The Left Hand Of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #4) - Ursula K. Le Guin Page 0,33

was again re-registered in the rolls of Orgoreyn, not as a digit but as a dependent. Names won’t do, they must have labels, and say the kind before they can see the thing. But this time their label fit, I was dependent, and soon was brought to curse the purpose that brought me here to eat another man’s bread. For they gave me no sign for a month yet that I was any nearer achieving that purpose than I had been at Fish Island.

On the rainy evening of the last day of summer Yegey sent for me to his study, where I found him talking with the Commensal of the Sekeve District, Obsle, whom I had known when he headed the Orgota Naval Trade Commission in Erhenrang. Short and swaybacked, with little triangular eyes in a fat, flat face, he was an odd match with Yegey, all delicacy and bone. The frump and the fop, they looked, but they were something more than that. They were two of the Thirty-Three who rule Orgoreyn; yet again, they were something more than that.

Politenesses exchanged and a dram of Sithish lifewater drunk, Obsle sighed and said to me, ‘Now tell me why you did what you did in Sassinoth, Estraven, for if there was ever a man I thought unable to err in the timing of an act or the weighing of shifgrethor, that man was you.’

‘Fear outweighed caution in me, Commensal.’

‘Fear of what the devil? What are you afraid of, Estraven?’

‘Of what’s happening now. The continuation of the prestige-struggle in the Sinoh Valley; the humiliation of Karhide, the anger that rises from humiliation; the use of that anger by the Karhidish Government.’

‘Use? To what end?’

Obsle has no manners; Yegey, delicate and prickly, broke in, ‘Commensal, Lord Estraven is my guest and need not suffer questioning—’

‘Lord Estraven will answer questions when and as he sees fit, as he ever did,’ said Obsle grinning, a needle hidden in a heap of grease. ‘He knows himself between friends, here.’

‘I take my friends where I find them, Commensal, but I can no longer look to keep them long.’

‘I can see that. Yet we can pull a sledge together without being kemmerings, as we say in Eskeve – eh? What the devil, I know what you were exiled for, my dear: for liking Karhide better than its king.’

‘Rather for liking the king better than his cousin, perhaps.’

‘Or for liking Karhide better than Orgoreyn,’ said Yegey. ‘Am I wrong, Lord Estraven?’

‘No, Commensal.’

‘You think, then,’ said Obsle, ‘that Tibe wants to run Karhide as we run Orgoreyn – efficiently?’

‘I do. I think that Tibe, using the Sinoth Valley dispute as a goad, and sharpening it at need, may within a year work a greater change in Karhide than the last thousand years have seen. He has a model to work from, the Sarf. And he knows how to play on Argaven’s fears. That’s easier than trying to arouse Argaven’s courage, as I did. If Tibe succeeds, you gentlemen will find you have an enemy worthy of you.’

Obsle nodded. ‘I waive shifgrethor,’ said Yegey, ‘what are you getting at, Estraven?’

‘This: Will the Great Continent hold two Orgoreyns?’

‘Aye, aye, aye, the same thought,’ said Obsle, ‘the same thought; you planted it in my head a long time ago, Estraven, and I never can uproot it. Our shadow grows too long. It will cover Karhide too. A feud between two Clans, yes; a foray between two towns, yes; a border-dispute and a few barn-burnings and murders, yes; but a feud between two nations? a foray involving fifty million souls? O by Mesche’s sweet milk, that’s a picture that has set fire to my sleep, some nights, and made me get up sweating … We are not safe, we are not safe. You know it, Yegey; you’ve said it in your own way, many times.’

‘I’ve voted thirteen times now against pressing the Sinoth Valley dispute. But what good? The Domination faction holds twenty votes ready at command, and every move of Tibe’s strengthens the Sarf’s control over those twenty. He builds a fence across the valley, puts guards along the fence armed with foray guns – foray guns! I thought they kept them in museums. He feeds the Domination faction a challenge whenever they need one.’

‘And so strengthens Orgoreyn. But also Karhide. Every response you make to his provocations, every humiliation you inflict upon Karhide, every gain in your prestige, will serve to make Karhide stronger, until it is your equal – controlled