Free Downward to the Earth by Robert Silverberg Page B

alone."
    “It would be an honor to have his company,” Gundersen said.
    “So be it, then."
    A senior nildor summoned Srin'gahar and the four others who would be going toward rebirth. Gundersen was gratified at this confirmation of the existing data: once more the frenzied dance of the nildoror had preceded the departure of a group bound for rebirth.
    It pleased him, too, to know that he would have a nildoror escort on the way north. There was only one dark aspect to the treaty, that which involved Cedric Cullen. He wished he had not sworn to barter another Earthman's freedom for his own safe-conduct pass. But perhaps Cullen had done something really loathsome, something that merited punishment—or purification, as Vol'himyor put it. Gundersen did not understand how that normally sunny man could have become a criminal and a fugitive, but Cullen had lived on this world a long time, and the strangeness of alien worlds ultimately corroded even the brightest souls. In any case, Gundersen felt that he had opened enough honorable exits for himself if he needed to escape from his treaty with Vol'himyor.
    Srin'gahar and Gundersen went aside to plan their route. “Where in the mist country do you intend to go?” the nildor asked.
    “It does not matter. I just want to enter it. I suppose I'll have to go wherever Cullen is."
    “Yes. But we do not know exactly where he is, so we will have to wait until we are there to learn it. Do you have special places to visit on the way north?"
    “I want to stop at the Earthman stations,” Gundersen said. “Particularly at Shangri-la Falls. So my idea is that we'll follow Madden's River northwestward, and—"
    “These names are unknown to me."
    “Sorry. I guess they've all reverted back to nildororu names. And I don't know those. But wait—” Seizing a stick, Gundersen scratched a hasty but serviceable map of Belzagor's western hemisphere in the mud. Across the waist of the disk he drew the thick swath of the tropics. At the right side he gouged out a curving bite to indicate the ocean; on the left he outlined the Sea of Dust. Above and below the band of the tropics he drew the thinner lines representing the northern and southern mist zones, and beyond them he indicated the gigantic icecaps. He marked the spaceport and the hotel at the coast with an X, and cut a wiggly line up from there, clear across the tropics into the northern mist country, to show Madden's River. At the midway point of the river he placed a dot to mark Shangri-la Falls. “Now,” said Gundersen, “if you follow the tip of my stick—"
    “What are those marks on the ground?” asked Srin'gahar.
    A map of your planet, Gundersen wanted to say. But there was no nildororu word in his mind for “map.” He found that he also lacked words for “image,” picture,” and similar concepts. He said lamely, “This is your world. This is Belzagor, or at least half of it. See, this is the ocean, and the sun rises here, and—"
    “How can this be my world, these marks, when my world is so large?"
    “This is like your world. Each of these lines, here, stands for a place on your world. You see, here, the big river that runs out of the mist country and comes down to the coast, where the hotel is, yes? And this mark is the spaceport. These two lines are the top and the bottom of the northern mist country. The—"
    “It takes a strong sulidor a march of many days to cross the northern mist country. said Srin'gahar. “I do not understand how you can point to such a small space and tell me it is the northern mist country. Forgive me, friend of my journey. I am very stupid."
    Gundersen tried again, attempting to communicate the nature of the marks on the ground. But Srin'gahar simply could not comprehend the idea of a map, nor could he see how scratched lines could represent places. Gundersen considered asking Vol'himyor to help him, but rejected that plan when he realized that Vol'himyor, too, might not understand; it would be