MIRK

The last of Marune's suns, Cirse, sank behind Whispering Ridge. The sky flared and dimmed; darkness fell. Mirk had come to Scharrode.

Throughout the realm, lights were extinguished and doors bolted as the prudent sought safety. Others donned the cloak and boots of nightwalkers and slipped through the darkness seeking an unshuttered window and the woman waiting behind it. For mirk did strange things to the minds and bodies of the sober folk of Scharrode.

In the castle of Benbuphar Strang, the Kaiark Efraim felt the primal pull of darkness - and was drawn despite himself to the passage that led to Sthelany's door.

Her invitation had been clear.

Alastor Cluster, a node of thirty thousand live stars, uncounted dead hulks, and vast quantities of interstellar detritus, clung to the inner rim of the galaxy with the Unfortunate Waste before, the Nonestic Gulf beyond and the Gaean Reach a sparkling haze to the side. For the spacetraveler, no matter which his angle of approach, a remarkable spectacle was presented: constellations blazing white, blue, and red; curtains of luminous stuff, broken here, obscured there, by black storms of dust; starstreams wandering in and out; whorls and spatters of phosphorescent gas.

Should Alastor Cluster be considered a segment of the Gaean Reach? The folk of the Cluster, some four or five trillion of them on more than three thousand worlds, seldom reflected upon the matter, and indeed considered themselves neither Gaean nor Alastrid. The, typical inhabitant, when asked as to his origin, might perhaps cite his native world or, more usually, his local district, as if this place were so extraordinary, so special and widely famed that its reputation hung on every tongue of the galaxy.

Parochialism dissolved before the glory of the Connatic, who ruled Alastor Cluster from his palace on the world Numenes. The current Connatic, Oman Ursht, sixteenth of the Idite dynasty, often pondered the quirk of fate which had appointed him to his singular condition, only to smile at his own irrationality: no matter who occupied the position, that person would frame for himself the same marveling question.

The inhabited planets of the Cluster had little in common except their lack of uniformity. They were large and small, dank and dry, benign and perilous, populous and empty: no two alike. Some manifested tall mountains, blue seas, bright skies; on others clouds hung forever above the moors, and no variety existed except the alternation of night and day. Such a world, in fact, was Bruse-Tansel, Alastor 1142, with a population of two hundred thousand, settled for the most part in the neighborhood of Lake Vain, where they worked principally at the dyeing of fabrics. Four spaceports served Bruse-Tansel, the most important being that facility located at Carfaunge.

The Respectable Mergan had achieved his post, Superintendent at the Carfaunge Spaceport, largely because the position demanded a tolerance for unalterable routine. Mergan not only tolerated routine; he depended upon it. He would have opposed the cessation of such nuisances as the morning rains, the glass lizards with their squeaks and clicks, the walking slimes which daily invaded the area, because then he would have been required to change established procedure.

On the morning of a day he would later identify as tenth Mariel Gaean1 he arrived as usual at his office. Almost before he had settled behind his desk, the night porter appeared with a blank faced young man in a nondescript gray suit. Mergan uttered a wordless grumble; he had no taste for problems, at any time, least of all before he had composed himself for the day. The situation at the very least promised a disruption of routine. At last he muttered: "Well, Dinster, what do you have here?"

Dinster, in a piping over-loud voice, called out, "Sorry to bother you, sir, but what shall we do with this gentleman? He seems to be ill."

"Find him a doctor," growled Mergan. "Don't bring him here. I can't help him."

"It's not that kind of illness, sir. More mental, if you get my meaning."

"Your meaning escapes me," said Mergan. "Why not just tell me what's wrong?"

Dinster politely indicated his charge. "When I came on duty he was sitting in the waiting room and he's been there since. He hardly speaks; he doesn't know his name, nor anything about himself."

Mergan inspected the young man with some faint awakening of interest. "Hello, sir," he barked. "What's the trouble?"

The young man shifted his gaze from the window to Mergan, but offered no response. Mergan gradually allowed himself to become perplexed. Why had the young man's gold-brown hair been hacked short, as if by swift savage strokes of a scissors? And the garments: clearly a size too large for the spare frame!

"Speak!" commanded Mergan. "Can you hear? Tell me your name!"

The young man put on a thoughtful expression but remained silent.

"A vagabond of same sort," Mergan declared. "He probably wandered up from the dye-works. Send him off again down the road."

Dinster shook his head. "This lad's no vagabond. Look at his hands."

Mergan reluctantly followed Dinster's suggestion. The hands were strong and well kept and showed evidence neither of toil nor submersion in dye. The man's features were firm and even; the poise of his head suggested status. Mergan, who preferred to ignore the circumstances of his own birth, felt an uncomfortable tingle of deference and corresponding resentment. Again he barked at the young man: "Who are you? What is your name?"

"I don't know." The voice was slow and labored, and colored with an accent Mergan failed to recognize.

"Where is your home?"

"I don't know."

Mergan became unreasonably sarcastic. "Do you know anything?"

Dinster ventured an opinion. "Looks to me, sir, as if he came aboard one of yesterday's ships."

Mergan asked the young man: "What ship did you arrive on? Do you have friends here?"

The young man fixed him with a brooding dark-gray gaze, and Mergan became uncomfortable. He turned to Dinster. "Does he carry papers? Or money?"

Dinster muttered to the young man: "Excuse me, sir." Gingerly he groped through the pockets of the rumpled gray suit. "I can't find anything here, sir."

"What about ticket stubs, or vouchers, or tokens?"

"Nothing at all, sir."

"It's what they call amnesia," said Mergan. He picked up a pamphlet and glanced down a list: "Six ships in, yesterday. He might have arrived on any of them."

Mergan touched a button. A voice said: "Prosidine, arrival gate."

Mergan described the amnesiac. "Do you know anything about him? He arrived sometime yesterday."

"Yesterday was more than busy; I didn't take time to notice anything."

"Make inquiries of your people and notify me."

Mergan thought a moment, then called the Carfaunge hospital. He was connected to the Director of Admissions, who listened patiently enough, but made no constructive proposals. "We have no facilities here for such cases. He has no money, you say? Definitely not, then."

"What shall I do with him? He can't stay here!"

"Consult the police; they'll know what to do."

Mergan called the police, and presently an official arrived in a police van, and the amnesiac was led away.

At the Hall of Inquiry, Detective Squil attempted interrogation, without success. The police doctor experimented with hypnotism, and finally threw up his hands.