Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 151

turning back to the Shing, "that my mouth and mind are closed to your
question. My silence is a mean return for your generous frankness." Had
they been using mindspeech, he thought, the exchange would have been a
great deal less polite; for he, unlike the Shing, was unable to mindlie, and
therefore probably could not have said one word of his last speech.
"No matter, Lord Agad! It is your safe return, not our questions, that is
important! So long as you can program the ship—and all our records and
course-computers are at your service when you may require them—then
the question is as good as answered." And indeed it was, for if they wanted
to know where Werel was they would only have to examine the course he
programmed into their ship. After that, if they still distrusted him, they
could re-erase his mind, explaining to Orry that the restoration of his
memory had caused him finally to break down. They would then send
Orry off to deliver their message to Werel. They did still distrust him,
because they knew he could detect their mindlying. If there was any way
out of the trap he had not found it yet.
They all went together through the misty halls, down the ramps and
elevators, out of the palace into daylight Falk's element of the double mind
was almost entirely repressed now, and Ramarren moved and thought and
spoke quite freely as Ramarren. He sensed the constant, sharp readiness of
the Shing minds, particularly that of Ken Kenyek, waiting to penetrate the
least flaw or catch the slightest slip. The very pressure kept him doubly
alert. So it was as Ramarren, the alien, that he looked up into the sky of
late morning and saw Earth's yellow sun.
He stopped, caught by sudden joy. For it was something, no matter
what had gone before and what might follow after—it was something to
have seen the light, in one lifetime, of two suns. The orange gold of
Werel's sun, the white gold of Earth's: he could hold them now side by side
as a man might hold two jewels, comparing their beauty for the sake of
heightening their praise.
The boy was standing beside him; and Ramarren murmured aloud the
greeting that Kelshak babies and little children were taught to say to the
sun seen at dawn or after the long storms of winter, "Welcome the star of
life, the center of the year…" Orry picked it up midway and spoke it with
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