The Rites of Ohe
John Brunner
Language: English
Pages: 98
ISBN: B000CBL0D8
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
'How short a time a century really is...' The speaker was Immortal Karmesin, and he had lived a thousand years. He stood, a gigantic figure against the rush of time, a permanently open channel for the infants of the galaxy to explore the deep past.
He was anathema to the Phoenixes, for their creed was that of birth in death, of regeneration in destruction. And he knew that he--one man--had to unravel the Phoenix mystery, or live to watch it bring fiery death to all the planets of man...
First published 1963.
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with him to shut his mouth. Well, that’s what it comes down to, anyway. So they very naturally want to find Rex if they can, and prove that they didn’t kidnap him. What’s more, I’m sure that Rex would never have insulted the Oheans the way he’s supposed to have done.” “Quite true,” Karmesin nodded. “That wasn’t Rex Quant’s idea, exactly. But you haven’t told me what reason they gave for wishing to subject you to those—uh—devices of theirs.” “To find out what they could about Rex from my memory.
“Maybe that’s too strong a word.” Karmesin leaned casually on the table where Kraesser, absorbed, was studying the Ohean “instruments.” “Please!” Merry whispered. “What does all this mean?” “It means that your so-helpful Ohean friends were lying,” Karmesin rapped. “Don’t you understand? Oh, maybe you deserve to have it spelled out. Maybe next time you won’t be so naïve. Listen! Under, through, within this city of Stonewall, and Aryx, and who knows how many other cities of our species, have
remember that clearly,” Yat agreed. “It was the first of a positive wave of requisitions which lasted several months.” “You presumably filled them.” “Oh yes. Not without difficulty, of course. Some of the material asked for wasn’t available, because of the vast lacunae that still exist in our translating computers. I don’t know whether you realize it, but we’re totally dependent on computers to supplement the rather limited area of mutual comprehensibility between Federal Galactalk and Ohean.
the immortal’s guided tour of the station. He was on the small side for his species; his head barely reached Karmesin ‘s shoulder, and his face was also atypical, being round and rather fleshy. In the conference hall of the station, he stood at the far end of a table, crafted on Ohe; the discipline of manual labour was regarded as contributing to the hypothetical “racial goal” of the planet. A viewport behind him framed his mysterious mother-world. The brilliant polish of the wood before him
Total Eclipse Web of Everywhere John Brunner (1934–1995) was a prolific British SF writer. In 1951, he published his first novel, Galactic Storm, at the age of just 17, and went on to write dozens of novels under his own and various house names until his death in 1995 at the Glasgow Worldcon. He won the Hugo Award and the British Science Fiction Award for Stand on Zanzibar (a regular contender for the ‘best SF novel of all time’) and the British Science Fiction Award for The Jagged Orbit.