Toller and the others parted the canvas frequently, hungry for the sight of an alien world and its inhabitants, but found little to inspire wonder in the glimpses of blue-green grasslands swept by curtains of rain and fog. Toller noted that the road on which they were travelling was paved and well maintained, much superior to anything on Overland. As it gradually widened they got their first glimpse of Farlander dwellings.
The buildings drew some comment, not because they were exotic in any way but because of their sheer ordinariness. Had it not been for the steeply pitched roofs the unadorned single-storey cottages could have blended in with the local architecture almost anywhere on the twin worlds. There was no sign of their inhabitants so early in the morning, and Toller thought it entirely reasonable that they should choose to remain abed for as long as possible, rather than venture out in such an inhospitable clime.
“It isn’t always as cold and gloomy as this,” Sondeweere explained at one stage, speaking from her isolated position at the vehicle’s tiller. “We are in the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere, and you happen to have arrived in the middle of winter.”
Toller was familiar with the concept of seasons, thanks to his upbringing in one of the philosophy families of old Kolcorron, but it was new to the younger members of the group, mentally conditioned by living on a world whose equator was exactly in the plane of its orbit around the sun. At first the idea that Farland was tilted was quite difficult for them to grasp, and then as it began to take hold they questioned Sondeweere extensively, intrigued by the thought of days and nights which constantly varied in length, and the consequences thereof. For her part, Sondeweere seemed pleased to be able to put aside the symbon component of her identity for a while, and to react naturally as a human among humans.
Listening to the intercourse, Toller was occasionally overcome by a sense of unreality. He had to keep reminding himself that Sondeweere had undergone an incredible metamorphosis, that the group was on its way to do battle with alien beings for the possession of a ship which had been wrought out of miracles and magic. And, above all, that every member of the group could easily die in the hours that lay ahead. The young warriors appeared to have dismissed that thought, supremely confident—as he had once been—that death could not touch them.
Stay that way as long as you can, he advised them mentally, aware that the nerve-thrumming exhilaration which had always sustained him on the eve of battle was totally absent. Was it the reaction of a sun-dweller to this bleak and mist-shrouded world whose clammy coldness penetrated him to the marrow? Or were premonitions at work? Was the capacity for any kind of pleasure being withdrawn from him in preparation for the final disillusionment?
During one of his periodic inspections of the dreary landscape his attention was caught by the sight of a distant building which, as at last befitted an alien world, was unlike any he had seen before. Nested in a narrow valley, it was little more than a silhouette of near-black among dark greys, but it was huge in comparison to the Farlander houses and had numerous chimneys which plumed smoke into the sullen sky.
“An iron foundry which supplies factories throughout this region,” Sondeweere explained in response to his query. “On Overland the various operations would be carried out in the open air, but here—because of the climate—it is necessary to have an enclosure. The native Farlanders would doubtless have produced similar structures in due time, but the symbonites have artificially accelerated the process of industrialisation. It is one of their crimes against nature in general and against the people of this world in particular.”
But you too are a symbonite, Toller thought. How can you criticise the activities of your own kind?
The question, far-reaching though he sensed it to be, was at once displaced by others, less philosophical in nature, which had begun to swarm in his mind. Previously, far out of his intellectual depth, he had conjured a simplistic vision of superbeings effortlessly taking control of a primitive world—but now it was dawning on him that the symbonites had been in a situation similar to that of a platoon of well-armed Kolcorronian soldiers facing a thousand Gethan tribesmen. In a straight and simple conflict, no matter how superior their weaponry, they were bound to be overwhelmed—therefore other strategies had been called for.
“Tell me,” he said to Sondeweere, “have the Farlanders never offered any resistance to the invaders?”
“They are unaware of any intrusion,” she replied, eyes fixed on the dull-gleaming road ahead, “and who could possibly make them aware? You were quite unable to accept anything that Bartan told you about me—so just imagine how you would have reacted had he told you that King Chakkell and Queen Daseene and their children, plus all the aristocrats in the land and their children, were alien conquerors in human guise! Would you have believed him and tried to lead a rebellion? Or would you have dismissed him as a raving lunatic?”
“But you speak of the ruling classes. You told us that the symbon spores descended on this world at random, and that they had no choice as regards their hosts.”
“Yes, but can’t you see that symbonites in any society would quickly infiltrate and dominate the power structure?” Sondeweere went on to outline her view of the developments on Farland over the previous three centuries. In the beginning was the gulf of incomprehension which exists between the masses and the rulers in any primitive society. As far as the indigenous Farlanders were concerned, their lords and masters—already mysterious and god-like—gradually became more innovative, more inventive. They introduced new ideas, such as steam engines for heavy work, and with each step forward their position became more unassailable.
They were forcing the pace of industrial development, but with a sure hand and with patience. Having started with perhaps as few as six symbonite individuals, they well understood the need to proceed with caution, but as decade followed decade they laid down the foundations for a symbonite culture which was destined to dominate an entire world. They mingled freely with the native population, but also had retreats in which no Farlander ever set foot, secret places where they carried out research work and experimented with scientific ideas which might have excited alarm had they been made public. It was in one of those protected enclaves that the symbonite spaceship had been designed and built.
As Sondeweere was speaking Toller began to piece together from stray references a picture of her own lonely existence on the unprepossessing planet. The native Farlanders saw her as a grotesque caricature of a normal being, a freak which for some inscrutable reason was under the protection and patronage of their masters. They tolerated her presence among them, but made no attempts to communicate.
To the self-interested symbonites she was a mild encumbrance, a threat which had been neutralised. At first they had tried to establish a rapport with Sondeweere, but in return she had displayed all the traits which had led them to forestall the emergence of human-based symbonites—resentment, contempt, hatred and implacable hostility among them—and since then they had been content to keep her under continual telepathic surveillance. They learned what they could from her, stole what they could from her mind, and waited for her to die. Time was on their side. They were a new race and as such potentially immortal; she was an individual—vulnerable and impermanent…
“There’s one! More than one!” The exclamations came from Wraker, who had raised the canvas cover to look outside, triggering a general rush to do the same.
“Remember, they must not see us,” Toller said as he created a narrow gap between the material and the transporter’s wooden siding. He peered out and saw they were passing through a village which to his eyes was remarkable in that it was so unremarkable. It seemed that craftsmen everywhere—masons, carpenters, smiths—came up with universal practical solutions to universal practical problems. The village, like the isolated houses seen earlier, might have been anywhere in the temperate zones of Land, but its inhabitants were a different matter.