Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Seite 156

away. He leaned over in a strange fashion, too far over, like a puppet on
strings carelessly managed, then all at once slid to the floor of the car and
lay there with his white, handsome face upturned, rigid.
Orry, shaken from his euphoric drowse, was staring. "What's wrong?
What happened?"
He got no answer. Ramarren was standing as rigidly as the Shing lay,
and his eyes were locked with the Shing's in a double unseeing stare.
When at last he moved, he spoke in a language Orry did not know. Then,
laboriously, he spoke in Galaktika. "Put the ship in hover," he said.
The boy gaped. "What's wrong with Lord Ken, prech Ramarren?"
"Get up. Put the ship in hover!"
He was speaking Galaktika now not with his Werelian accent but in
the debased form used by Earth natives. But though the language was
wrong the urgency and authority were powerful. Orry obeyed him. The
little glass bubble hung motionless in the center of the bowl of ocean,
eastward of the sun.
Trechna, is the—"
"Be still!"
Silence. Ken Kenyek lay still. Very gradually Ramarren's visible
tension and intensity relaxed.
What had happened on the mental plane between him and Ken
Kenyek was a matter of ambush and re-ambush. In physical terms, the
Shing had jumped Ramarren, thinking he was capturing one man, and had
in turn been surprised by a second man—the mind in ambush, Falk. Only
for a second had Falk been able to take control and only by sheer force of
surprise, but that had been long enough to free Ramarren from the Shing's
phase-control. The instant he was free, while Ken Kenyek's mind was still
in phase with his and vulnerable, Ramarren had taken control. It took all
his skill and all his strength to keep Ken Kenyek's mind phased with his,
helpless and assenting, as his own had been a moment before. But his
advantage still remained: he was still double-minded, and while Ramarren
held the Shing helpless, Falk was free to think and act.
This was the chance, the moment; there would be no other.
Falk asked aloud, "Where is there a lightspeed ship ready for flight?"
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