Imperial Stars 3-The Crash of Empire Read Online Free PDF Page A

audience yet they take from us our most valued.
    If the Paralixlinnes be our consummation—
    —Apostles of first divinity—
    —Why should we give them over to the Starcrossers?
    We shall suffer loss of Phase.
    We shall lose our moorings. Go down into darkness.
    But now the play returned to Shibura. He pointed out the automatic ships that came to Seascape. Did these machines without men not bring valued supplies, components for the working of the Paralixlinnes? Bore they not new and subtle devices? Delicate instruments, small lenses to bring insight to the making of the Paralixlinnes?
    The gameballs danced and the spirit moved out from Shibura. The workers caught the harmony of the moment. Shibura indicated slight displeasure when divergent moods emerged, rebuked personal gain, and drew closer to the workers. The Firstpriest added tones of his own: praise of the workers; admiration of the delicate iron threads that honeycombed the Paralixlinnes; love of workmanship.
    So, Shibura asked then, as one casts food upon the Titanic and through the mystery of the eternal currents there returned the fishes and the deepbeasts; so the Starcrossers gained the Paralixlinnes and Seascape received the Ramships with their cargo of delights.
    The mood caught slowly at first and only with the rhythm of repetition did the air clear, the tension submerge. Conflicting images in the game weakened. The players selected new leaves, each bringing to the texture of events some resonance of personal insight.
    Shibura caught the uprush of spirit at its peak, chanting joyfully of the completion as the play came to rest:
    In pursuit
    Of infinity
    Lose the way
    Thus: serenity.
    The Firstpriest imposed the dream-like flicker of gameballs and beads. The muted song was clothed in darkness. Then stillness.
    Accept them as the flower does the bee. The fire burning, the iron kettle singing on the hearth, an oiltree brushing the leadened roof, water dripping and chiming in the night.
    The hexagon broke and they left, moving in concert.
     
    Shibura stood with his arms folded behind him and listened to the clicking of the implements. The Firstpriest was engaged with the small Farseer, and attendants moved around the long tubular instrument, making adjustments. Shibura looked out the crack of the great dome and down at the sprawling jumble of the town as it settled into dusk. Even at this distance he could see the flicker of ornamental torches and make out the occasional murmur of crowds.
    In the main street the canonical pursuit was in progress. Bands of young men in tattered rough garments ran down the avenues, laughing and singing and reenacting the sports of the Fest. There came the muffled braying of domestic animals. The segretti were loose; Shibura could see one of the long-limbed animals chasing a group of men under the yellow torchlights.
    The segretti snapped at a lagging man, but he dodged away at the last moment. The animals were fairly harmless anyway, since most of their teeth had been pulled. Their three legs still carried the sharpened hooves that could inflict wounds, but these were easily avoided by rolling away if the man was quick about it. The segretti chase was the most ancient of the Fest ceremonies. It spoke of the earliest days of man on Seascape, when he had not tamed the animals of the inner continent and was prey as often as he was hunter. Shibura had run like that once, taunted the segretti and felt the quick darting fear as the animal brushed too close. But that was behind him. He would not know it again.
    "It is there," said the Firstpriest. "All seems in order."
    Shibura turned away from the view. He murmured a phrase of pleasure and relief, but still he felt a gnawing anxiety. Things were askew; the Starcrossers should not perturb the ancient ceremony this way. He felt restive. Perhaps the Game earlier in the day had not truly brought him to completion.
    The Firstpriest was conferring with the attendants of the instrument. Shibura