WorldCrafter's Assignment 4

by A. Robin Bausman

Analyze a Work for Opening "Wish" and Trace it Through the Plot

Form / Genre: Novel / Science Fiction

Plot type (Generic): Beartrap

Internal Conflict: Man against Himself: Diskan fights himself to prove that he IS ok (overcome his poor self-image)

External Conflicts:

Man against Man: Diskan against society (people who expect him to be something he is not)
Man against Nature: Diskan has to survive, alone and with no supplies, on an unknown world
Man against Man: Diskan against the treasure hunters who will kill to get what they want

Opening scene wish: "All he asked or wanted was what they would not grant him – solitude and freedom from all they were and he could not be."

Opening scene: Diskan Fentress is hiding in the garden at his Vaan stepmother’s estate, after yet another disastrous encounter, this one with an antique vase. An unfortunately breakable vase. He hears his stepsister calling and searching for him, and he mentally reviews all his other failures. She will escort him in to the dinner, where his human father and all the elegant Vaan will greet him, again, as if nothing has happened. He cannot endure being found and hides in the only darkened room nearby – his father’s study. There, he sees all his father’s ship tapes, an unusually large group for and unusually successful First-in-Scout. He decides to steal a tape and use it to escape to an unknown world, a world empty of expectations he cannot fulfill. <This is more detail than wanted for a selling outline and probably more detail than needed for a working outline (although it might help me stay on my conflict line at this stage of my subconscious’ training). However, it is useful in pointing out how the plot/conflict is evolving out of Diskan’s wish. This is the appropriate opening scene because this is the first successful action Diskan takes to change his situation of not being what everyone expects him to be and instead become what is appropriate for his talents. >
Before Diskan escapes his father’s study, he observes his Vaan stepbrother Drustans come in and take a tape – the very one Diskan moved into the gap left when he stole his own tape. There are several traders and a Zacathan who might be interested in such a "redtape" world at his stepmother’s party. If Diskan is going to carry out his decision, he must act now, before the switch is discovered. He makes his way to the spaceport, impersonates a manual worker loading fragile cargo, disables a guard robot on the small ship that suits his purpose, and successfully steals the ship. The autopilot uses the tape to steer to Mimir, but the ship crash lands in a mudflat. Diskan barely escapes the ship with his life before the ship is sucked under the mud. He has only the clothes on his back, the few civilized odds and ends in his pockets, and a scrap of ship’s crash netting, but he has achieved his freedom. <Clear in the prose, but somewhat lost in this shortened outline, Diskan is increasingly confident as he makes his own decisions and carries them out. The ship stealing scene involved using what he learned "on the job" as a manual laborer in a spaceport, not the formal teaching (readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmatic) society was unable to force into him. He achieves the first goal (freedom). The stepbrother detail comes into the plot again near the end of the book. >
Diskan takes shelter for the night in a nearby rock crevice and "drinks" snow melted in his mouth. In the morning, he goes back to the wreck site and retrieves a glowing firestone so that he will be able to light a fire. He observes several animals killed in the crash and the scavengers gathered to feed on them. It is not a world empty of animal life, and Diskan’s hopes for food improve. He heads inland for higher ground, and finds a small, newly killed animal near the place he camped last night. Seeing no one about to claim the meat, Diskan takes it along with him as he walks up a dry streambed. He finds a good camping spot, makes a fire, and cooks his meal as best he can with no tools. He takes some of the animal’s sharp teeth and claws for weapons or tools, and he finds a club-like branch that balances nicely in his hand. It may not be civilization, but he has his life, food, water, fire, and a weapon of sorts. And his freedom. <Diskan continues his self-realization, successfully providing the basics for his survival. Yes, he’s getting a little help with the food, but he is thinking through what is necessary to hunt and making plans in that direction. He is not above a little scavenging to survive. >
Diskan continues following the streambed and makes camp for the second night. Feeling watched, he "reaches" out with his mind, trying to contact whatever is watching him. He fails, lacking a proper focus. Then his target comes out of the shadows, dragging another of the beasts that made Diskan’s meal the day before. The not-quite-animal leaves the beast and retreats to the edge of the light cast by the fire. Diskan tries, and fails, to communicate with it. It is eager but patient – this is the slower way to communicate, but it will make contact. This one (human) tries to reach them and almost succeeds…. Using the crude tools made the day before, Diskan makes a better meal of the second beast, offering a portion to his mysterious benefactor (refused). Diskan finally sleeps, and, on waking, travels another day inland. He begins to plan for a more permanent camp. <Diskan is starting to use his "different" talents. >
Sleep troubled by mysterious dreams of a city, Diskan awakens to more snow. He scatters the fire, suspecting some branches with red leaves might have drugged his sleep and caused the vivid dreams. He resumes his travel up the valley, feeling somehow "herded", but, at this point, one direction is as good as another, so he does not resist. The trail dwindles to a ledge along the valley’s walls, and Diskan must overcome his fear of his own clumsiness. Life as a manual laborer has given him strength, but he doubts his physical control. When the trail apparently disappears, Diskan prepares to turn back, only to discover one of the benefactor animals behind him. The animal saves Diskan from being swept over the side in a small avalanche, and then shows Diskan the rest of the trail (over the side and climb down). The animal’s obvious intelligence prompts Diskan to try to communicate with it again, and some beginnings are made. Diskan is at first reluctant to climb over the edge but cannot resist the challenge when the animal climbs up and down several times. At the trail’s end, Diskan sees a blinking column that marks an ancient road, and a pawprint is a clear hint. Buoyed up by his recent success, Diskan chooses to follow the ancient road. <The animal’s clawed feet are better equipped than Diskan’s booted feet and wrapped hands for climbing down an icy cliff face, just as humans in earlier times were better equipped for those things Diskan failed at. The point here is Diskan accepts the challenge and succeeds this time. That success leads to a different path, different choices. >
Following the road, Diskan discovers evidence of recent ship landings and a human rescue cache. However, the draw-in beacon is not speaking Basic, and many of the containers in the cache are seal locked, not available to any needy crash survivor. Diskan decides that this is not a Patrol cache but some private station. Wary of encountering other humans where none of them should be, Diskan gathers up what supplies he can use – food, a parka, and two sleeping rolls. He takes a position on a hill, among the rocky spires further along the road, and above the cache where he can watch, observe who comes, and make up a good cover story for why he is on Mimir. After some time, he decides the cache may be abandoned and that he would rather explore further along the road than continue waiting. The hidden watchers, the benefactor animals, are pleased. Diskan is moving in the right direction again…. <These choices are consistent with his earlier wish to be away from other humans and their expectations. The consequences of this scene (parka) occur later in the plot…. >
Continuing along the road, Diskan runs into a large, predatory beast. He backs into a wall, preparing to defend himself against its long claws and teeth with his wooden club. One of the animals comes to his rescue, but it is wounded in the fight. Instead of running away while the two fight, Diskan rushes out to defend it when it falls, and they kill the beast. Diskan cares for the wounded animal as best he can. He cannot leave it here alone in the cold and return to the cache. He tries to communicate again and this time is drawn into its alien thoughts. Other animals come out of the woods, and they all walk along the road into the outskirts of a ruined city. Diskan has no choice but to walk with them. He does not like this control, so reminiscent of his earlier life moving at the behest of his fellow humans. They reach a square, Diskan’s body is released and his actions again his own, the other animals bring wood for Diskan to make a fire, and Diskan discovers he does not want to leave now. He finds a stunner, a weapon perhaps discarded by the cache people. The weapon is a welcome boost to his confidence. As he falls into exhausted sleep, he notices some of the animals putting branches with the red leaves into the fire. <Diskan is choosing not to be so alone, after all. Perhaps what he is meant to be does not require complete solitude…? (Hint, hint) >
The leaves’ smoke brings vivid dreams of the city that was, and still might be, somewhere. Splashing together through Xcothal of the waterways, the brothers-in-fur and the others move happily toward the center, toward festival time. The others are only shadow, and, try though he does, Diskan cannot bring those shadows into focus…. The brothers-in-fur are disappointed, but they still have hope that Diskan will reach them if they take him physically to the city center. Diskan awakens with the dreams vivid in his mind. He follows the brothers-in-fur to the city center, but he cannot understand what they want him to do. The mental pressure, plea, for him to do something increases, but, as of old, he does not understand, cannot respond. The brothers withdraw, leaving Diskan alone, as he had wished. <Snap! He got what he wanted, but it is not exactly what he intended…. >
Apathetic, with no goal in mind, Diskan wanders through the central citadel. He stumbles across evidence of other humans, finding a battle scene, complete with blaster scorch marks on the walls and a dead body. Investigating the body, he finds a direction finder but chooses not to follow it since it might lead him straight into more blaster fire. Instead, he attempts to make his way out of the city and back to the cache. He cannot get out of the city, coming impossibly back to the same ruined circle with mud lake from three different streets. Dismayed at the return of his old "ineptitude", Diskan takes shelter for the night in one of the buildings. He senses a difference – where before the city welcomed him with tantalizing dream glimpses of paradise, now it repels and threatens. He cannot sleep and spends the night in mental battle against this dark, reaching for the light he lost when the brothers left him alone. Something does respond to his mental battle; he is not quite sure what. <Diskan is still avoiding confrontation with fellow humans, and he failed to connect with the brothers-in-fur. Nevertheless, he stubbornly fights on (characteristic: his fellow humans would say he is too stupid to know when to quit). >
A booming signal vibrates across the city and draws Diskan back to the citadel, to a second chance at mental union with the brothers, the key to making the dream Xcothal real. That is interrupted by a blaster attack, and the brothers roll Diskan out of the line of fire. Angered at this second lost opportunity, Diskan follows the attacker (with the direction finder) down into the bowels of the citadel. They do not believe his story of being a castaway, thinking him one of the Jacks (hijackers) who attacked them earlier. They shot at him because he was wearing the parka from the cache – one of the Jack’s parkas. When the brother-in-fur stands with Diskan, one of them steps out in the open to better observe, and Diskan stuns them both. <Diskan is ever closer to reaching the brothers-in-fur with his "different" sense and thus attaining reality from the dream paradise. He chooses to confront his opponents this time, instead of the usual (unsuccessful) pattern of avoiding them. >
While waiting for the stun effect to wear off, Diskan listens to their log tapes. He discovers they are the two survivors of an archaeological expedition following up on his father’s report on the planet Mimir - a Zacathan Hist Techneer and his aide, a young human girl. [Aside: the Zacathans, a favorite of Norton’s, are a long-lived, humanoid, reptilian people renowned for their expertise in history, archaeology, and legend-mining.] They could not escape the city either. The girl recovers first from the stun, and she confirms that the brothers-in-fur are intelligent. The archaeologists have not been able to communicate with them. Diskan and the girl Julha compare notes and decide that there is a good chance that the archaeologist’s ship has been taken and a second ship sent away unaware of their peril. The telepathic Zacathan makes the brother-in-fur understand their need to escape the city and the Jacks, but he is unable to communicate fully. <As a result of his increased self-confidence, Diskan decides and acts along with the others. He no longer withdraws and lets others decide his fate. >
The brother leads them down and out of the city. Along the way, the two archaeologists question Diskan, suspicious of his convenient appearance on such a remote, unknown world. Diskan tells some, but not all, of his story. He admits to the dreams of Xcothal in its prime and to his ability to contact nonhuman thought. The Zacathan is enthusiastic and urges him to explore these talents, but another try at mental contact with the brother leaves Diskan shaken and fearful of maintaining his individual identity. <Diskan acknowledges openly his differences. The Zacathan’s respect mirrors Diskan’s own rising self-confidence and self-worth, but Diskan is not firm in this new self-image. >
They continue on through the lower passage out of the city; a pyrotechnic encounter with an underground creature sets the Jacks once again on their trail. Diskan kills the beast, using the last of their only blaster’s charge. He carries the wounded Zacathan when the man collapses, but they finally take refuge in a sheltered hollow when Diskan’s strength is spent. The brother-in-fur leaves them when they leave the city. <Diskan continues taking an active role, often leading. And his fellows must depend on him for a change…. >
The Zacathan is too weak to go on, indeed might die if he does not receive medical aid. Julha is frantic to get that aid and ignores all thought of the difficulties and danger to be faced to obtain it. Diskan convinces her to wait until morning; they all need rest. <Despite his improvements, Diskan is still estranged from his fellow humans – the girl Julha is concerned only with obtaining help for her foster father, the Zacathan. Nevertheless, the person Diskan is cannot leave them alone here. He is not so free of society as he thought. >
The brother-in-fur returns with the morning and tries to stop Diskan’s going to the cache, but Julha stuns it. Against Julha’s objections, Diskan puts the stunned animal in the hollow, near where the Zacathan lies in the warmth of their heater. Tense from the warning the brother might have been giving him, Diskan moves slowly on his way back to the cache, some of his long time awkwardness returning. At the cache, he is surprised and captured by the Jacks. They use a babbler on him, a device to extract truth-talk, and Diskan listens in dismay as his voice dispassionately tells them the story of his landing here on Mimir. Frantic not to babble the location of the two he left behind, Diskan is relieved to hear his story take a decided turn away from reality. The brothers are still with him in mind, and they use his voice to spin a tale of treasure in the city. Treasure that the disinterested natives will not object to the Jacks hunting. They warn of the city’s curse, but that curse is no concern of theirs – only the concern of any fool enough to bring it down on themselves. The Jacks, being logical humans, do not, of course, believe any of it. <Diskan, in being true to himself, has enlisted the native brothers as powerful allies. The Jacks,"normal" humans - superior in the face of native superstition, are about to make their own beartrap…. >
The pirate Jacks have two other prisoners, a Survey man and Drustans, Diskan’s Vaan stepbrother. They tricked Drustans into stealing the tape to Mimir, except Diskan had already stolen that tape. They discovered the error before shipping out, but that arrival delay was what allowed Diskan his foray in their cache and eventually the archaeologists’ escape. Bound a prisoner in the Jacks’ camp, Diskan contacts the brothers-in-fur, opening himself fully to communication with them as he never has before. They instruct him to light a fire at the city’s edge, before he leads the Jacks into Xcothal-that-was, the treasure-filled dream city. The brothers have set out wood for burning, laced through with branches of the red leaves. <Diskan embraces his otherness, becoming what he can be and no longer trying to be what others expect. Contrast Diskan’s relationship with Drustans at the beginning of the story with that here – at the beginning, Drustans was "the enemy" – the impossible ideal that Diskan could never become and which he constantly had his nose rubbed in, so to speak. Now, since Diskan has consciously chosen to follow his own path, Drustans is just a person. A person in need of rescuing, as a matter of fact…. >
The Jacks do not want to light the fire, fearing a trap. Diskan uses his clumsiness as a ruse to stumble into the woodpile and drop his carefully hoarded firestone (from his first days on Mimir). The pile explodes and smoke billows about them, and Diskan pulls the dream city into reality around them. The brothers-in-fur are with him, weaving patterns in the mist, and the city is more real than ever before. He can see forms in the shadow people, almost make out their faces. The other humans with him, the Jacks, Drustans, and the Survey man, are a drag on him. He would leave them, but the brothers urge him to carry them along a little further. They travel again to the citadel, not through a ruined city but through a shadow city almost real. Diskan weaves the patterns; he is the door-opener who can lead the brothers-in-fur to the brothers-in-flesh in Xcothal-that-was. In that Xcothal, the mind can weave treasure from the patterns, and Diskan weaves the treasures the Jacks expect. They fight each other, and Diskan breaks away from them, pulling Drustans with him and leaving the dead Survey tech. Diskan must lead Drustans back to safety. Behind them, the surviving Jacks hunt one another through the ruins of Xcothal-that-is. <Using his unique talents, Diskan triumphs over the Jacks, but he still has ties, obligations, to the people in his past. He is not yet free to follow his own destiny. >
Diskan leads his stepbrother back to the archaeologists’ hiding place. The Zacathan is still unconscious, and they do not have much time before the surviving Jacks come after them. The Jacks cannot let witnesses survive. Diskan sends Drustans on ahead to the Jacks’ ship, there to signal in the Patrol ship that has been following the Jacks. Meanwhile, he and Julha will follow as quickly as they can, carrying the Zacathan. Near the ship, Drustans calls out to them, returning now that the signal for rescue has been sent. Diskan stops, lowering the Zacathan to the ground. Julha tries to stop him, offering to testify on his behalf at the inevitable trial for stealing the ship, but Diskan is determined to return to Xcothal. The brothers weave joyfully about their path, and he pulls the patterns into shape. Xcothal-that-was takes shape around him, and the dwellers are no longer shadows. Brothers-in-flesh dance once more with brothers-in-fur. <This is the right resolution to the conflict Diskan vs. society - "cannot be what society expects/become what he is meant to be". Going with the brothers to the city that has a rightful place for him works. "Going for the girl" would have been a disaster…not this story at all. >

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