Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 154

misunderstanding, no chance or mischance but only the ignorant eye. So
Ramarren thought, and the second soul within him, Falk, took no issue
with this view, but spent no time trying to think it all out, either. For Falk
had seen the dull and bright stones slip across the wires of the
patterning-frame, and had lived with men in their fallen estate, kings in
exile on their own domain the Earth, and to him it seemed that no man
could make his fate or control the game, but only wait for the bright jewel
luck to slip by on the wire of time. Harmony exists, but there is no
understanding it; the Way cannot be gone. So while Ramarren racked his
mind, Falk lay low and waited. And when the chance came he caught it.
Or rather, as it turned out, he was caught by it.
There was nothing special about the moment. They were with Ken
Kenyek in a fleet little auto-pilot aircar, one of the beautiful, clever
machines that allowed the Shing to control and police the world so
effectively. They were returning toward Es Toch from a long flight out
over the islands of the Western Ocean, on one of which they had made a
stop of several hours at a human settlement. The natives of the
island-chain they had visited were handsome, contented people entirely
absorbed in sailing, swimming, and sex—afloat in the azure amniotic sea:
perfect specimens of human happiness and backwardness to show the
Werelians. Nothing to worry about there, nothing to fear.
Orry was dozing, with a parьtha-tube between his fingers. Ken
Kenyek had put the ship on automatic, and with Ramarren—three or four
feet away from him, as always, for the Shing never got physically close to
anyone—was looking out the glass side of the aircar at the
five-hundred-mile circle of fair weather and blue sea that surrounded them.
Ramarren was tired, and let himself relax a little in this pleasant moment
of suspension, aloft in a glass bubble in the center of the great blue and
golden sphere.
"It is a lovely world," the Shing said.
"It is."
"The jewel of all worlds…Is Werel as beautiful?"
"No. It is harsher."
"Yes, the long year would make it so. How long?—sixty Earthyears?"
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