Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 114

these warrior tribes and Houses and Wanderers and roving cannibals."
"They are not all cannibals," Falk said dryly.
Orry's well-learnt lesson seemed to have run out. "No," he agreed, "I
suppose not."
"Some of them say that they have sunk so low because the Shing keep
them low; that if they seek knowledge the Shing prevent them, if they seek
to form a City of their own the Shing destroy it, and them."
There was a pause. Orry finished sucking on his tube of parьtha and
carefully buried it around the roots of a shrub with long, hanging, flesh-red
flowers. Falk waited for his answer and only gradually realized that there
was not going to be one. What he had said simply had not penetrated, had
not made sense to the boy.
They walked on a little among the shifting lights and damp fragrances
of the garden, the moon blurred above them.
"The one whose image appeared first, just now…do you know her?"
"Strella Siobelbel," the boy answered readily. "Yes, I have seen her at
Council Meetings before."
"Is she a Shing?"
"No, she's not one of the Lords; I think her people are mountain
natives, but she was brought up in Es Toch. Many people bring or send
their children here to be brought up in the service of the Lords. And
children with subnormal minds are brought here and keyed into the
psychocomputers, so that even they can share in the great work. Those are
the ones the ignorant call toolmen. You came here with Strella Siobelbel,
prech Ramarren?"
"Came with her; walked with her, ate with her, slept with her. She
called herself Estrel, a Wanderer."
"You could have known she was not a Shing—" the boy said, then
went red, and got out another of his tranquillant-tubes and began sucking
on it.
"A Shing would not have slept with me?" Falk inquired. The boy
shrugged his Werelian "No," still blushing; the drug finally encouraged
him to speak and he said, "They do not touch common men, prech
Ramarren—they are like gods, cold and kind and wise—they hold
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