“You’re very kind,” Glo said, taking his glass as he entered and going straight to the nearest chair. Although in his late fifties, he looked much older thanks to his rotund figure and the fact that his teeth had been reduced to a few brownish pegs splayed behind his lower lip. He was breathing noisily after climbing the stairs, his stomach ballooning and collapsing under his informal grey-and-white robe.
“It’s always a pleasure to see you, my lord,” Lain said, wondering if there was a special reason for the visit and knowing there was little point in his trying to elicit the information too soon.
Glo drank half his wine in one gulp. “Mutual, my boy. Oh! I’ve got something… hmm… at least, I think I’ve got something to show you. You’re going to like this.” He set his glass aside, groped in the folds of his clothing and eventually produced a square of paper which he handed to Lain. It was slightly sticky and mid-brown in colour except for a circular patch of mottled tan in the centre.
“Farland.” Lain identified the circle as being a light picture of the only other major planet in the local system, orbiting the sun at some twice the distance of the Land-Overland pair. “The images are getting better.”
“Yes, but we still can’t make them permanent. That one has faded… hmm… noticeably since last night. You can hardly see the polar caps now, but last night they were very clear. Pity. Pity.” Glo took the picture back and studied it closely, all the while shaking his head and sucking his teeth.
“The polar caps were as clear as daylight. Clear as daylight, I tell you. Young Enteth got a very good confirmation of the angle of… ah… inclination. Lain, have you ever tried to visualise what it would be like to live on a world whose axis was tilted? There would be a hot period of the year, with long days and short nights, and a cold… hmm… period, with long days… I mean short days… and long nights… all depending on where the planet was in its orbit. The colour changes on Farland show that all the vegetation is geared to a single… hmm… superimposed cycle.”
Lain concealed his impatience and boredom as Glo launched himself upon one of his most familiar set pieces. It was a cruel irony that the Lord Philosopher was becoming prematurely senile, and Lain — who had a genuine regard for the older man — saw it as a duty to give him maximum support, personally and professionally. He replenished his visitor’s drink and made appropriate comments as Glo meandered on from elementary astronomy to botany and the differences between the ecology of a tilted world and that of Land.
On Land, where there were no seasons, the very first fanners must have had the task of separating the natural jumble of edible grasses into synchronous batches which matured at chosen times. Six harvests a year was the norm in most parts of the world. Thereafter it had simply been a matter of planting and reaping six adjacent strips to maintain supplies of grain, with no long-term storage problems. In modern times the advanced countries had found it more efficacious to devote whole farms to single-cycle crops and to work in six-farm combines or multiples thereof, but the principle was the same.
As a boy, Lain Maraquine had enjoyed speculating about life on distant planets — assuming they existed in other parts of the universe and were peopled by intelligent beings — but he had quickly found that mathematics offered him greater scope for intellectual adventure. Now all he could wish for was that Lord Glo would either go away and let him get on with his work or proceed to explain his visit. Tuning his thoughts back into the rambling discourse he found that Glo had switched back to the experiments with photography and the difficulties of producing emulsions of light-sensitive vegetable cells which would hold an image for more than a few days.
“Why is it so important to you?” Lain put in. “Anybody in your observatory staff could draw a much better picture by hand.”
“Astronomy is only a tiny bit of it, my boy — the aim is to be able to produce totally… hmm… accurate pictures of buildings, landscapes, people.”
“Yes, but we already have draughtsmen and artists who can do that.”
Glo shook his head and smiled, showing the ruins of his teeth, and spoke with unusual fluency. “Artists only paint what they or their patrons believe to be important. We lose so much. The times slip through our fingers. I want every man to be his own artist — then we’ll discover our history.”
“Do you think it will be possible?”
“Undoubtedly. I foresee the day when everybody will carry light-sensitive material and will be able to make a picture of anything in the blink of an eye.”
“You can still outfly any of us,” Lain said, impressed, feeling he had momentarily been in the presence of the Lord Glo who used to be. “And by flying higher you see farther.”
Glo looked gratified. “Never mind that — give me more… hmm… wine.” He watched his glass closely while it was being refilled, then settled back in his chair. “You will never guess what has happened.”
“You’ve impregnated some innocent young female.”
“Try again.”
“Some innocent young female had impregnated you.”
“This is a serious matter, Lain.” Glo made a damping movement with his hand to show that levity was out of place. “The King and Prince Chakkell have suddenly wakened up to the fact that we are running short of brakka.”
Lain froze in the act of raising his own glass to his lips. “I can’t believe this, as you predicted. How many reports and studies have we sent them in the last ten years?”
“I’ve lost count, but it looks as though they have finally taken some effect. The King has called a meeting of the high…hmm… council.”
“I never thought he’d do it,” Lain said. “Have you just come from the palace?”
“Ah… no. I’ve known about the meeting for some days, but I couldn’t pass the news on to you because the King sent me off to Sorka — of all places! — on another… hmm… matter. I just got back this foreday.”
“I could use an extra holiday.”
“It was no holiday, my boy.” Glo shook his large head and looked solemn. “I was with Tunsfo — and I had to watch one of his surgeons perform an autopsy on a soldier. I don’t mind admitting I have no stomach for that kind of thing.”
“Please! Don’t even talk about it,” Lain said, feeling a gentle upward pressure on his diaphragm at the thought of knives going through pallid skin and disturbing the cold obscenities beneath. “Why did the King want you there?”
Glo tapped himself on the chest. “Lord Philosopher, that’s me. My word still carries a lot of weight with the King. Apparently our soldiers and airmen are becoming…hmm…demoralised over rumours that it isn’t safe to go near ptertha casualties.”
“Not safe? In what way?”
“The story is that several line soldiers contracted pterthacosis through handling victims.”
“But that’s nonsense,” Lain said, taking a first sip of his wine. “What did Tunsfo find?”
“It was pterthacosis, all right. No doubt about it. Spleen like a football. Our official conclusion was that the soldier encountered a globe at dead of night and took the dust without knowing it — or that he was telling… hmm… lies. That happens, you know. Some men can’t face up to it. They even manage to convince themselves that they’re all right.”
“I can understand that.” Lain drew in his shoulders as though feeling cold. “The temptation must be there. After all, the slightest air current can make all the difference. Between life and death.”