Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 148
might be expected to ask concerning Earth, mankind, the Shing, and
listened gravely to the answers. Once he tried to get into phase with young
Orry, but failed. The boy had no real guard up, but perhaps had been
subjected to some mental treatment which nullified the little skill in
phase-catching he had learned as a child, and also was under the influence
of the drug he had been habituated to. Even as Ramarren sent him the
slight, familiar signal of their relationship in prechnoye, Orry began
sucking on a tube of parŅtha. In the vivid distracting world of
semi-hallucination it provided him, his perceptions were dulled, and he
received nothing.
"You have seen nothing of Earth as yet but this one room," the one
dressed as a woman, Kradgy, said to Ramarren in a harsh whisper.
Ramarren was wary of them all, but Kradgy roused an instinctive fear or
aversion in him; there was a hint of nightmare in the bulky body under
flowing robes, the long purplish-black hair, the harsh, precise whisper.
"I should like to see more."
"We shall show you whatever you wish to see. The Earth is open to its
honored visitor."
"I do not remember seeing Earth from the Alterra when we came
into orbit," Ramarren said in stiff, Werelian-accented Galaktika. "Nor do I
remember the attack on the ship. Can you tell me why this is so?
The question might be risky, but he was genuinely curious for the
answer; it was the one blank still left in his double memory.
"You were in the condition we term achronia," Ken Kenyek replied.
"You came out of lightspeed all at once at the Barrier, since your ship had
no retemporalizer. You were at that moment, and for some minutes or
hours after, either unconscious or insane."
"We had not run into the problem in our short runs at lightspeed."
"The longer the flight, the stronger the Barrier."
"It was a gallant thing," Abundibot said in his creaky whisper and with
his usual floridity, "a journey of a hundred and twenty-five light-years in a
scarcely tested ship!"
Ramarren accepted the compliment without correcting the number.
"Come, my Lords, let us show our guest the City of Earth."
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