The Darkside Of The Sun

you?’
    ‘Just looking around the old place, boss. Ig’s sort of the unofficial mascot of the bug-clearing crews – he can really root them out.’
    Sharli looked up and blushed when Dom saw her.
    The main course, kai shellfish, was eaten in silence, except for the efforts of a phnobic trio playing chlong at the other end of the hall.
    A cool night breeze brought the tinkling of the leaves of the robot garden floating into the room.
    The Emperor, with great ceremony, poured out a syrupy clear liquid that was deceptively light on the tongue and burned in the throat. The servants disappeared at a handclap. The trio hurried to the end of a phrase, unstrung their instruments and hurried away.
    ‘Now,’ said the Emperor. ‘Let us talk.’
    ‘Spies?’ murmured Joan, into her glass. The Emperor raised his eyebrows.
    ‘But of course, my dear,’ he said. ‘Over there the inq -player in the trio deposited an Ear before he left, my son’s drosk servant reports regularly to their unpronounceable planet, and this room swarms with bugs and pinpoints. This very gentleman on my left’ – the dapper man smiled – ‘is an accomplished spy. His name is Magane. One of his many jobs is to spy upon me. He reports to me regularly in case I act ill-advisedly. Where is Jokers World?’ he ended abruptly.
    Dom ran a finger round the edge of his glass.
    ‘You have a mere seventy-two hours to discover it,’ Ptarmigan prompted.
    ‘That’s unfair!’ said Keja.
    ‘He doesn’t have to tell me.’
    ‘I think I’m getting the idea,’ said Dom mildly. ‘I can feel the edges of a concept. The dark side of the sun ...it’s a bit non-committal, isn’t it? Perhaps it refers to another set of dimensions?’
    ‘You don’t believe that,’ said the Emperor. ‘And neither do I. Jokers World is a singularity in this continuum. Probability suggests that this is the only universe in which they existed, although we can’t locate them through math. My belief is that they were a billion-to-one chance that only cropped up in our particular space-time.’
    ‘I think so too,’ said Dom. ‘There are only four to five examples of life apart from the races in the life-bubble, and they are big and – well, not life as we think of it. Like the Bank or Chatogaster. With them life is just another attribute, like mass or age. No, I think the Jokers were the first life-as-we-can-grasp-it in the galaxy, and I agree with the idea that they probably got our own shows on the road. I don’t know why I agree. It just seems right.’
    ‘I don’t know about this idea,’ said Keja. The Emperor smiled.
    ‘You see, my dear, the universe has no time for life. By rights it shouldn’t exist. We don’t realize the odds.’
    Dom nodded. ‘We’re so used to the idea of life as an essential part of the universe,’ he said. ‘Even in pre-Sadhim times we peopled other stars with imaginary beings and kidded ourselves that life off Earth was an odds-on chance. We didn’t want to be alone.’
    ‘Nor did the Jokersss,’ said Hrsh-Hgn, leaning forward. ‘So they altered chancess …’
    ‘They peopled the stars too, only they must have been biological geniuses. They filled every ecological niche, too, from cool suns to frozen space …’ Dom began. Then he stopped.
    He knew about the Jokers. Other sentences thronged in his head, floated like icebergs in his mind. They had entered of their own accord – or had been put there.
    He knew all about the Jokers. He remembered how they felt, surveying the empty planets, knowing the inbuilt block that every race ran up against eventually – the limitations of their evolutionary outlook …
    He saw Jokers World, and sat stunned. The others carried on talking. The conversation coiled round him unheeded.
    ‘The dark side of the sun sounds poetic,’ said Keja brightly. ‘How about Screamer and Groaner?’
    ‘The Internal Planettss of Protosstar Five?’ said Hrsh-Hgn. ‘Far too hot, and short-lived. They did not exist ten thousand yearss ago. So radioactive, too.’
    ‘You’re talking as if Jokers are human,’ said Keja. ‘It’s never been proved. Couldn’t they be silicoid? Look at the Creapii.’
    ‘How about Rats?’
    It was Tarli. He looked at their faces and shrugged.
    ‘Well, we know what things are like on its planet. And the reversed-entropy situation might fit the Dark Side of the Sun saying.’
    ‘The Creapii say any creatures on Tenalp can’t possibly be intelligent,’ said