The Interpreter [antikvár]

Thought. Thought: that field of force still to be analysed. Thought: as inseparable from a higher being as gravity from a planet. It wraps around me, as my senses go about their endless job of turning all the external world into symbols. I can know no external thing without its being touched - perhaps in some unguessable way transmuted - by my thought. The baseness I saw my own people, the nuls, perpetrating on that world Earth; was it real, or a misinterpretation in my mind? Never the less, here and now, moneyless and far from home, I must prefer practical questions. My eyes must be on the main chance. Someone must be fleeced, so that I can get back. Thoughts are a gamble. Some days interesting ones turn up, some days dull ones. Maybe that's why I'm a gambler: I'm hoping to discover something more than chance behind chance. Certainly my thoughts should be interesting now. Here I lie flat on the wide wall by the old harbour, gazing up at the universe. Because it is night, I can see the stars which belong to that empire in which I am a member of the master race. My name is Wattol Forlie; I am a nul; I rest penniless but resourceful on a low wall on what is temporarily the night side of a planet that its misbegotten lopsided sons call Stomin. Is that not an interesting thought? Not particularly. My feelings, my precious feelings, they are more important. Consider: I have no cause for optimism, yet I am optimistic. I am umpteen light years from Partussy, yet I am not homesick. I must appear to be in a drunken coma, yet my wits are as sharp as the beastly vinn I swigged at Farri-bidouchi's. And there is another level of my thought, a danger level, coming into action. I have one eye cocked to the galaxy and one to my inner self. Yet at the same time I am aware of this thug sUding towards me from a side street. He skirts the worn wooden capstan, and the pile of offal and shells where the sea food stall stands during the day. He approaches like a villain. He's a nul, I notice. Therefore arrogant, no doubt, as I am arrogant. He carries a knife with which to threaten me, the cheap quaint. How should he realize it is Wattol Forlie who sprawls here? How could he imagine the thoughts in my head as brightly peppered as the stars up yonder, which will scatter when even- 7