While he waited for the agricultural expert to arrive, Valentine scanned once more the documents Y-Uulisaan had prepared for him and those that he had called up out of the historical archives. It was perhaps the fiftieth time he had looked them over since leaving Alaisor, and the story they told grew no less melancholy with repetition.

Blights and pestilences, he knew, were as old as agriculture itself. There was no reason why Majipoor, fortunate world though it was, should be entirely exempt from such ills, and indeed the archives showed ample precedent for the present troubles. There had been serious disruptions of crops through disease or drought or insect attack in a dozen reigns or more, and major ones in at least five: that of Setiphon and Lord Stanidor, that of Thraym and Lord Vildivar, that of Struin and Lord Guadeloom, that of Kanaba and Lord Sirruth, and in the time of Signor and Lord Melikand, deep in the misty recesses of the past.

But what was happening now seemed far more threatening than any of those, Valentine thought, and not merely because it was a present crisis rather than something safely entombed in the archives. The population of Majipoor was immensely greater than it had been during any of the earlier pestilences: twenty billion, where in Struin's time, say, it had been scarcely a sixth as much, and in Signor's only a relative handful. A population so huge could fall easily into famine if its agricultural base were disrupted. The structure of society itself might collapse. Valentine was well aware that the stability of the Majipoori way over so many thousands of years—so contrary to the experience of most civilizations—was founded on the extraordinarily benign nature of life on the giant planet. Because no one was ever in real need, there was nearly universal acquiescence in the order of things and even in the inequalities of the social order. But take away the certainty of a full belly and all the rest might fall apart overnight.

And these dark dreams of his, these visions of chaos, and the strange omens—wind-spiders drifting over Alhanroel, and other such things—all of that instilled in him a sense of grim danger, of unique peril.

"My lord, Y-Uulisaan is here," said Sleet.

The agricultural expert entered, looking hesitant and ill at ease. In an awkward way he began to make the starburst gesture that etiquette demanded. Valentine shook his head impatiently and beckoned Y-Uulisaan to take a seat. He pointed to the zone marked in red along the Dulorn Rift.

"How important a crop is lusavender?"

Y-Uulisaan said, "Essential, my lord. It forms the basis for carbohydrate assimilation in all of northern and western Zimroel."

"And if severe shortages develop?"

"It might be possible to create diet supplements using such foods as stajja."

"But there's a stajja blight too!"

"Indeed, my lord. And milaile, which fulfills similar nutritional needs, is suffering from root weevils, as I have shown you. Therefore we can project general hardship in this entire sector of Zimroel within six to nine months—"