Shadow's End Read Free Page A

withal a mere functionary—be expected to be “familiar” with such distant and ancient history?
    She put her mind in neutral and stared at the table, noticing the foods she found most attractive were now closer to her and the disgusting dishes had been removed. How did the shadows know? Was her face that easy to read? Or were the shadows taught to interpret the almost imperceptible twitches and jerks most people made without realizing it. Were they empaths, like Fastigats? Perhapsthey actually were Fastigats, turned invisible as penance for some unseemly behavior. Fastigats were great ones for seemliness.
    What had the old man been talking of? Of course. “Ularian crisis,” she said. “Around twenty-four hundred of the common era, a standard century ago, give or take a little. Alliance frontier worlds in the Hermes Sector were overrun by a race or force or something called Ularians.” She paused, forehead wrinkled. “Why was it named that?”
    â€œThe first human populations that vanished were in a line, a vector, that led toward the Ular Region,” he replied.
    She absorbed the fact. “So, this something wiped all human life off a dozen worlds or systems or—”
    The Procurator gestured impatiently at this imprecision.
    She gave him a half smile, mocking his irritation. “Well, a dozen somethings, Procurator—you asked what I knew and I’m telling you.” She resumed her interrupted account, “Sometime later the Ularians went away. Thereafter, briefly, occurred the Great Debate, during which the Firster godmongers said Ularians didn’t exist because the universe was made for man, and the Infinitarians said Ularians could exist because everything is possible. Both sides wrote volumes explaining Ularians or explaining them away—on little or no evidence, as I recall—and the whole subject became so abstruse that only scholars care one way or the other.”
    The Procurator shook his head in wonder. “You speak so casually, so disrespectfully of it.”
    She considered the matter ancient history. “I shouldn’t be casual?”
    He grimaced. “At the time humans—at least those who knew what was going on—feared for the survival of the race.”
    â€œWas it taken that seriously?” she asked, astonished.
    â€œIt was by Alliance Prime, by those who knew what was happening! All that saved us from widespread panic was that the vanished settlements were small and few. Publicly, the disappearances were blamed on environmental causes, even though people vanished from every world in Hermes Sector—that is, every one but Dinadh.”
    She shrugged, indicating disinterest in Dinadh. She who was to learn so much about Dinadh knew and cared nothing for it then.
    The Procurator went on. “My predecessors here at Prime could learn nothing about the Ularians. The only evidence of the existence of an inimical force was that men had disappeared! Prime had no idea why they—or
it
—attacked in the first place.”
    He leaned forward, touching her lightly on the knee. “Did Leelson ever speak to you of
Bernesohn Famber
?”
    She was suddenly intrigued. “Oh, yes. Leelson’s great-grandpop. One of the greatest of all Fastigats, to hear Leelson tell it. A genius, a biochemist.”
    â€œDo you remember the name Tospia?”
    Lutha smiled. “Bernesohn’s longtime lover. A Fastiga woman, of course.” She frowned. “A diva in solo opera. Leelson played some of her sensurrounds for me. Very nice, though I think the senso-techs were owed as much credit as Tospia herself. To my taste, one person’s performance sensed six times, however differentiated and augmented, does not have the interactive passion of six separate actors. I’ve yet to experience one that has true eroticism.”
    The Procurator peered at her over the rim of his cup. “But Leelson never mentioned