few places where that isn't the case, we tend to avoid leaving our prisoners near them. The one fact the ranger got correct was how much water it would take to get anywhere. We are talking hundreds of kilometers from the nearest human habitation.

"When their time is up, they know where they have to be for the relief ship to rescue them. It keeps the rangers assigned there pretty busy, and we rotate our troops through there frequently."

Fortis asked, "Do most of the exiles make it back after their sentence?"

"Most of them, yes. It's easy enough to die there, but few are exiled for more than three months. That's about all it takes for them to either negotiate with themselves to rejoin society or confirm their rejection."

"And if they confirm?"

"Everyone lives under probation, and the next mistake could easily be their last. Would it surprise you to know most of those caught searching the woods for us were on probation? Probation is always served with a distant clan, and all of these were brought here from somewhere else. They were slaves, in a sense, not citizens. As you know, the idea behind probation is to earn your way back into society. We don't permit abuse of slaves, but their lives are not easy, and there is no pretense. They knew the risks."

Fortis thought for a moment. "I suppose our doubles will be recalled, now? The trick didn't fool our ranger."

"No," George shook his head. "He may have been working independently, but was not working alone. Someone told him where to find you. He took the risk of flying over this place and found you outside on balcony. We can even say God allowed that to happen, and controls much of what goes on here. We don't fight His hand. We simply do the best we can within the limits of imperatives we perceive from Him. No, we'll let the charade play itself out as planned to maintain consistency for whomever is watching, including God, but certainly for a number of people lacking omniscience."

Fingers buried in his blond hair, Fortis clasped the sides of his head. "I think I could use a good course in your religion."

## Chapter 25: Second Career

The greatest struggle for Fortis was not the symbolism of Misty's dominant religion. The spiritual logic was not out of reach. What he struggled with was the sudden slow pace of life. The sea journey was a jolting experience intellectually, so his mind was busy enough. The first week of travel on Johnston Island brought a more physical brand of adventure. The month of religion instruction was actually rather mundane in itself, though the sudden insights were constant. But the waiting for news of how things transpired with the ranger and Elder Bradley was a nagging worry the whole time.

George had other business to attend to, and Fortis made new friends on the college faculty, as they devoted time tutoring him one on one. So he was caught off guard when, after almost a month, George turned up at his door just before dawn. "Looks like the ranger didn't make it. Fisherman found his kite off the coast south of here," he announced.

Fortis invited him inside. George was about as bubbly as Fortis was anxious to hear the story. "We were shocked by one thing. The wreckage included a hot air bag – almost completely enclosed and aerodynamic; worked like a balloon. It was just enough to enhance the rate of climb for the kite. The fabric was flameproof and our boy had several small ceramic canisters of hydrogen and a tiny burner mounted in the bag. Best we can tell he would fire up the balloon when he couldn't get a lift from the winds and could vent the bag at glide altitude to get forward travel."

"But you don't use hydrogen much for heat, do you?"

"We've been able to extract it for quite some time, but we don't have the means for condensing it to liquid. Refrigeration requires too much power. Some limited compression storage is possible, but it's very inefficient. Most production facilities are bunkers. A cluster of windmills running non-metallic dynamos will be clustered together right near the machinery to prevent the need for metal wire. We use the ceramic hotplate technology to warm stuff. If we need more heat, we have separate windmills pull water from a well, and some of that electrical power operates some ancient water fracturing equipment we imported. We pull the gases off and inject them back into an oven. The fracturing units operate pretty much on demand. They include a mechanical compressor with a small chamber.

"We have tried, but could never make hydrogen economically feasible for shipping. Mostly we use it in melting glass and firing ceramics. What he had would have cost almost as much as two ships and the resources to operate them for the same trip, so why would anyone bother?" George shook his head in wonder. "Somebody was pouring extravagant resources into his mission. Too bad. We found his remains still attached to the harness."

Fortis thought for a moment. "Why do I get the feeling at least one of the clans involved has a factory?"

"So we believe," George affirmed. "My own clan is one of them."

Fortis took a moment to absorb that. Meanwhile, George produced something from under his cloak. He shook out a dark red robe, just like the ones worn by the professors in the academy. However, this one had no patches of yellow and purple, but a thin stripe of each down both shoulders. "Put this one, Fortis, and let's take a walk."

"So I'm a professor, now?" Fortis was trying to catch on to the complicated symbolism of the garments he had seen so far on Misty. "What do the stripes mean? I haven't seen anything like that before." Fortis wrapped the robe about himself.

George led him down the hall. "You aren't a citizen of Johnston, but a free employee. There are precious few of those anywhere on the planet."

"So tell me why the Harbor Master wore black, with leggings," Fortis asked as they descended the stairs.

They exited the wooden door at the bottom which led into the hard packed street. "Judicial authority. He exercises the Council's power, separate from the sheikh. That, while he technically remains a vassal of the sheikh. I suppose you would call it an extension of the Law of the Sea, which is often echoed in space travel, no?"

Fortis nodded. "Yes. A Port Master has similar authority, typically used to handle unruly hands or passengers who escaped a captain's execution outright when the ship lands. It's part of the treaty system for space travel."

George grinned. "Same here; I was Acting Port Master when you arrived."

Fortis was almost bursting. "And I suppose we have no idea whether that ship of mine is gone, yet?"

George pretended the question was an unimportant distraction. "Of course," he said, watching something down the street. "Bradley is a good man. He promptly sent a message bird as soon as the dust settled. Bird arrived an hour ago." Then he grinned broadly.

Fortis sighed deeply. "And for all we know, another spaceship has returned by now with some other mission."

"You would know better than I. News on Misty travels very slowly, as you know." Again, there was that broad mocking grin.

Fortis went on. "And Acting Port Master Bradley will greet them faithfully according to Council's wishes. But I doubt any of the visitors are so anxious to travel in the fashion we do here on Misty, only to confirm what I reported. Should I suppose Elder Bradley had any sample trade goods or something?"

They rounded a turn sloping down toward the forest. Cocking his head to one side, George thought about it. "Most likely he did. His specialty is business management, so I have no doubt he quickly seized upon the opportunity. He's a mystic, but finds business negotiations a major form of entertainment. I'd wager he raided Francis' closet for a selection of goodies before he left."

Abruptly George turned to him. "How soon can you be ready to sail north?"

## Part 3 - The Recruiters
## Chapter 26: Support

Fortis laughed. "Since when does my readiness have anything to do with it?"

George put on his comical pained look. "My dear Doctor Plimick, you are the ultimate VIP Guest on the entire planet! No one would dare to tell you what to do."

Fortis joined the charade. "No, of course not!" Then with a fake growl, "No one tells me anything. I'm just expected to jump through whatever hoops are held before me."

They both laughed out loud. Coming around the edge of one hill, they were in sight of the forest. Fortis turned to ask, "Why are we coming here...." His voice trailed off because George, still grinning hugely, had already pointed to a small awning at the edge of the trees.

Two figures rose at their approach. To his utter delight, Fortis recognized the Farrell twins. Fortis noticed first the off-white waistbands. Behind the right shoulder of each was the handle of a sword. Were all the good guys lefties on Misty? They wore something which was a cross between cape and cloak, with the familiar forest pattern, but lined in a dark shade of purple. No headbands, but Fortis spotted behind them droopy brimmed forest hats perched atop longbows, slightly larger and heavier than the one George typically carried, leaning against the trees. Their tunics were a shade of brown well matched to the trunks of the trees.

There were hearty greetings, hugs and handshakes. As usual, the boys said little, but glowed like the sun. Fortis grinned widely. "What a joy to see you two! What brings you here?"

George answered for them. "They must have enjoyed escorting us before, because when I mentioned in a message we were taking another journey, they came right away, even hiring coursers." Fortis glanced around behind them. Sure enough, a pair of the beasts stood tied at the edge of the forest road. The saddlebags indicated preparations for a long journey.

## Chapter 27: Floating Foundations

They took a ferry, not unlike the ship which brought Fortis to Johnston Island, out to deeper waters. There was anchored a very substantial ship, three slender hulls closed like pontoons, but much larger. There were three decks stacked, each smaller than the one below it. The bottom was enclosed, sitting very near water level, the second with a full circle balcony, and on the third a small cabin sat in the middle of several pieces of equipment. The sails were extensive, and complicated beyond anything Fortis had ever seen. There was a boarding deck on the stern, almost like a floating wharf low to the sea.

Aside from the twin bodyguards, George had his wife. She was a shy woman, but obviously fully in charge of whatever it was she decided was her duty. Fortis had noticed women dressed somewhat as echoes of their men, but the subtle clues of rank and status were hardly so uniform. There were women who wore garments reflecting official positions in the sheikh's service, and a handful among the faculty at the academy, none of whom taught religion. Most women worked a bit in the thriving barter markets which seemed to meet just about anywhere. Nothing Fortis saw or heard indicated oppression; it seemed women were disinterested in doing work commonly done by men.

George introduced his wife as Lisa, and she bowed to Fortis. Thereafter, she was less obtrusive than the twins.

They were given a suite on the middle deck, cozy rooms equipped with the hammocks Fortis loved. There were other passengers, but Fortis hardly saw them at first. George brought out his rolled up sheet computer, and showed Fortis the map of their planned itinerary. North and west to Nadul Island (George mentioned the clan was from Asian nations on Terra), west farther to a huge, almost continent sized Hollister Land, and on and on. Mostly larger islands, a couple of clans sharing a small continent here and there, zig-zagging up to the first of three continents which included the equatorial desert belt. This larger ship was able to travel a good bit faster, both because of design and more efficient use of wind power, but also because winds were stronger in the main and more predictable as they went farther north.

On this retrograde spinning world, where the feeble light of Dalorius rose in the west and faded into the east, so the prevailing winds were also easterly. Thus, their journey would generally circle Misty with the winds, mostly heading west. They hoped to see all 38 clans within two years of travel.

Fortis was reminded the topography varied little on Misty. Rather shallow oceans, where keels were almost useless, but without storms it hardly mattered. Instead, they might drop what George called "underwater sails" – thin, curved plank panels to catch strong currents when they were favorable and serving as brakes when it was necessary to slow the ship. The waves never seemed more than a half-meter, and rarely that. The islands and continents were relatively flat, with hills seldom rising more than five meters. The few which did were barren above that elevation. Forests always at the lowest elevations, it was grassland everywhere else. Changing latitude would bring a faint difference in temperatures, but otherwise affected only the relative distribution of deciduous and needle-bearing trees, the latter fading in numbers and in size as they came closer to the equator.

Fortis and George often stepped out on the boarding deck, where the noise of the sails and wind in general was much reduced. There was a stairway running from the back corner of the second deck down to one side of the platform. They would bring folding chairs and large mugs of tea. The ship was very stable, with only rare tiny sprays splashing them.

"Tell me about body armor," Fortis asked. "I haven't seen any."

"Because you don't recognize it," George grinned. "The same variable stiffness we apply to fabrics and skins for other purposes can be enhanced for body armor. To make it truly wearable and effective, it requires a very expensive process so it remains moderately stiff, but hardens instantly on impact. Generally, only a sheikh can afford it, and very little can be made, so there's always a dire shortage compared to requests. Johnston's bodyguard wore vests of it, as do all such troops. Rangers can get it issued for special operations." He hooked a thumb back toward the ship, "The boys have vests with small sections of it."

"You don't wear any." Fortis never saw such on George.

George sipped his tea, silent for just a moment. "I could." There was more thoughtful silence. "I'm altogether certain God would rather I didn't."

"A preference for the armor of God, mentioned in the Book?"

"Exactly," George smiled. "Your teachers did a good job."

"I had no trouble absorbing the symbolism, but everything I thought I knew already turned out to be pretty silly. I made my own copy of the Book, though," holding up his spooler.

"You can't afford to get wrapped up in cerebral questions. The language of Heaven is parabolic, the logic is symbolic, the narrative is not explanatory, but mostly indicative." George leaned back and closed his eyes.

"And the divine economy is a gift economy; sacrifice is the currency," Fortis noted, as he stared down into the sea.

George rolled his head to one side and opened his eyes, looking at Fortis. "We sincerely wish we could make that work here in the real world. What we do have emulates it as much as possible. We don't have anything which serves as money, so we have had to be very careful about enforcing the barter provisions. Even in a world where most economic activity is food or resource extraction, it would be all too easy for someone to amass wealth and power. The Council tends to be rather brutal about that, since it is the primary route to destruction."

"So you believe there is a cabal which seeks ways around that."

George sat up, leaning forward, elbows on knees. "Naturally, as has always been the case here since the beginning, though it includes other things." Staring out to sea, "They keep resurrecting talk of centralization and democracy."

"On most every world out there in the galaxy," Fortis said, sweeping his hand skyward, "you would think there was something sacred about giving every breathing a soul a direct or indirect voice in government. Yet it seems to lead consistently to cycles of war and oppression."

"Is that taught in your former university, or is that one of your brilliant intuitions?" George smiled slyly.

"They don't teach it, but just about anyone with a hint of independent thinking can see it." Fortis grinned a bit. "I got in trouble for daring to say it, once. Then a short time later was told in private I was right, but not to say it. Something about professional doctrine."

"Good. To question is the answer." George set his empty mug in the rest made for it on the side of the chair. "To question all human declarations is the ultimate answer to living among humans," he expanded.

After a few moments, he continued. "We believe God's Book assumes mankind living in the tribal setting. In a pluralistic society attempting to operate by democratic assumptions, we say government is the monopoly on the use of force. If your government doesn't have a monopoly, then it's not the real government, or at least not the only one. Authority is, fundamentally, a threat of force. That it may be no one has any interest in defying it is not the point. Reducing the necessity of even referring to that threat is as good as it gets, because any system which fails to account for the Fall is broken from the start."

Fortis was all seriousness. "Had not God Himself invaded my soul, I would still be choking on that concept."

George nodded sagely. "You and all the rest of the humanity. The paradox of the Fall is no one believes they are fallen until they find the remedy. None of us pretends to know how that invasion from God comes about, because the only consistent factor is His personal whim. We can predict most people come to it by embracing the demands of God's Laws, the inherent call for repentance. But that assumes a mostly mundane form of logic. With those already mystical, it is utterly random."

"As is fitting for what mysticism represents." Fortis agreed with a smile.

"Indeed, the readiness to receive truth on an entirely different basis from mere human reasoning. True mystics come to faith more readily than anyone else."

After a few minutes of silence, Fortis remarked, "I was completely surprised how that part of me already knew what I was being taught. It was as if my intellect was simply recognizing something already there, buried beneath the surface. Not every detail, but the general shape of the ideas. I started with a very amorphous view of God maybe as a person, and ended up with a very strong image, rather like a Galactic Sheikh."

"Truth makes its own path," George affirmed.

A crewman leaned over the railing above and invited them to dinner.

## Chapter 28: No Secrets

As with all things on Misty, it amused Fortis the odd mixture of simplicity and complexity which characterized the small dining room. While the wood was always the finest quality, the design of things might be entirely rustic. Eating was indeed a peaceful social occasion, but the furniture was not at all like the luxurious dining settings on other planets. It was entirely functional, with mere hints of ceremonial decoration at most. The Johnston clan banner was displayed on one wall, but there was nothing else to indicate who was sponsoring the voyage, unless you spotted the banner fluttering in the top of the sails. The fabrics on the chairs were rather drab moderate gray, as were most such chairs Fortis had seen. The table settings were simple, a mixture of wood and ceramic. However, the food was extraordinary.

Fortis remarked, "So this follows the pattern for mass space travel. When there's little to do, food makes the voyage."

"Crews are easier to get and train if they gain at least some advantage for leaving the comforts of home. What little culinary efforts exist on Misty are aimed mostly for ocean travel," George explained. He turned at the entrance of someone through the side door and stood quickly.

Fortis took it as a signal and rose, too. A man of obvious importance quickly announced, "Please, be seated. I apologize to you all for being late." Before taking his seat, he stopped near George, who had naturally remained standing to greet him.

"Captain, it's good to see you again." He bowed from the shoulders toward the somewhat younger man, and then they shook hands. He presented Fortis, who copied the bow. The captain hurried around the table to an empty place in the center. He sat, then George, with Fortis following. He realized this was the usual simple ceremony which opened the working relationship between men of rank, after which very little ceremony was observed again. In this case, the man's name was immaterial.

"I was just complementing your chef, Captain." Fortis took a bite with obvious relish.

"I'll be sure to let her know. My wife seldom disappoints anyone with her cooking." Then he grinned and winked at George.

Fortis chuckled, then swallowed. "Compact crew."

"They are all family – literally," George observed.

Fortis nodded. "I'm beginning to understand how well that works. The sheikh's retainers are cousins, nephews, even his own children. The faculty at the academy isn't all related that closely, but the other staff was always family of someone else there. The rest of the galaxy calls it 'nepotism,' but here it's an essential element of life. It's marvelously stable, given no one here wears an implant to control any part of their behavior."

The Captain smiled. "Frankly, we pity you here being so alone."

Fortis paused, then, "I doubt many of my relatives would be so comfortable, but I consider myself greatly blessed. I also doubt I'll ever be able to leave, family or not."

"I take it you never married, then?" the Captain inquired.

"No, Sir. It simply never presented itself. Perhaps I need a course in romance, too." He chuckled at the thought, as did the Captain.

George interjected, "Romance in that sense we understand, but all marriages are arranged on Misty. That shouldn't surprise you. Nor should it surprise you if someone offers you their daughter, sister or other close relative as wife."

"Indeed," the Captain agreed. "Given the political situation, at least a half-dozen offers will be made during this journey. Several clans are suffering some disadvantage right now, and latching onto your fame and presumed influence would serve them well."

Fortis blushed. "I have little measure of my influence right now, so 'presumed' is the right word."

"Nor do we know," the Captain affirmed. "I don't want to deceive you, Fortis. You are certainly going to need those bodyguards in some places, along with your own fighting skills, such as they may be. For once, I fear for the safety of my crew. This business of restarting interstellar trade is a volatile issue, for more reasons than one."

Fortis looked at George, hoping to gauge how much he was at liberty to discuss. George saved him the trouble. "The Captain was chosen by the Sheikh himself for his wisdom and discretion, along with his expertise in the politics of this planet." To the Captain, "We have yet to identify the ranger captain who troubled us when I brought Fortis to Johnston Island."

The Captain nodded, then stared at his plate for a moment, lost in thought.

George went on, "Having such skill with a glider kite, the resources to construct and fuel a small warm air pocket – it all adds up to an extensive organization. It would be hard to imagine they have that much pull with any sheikh's court. We are left wondering if they have managed to construct their own production facilities hidden somewhere."

"Well, the recruiting will be a great cover, all the more so since it's also a genuine mission in itself." The Captain rose, signaling them to stay seated.

Fortis realized the man had eaten rather quickly, though with good table manners. Glancing around, he decided if anyone overheard, it was the Captain's choice whom to trust. Then again, George kept saying transparency was the first working assumption. So far, they had only been sneaky on two items – keeping his face hidden in the village and trying to depart quietly before dawn.

"Those who walk in the light have little to hide." George was intuiting his thoughts, again.

"And I'm altogether uncomfortable with hiding, anyway," Fortis noted.

"Consider this," George turned to face him. "The Council of Sheikhs already knows more about this than you and I. They all have too much to lose by hiding participation. And again, the biggest threat is not the rogue rangers and their resources. The only real problem there is resource waste which may be costing someone who can't afford it. Think of it as an illegitimate tax. But the greatest threat is from the ideas long ago rejected by our founders. Democracy is a cancer, based on lies. So is centralized government."

Fortis understood, having seen it up close. "So when you warned me about leaving and saying something destructive to Misty, you had in mind the concern I might send back someone who would want to bring such 'enlightened' ideas here."

George smiled. "We would gladly allow anyone to depart who felt life could be better under any other system. Exporting those who feel alienated here is by far the better mercy, as is importing those who can't feel at home anywhere else. We hope we can arrange such things." Then his face showed deep sorrow, "But no one breathing anywhere in human space as any business fixing something here which isn't broken. Mankind had plenty of time to show off how well it works – and it doesn't. When we left Terra, it was past time to return to ancient truths. We can't force the dissenters here to see the light if they refuse to open their eyes, but we also can't afford to let them spread that darkness to others."

"So remaining transparent is going to expose the lies." Fortis believed it, and wanted to see more of it in action, but without seeing too much action of the other kind.

George had that glow, again. "Our Creator is always watching. He can make of this anything which suits His whims. But in general, His promise is to back His own revelation. If we conduct ourselves accordingly on this mission, we have every reason to expect things to go well, even if sometimes harrowing."

"So we keep our eyes open, but simply stick with the ostensible purpose, and the skullduggery will take care of itself. That's certainly a lot easier than playing at espionage." Fortis was feeling better about it.

"Exactly. Those working in darkness will be forced to act, and it will expose them. God will either protect us from harm or take us home to be with Him. Nothing could be simpler."

Fortis grinned. "At least you didn't say 'easy'."

## Chapter 29: Canebrake

They had to dodge between two long, narrow islands to avoid an extra half-day of sailing to go around and come back to the natural harbor on southern Nadul Island. The Captain and his crew seemed to think it a minor task, but Fortis was pretty sure he could have speared any number of trees on either side had he tried with his lance. It was one of those rare places where a strong current had carved out a channel where once had been a narrow sandy shoal. The trees grew out to the edge of land which dropped suddenly; not much from above the water level, but deeply below the surface.

As he watched from a forward facing railing, he turned to George. "What if a sheikh doesn't like us having armed bodyguards? What protocol prevents him making trouble for us?"

George hardly hesitated. "If the twins don't come, fully armed, we stay on the boat and keep sailing."

Fortis absorbed this. "And if they don't get any students in the academy, they lose leverage for trade concessions?"

"Obviously. But it also means explaining why they reneged on a Council agreement. Worst of all, it means the suspicion falls to them for all this troublesome espionage."

"Humor me a bit more. What if the boys actually decide there's a threat and injure or kill someone?" Fortis was not thrilled with the idea of bloodshed on his behalf.

"There are established procedures for inquiry. The boys aren't that eager to kill anything they can't eat or skin. They'll do their jobs, but they stand to become famous, crossing the entire planet with their swords and white belts. They'll get more marriage offers than you will."

"As well they should." Fortis genuinely liked them. For all their reticence, they made dashing figures.

"Which reminds me," George rounded on him like a schoolmaster. "I'll wager you've been slack in your training. We'll have to arrange some sparring with Nadul's troops."

Fortis groaned, more dramatically than he felt.

The welcome on Nadul was mostly the same routine. The only difference was the most obvious one: The sheikh and all his people were varying shades of brown, most had almond shaped eyes, and few of them had any whiskers at all, much less significant beards. He spotted one harbor worker who was even darker, and noted mentally the planet was more genetically diverse than he first thought.

They were welcomed, fed and housed, but this time traveled by wagons pulled by coursers. The ride was very nice, and Fortis noticed the suspension was fairly complex. In just tree days they reached the capital city, and received the normal welcome. They were hosted in their own grand tent. Fortis decided just once to play on a whim and requested a hammock. It appeared within the hour, and was strung from a sturdy frame built just for the purpose. He felt guilty until George told him he was hardly the first to ask for such a thing. It was just highly unusual.

So was the conversation he overheard the next morning. George was standing halfway in the tent door talking to another elder. This other elder wore the same brown and gray, but with patches and trim sporting the blue and tan of Clan Nadul. They were gazing down at an image displayed on a pocket computer.

"I didn't hear about that," George said.

"What do you make of it?" the other asked.

"My first instinct is to say it's something artificial, very expensive to make. But it's not simple wood like anything we know about. Instead of mere hollow piping, which I could understand, it has closed cells. I can't imagine why, nor what it would do to production costs for that." George shook his head.

Fortis approached, and asked to see. "Oh, some sort of reed."

The other two stared at him. "We've never seen them on Misty," George explained in all seriousness. Turning back to the image, "So that's what a reed looks like."

"Well, somebody is growing them. That or someone has access to off-planet resources." Fortis wondered what it was all about.

George looked up again. "What I got regarding our ranger captain's glider was merely an initial report. The next report bypassed us on our voyage via messenger bird, arriving a couple of days ago. Elder Nassi here was showing me his copy, which included this image. The glider had a unique frame built from these reeds," pointing to the image. "It explains how he managed it so well, because they are lighter than or typical wood, but they have been enhanced the same way. Being thin and hollow, very sturdy and yet flexible, he could have easily flown much farther than anything we know about, with far less effort."

Something clicked in Fortis' mind. "So that's how he got away so quickly from the roof of the academy. He didn't have to wait for the wind to fill the fabric cells; they were already spread by reeds."

George turned to Nassi. "Take our suggestion to your academy. With the next bird flight propagate a request about reeds. If these are enhanced by processing, someone has to have at least a substantial workshop with heat and water. Everything else is available on the market. Except maybe those tiny hydrogen cylinders. They would have no other use, so that means a kiln."

Fortis and George stared as the elder first walked fast, then began running down the street.

Later that day came the first marriage proposal for Fortis. He declined. Something inside him knew this was not the time, so he made sure this was understood. He also promised to return on their way back after their tour, though without any commitment to do more than reconsider.

George seemed familiar with the city, and took Fortis on a guided tour. "Why do I see more than the usual number of fixed buildings?"

"Nadul specializes in designing and producing these small devices." George produced his pocket computer, unrolled it. "It can't be done in a tent."

Fortis had seen personal communication devices which rolled, but was puzzled by something. "You don't have plastics here, so how do you get one that rolls?"

"I'm no technologist, but I am told it's basically fine threads of glass attached to a swatch of the fabric which stiffens when unrolled. We use microorganisms to coat the glass with nano-circuitry. I don't really know too much about it, but the whole thing hinges a great deal on the natural silica found on just about every planet in the galaxy. Here it's a major resource."

"So silica mining is a big thing here," Fortis guessed.

"Yes. My home clan is involved in processing it. The major restriction we suffer is impurities. We are constantly exploring parts of the desert we can reach for better sources, and so is every clan bordering it. Raw silica of good quality is worth quite a bit. The impurities affect the entire process, because we use micro-optics to control the growth of the microbes. We haven't found any new mining areas in a very long time."

Fortis stood admiring the devices stacked in a stall. "Protocol requires we don't carry our personal communication devices when we visit a planet; only the equipment they issue from the university when we do a study. I suppose most of planets are touchy about controlling radio wave frequencies."

"Pick one. The sheikh will be embarrassed if he discovers you don't have one already." George showed something on his unrolled device to the woman working the stall.

Eventually Fortis chose a flat device small enough to hide in his hand, but folded out to palm size for use. During the ensuing conversation, the woman commented they only recently started having trouble with a declining quality of glass. Their new supplier couldn't match the quality from the supplier they lost.

His head cocked to one side, George asked, "Where did you get the glass before?"

"Clan Manley," she replied. George didn't say anything, but it was obvious to Fortis his mind was very busy for awhile as they strolled farther through the city.

The following day they appeared before Sheikh Nadul. He introduced twelve prospects he selected for the new ambassadorial academy. George and Fortis had developed a battery of tests during the voyage north from Johnston. Over long discussions on the rear deck, they hashed out the basic personality traits Fortis felt necessary for dealing with the broad array of human cultures, interlaced with George's emphasis on mysticism and faith.

"Our founders had a long history of living with a foot in both worlds. It was the primary reason they were able to stay so long on Terra. It requires parallel thinking, a constant awareness of things on two levels," George explained.

"And I am certainly acquainted with the lower level," Fortis noted. "I found the faculty at Johnston was very adept at getting across a great deal of meaning with a fairly dramatic telling of the Book. I'll be trying my hand at that technique, since I find it considerably better than the dry, factual rendering required for spooling. Facts are easy, but it's hard to replace the sense of being transported to the time and place of event."

Fortis thought for a moment. "But they are going to need all the faith they can muster to deal with the jolting difference between the meteoric pace of life out there compared to the glacial pace here."

Sheikh Nadul presented his dozen candidates. Fortis estimated they were all less than thirty years of age, but clearly adults. After a couple of days interviewing, George and Fortis whittled it down to three. The key was how quickly they absorbed things which made little sense initially, and were able to formulate a response which exhibited transparency and empathy, without entanglement.

"Mysticism is fundamental to our culture and education, but most people under thirty aren't quite ready to operate on that level. Still, the basic tendencies which can't be trained should be visible fairly early," George had said during their planning sessions.

## Chapter 30: Work and Worry

The next clan they visited had one of two major hospitals on Misty, with the attached medical college. The one after that was a huge island almost entirely above tree level, where several species of hair and hide producing animals were raised. Another was covered with various fiber producing plants, and another seemed to be doing a little of everything.

During one of their numerous long discussions, George had explained, "People have to work, but no one should be driven by a clock. Our level of relative comfort has risen slowly, but it will never be that great. First is our fundamental other-worldly orientation. Eldership is granted only to those who prove their ability to maintain that orientation. They control the primary education, which is always conducted by the extended household, and only grandmothers and grandfathers are qualified as teachers. Somewhere around the twelfth year we allow children to enter apprenticeship. Everyone learns a trade, and earns their basic colors, as we say."

Fortis noted, "I've already picked up on some of the symbolism of costume color."

George nodded, "Mine is pale blue for water supply maintenance. We have several springs near my birthplace."

"I'm out of place on that one. I've never done anything outside academics," Fortis said.

George chuckled, "We can give you a trade if you like. But the main point is we maintain a careful balance between too much and too little. Most of our wars have been the indirect result of population explosion, something which seems to come in cycles. Warfare serves the obvious purpose of reducing the population directly, but the destruction reduces it further by starvation, disruption of trade, and too often plagues. We know it's not possible to avoid it totally, but we minimize it. We strive to balance the forces of human nature as a part of other natural forces."

Eventually they landed on the coast nearest Clan Manley. The port was fairly busy and George spoke to one of the senior stevedores. Something he said made George's face go ashen.

There was one clan territory to cross northward by land to reach Manley, and no one raised the slightest objection to going straight there. Indeed, it was quickly agreed Fortis and George would ride on ahead of the slower wagons. He asked the twins to stay with the baggage. "If we can't be safe here, there really is no hope for much of anything." As he and Fortis rode away, George eschewed the roads, driving straight across the open land. They picked up food from isolated farm tents or small villages near their path.

It took two weeks sleeping on the ground without a tent, and riding all day and trusting the coursers to warn if predators approached at night. Such a warning happened only once during the trip. George rolled out of bed, listened a moment, then shot two arrows into the dark. After a few minutes of silence, he dropped back into his bedroll and soon began to snore softly.

Fortis waited until they had gone some ten days like this before asking over lunch one day, "Your intuition is roaring."

"Our primary glass maker has had access to the best silica on the planet for decades. Suddenly someone downstream complains the supply of high quality glass is declining. That was puzzling, but not disturbing. Then the dock manager tells me not a scrap of silica has come through the port in six months, when previously it was large loads, requiring six or seven wagons three or four times per year. This is no small matter. There is precious little silica or sand near my village, and the glass plant is the only reason that village exists. It's a small facility, so we export most of what we mine."

Fortis waited as George chewed. Finally, he prodded. "But there's more."

"But I don't know what." He started to rise. "It troubles my spirit."

A few days later, they came down from an almost barren ridge. While Fortis noticed the air was slightly less hazy, and faintly warmer, he didn't expect to see the huge rising shadow of high land on the other side of the wooded valley. He caught glimpses of numerous windmills climbing the gentle slope, and a cluster of several more in the far distance, just barely visible in the fading light of day.

Several of the people greeted George enthusiastically, then spluttered over the odd visitor with him. George did slow a bit and promised with a smile to talk later, then dismounted in front of the largest tent in the village. Fortis took the liberty of introducing himself, and no one seemed to object. With a dozen offers of service, he asked for, and received, a fresh drink of water from the cistern. Cautiously, he peeked inside the open tent doorway. George was talking to another man who looked surprisingly similar in age and features.

George glanced at Fortis, perfunctorily introduced the man as his brother, Randall. Then the two men promptly began a rapid fire discussion with such abbreviated references, Fortis had trouble following it.

Someone brought in their bedrolls and other baggage from off the coursers. The young man carrying it all shared an obvious family resemblance to George and Randall. Finally, the hurried conversation slowed.

George turned to Fortis. "I apologize for being such a poor host..."

Fortis put up a hand. "I'm in on this whole thing. Just tell me what I can do."

"Right now, there's nothing we can do. It's late. Two tasks present themselves immediately. We need to visit the glass plant. Until recently, they had a very high quality supply not locally available. I have to find out where the supply came from, as they surely know something more than who drove the wagons inland. Then, we have to trace down that supplier and find out what happened. We shall likely meet our wagons well before they arrive here." George looked very tired.

"So, we will meet ourselves coming and going, in a manner of speaking." Fortis tried to lighten the somber mood.

George smiled weakly. Everyone who visited that evening was just as somber, as the plant in hills to the north had all but shut down. Only the smaller workshops making goods mostly for local consumption were still running.

For all the hard riding, the coursers didn't hesitate when George and Fortis mounted them before dawn for the ride up the draw toward the cluster of spinning wind turbines. As they drew closer and higher, Fortis realize these were quite large, much larger than anything he had seen before. He noticed the wind was strong, decidedly warmer than that first taste of polar breeze, yet still the climate was cool enough for sleeves. As the land rose, he noticed it was also somewhat drier. However, the one thing which locked his attention was the noise. The wind didn't rip stones from the packed surface of the dry barren table land, but the roaring was palpable on its own.

They turned into the teeth of this wind as the trail wound around a small hump to reveal an opening in the side of the slope. A great deal of stonework had been added, but clearly this was the opening to a man-made cave.

The windmills were clustered on the flat top of the hill, bound together by a solid framework of stone and large beams. The turbines were vertical, covered with complex curved panels of bright fabric. At the foot of each was a sealed dynamo, according to George's previous explanations. Farther back was another wind turbine by itself. This one dropped a spinning shaft directly into a fitting in the ground. This one met the description George gave for a water-well. There appeared little sign of significant wear on anything, but there was no blowing dust. There was just a steady blast of stiff wind below the somewhat higher clouds, clouds still thick enough to prevent any detectable change in brightness for the dawn. Desert, yes, but unlike any Fortis had ever seen.

They rode up to an awning, then led the beasts under it, tying them to rings set in the stone. Here the wind was not quite so loud, and only gentle, random swirls managed to tousle the fur on their flanks. The flat entry way was cut out of the hill, so the sides were somewhat protected nearest the facing.

George stood, hesitating a moment before ducking in the wide doorway standing open.

## Chapter 31: Source of Sorrow

They stepped inside the cooler, darker opening, which turned out to be a foyer. Directly in front of them was a large wooden door almost closed, but George turned and walked down a narrow hall to another, smaller door set in the thick stone wall. Without knocking, he turned the handle and entered.

Fortis followed him into the well-lit office. Through the large glass window on the opposite wall, one could see odd pieces of equipment. He decided the rounded ceramic object was a hydrogen tank, as it had a single ceramic pipe running to a large interior chamber with a wide flat opening along the side. The opening was dark. He caught just a glimpse of an old style hydrogen separation unit commonly used on some planets Fortis had visited. He thought to himself it was probably one of those expensive imports they managed to keep running here, since it was obviously mostly metal.

He had to force himself to turn and pay attention at the mention of his name. It was another perfunctory introduction, and Fortis was quickly fascinated by the collection of items displayed on one shelf, running wall to floor and wider than his reach. Various pieces of raw silica mixed in among some of the previous products. Something utterly unexpected caught his eye.

Glancing back from time to time at it, he tried to listen to the conversation. The man behind the table was embarrassed. George was saying, "Richard, I understand keeping reasonable business confidences. Nothing I say or do will serve to force you. But if the man has failed to deliver on a bargain, wouldn't you like to know if something unpleasant has befallen him? Will you destroy all we've built just because someone is a little nervous about someone finding his secret mine?"

Richard struggled for a few moments. Finally, he opened up his pocket device and showed George a picture with some information displayed below it. George touched his own device to this one, apparently copying the data. Then he reassured Richard, "My only interest is the village and our reputation. Indeed, you know I pointedly never got involved in your business as long as it was only your business."

Richard glanced at Fortis meaningfully. George replied, "He's from off-planet. He has no interest at all."

"Except for one thing," Fortis interrupted.

Both men turned to him. He stepped over to the shelf, reaching up high to a flat gray rectangle about the size of his hand, and thick as the tip of his finger. Pulling it down, he turned it over in his hands. "This is at least the shell of a standard Imperial Era military individual communications unit."

Richard seemed to welcome the distraction. "This has been handed down in my family for several generations. We never really knew what it was, but we believe it's all here." He reached for the device, pressed on one corner and the thing opened like a book. Both internal faces were smooth, but dark and faintly translucent. He handed it back to Fortis.

"I wonder if it still works." Fortis began looking at it, tracing his fingers along the edges, faces, until suddenly it glowed and came to life.

Richard looked stunned. George asked, "Do you know how to operate that?"

"Of course," Fortis smiled. "It's like the one we have at the university computer museum." He stroked and tapped on the one face, as images flashed on the other. The other two men watched as Fortis inventoried what was stored on the device. "Did you tell me there was once a military ship visited here?" he asked.

"About three hundred years ago, just before the last rash of wars started," George said.

"This is a planetary survey log." He turned it where they could see it.

Turning it back, he tapped and stroked some more. Then he froze for just a second, until a smile slowly crept across his lips. "Who else has had access to this device?" He looked up.

Richard thought for a moment. "My grandfather told me it had been stolen once by a distant cousin. The thief had it for a while when he was caught in possession. He was sent him to the North Islands. They never saw the man again."

Fortis turned it around to George. "Books. Books on warfare, of course, but also books on government and political theory. Many of them related to one of the ancient empires on Terra, which collapsed just before your people came here, George. I have a digested copy of them on my spooler. It's all about rational political theory, republics, pluralistic societies, nuclear family households, capitalism, credit systems..."

"Democracy," George muttered, gazing at the screen.

## Chapter 32: Bits and Pieces

They were on the road this time because, George said, it was the wagon route for the silica shipments. They met the wagons of their entourage at the junction where the road turned to Manley City. Everyone gathered in George's tent that night while he recounted the events in the village. As promised, he left out the private business details. But he did mention they found the source of the pernicious democracy teaching. He explained it was critical he and Fortis pursue the leads.

This meant going to the capital city to consult some officials. Lisa smiled at the idea of returning to her childhood home, where her parents had immigrated before she was born. The twins were happy to be back on their assigned duty, with possible adventure in the offing. As Lisa busied herself with domestic chores, the four men stepped outside.

They climbed a nearby hilltop and sat in small circle in the tall grass.

"So we have thus far," George was counting on his fingers. "An apparent ranger captain trying to get off-planet. He spouts this nonsense about democracy and centralized government. But nobody knows who he is, and the rangers deny missing any captains.

"Further, this fellow flew on a glider, and added a balloon fired with hydrogen cylinders. The glider included reeds, which we can't explain, but apparently grow somewhere on Misty. We know there are some parts of Misty not too well explored except by the rangers who take prisoners out to the North Islands.

"We have a fellow who has for quite some time been delivering the highest grade silica ore on the planet to a Manley glass plant. Richard says it was a family connection through some aunt, and has been going on for as long as he can remember, so that's at least fifty years. None of the other mines come even close, and no new ores have been discovered for mining in over a hundred years.

"Somebody previously employed at said glass plant was exposed in depth to the democracy garbage. Seems he got his hands on a military computer device left by the last foreign visitor to Misty before Fortis. The technician probably went to the North Islands, but we don't know. We should be able to get something on him from the Sheikh's archives."

They sat silently for a few minutes. It was Stanley who spoke, "Something in the North Islands is not what we have been told."

Fortis and George stared at Stanley, then each other.

Three days later, George was earnestly explaining why it was so vitally necessary he access the clan archives without disturbing the Sheikh. The official in green and dark red robes was having none of it. However, he allowed there was no need for a formal introduction and so forth. He left George waiting a few minutes, ducking behind a curtain of the tent which stood as vestibule over the entrance to the one stone building in the city. A moment later he wordlessly motioned, insisting George follow him alone.

Fortis replayed the known facts in his mind repeatedly, but nothing new would rise from his intuition. It was not simply gaps in the data, but very large gaps. There was no apparent pattern from which to extrapolate. The only thing was the obvious conclusion the rangers were hiding something. Somehow, it didn't help to make the hour go by any faster, and the twins seemed almost asleep on their feet.

When George emerged, he had bundle wrapped in dark green fabric. He paused, staring back at the curtain through which he had emerged. His face was a complete blank. After some moments, he turned without a word or gesture and walked back in the direction they had come from the outlying village for visitor's tents.

For the longest time, George sat staring at the bundle in his lap, sitting in a folding chair under an awning extension on his tent. Finally, he called Fortis and the twins to him. He motioned for them to pull their chairs up close. He rolled back a part of the cover, exposing a black fabric.

"I've been commissioned to investigate the ranger station up the coast a ways. Evidently the Council had planned for such a thing." He covered the black fabric again. "Do you recall, Fortis, I told you I didn't know all the Council knew?"

Fortis nodded.

"Part of that was no knowing why my own clan was under suspicion. It began to seem reasonable when I realized this strange business might be connected to our glass plant. What I didn't know was the same fellow who brought the ore would then disappear with a ship load of food and other goods, but nobody registered his trading anywhere else."

"So he was the go-between for some secret supplier of the silica ore, exchanging it for food and common goods," Fortis volunteered.

"And" – with some emphasis – "he was the third generation doing this same thing," George explained.

"And," Fortis mocked gently with a smile, "our thief was three generations ago."

George grinned. "The thief disappeared from the records when he was turned over to the rangers." He paused a moment. "Along with a female prisoner shipped out at the same time." After another pause, "A very naughty young woman caught in adultery. Her intended husband exercised his right to plea for clemency. Seems he was utterly smitten by this very pretty girl, and wanted her to have a chance to live. The rangers didn't report them dead or lost or anything at all. No other clan received them on probation."

"A breeding pair. But does that justify auditing the rangers?" Fortis asked.

"We have records of missing equipment. But the records we have for that ranger station don't collate. It's not at all rare to lose stuff on the rough passage between two ends of the desert belt toward the North Islands, but it appears someone has made changes to the equipment records to hide a pattern. Instead, we have a much larger pattern which is broken." George held up one finger. "And some of it was recent."

"So maybe if we see the original records, it will help us clear up this disturbing business of flying rangers nobody knows," Fortis smirked. More sedately he added, "Assuming I'm included."

George stood up. "Boys, the recruiting mission has been suspended. I still need some alien expertise," looking pointedly at Fortis, "and our bodyguards." The twins smiled, actually rubbing their hands in anticipation.

## Chapter 33: Judge George Manley

Fortis looked at George riding on the courser beside him. "George, have you ever heard an ancient Terran phrase, 'sneaker net'?"

"No." George was mildly interested.

"Basically, computers always have been able to communicate directly via wires, then eventually with radios and now through galactic hyperspace signals. Aside from signal delays through whatever media, it meant instant sharing of data. But the same data carried via some physical storage by hand from one computer to another was called a 'sneaker net'. I'm told it's an obscure reference to footwear." Fortis gave George a half smile.

"And on Misty we have the bird net." George smiled.

"So a great deal of data is shared and compared periodically that way?"

"Though the pace of our development might not be as fast as out there where you come from, we now get the entire Council archives on each bird chip with much room to spare. It's encrypted pretty well, and various algorithms compare signatures and such. They meet physically every so often. Corruption, by accident or intent, is controlled that way, even if it does take awhile." George laughed.

"Does an updated copy come with the judicial robe?" Fortis asked.

"With a key for decryption, Professor Intuition."

A moment later, Fortis asked, "What would induce a ranger to dishonest reporting?"

"Discovering that is our mission."

Back on board the ship, the Captain was laughing in a most undignified manner. When he caught his breath, he stood up straight and said, "Give the order, Judge Manley." Not just any judge, but George was a Special Magistrate of the Council.

Out loud Fortis wondered, "Who outranks you?"

The Captain gleefully jumped in, "Nobody!" He began laughing again.

"It's not permanent," George reminded him with almost no humor.

Fortis half smiled, not sure why the Captain found it so funny.

"Great power, even greater headaches," George noted. "Once I put this on, I have to give people the permission to breathe, for goodness' sake. They are required to stop whatever they are doing and wait for me to order them to proceed. The whole purpose is to investigate without warning."

On the voyage to the ranger station, George asked Fortis to share the digest of some of the books. Fortis outlined the obvious differences he had come to understand between the types of political systems, citing historical examples. George was disgusted. "Of all the hideous things, an empire of people who quickly forged their own chains of slavery because they worshiped material prosperity. All it took was a few lies to take advantage of popular ignorance to win the popular vote. And all that assumption about being under attack when it was they who were attacking everyone." He shook his head.

Fortis nodded. "The worst part is all the clandestine services, which pretended to serve the governments who sponsored them, but actually served some shadowy alternative government. They were the ones who masqueraded as enemy and conducted all the supposed terror attacks on their own people. This continued until the end of the brief existence of that first Terran global empire. Your predecessors were lucky to escape alive before the next empire found itself facing a much bigger interstellar human space."

Turning to Fortis, George asked "You are sure that military computer won't turn on again?"

Fortis promised. "I reversed the polarity on the battery and it burned the circuits. You saw the smoke, smelled it."

"Depending on how many people are infected with that virus, it may take a full generation to rid ourselves."

"Well," Fortis noted, "there were at least a dozen fools in Johnston."

It was ten days sailing in the strong easterly winds to reach the ranger station. George directed the Captain to anchor behind a low forested island until dark. There was a long wharf for larger vessels, and the ship slipped in quietly before dawn. The crew themselves tied up to the dock. George, Fortis and the twins simply stepped off the rear deck and marched up the dock. By the time the watchman noticed, it was too late to give notice. The black robes with white trim were unmistakable, and he simply froze.

"Remain on duty and notify your watch commander if anyone else approaches, including your fellow rangers," George ordered him.

The man had been guarding the entrance to a large building not unlike the one Fortis remembered on Johnston Island's southern approach. The stairs were in a similar location and they climbed without delay. The man slumped at the desk nearly fell into the floor trying to jump to attention.

"You are the watch officer?" George inquired mildly. To the man's nod, he continued in the same tone. "You will insure your harbor crew render due services for my ship at the dock. By no means will you interfere with the personnel aboard that vessel, as the Captain is your superior officer." The man nodded vigorously. "You may speak when we have left the building."

And so it went, throughout the morning. The barracks troops were ordered to make ready for inspection, but George noted it was simply to keep them busy. The commander was marched into his own office in front of the quartet, and the door locked behind them.

"Colonel, you may call me Judge Manley. Professor Plimick is my assistant. We will now conduct an examination of your records. Our particular interest concerns first a pair of prisoners I shall name. You will bring up the raw logs from the chain of custody."

It only took two hours to find it all. Roughly a century previously, the technician and the adulteress, among other prisoners, were on board the prison ship. The boat managed to make the crossing without incident, but upon clearing the northeast corner of the western continent, the woman created a disturbance. Apparently she undressed partially. In the chaos, she managed to dive into the sea, followed closely by the technician. They climbed aboard the dinghy and cut loose the line lashing it to the ship, and then maneuvered it right in among the rocks at that location, disappearing in the direction of the shore.

Assuming the pair would not do well without their supplies, the crew decided to resume their journey, taking the other prisoners to their assigned island exiles. Upon returning, they found they could by no means approach, neither gain sight of the area where the pair escaped. In both directions for some distance was this highly unusual rocky buffer holding the ship at least a half-kilometer from the shore. The matter was forgotten, until the ship returned and it was noted some equipment and supplies of the rangers themselves was missing.

A month later, a different ship with a different crew passed the same area, as was the routine for such ships. Nothing was recorded, but the ship returned missing some equipment and the rations were unaccountably short. No action was taken. At first, this sort of thing was random. Monthly voyages on regular rotation would see a small loss with no apparent pattern, but no one bothered to investigate or report. Yet the basic facts of in and out were logged.

This continued until the last voyage, which had returned a week ago. George checked the roster of crew members and ordered those men to assemble in the training yard.

## Chapter 34: Gentle Inquisition

Eight men marched silently out into the yard. They came to halt in neat formation facing George, who waited as if utterly bored. Then he tilted his head to one side, smiled and spoke gently.

"Have a seat boys." They all sat rigidly on the ground. George hiked up his black robes and joined them. Fortis was sitting on a bench with his back against the building. The twins were stationed a couple dozen meters off to either side, arrows nocked on the strings of their longbows, but aimed down, held by one hand.

"Relax." He waited a few seconds. "Anybody married or engaged?" Four hands went up.

He put his left hand over his chin and mouth and stroked for a few seconds. Then opening his hand in invitation said, "How many of you would go home right now if I found a way for you to be relieved of duty properly?"

They didn't respond immediately. "What's it like here, away from home for three years? Ship out the prisoners; bring some back. Two weeks or so going out; the same coming back. Then off a month, then back out again. Holidays, sure, but only if folks come to see you here."

He paused for a few moments. "Yes, duty to your clan and to your planet. Select duty, no less. Automatic promotions."

"I'm going to take it all away." He let that sink in for a moment.

"What makes a man do his duty for three years, such hard duty, such upstanding men guarding us all – then throw it away like this? The Council – your very own sheikhs – ordered me to come here and shake things up. They gave me this fancy robe and said to do whatever I like."

"I'm the last man who wants to put you on those ships as prisoners. But you know? It won't be straight north from here where you've been going all this time. No, we will have those ships going south and around the central continent, to the northern islands thousands of kilometers from here. How long would such a voyage take? I'll bet the trip out is a lot worse than a single month on an island."

A very long pause, as he looked down, resting his chin on the back of his left thumb. Then he began dramatic gestures, drawing his idea in the air. "The other plan I had in mind was to fix this mess by making sure rangers always worked with their own kin. I never liked mixing clans randomly and taking you away from family. I have a wild dream of this island being fully developed, with men rotating on duty with their own clans, family members and so forth." He looked up at his hands in the air in front of his face.

Finally one of the men spoke. "What do you want, Judge?"

He dropped his hands and looked mildly at the man who spoke. Leaning forward, he rested his left hand on his knee, and placed the index finger against his upper temple. "What happens when you pass the rocks on that northeastern shore?"

Somehow, Fortis was not really surprised with the answer. Young men on such duty, and on such a planet as Misty, never faced naked women who offered to exchange their bodies for food and supplies. And it really wasn't hard to convince them to drop their prisoners closer to that area, though they had no idea why. It surely shortened the trip and helped avoid having to explain a day lost, anchored there near the rocks with the lovely young maidens. There were always enough to go around. Not all the men participated, but they all had agreed to remain silent.

Apparently the commander was not aware of this, remaining on the base island his entire tour. His family was there, of course, since his duty was six years. They had their own section of the island. That was not the problem, but that his family was isolated from the clan. Were the entire garrison from the same clan at the same time, there would be precious few shenanigans. Men create an artificial loyalty when the kinship is absent, sharing only the experience of common misery. That also means sharing the secret ways they relieve the misery. But changing that meant changing how rangers were chosen, trained, and so forth. Most of the rangers already felt isolated from the rest of the planet. It would mean assigning each clan to provide themselves a full ranger village, choose an extended household much as a bodyguard was formed. It would mean raising the tax rates just a bit, but with the impending trade, perhaps it would balance out.

Either way, Special Magistrate Manley ordered it so.

He granted a limited amnesty to all the rangers if they would fully cooperate in ending this fiasco. Thus, he ordered a crew to make ready for sailing, and took all volunteers. By the end of the second day, the men were ready.

He had one more task before he removed the black robes.

## Chapter 35: Hidden Home

The Captain was amused to see a half-dozen racing kayaks tied up behind his and the ranger ship. He was much less amused at the idea of crossing the equator. That's not to say he didn't believe his ship could, but didn't like the risk of taking his family into such danger. George shrugged. "Then don't go."

The Captain almost took him up on it, but then decided he would regret that more than any losses doing it. So it was they found this fancy cruise liner skirting the eastern shore of the passage. At some point, the winds would catch the tops of the sails as they edged into the zone where the wind ran down the desert slope to the sea. It wasn't just a cross wind; any sailor could handle that. It was a stiff cross wind with little room for error as the currents and wind together drove them west while they traveled north. If it worked, it would still put them very close to the rocky zone at the northwestern corner of the passage, driven into them by wind and tide.

The ranger ship was narrower, lighter, and without the usual load of prisoners, made it just fine. The bigger ship ended up near the western shore too soon, so the sails were dropped, as were the anchors. With the winds still rather high, the captain turned the ship into the wind. "Now what?" he asked George over the dull roar of the winds. They were just a few meters from dragging bottom at the stern.

Fortis had an idea. "How hard would it be to create a kite big enough to lift a man?"

"Which man?" The Captain and George spoke in unison.

"I'll go," Fortis said, feeling sure he would regret it later. He remembered a popular sport on some worlds called para-sailing. Within an hour, spare sail panels were rigged to a frame with a long thin line on a reel. Fortis climbed up to the top of the bridge cabin and easily caught the wind, suspended below this kite in a makeshift harness. It took a few minutes for him to get the feel of tipping the sails up and down, but he managed to do it reasonably well as they let out the line slowly. He was lifted with good clearance from the rather steep, craggy rise of the shore. Slowly, he drifted up the shore, until eventually he was even with the crest. He turned his neck to see what was behind him. He was stunned by what he saw from his high altitude, just down the shore a couple of kilometers or so where it turned back west. So stunned he changed his mind and signaled to be reeled back down.

He was utterly exhausted by the time he crashed gently just off the rear of the ship into the water. He had come in too far behind the ship and lost the wind. Once they fished him and his kite out of the water, he ignored the wetness in his excitement.

"George! It's a crater. Sometime in the far past of this planet, something struck the surface right at the edge of the land. The rocks along the shore are the debris thrown out by the impact. I caught just a glimpse of the depression with water in it. The whole thing is well below sea level, and I saw the reeds growing in it, I'm sure."

"We thought maybe the southern pole was something like a crater," George agreed.

"Probably so, maybe a vertical strike, but this one is very pronounced, the unmistakable signature of a linear impact crater."

Meanwhile, the Captain didn't want any more silly experiments. He broke out some long poles and had his crew stand on the rear deck. Pushing off, they were able to shift the boat northward just a bit. With a little judicious anchor lifting, they made some slow headway. Taking turns, they moved a few hundred meters before dark.

The next morning, they applied themselves again to the grueling work. The ranger ship remained where it was in safe water, unable to help. However, at some point they saw the big ship was in range, and sent a man over in a kayak.

George first ascertained what was the angle of view when the girls usually showed themselves, then explained the plan to the ranger, who promptly headed back. It was slower progress for him returning against the wind, but not out of reach for a strong rower. Meanwhile, the ship continued slipping slowly sideways along the shore. Finally they were as close as they dared be and stopped.

At dawn, it was the captain himself who manned the reel when Fortis went up with the makeshift kite. He almost missed the first time, but recovered and set himself on top of the cliff with a single step to spare. The landing was solid. Seeing that, the twins manfully joined him. Each taking their own flight, they managed to place themselves, with help from Fortis grabbing whatever part came within reach, on the same spot. They each had water and weapons. Fortis had seen the approach from the table land down to the crater was relatively easy back of the cliff face. They had just a bit more light than the bottom of the crater. As they made their way across the rugged surface and began down the slope, the kayaks from the ranger ship set out. George worked his way along the shore in a kayak alone from the big boat, and then angled around to join the rangers' approach.

Fortis and the twins picked their way down, while the rangers and George threaded their way through the rocks. The latter eventually found a low rock ledge where several battered rafts and reed canoes were pulled up out of the water. George and the rangers worked their way up to the lip of the depression, spread out along the rim, and caught a handful of men by surprise. The rangers with George carried Gauss weapons for this occasion, almost the entire ranger armory. Resistance never really formed. The men were herded together, marched down the side of the deep bowl, and simply sat down on the shore. There were reed huts all along the edge of the bowl. It was quite warm, almost swampy down inside, with almost no wind. George loudly ordered the women to stay inside their huts. His voice carried quite well across the wide bowl.

The eastern end down close to the water line showed extensive mining scars, with glints of light reflecting from exposed silica. Reed ladders and makeshift mining equipment were scattered around. From the narrower end far in the other direction, steam rose from where the water seemed to be boiling up from the ground. There were stacks of reeds up on the rim. Hot springs were not unheard of, but rare on Misty. The waters were not toxic. The bowl was a long slash in the ground, and the waters managed to cool somewhat before reaching the other end.

Finally, someone obviously older than the rest waded around to meet them. The man wore a sleeveless tunic.

"So, you finally found us." His voice was raspy. "I'm called Charley."

George noticed everyone was looking just a bit undernourished.

"Nice place here, Charley. I'm Judge Manley."

"Hooo, a judge, even. Gonna kick us out, Judge? Take us out to exile on the islands? Kill us, even?" Charley was mocking broadly.

"No, Charley, I just wanted to talk."

The old man bent over in rage and yelled. "Talk?! All this just to talk?!"

George remained mild and conversational. "I had to make sure you were listening."

Fortis guessed what he heard next was obscene language, but it was clearly colloquial expressions he didn't recognize. Then Charley snapped, "I guess now I've earned at least a good beatin' for cursing a judge."

"No, nothing like that. I'm just checking out where our rangers' resources were going. Looks like you haven't been getting enough food."

"What do you care?" Then something inside simply died and he slumped, eyes cast down. "Been bad times lately. Our regular supply ship quit showing up. I suppose it didn't help we couldn't produce enough silica to make him happy. We've been hanging on by our fingernails." He pointed at the mining scars, and a small pile of silica on the rim.

"What happened, Charley?"

"Well, to make a long story short, it took everything we had to send my boy Freddie out. He managed to hitch a ride with the supply ship on a load of silica. Took our best glider, some nice clothes and our only real weapon. There's fish out there, and we can eat some of the shoots off the cane growing here. But we used up all our next two loads of silica paying off the price demanded for the risk in helping Freddie sneak into the Bradley Clan. That meant no extra food.

"Back when my granddaddy started here, the silica was all over the ground. All he had to do was pick it up. We eventually had to start digging it out. Now, I reckon you know a few men and a bunch of girls can't mine much silica and do everything else at the same time. That stuff is stuck hard in that ground." Charley's hands said as much as his words. "No, we been enticing some of the prisoners off their islands for some years with the extra food we bought with the silica. Gave `em some good education, too. Taught `em all about democracy and proper organization. Let `em learn to vote. Then we got behind on food after Freddie left. We didn't have any way to persuade them to come work for us. Mine ain't played out; just the miners." He produced an odd, horse laughter, coming in gulps.

"I'm sorry to hear that. You'll be sorry to hear Freddie didn't succeed. He ended up on Johnston Island where you had a few followers among the probates; they were all caught in criminal acts. Now they are all dead, and so is Freddy. Crashed his glider into the sea."

Charley dropped to his knees in the water, blubbering. George waited for him to recover. It took awhile, and the young men moved to comfort him.

By that time, Fortis had come around with the twins, walking along the east rim. They had in custody two more of the skinny men dressed like Charley. They stopped a few meters from the scene. "Looks like hot water comes in from a spring in the west, drifts across the bowl, then drains back into the ground in the deepest part of the crater here," pointing behind him where the bank was steeper. "Probably struck the planet from the west, which stands to reason, cutting against the direction of rotation. This crater was once far deeper, so a lot of deep material was plowed up."

Charley finally regained a measure of composure. "So what you going to do with us now?"

George looked back at him. "Your only real advantage was secrecy, and that's gone now. And you can't teach any more democracy nonsense" – Charley's eyes glared at the choice of words – "but just to make sure, we are going to order all shipping to avoid this area. We'll move prisoner operations to the ranger base over on the other side of this continent and double up on the number of islands out there for detention."

"What about food? You gonna leave us here to starve?" Charley was angry, if powerless.

George remained utterly calm. "You could trade. Not just silica, which you could contract out easily, and at a fairer rate than you got in the past, but the reeds. I see you have here a natural heat-treating plant. Like every other woody product on Misty, it hardens that way. Very nice."

George rose to his feet. "I could even declare you folks a clan, give you full rights and all." Charley had just a hint of hope in his eyes. "But you'll have to adopt our way of life. You'll have to understand why we don't tolerate democracy, capitalism, militarism, centralized government, and everything that goes with it. You can join us and be a part of the community, or you can rot here in the middle of nowhere."

"That's blackmail!" Charley growled.

"Maybe. It's also not democracy. You can be Sheikh of Northland, or you can be Starving Charley. You can train your girls to be respectable wives instead of prostitutes, marry them to men who will come and stay. We'll send you whatever you need, but you'll have to learn more than just a brief period of history on Terra. You'll need to learn the whole history of mankind so you'll understand why democracy was a lie from the first."

George started walking away, as the others followed. Charley began blubbering again. George turned back, "We'll send someone back in a couple of weeks to see what you think about it."

They signaled the ranger ship to come closer and start picking them up.

Eventually the bigger ship caught a random helpful current and managed to pull away from the shore. The rangers towed extra kayaks out for Fortis and the twins. They also ran some food back into Charley's clan, then turned their lighter ship to follow the bigger one in the currents which took them north. By the end of the day, they had circled back around to the far side of the narrow sea between the two continents, and anchored for the night. The next morning, southbound through the gap, they made it on the first try, clearing the harsh winds of the channel before the opposing shore closed in on them.

## Chapter 36: Loose Ends

Fortis finally got to see a message bird. It came low across the water, surprisingly fast. In front of the harbor house it tipped upward, stalled, then simply dropped slowly to the ground. The Harbor Master walked with George over to retrieve it. George pressed his pocket device to a tiny thick spot in the fabric. It took only a couple of seconds to synchronize the data, and then upload various judicial decisions.

They sat on the dock of Clan Bradley's main harbor, having arrived with the warrant for Charley's supplier three days before. The man had quickly admitted his family's role in shipping the silica in exchange for food and supplies. He also showed them the small shop which made the tiny cylinders, with the homemade rig for fracturing water using ancient salvaged scrap metal. There was a compressor which had required two modified wind turbines. He had it engineered and built it all within his own household, using profits from the silica trade. He admitted charging far more than was fair. After turning over all his logs, George had calculated the tonnage and compared with other known shipping data. After conferring with Sheikh Bradley, it was decided the man would continue the shipments, but be assessed a much higher rate until someone else took over the franchise. Keeping the silica flowing was more important than punishment.

The updated report on this day confirmed George's suspicions. Charley's clan got together and simply voted him out of office for refusing to give into their desire to join civilization. Stories were a bit confused, but near as the rangers could determine, Charley was the grandson of the original technician. He had killed off several cousins and uncles and resented the necessity of enticing rangers and other prisoners to prevent too much inbreeding. The few surviving men in his household were those who didn't challenge his rule – so much for his devotion to democratic government. After deposing Charley, they all decided to leave and enjoy the relatively light service as probationers preparing to covenant with other clans. Two large households volunteered to explore the possibility of occupying the crater area. While living initially on houseboats, they had already created a harbor which gave access to a slender grassy shelf just west of the area.

The ranger station became a prison colony while the ranger operation was reformed. With the other changes, they would soon continue prisoner detention in the same vicinity as before, but farther from the crater. Several commanders from different clans were preparing to meet and reorganize in light of the recommendations George made about keeping families together, and creating ranger households. This had delayed them almost a month on the ranger station, overseeing the transition. The twins were made ranger captains, and sent home with their new wives to organize a ranger household. The Farrells were mostly hunters already.

Finally, a large number of former prisoners infected with the democracy heresies were offered a chance to volunteer for staffing the new Johnston Foreign Service Academy, which was next door to the religion school at Johnston Island. The classes in religion were free and mandatory as part of the deal for them.

George had advised Fortis to also make a copy from the bird and begin learning how to make use of the data exchange with his relatively new device. As he scanned the various notices, George's face went white, then slightly red. A scowl slowly set in on his features. Then he groaned and turned away, dropping his device down to his side.

Fortis looked up. Seeing this display from George, he scanned quickly through the documents. Then he saw it. The sheikhs had long ago set up the provisions for activating the Special Magistrate office. They had attached to it a proviso for making the office permanent if the space port was ever opened again to trade. George had been ordered to retain the vestments and prepare to establish a space port on the pole. He was given the status of a sheikh, and his relatives were invited to join him in building several permanent structures for the port. As a quasi-clan, their colors would be the black and white he already wore. The other sheikhs had drawn up an advance agreement to support the space port through increased taxation from whatever trade concessions they had gained.

"Don't like the pole much, George?"

"You know better than that. All I ever wanted was to go home and regain my duties as village elder."

"We won't be very far from each other. Just three weeks of sailing," Fortis offered.

"That's probably the only light in my personal darkness right now, my dear friend. Space Port Master! Sheikh!" He groaned more loudly and dropped his face into his free hand. "The space ships have already begun arriving. I have to leave right away to get it all under control."

"And I have to finish the recruiting mission alone." Fortis tried to look unhappy, but he was frankly glad George had been chosen.

George looked up and put on a fatherly face. "My friend, you need to seriously consider accepting the next plausible marriage offer. You will never make it without that support. Just trust the Lord and plunge in, because it will work out just the same as everything else. Given God's sense of humor," rolling his eyes, "you'll end up with a huge family."

They both laughed heartily.

## Part 4 - End Game

## Chapter 37: Hope and Frustration

In every generation there would always be one or two – someone who was born with exceptional intelligence, some unique talent, something which set them apart from the norm. In this generation, it was some peculiar genius no one expected, so it went almost unnoticed. That is, until he was approaching early adulthood.

His particular gift was a piercing insight, a powerful sense of what had to be. No one knew if they should call it intuition, because it seemed too fast even for that. Rather, his gift manifested itself as precocious maturity. It was as if he suffered very little of the wishful thinking, the fantasies and myths, common to children. Very early he could adapt quite effectively to changes in his environment. On the other hand, he certainly was capable of playfulness. And while he had no trouble giving himself to the games of children around him, they always treated him as a small adult.

His father had been a simple farmer who managed to win the hand of a very well educated wife. No great beauty was she, but devoted and well positioned to bestow upon her son a wealth of education. So while all children on Misty learned first at home, and were generally examined in their teens by the local village, town or district level for possible further education, this one confounded his examiners. Not just by his maturity, but it was his ability to converse and reveal a wide acquaintance with far more than many students who had already attended advanced academies away from home.

That very year, his father was killed by a predator in the field. The tragedy delayed any decisions on his further education. First, his mother ceded her husband's property to his brothers. Then she took a job writing technical documentation for the local research plant for computer electronics. Her writing skill brought her notice, then advancement, finally being hired away to the sheik's court, writing many of the reports and collating information for the messenger bird network.

Her son continued his education via exposure to this traffic. He was fully aware of the Special Magistrate's decisions, and the establishment of the South Pole Space Port. Port Master Manley was quickly famous across Misty. So, too, was the fame of his friend, Professor Plimick. The boy had seen their visit the first time, just over a year ago. He had heard the Professor planned to return, and was hoping to meet him.

His reasons were many, but chief among them was his deep desire to see his mother married again. Technically, the duty fell to him, though traditionally he would have yielded to older male relatives. None of them believed him when he insisted his mother was the perfect wife for the professor, who was soon to begin training the first class of foreign service students on Johnston Island. So he was determined to present his case, should the famous professor return as he had promised. He had heard the man accepted none of the marriage offers on the rest of the planet, but he realized the news would be a few weeks behind, at least.

Then, to his deep chagrin, his mother was granted a long delayed vacation to see her relatives on the northern side of the island. It broke his heart, because he felt certain this might have been decided in part to prevent him being in the city when the professor was expected to return. He spent many days at the northern port, out at the end of the dock, watching the sea birds dive and splash. He prayed.

## Chapter 38: Rushing to the End

Fortis had finished the recruiting tour alone. The Twins were deeply involved in ranger reforms; George was trying to restore some order to the already chaotic trade situation at the polar space port. The Captain seemed ready to get it over with, so Fortis simply made all the official visits, quickly whittled down the candidates, and traveled lightly and quickly between the clans. It was done early. Only the Captain's reminder of his promise to revisit Clan Nadul, as a social obligation, made him agree to the delay.

Nor had he taken George's advice to accept any of the marriage proposals. For reasons he could not have explained, none of them seemed right. Indeed, half of them were simply implausible, with girls far too young for his comfort. He was too wrapped up in planning his first classes, since George was no longer available to help address what really mattered. So he convinced the Captain to stop at the nearest point of contact with Nadul, which turned out to be the northern port. Since the capital city was pretty much the center of the island, it wouldn't matter where they landed. He hoped he could quickly arrange a courser and would simply ride to the capital the same day they landed.

The Captain indulged him by running low on food and other consumables, with plans to re-supply at Nadul. Fortis was almost angry when the anchorage for the night was still a few kilometers off the island. The next morning, he bit his tongue to keep from having words with the crew over what he felt was the slow pace of preparations as dawn approached. This was Misty, after all, where the pace of life was glacial itself. So he stood on the stern deck with his mug of tea and tried to reason with the unreasonable urge within to rush, rush, rush. It was almost a force of will to pray. Finding himself alone, he decided to pray aloud.

At first, his words were mere ritual. Then, something in his mind recalled a lesson from the religion professors at the academy: "When logic runs, the spirit crawls backward." There was no native image of roaring storms on Misty, but the emotional turmoil he felt was completely out of character. He forced himself to stay facing the rear, not allowing himself to check on the progress of affairs with the crew. Not only was it still too dark to see the approach to Nadul Island, but he needed the self-discipline to help recover some sanity.

So it came as a surprise when the ship began to slow, and he heard the sound of the water brakes. He felt at least somewhat in control of himself when finally he saw the end of the dock creep around to the port side of the ship, now on his right. Picking up his travel kit, he was almost on the dock before he noticed the figure standing there with a hand extended to help him up.

"Good morning, noble Professor Plimick." The young man bowed, touching one knee to the wood surface.

Something died inside Fortis, something which didn't belong. Then, a bit of humor took its place. "So, at least we don't have to worry about formal introductions."

"Please, Sir. You cannot imagine what an unspeakable surprise this is to me. I am at a loss for words. The very face I have longed to see is now catching the first glow of dawn before me." The young man still knelt with his head bowed.

Fortis smiled. "I wish I could speak so well when words failed me. Rise. Explain why it is so important you see me."

The young man rose. A very young man indeed, it seemed, but Fortis wasn't sure, as many Nadul folk appeared young to his eyes. "Please forgive me for daring to delay your business here. I have no standing to speak at all. Yet, if I do not speak, I should think it would bring great disaster to us all."

Fortis recalled wistfully he had declined an armed escort from the Captain, and was about to reconsider. "Is there some danger?"

The young man pressed his palms together in front of him. "Not in the immediate sense of threat from dangerous men here, Sir. At least, none of which I am aware. I speak of a much larger sense of danger. Your mission on Misty is well known. You came to study, and stayed to be a part of us for a time. You are about to embark upon a time of preparing some of our people for meeting the wider galaxy of humanity."

Fortis was surprised such a young fellow seemed to know so much about these things.

The boy continued. "More importantly, you must prepare their souls for the wrenching experience of facing a very fast-paced existence. But most importantly of all, they must be ready to answer why we are so very, very different from everyone else across the galaxy. Do we not hope they will carry with them the peace of Misty, the serenity of souls at rest in truth?"

Now Fortis carried an altogether new fear. George had mentioned the necessity of sending out emissaries to the stars to rekindle the ways of mysticism, that humanity would be lost without it. He had never been quite sure how that would shape his plans, neither how it would fit into a curriculum, but knew it had to be there somehow.

"Sir, I propose to bring alongside you such help as might lighten the load you bear."

Fortis cocked his head to one side. "You're doing a very good job of talking about it. Are you offering your services?"

The young man almost danced with glee. "Oh, Sir! Would that I could! It is not our way on Misty for me to leave my mother. She is a widow, and I the only child."

Fortis still had not quite caught on. "So, would you suggest I hire her? What skills of hers might justify that?"

The boy grinned. "It is not at all boasting for me to tell you she is one of the best writers. You yourself surely read her work, as she is the primary scribe for the bird traffic here in Clan Nadul. She began as technology writer for the computer research labs here."

If the boy was boasting, it would be easy enough to disprove, since Fortis still planned to see the Sheik. "That might prove useful. I could surely use a very skilled secretary."

The boy smiled, as if at some secret joke. "You could not hire her from the Sheik. He would fight to keep her."

Fortis still did not see it. "Then why are you telling me about her?"

The boy bowed again from the shoulders. "If I may be so bold, noble Sir – you could marry her."

## Chapter 39: Casting Seeds

The noise of the stevedores calling to the crew behind Fortis served notice it was time to seek breakfast. On this northern port of Nadul, there was a village directly behind the harbor facilities. "So, young man, where could a weary traveler find breakfast? There are other things we need to discuss before we talk about arranging marriages."

"Come this way, Sir. We have a wonderful tea tent just ahead." The young man grabbed Fortis' bag and began walking up the long dock. On the way, he greeted the harbor crew with cheerful and respectful familiarity.

Fortis had learned if he pretended not to notice them as they passed, only those workers who really needed to address him would do so. While uncomfortable with it, this prevented the social obligations from interfering with their work. Besides, the young man set a vigorous pace.

But while winded when they arrived, Fortis felt the exercise did him good. This was a fairly large tea tent. The boy was waiting at the large opening, and Fortis spotted a couple of screened private tables. He headed directly for one of them. It was already half busy, and his presence drew notice. Playing at the regal VIP was difficult, but he understood the utter necessity or things would never get done. By the time he was comfortably seated, the young man had deposited his baggage in another chair and ran to get service. He returned a short time later with a mug of tea.

"Have you had breakfast? I want you to sit with me and tell me more about the spirit of Misty," Fortis said, pointing to an empty seat.

The young man seemed almost embarrassed, even as he was delighted. "Thank you, Sir. I will join you." With another quick bow, he took the seat.

Fortis then asked, "What shall I call you?"

"Sir, my name is Samir."

As with every tea tent, servers brought whatever was cooked for that day. No sooner had the young man settled himself when two young ladies began bringing dishes of food, a pot with more tea, and a second cup. While Fortis had sampled the unique fair of Nadul on the first visit, this time it was quite different. Apparently the island was its own microcosm of cosmopolitan variety even within the cloistered world of Misty.

Though different, it was all to his liking, Fortis decided. After they had eaten a bit in silence, he asked, "My friend, Port Master Manley, once spoke of a mission to seed the human race once more with mysticism. What do you make of that?"

The young man set down his eating utensils before he spoke. "Sir, you know we live only that we may be salt and light." He paused.

Fortis recognized the phrase from his religion lessons at Johnston.

He went on. "Those are symbols. The first indicates our presence makes humanity tolerable to God. Just a tiny pinch of salt makes most food better to the taste. There could never be many of us, but it really doesn't take much. That we are light also continues the thought. We are the living revelation of God's message to humanity. If we do not bring that message, they will not know – cannot know – what God demands for the lower level, much less the higher level."

Fortis recognized the notion, but had not heard it put quite like that. "The earthly covenant points the way to the heavenly. How would trade embassies reach enough of the populations where they go?"

"In due time, the people would come to them." Samir seemed so utterly certain. Was it blind faith?

"What would draw them? Why would they seek trade offices from some obscure planet?"

"Sir, the galaxy has long been without peace, and without a peaceful people. You know we had no intention of restricting ourselves to a single monopoly trading partner this time. Rather, Port Master Manley is the focal point of monopoly on our behalf. He will wrest a far greater rate of exchange with the massively wealthy corporate banking and arms dealers who always survive wars. They will be seeking to expend their profits quickly on valuable luxury goods. Ours remain unique, because no one else has been forced to do so much with natural materials as we."

Fortis noted Samir was building up to something. Apparently the young man had discussed this with others, and Fortis guessed he had not been taken seriously.

Gesturing gently with his hands, "Sir, there will be many in the entourage of wealthy traders who are trend setters, and a few will genuinely fall in love with what we have here. A great many others will indulge it as a fad. Then, it will cascade down to the masses as fashion. In no time, having among your acquaintances a citizen of Misty will be like dropping the names of the most elite in the galaxy."

Fortis realized this was entirely plausible. "So out of the vast ocean of faddists, we can expect to reap a small growth of genuine mystics. Then what? The fad will fade all too soon."

A strange look of sadness mixed with joy crossed Samir's face. "The seed will not sprout fully until it first dies. They will come and destroy Misty."

Fortis thought on this for a moment. "Figurative or literal destruction? They will most certainly try to gain control and corrupt the culture and government here. I suspect they would fail, at least for quite some time."

Samir added, "What they cannot own, they destroy, often literally. Mankind is desperately wicked, needing only power and wealth to throw off caution. I fear the planet will be destroyed, though I cannot imagine how."

Something caused Fortis to remember the crater, but since he could not logically connect it to their conversation, he dismissed the image from his mind. He signaled to the man behind the counter, who came over and bowed from the shoulders. By now, Fortis understood how to display his authorization from the Council, as the proprietor simply noted the reference to the letter as credit for taxes and so forth. Before Fortis could stand, Samir was up and holding his baggage.

## Chapter 40: Proposal

As they walked out into the main plaza of the village, Fortis stopped and planted his feet, arms crossed and faced Samir. "I find it utterly repugnant that someone would be pressured to marry me without having some idea what she is up against, and have a chance to veto. The only reason I even consider your offer is because, while I can always find another secretary, there is only one other person on this planet whose wisdom I would trust as much as yours. And he is no longer available to me."

Samir bowed low. "By whatever means necessary, Sir, I would have persisted. I am the last to pretend I could have any great part in the things ahead, but I could not simply forget the deep burden of sorrow in my heart for what I see coming to Misty. That destruction will come cannot be avoided. What beckons those hideous forces is the one thing we must preserve and propagate. Striking us will only scatter what threatens them to more places, until they are surrounded. The lamp of truth cannot be put out until the End of All Things. We fail only if we do not try."

Fortis decided he would pay almost any price to be reminded of that often. "So how do we proceed? What is the custom here?"

Samir escorted him to a public bench, asking him to wait a short time. Then the boy trotted off down the street. Fortis gave himself to what Samir had said was coming. Something inside him had embraced it even as the young man spoke, as if he had simply recognized something inherent in all he had learned up to that moment. Suddenly, there was no real hurry, yet there was an urgency of a completely different kind.

It was the same as everything else on Misty, formality and simplicity in a mixture he could never predict. Samir returned a few minutes later and asked him to follow. The main street wound through tents which, though rather neatly lined up, still followed a somewhat winding course parallel to the coast. One turn inland and a few tents down, the young man stopped. "In honor of your wishes, I ask you to wait here a moment." Samir stepped into the tent.

Fortis could hear some discussion inside, then the curtain across the door parted a moment, but not enough for him to see inside. Having learned the dramatic regal bearing which was expected, Fortis stood waiting with his arms across his chest. There was more hurried discussion inside, and Fortis gathered Samir was no longer the only one surprised to see him. Finally, the boy returned.

"Sir, she has echoed your scruples, and wishes you the opportunity to reject her, as well. Will you come inside?" He stood with the curtain held back.

Fortis played the role and stepped inside, and took two paces. He found himself in a vestibule separated from the rest of the ten by a wall sewn into the tent. She stepped out through an opening. It was not some magic moment. Her appearance was fairly ordinary, with long dark hair, a relatively short stature, and slender figure. Naturally, her eyes were cast down, because under these circumstances, only a prostitute would look him in the eye.

Searching internally, he saw no reason to object. If any portion of what Samir had said was true, there was little time to waste over story book romance. "My name is Fortis Plimick. What do they call you?"

It was barely audible. "Kalila."

Fortis looked at Samir, who motioned a question, then pointed at himself. In his best authoritative voice, Fortis said, "I accept the offer."

Wide in shock, her eyes met his for just a few seconds. Then several people came spilling out of the inner room, as they milled around and decorated Kalila with some lacy fabric. Samir walked over to Fortis. "Because we are not at our home, there is little else to do but travel to the city and let the Sheik know he has lost a servant. He will protest relative to how much he values her service. Then he will send you both away with gifts."

Fortis replied, "Given what we have discussed, I would say we have no time to waste – Son." Samir flushed and grinned. Fortis went on, "Where do we get some transportation?"

## Chapter 41: Back to School

It was as if everyone simply stepped into their new roles without transition. They were husband and wife, with a nearly grown son, heading off to Nadul City on a fast wagon trip. Actually, it was the same rig and animals Kalila had borrowed for the vacation, now cut short by a few days. She offered not the slightest objection or hesitation, just looked at Fortis with adoring eyes and jumped into his world with both feet.

The Sheik was caught off guard completely. Fortis doubted the grousing about stealing an important servant was entirely formality, and wondered if he would be allowed to leave with her. Eventually, the scene ended and they were preparing to pack those few things she was interested in taking to her new life. She sent Samir to fetch in various neighbors to whom she gave various parts of her accumulated goods. Among the gifts carted to the door from the Sheik were precisely the things they would need for their journey, and little more. This included a travel tent and lightweight furnishings. They were, of course, in the blue and tan colors of Nadul.

The Captain groused on a little at loading the extra baggage when Fortis finally returned to the ship. This time, Fortis knew it was all good natured, because the Captain winked before climbing to his bridge. Taking advantage of the voyage time to Johnston Island, the trio discussed the work of opening an academy and writing a curriculum. What Fortis already had was now revised greatly. Kalila hardly argued with her son's thesis. Fortis found himself slightly confused by the odd feeling of wondering, on the one hand, how he got along without them, and on the other hand, how it seemed there was no transition at all. It was not just instant family, but instant partnership.

When at last they bid the Captain and his crew farewell, Fortis was looking forward to seeing their new home in Johnston City. At his request, the Council funded and Sheik Johnston built an all-wood structure with quite a large number of rooms for housing. His explanation for not having his students stay in tents, as most of the religion students did just a short distance away, was to prepare them for living in the rest of the galaxy. Fortis knew of no other planet where tents were the norm.

It had been a year and five months since parting from his friend. George had been at the pole most of that time. Whatever he had negotiated bore significant fruit. Already Fortis was seeing message birds with reed-stiffened wings, and even a few with tiny motors. A new class of batteries was shipping, along with prepackaged wind chargers. One trading applicant as a free offer had placed a permanent satellite in orbit, and four birds to fly up and dock with it. George had emphasized communications first, and then began with the heavier machinery. Johnston Island had already installed high capacity wind generators in the city, one attached to the new Foreign Service Academy.

Fortis was almost in shock, standing in his apartment, attached to the back side of the four-story building. Several modern conveniences he had not seen in over two years awaited him, with the power to run them. "This is the beginning of the end, Son." Samir agreed silently. Once Kalila absorbed the situation, she went to work making it home.

There were several messages from George waiting. It's not as if he had forgotten the new birds traveled faster than Fortis could reply. Rather, each was an update on the situation. The various trade deals and feelers for embassies were mounting quickly, but the one thing which caught his attention was the notice a small colony of "seekers" had set up, paying a premium for authentic tents outside the official Port facilities, with their own electric fence and the older light-sensitive charging system. At first, George was delighted with teaching religious mysticism, but it quickly became too great a burden. He had already called for and brought in a few religion professors, mostly out of retirement. Naturally, Fortis showed this to his wife and son.

They all stopped and prayed together in a small circle.

Fortis composed a condensed version of Samir's warning, had Kalila transcribe it, and sent it on one of the new fast birds, along with a summary of events.

The new students began arriving the next week.

## Chapter 42: Buying Time

It was to become the standard introductory lecture.

"You were warned before: Most of you will never make it back home to Misty. You must take Misty with you.

"Business and trade here on Misty will never proceed in a hurry. Wherever you go as trade ambassadors, do not allow anyone to create for you an atmosphere of dizzying rapid changes. Do not attempt to adapt yourself. If they want what we have, they must slow down to our pace once they get here. They must become acquainted with that pace through your services there.

"Recognize and make room for their ways of doing things on their turf. Nothing you do can change them, but your whole mission is to expose them to our ways. Trade is simply how we get their attention. Once in place, bring your world with you. Where you are, Misty is. We should expect Misty to outlive us, even if Misty as a physical reality is destroyed. Misty is how humanity should live, not because we are better than they, but because our centuries of peace and stability are the showcase of life lived God's way.

"We do not demand arrogantly anyone follow this way. We simply show it, offer it to those who feel drawn. Any part of Misty they can use, allow them take it and make it their own. The very nature of Misty is loving sacrifice, not control."

It was most important that the future ambassadors be deeply committed before they understood what they would face.

"You can memorize these lectures, know beyond all doubt what they mean, but if the words and ideas are all you know, I have failed. The words and ideas simply represent things for which there are no words. But this is what we have to work with, so I will provide for you a short list of concepts which must color all our studies, and continue to color your whole existence throughout the future.

"You must be transparent at all times. It matters not a whit what they hide, mask, emulate, or show. Find out what passes for brutal honesty in their culture and live there. Never step outside it for any reason, or you cease of have any reason for being there.

"Their needs, relative to what we can provide, must remain your ostensible mission. If they do not get the sense we care, we have nothing to offer. Cultivate business contacts on the basis of what you can do for them.

"At the same time, you have absolutely no control over the results. You go with a mandate to offer only what we have. There is no need for negotiating anything, because there are no exceptions for anyone. The only question is relative exchange value. If they cannot meet a certain minimum, you cannot help them. If you go and offer our best, you cannot possibly fail."

He had encouraged his wife and son to adopt the students as distant cousins, to make them feel at home. He was particularly interested in seeing Samir's character rub off on them, and to hear his predictions. If anyone became uncomfortable with it, they were given time to adjust. If they could not, they were allowed to go home. Until they passed the initial test of shock, the details of the broader galactic culture and laws would mean little.

By now, the new message birds made the round trip to the pole in less than a week. George backed Samir's expectations. The colony of seekers were at first content to absorb the slow pace of life, and learn first hand what mattered most to folks on Misty. Some got it, and returned home with a fresh other-worldly perspective. They knew it hardly mattered where your body resided, what mattered was whether your spirit lived. That they had previously been the cutting edge of their respective cultures gave them leverage to share the message.

As time went on, though, the groups were larger, and less pure in their motives. Natural to Misty's teachers was the ability to discern and cull the herd, as it were, to ensure those who were open got what they came for, while the rest were fed a strict diet of religious law. It was the best they could do. Knowing there would arise a cultic false version did not justify purging the seekers of those so minded. In due time, they separated themselves. A precious few were allowed to graduate and visit Johnston Island.

They paid their way, as it were, by guest lecturing on whatever suited them before the Foreign Service classes. It always provided Fortis with a depth and a chance to show how such things could be evaluated. But truly, seeing Johnston Island was so very much like seeing the rest of Misty, it was as far as they were ever allowed. A short stay, and then it was back to the Polar Space Port.

George established flexible policies as things developed. So it was with Fortis graduating his students: Some were ready early, and some took longer. So at about the same time the first few graduates embarked as passengers on ships returning to their new homes as trade consuls, it became necessary to restrict travel for off-worlders. Several science missions had come to evaluate what made energy fields fail on Misty. The results were inconclusive as to why, but simply confirmed it with solid, consistent experimental evidence.

So as more and better equipment was being designed to work for sale on Misty, so were the technologies for travel. That is, some proposed to bring aircraft too expensive for trade, but for their own use in facilitating contacts on Misty. Even after being warned, some brought them anyway. George had to threaten armed force more than once, and only superior numbers against the small bodyguard allowed prevented worse trouble. It was only the necessity of using smaller ships to land in the limited space, to actually have a chance to trade, which kept some from bringing troop ships to force things. Plus, the activity created enough of a scent to draw the predators. Apparently swimming from island to island, they were now fairly numerous outside the port fence.

George had known all along it was only a matter of time. Something had warned him even before Samir's message came, which simply put into words what his spirit knew. He did his best to slow the approach of trouble, not because he had any hope of stopping it, but to give Fortis ample time to plant the seeds of truth in enough fertile minds to ensure the ultimate mission of Misty would continue.

Meanwhile, the message birds quickly spread the need to anticipate efforts by the off-world traders to corrupt Misty. The Council quickly agreed nothing could be called an improvement if it compromised the nature of their existence.

## Chapter 43: Not What One Might Expect

The first infiltrator stowed away in an equipment crate. Upon arriving at the port of destination, he was found when the stevedores opened the crate which was too big to fit on any wagons. He was held at the harbor, then returned on the next ship to the Pole.

The next three were caught each a little farther along their path, as they gained better understanding of life on Misty. Each was caught simply because they were forced to lie, and were caught at it. It's not as if people on Misty didn't deceive each other at times, but there was no room in the culture for winning that way. The social penalties were too excessive. It was apparently the hardest lesson for the traders to learn.

Eventually, they caught on, and managed to avoid any confrontations with citizens until they were near their targets. At first, it was simply trying to gain a confederate in any of the clans who would work with them on bypassing George's controls. When the first few offers were rejected, and no terms seemed sweet enough to tempt their targets, there was a lull in the espionage for a time.

Eventually the efforts shifted mostly to seeking direct access to resources and to the technology. However, whatever it was making energy fields fail on Misty was somehow related to how the technologies worked, and most copies made off-world from Misty were easily spotted as imitations. When one fellow managed to spirit out a small load of cut wood, and attempted to apply heat, moisture and pressure as was done on Misty, the result was pulp, not something nearly as hard as iron. Then came the ships attempting to land on the isolated northern islands. But this was dicey at best, requiring craft with extensive chemical-based maneuver capabilities, and almost no spot they landed was large enough to establish facilities.

When the rangers discovered the remnants of a couple of failed efforts, George – indeed, the whole Council of Sheiks – wondered how much longer things would hold up. The culture and laws were resilient enough, and with the forced primitive conditions which made Misty such a perfect home for them, things were going quite well. The magnitude of what they had to trade, and how much they could use in exchange, limited the possibilities. The traders were not the problem.

The final threat came to life almost unnoticed. Kalila spotted a small notice within the hyperspace radio traffic. It was a fragment using terminology she had not seen before. She asked Fortis about it, and he almost dismissed it. Then something clicked.

"It's a debate invitation. Some religious philosophy group is hosting a debate not too far from here, in terms of space travel. Now I remember them. Nasty bunch, because they talk about peace, but it's just a code word for crushing any thing which smacks of dissent. They are just about as opposite from us as can be, because they cling to serious legalism. They proclaim something which sounds like mysticism, but is in disguise entirely rational and logical. They were outlawed several times in different parts of the galaxy because they spawned fascist movements. I thought they were gone. Keep an eye on this."

He consulted his spooler, then gave her a list of terms and names likely to be connected. That night he had a long discussion with Samir.

"You know, Son, we've seen the energy weapons continue to fail here. We've seen the scientists puzzle over what causes it, and not yet find out. Do you suppose they'll ever get past that?"

Samir thought for a moment. "For now, I feel certain God Himself is doing it. That's not meant to be simplistic dodge, but I honestly believe it's an ongoing miracle."

Fortis, looked down a moment, then raised his head, cocked it to one side. "Let's build on that as a fact. Science will not get past the failure of energy fields here. Nothing we have in material terms justifies an invasion, so training troops in the use of weapons which work here would not be worth it. What would be worth it?"

"False religion."

"So if some crazy madman gets stirred up by demon gods, what could he do to attack us? How could we be threatened?"

"It's must a matter of physics. Something small and fast, or really big at just about any speed, and it will work here. We've had people in the past build catapults, didn't we?"

Fortis froze. The image of the crater came to his mind again.

## Chapter 44: Arrival

_Urgent message to Port Master Manley, from Professor Plimick._

Death and destruction are very near. There is a way to attack Misty, and there is a motive. We need to discuss possible evacuation for those so inclined.

It had been some five years since Samir had last traveled. That had been the start of his new life as the adopted son of Fortis. Now his heart was sad, as he bore a dark mission. While it held the promise of yet another new life, it meant leaving the magnificent cocoon that was Misty, and facing danger no one could imagine.

He was very relieved when Master Manley himself met his ship at the dock on Pole Island. The parallels were too fitting. He dropped to one knee, but was immediately lifted by a George still vigorous, and hugged warmly. "So, I finally get to meet the son of Fortis! Welcome, Samir."

"Forgive me, Sir, but I cannot let this wait another moment." He produced his pocket computer, displaying the summary of the documents and notes from his father.

George cradled in his hands and read as he led the way toward the Space Port facilities. Samir tried not to notice the armed guards and their Gauss rifles.

Once they reached his office, George had just finished the summary. Looking up, he said, "This fascist cult planet is practically next door. Obviously they have managed to infiltrate their agents into the seekers compound. I wondered why there was a recent revival of interest, when the initial buzz had finally died away. That would explain the notice which arrived today."

High level trade documents and treaties were usually burned into a type of plastic sheet which, once finalized, could not be altered without obvious signs of tampering. This one demanded Misty recant of the mystical elements, and stick to the law portions of their religion. It came from the star system which claimed sovereignty over the local sector of the galaxy. Naturally, that sector held mostly empty star systems, a field of gas and dust clouds, and two inhabited planets: theirs and Misty.

No one was disputing these claims, for obvious reasons. The fascists had made enough deals with enough bankers and such to ensure nary a peep. Now that Misty's luxury goods were no longer a novelty, and efforts to duplicate proved fruitless, and the supply was pretty much permanently limited, the traders had moved on to other growing markets. This other planet had managed to negotiate serving as proxies for just about every trade partner, and those would come into force within a year.

Naturally, Misty would submit to changes in trade, but not the other matters. Someone would eventually come back for an answer, and George had no intention of hiding anything. Nor did he need to seek permission from the Council, which had already agreed on this long ago.

Clearly, the question was not whether they would be attacked, but when. Then, it was a matter how quickly the attack would come, and whether the fascists could muster the resources to finish them off. Given the situation, George agreed with Fortis it would probably be quick and total, once it began.

"Does your father plan to evacuate, Samir?"

"For obvious reasons, he is willing to stay. So it is with my mother and me." Samir's eyes were shining.

"I advise you to all to go, you and anyone else who feels called to it. There will be plenty of death; Misty will soon be no more. A general evacuation is simply not possible. Frankly, the fascists will do all they can to prevent it many of us escaping."

George turned and faced out the window. From time to time, ships would simply appear or disappear. Their numbers were smaller these days, but their size remained substantial. He was owed some favors and it was time to call them in, but time was short.

"I'm going to make sure the whole planet knows what is coming. We don't have secrets here on Misty. Time and resources alone will decide who leaves, once people have searched their own hearts." George was reaching for a message composer.

"Is it not odd, those most likely to stay are the ones we would like to go?" Samir smiled gently.

"You'll be staying with me until your parents arrive, I'm sure. Would you like the meet some of the seekers? I'm sure they would benefit from talking with you!" George ordered an attendant to escort Samir to the compound.

It took Fortis a month to close down the academy. He sailed with the last group of graduates. Upon arriving at Pole Island, he was surprised at how few citizens of Misty were evacuating. George had managed to find berths and even a few jobs for some of the evacuees with the shipping lines. The graduates had their assignments, and Fortis had his old position still open and reaffirmed each year so far. George had no plans to go.

There were no grand speeches, no rituals, just a quiet activity of moving those who wanted to leave. People went in groups or individually to make the best of whatever future they found scattered across the galaxy. No official census, but lists of accumulated contacts were sent back by ship. Once out of the cloudy envelope, communications were almost always instantaneous across the far reaches of human space. Misty was now out there, as well as here.

Just a few weeks later, Fortis was finally settling into what was now an utterly alien world, the place whence he came to Misty. He could only imagine what it was like for Kalila. Samir had always been in his own world, one larger than everyone else's version. It was both with amusement and sympathetic sorrow he regarded his adopted son's new nickname: Misty Messiah.

While it was obvious Samir hated the nickname, he nonetheless took full advantage of it. In no time he buried himself in a broad array of cultural, artistic and academic partnerships, spreading the message of Misty. One of the Foreign Service students wrote back, offering the estimate Samir's fingers touched more places than all the other survivors of Misty together. Fortis knew there would be no way any human could prove nor disprove it.

It was all he could do, paying attention to his own imperatives. True to his promise to every student, his first mission in his old job was ambassador for Misty. It was Fortis himself who wrote the official epitaph for his Anthropology Department texts.

Excerpt from the entry on "Dalorius Four (Misty)."

"When the fascist government of [...] learned the inhabitants were unwilling to conform, they wasted no time in using the only weapon of attack which would work. Large mining ships with tractor fields towed random chunks of space debris into the gravity well of Dalorius, since there were no asteroids within that star system. It wasn't too complicated to calculate the point of entry which would drop these frozen stones onto the planet's surface. After some 53 hours of continuous bombardment, the planet broke apart. Today, Dalorius star system has an asteroid belt in place of the fourth planet.

But Misty cannot die. Wherever anyone reaches out to the Creator, transcending what mere man can do, think or understand, and embrace the eternal truth for which there are no words, Misty is there.

###

If the reader is interested in actual religious teachings portrayed here, the author has two previous free books also available through Smashwords: _The Mind of Christ_ and _Soul Seeds: Jesus' Parables_.

Contact the author:

Email – mailto:tmoc-team@gmx.com

Blog – Do What's Right

Site – Kiln of the Soul
