The Darkside Of The Sun

humanity, for most of his life. Little things – ways of looking at life, like when we both look at the same thing and I know he’s seeing it from an entirely different racial viewpoint. But all the Creapii I have met don’t give that impression.’
    ‘We live on hot worlds. We are sexless, octopoid. Human?’ said CReegE + 690°.
    ‘Chel! Humanity is a state of mind, not body. But that is a point. I wondered, why do they seem so like me, when they must be so alien? I think it’s because all the Creapii I’ve met have consciously tried to adopt the human viewpoint. They’re Humans first, Creapii second.’
    Dom faced the egg, except that it had no face. At length the disembodied voice said: ‘There is a great deal in what you say.’
    ‘I think you do this to gain a greater understanding of the universe,’ said Dom. ‘Men see a different universe to phnobes. I’m sorry, I keep picking the wrong words. They experience a different universe. Is that right?’
    ‘That is very sapient. Before we dine with the others, would you like to see something?’
    They found him an eggsuit, fitted out for visitors with a simple control panel. It was like riding in a small, vertical tank. In Dom’s case it was to keep the heat out, rather than in. Then he ventured into the main section of the raft.
    He couldn’t remember very much afterwards. Individual experiences blended into a montage of heat, large, slithering galaxy-shaped monsters, the thunder of the sun and a strange flickering in the air. He did remember being led to an observation platform, set in the middle of a matrix-coil, and being invited to look up.
    The circular star on which the raft was moored was just passing under the arch of its twin. On a cooler world the experience would have been enough to inspire a dozen religions.
    A shining arch, only marginally brighter than the sky around it, moved across the solar sky.
    He didn’t know if the other Creapii were aware that the clumsily driven suit held a young man rather than a drunken Creap, if Creapii drank. Probably they didn’t. After an hour of it he felt drunk.
    It lasted for several minutes after he was back in the sanctuary. CReegE did not have to point out the lesson. By something like osmosis he had been given just a feeling of Creapiness. The Creap had been trying to tell him that he was right. The world of the Creapii was a Totality away from the world of men. So the Creaps tried to think – to feel – like men. Only thus could the whole nature of the universe be comprehended, they said.
    With a new understanding Dom realized that the official view of the Creapii was wrong. They were said to be the race born to science. Creapii were the cool-heads of the universe, the ultimate analysers, a race of intelligent robots, had robots been what the first robotic pioneers considered them to be. It just wasn’t true. What was it one of the pre-Sadhim sects had striven for? Ultimate reality? That was it. The Creapii were the mystics of the universe.
    They ate at a table under a spreading pear tree. A stew of slightly rotting oily black toadstools, a real delicacy, had been provided for Hrsh-Hgn. Isaac ate Whole Erse potatoes for energy. There was a seafood soufflé for Dom, expertly cooked. He was beginning to realize too that Creapii were experts automatically. His Furness sucked something from a pressurized cylinder into an airlock approximately where his stomach should have been.
    ‘Where is your next port of call?’ he asked.
    ‘Minos, if you can take me there,’ said Dom. ‘I have to get another ship, and I know there is a multiracial settlement there. I could take a look at the Maze, too.’
    ‘Do you think there might be a clue in the Maze?’ asked the Creap politely.
    Isaac chortled, and nudged Dom heavily in the ribs.
    ‘That was a clever literary allusion, that was,’ he said. ‘Even the name of the planet is—’
    ‘I know,’ said Dom. ‘I shall look forward to meeting the minotaur. Hrsh?’
    ‘Oh, nothing,’ said the phnobe, looking up. ‘I was jusst reflecting that I sseem to be insside a legend.’
    He called the ship One Jump Behind . It was the best the small yard on Minos had to offer. It lacked even an autochef, which was a point in its favour, but its matrix was carefully calibrated and the cabin was at least larger than a closet.
    ‘Why One Jump Behind ?’ asked Isaac.
    ‘Relativity,’ said Dom. ‘It’s full name ought to be A Jump So Far Ahead That If