Ramarren had no time to spend on compunction or anxiety. He went straight to the computers and set to work. He already knew from his examination of the onboard controls that the mathematics involved in some of the ship’s operations was not the familiar Cetian-based mathematics which Terrans still used and from which Werel’s mathematics, via the Colony, also derived. Some of the processes the Shing used and built into their computers were entirely alien to Cetian mathematical process and logic; and nothing else could have so firmly persuaded Ramarren that the Shing were, indeed, alien to Earth, alien to all the old League worlds, conquerors from some very distant world. He had never been quite sure that Earth’s old histories and tales were correct on that point, but now he was convinced. He was, after all, essentially a mathematician.
It was just as well that he was, or certain of those processes would have stopped him cold in his effort to set up the coordinates for Werel on the Shing computers. As it was, the job took him five hours. All this time he had to keep, literally, half his mind on Ken Kenyek and Orry. It was simpler to keep Orry unconscious than to explain to him or order him about; it was absolutely vital that Ken Kenyek stay completely unconscious. Fortunately the stunner was an effective little device, and once he discovered the proper setting Falk only had to use it once more. Then he was free to coexist, as it were, while Ramarren plugged away at his computations.
Falk looked at nothing while Ramarren worked, but listened for any noise, and was conscious always of the two motionless, senseless figures sprawled out nearby. And he thought; he thought about Estrel, wondering where she was now and what she was now. Had they retrained her, razed her mind, killed her? No, they did not kill. They were afraid to kill and afraid to die, and called their fear Reverence for Life. The Shing, the Enemy, the Liars.. . . Did they in truth lie? Perhaps that was not quite the way of it; perhaps the essence of their lying was a profound, irremediable lack of understanding. They could not get into touch with men. They had used that and profited by it, making it into a great weapon, the mind-lie; but had it been worth their while, after all? Twelve centuries of lying, ever since they had first come here, exiles or pirates or empire-builders from some distant star, determined to rule over these races whose minds made no sense to them and whose flesh was to them forever sterile. Alone, isolated, deaf-mutes ruling deaf-mutes in a world of delusions. Oh desolation.. . .
Ramarren was done. After his five hours of driving labor, and eight seconds of work for the computer, the little iridium output slip was in his hand, ready to program into the ship’s course-control.
He turned and stared foggily at Orry and Ken Kenyek. What to do with them? They had to come along, evidently. Erase the records on the computers, said a voice inside his mind, a familiar voice, his own—Falk’s. Ramarren was dizzy with fatigue, but gradually he saw the point of this request, and obeyed. Then he could not think what to do next. And so, finally, for the first time, he gave up, made no effort to dominate, let himself fuse into . . . himself.
Falk-Ramarren got to work at once. He dragged Ken Kenyek laboriously up to ground level and across the starlit sand to the ship that trembled half-visible, opalescent in the desert night; he loaded the inert body into a contour seat, gave it an extra dose of the stunner, and then came back for Orry.
Orry began to revive partway, and managed to climb feebly into the ship himself. “Prech Ramarren,” he said hoarsely, clutching at Falk-Ramarren’s arm, “where are we going?”
“To Werel.”
“He’s coming too—Ken Kenyek?”
“Yes. He can tell Werel his tale about Earth, and you can tell yours, and I mine.. . . There’s always more than one way towards the truth. Strap yourself in. That’s it.”
Falk-Ramarren fed the little metal strip into the course-controller. It was accepted, and he set the ship to act within three minutes. With a last glance at the desert and the stars, he shut the ports and came hurriedly, shaky with fatigue and strain, to strap himself in beside Orry and the Shing.
Lift-off was fusion-powered: the lightspeed drive would go into effect only at the outer edge of Earthspace. They took off very softly and were out of the atmosphere in a few seconds. The visual screens opened automatically, and Falk-Ramarren saw the Earth falling away, a great dusky bluish curve, bright-rimmed. Then the ship came out into the unending sunlight.
Was he leaving home, or going home?
On the screen dawn coming over the Eastern Ocean shone in a golden crescent for a moment against the dust of stars, like a jewel on a great patterning frame. Then frame and pattern shattered, the Barrier was passed, and the little ship broke free of time and took them out across the darkness.
Also by Ursula K. Le Guin
NOVELS
Rocannon’s World (1966)
Planet of Exile (1966)
City of Illusions (1967)
A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
The Tombs of Atuan (1971)
The Lathe of Heaven (1971)
The Farthest Shore (1972)
The Dispossessed (1974)
The Word for World is Forest (1976)
The Eye of the Heron (1978)
Malafrena (1979)
The Beginning Place (aka Threshold) (1980)
Always Coming Home (1985)
Tehanu (1990)
The Telling (2000)
The Other Wind (2001)
Gifts (2004)
Voices (2006)
Powers (2007)
Lavinia (2008)
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975)
Orsinian Tales (1976)
The Compass Rose (1982)
Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences (1987)
Searoad: Chronicles of Klatsand (1991)
A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (1994)
Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995)
Unlocking the Air and Other Stories (1996)
Tales from Earthsea (2001)
The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (2002)
Changing Planes (2003)
The Unreal and the Real Volume 1: Where on Earth (2012)
The Unreal and the Real Volume 2: Outer Space, Inner Lands (2012)
About the Auhtor
Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the finest writers of our time. Her books have attracted millions of devoted readers and won many awards, including the National Book Award, the Hugo and Nebula Awards and a Newbery Honor. Among her novels, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed and the six books of Earthsea have attained undisputed classic status; and her recent series, the Annals of the Western Shore, has won her the PEN Center USA Children’s literature award and the Nebula Award for best novel. In 2014 Ursula Le Guin was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She lived in Portland, Oregon, until she passed away in January 2018.
Copyright
This edition published in Great Britain in 2020 by Gollancz
an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y ODZ
An Hachette UK Company
Rocannon’s World copyright © Ace Books, Inc. 1966
Rocannon’s World copyright © Ursula K. Le Guin 1994
Planet of Exile copyright © Ursula K. Le Guin 1966, 1994
City of Illusions copyright © Ursula K. Le Guin 1967, 1995
Part of Rocannon’s World appeared in Amazing Stories, September 1964, as a
short story, and is copyright © Ziff-Davis Publications, Inc. 1964
The moral right of Ursula K. Le Guin to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mecha
nical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher
of this book.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 473 23098 9
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Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions Page 43