Ferlang

Ferlang is a planet near the edge of the galaxy whose authorities punish Detringer with extraterrestrial banishment after a series of public offenses culminates in an unprecedented act of aggression. The planet’s role in the story is both geographic and political: it is the home from which Detringer is expelled, and the society whose first encounter with intelligent aliens he unexpectedly comes to represent.

Astronomical Setting

Ferlang is the fourth planet from its sun in a system of fifteen planets, situated near an edge of the galaxy. Its remoteness is made consequential by Detringer’s sentence: he is carried far into the void between galaxies aboard a starship, then set adrift in a small, underpowered craft. The journey turns Ferlang from a home world into a distant point of origin, separated from its exile by the immense space his craft cannot readily cross.

Social Order and Punishment

The offenses that lead to Detringer’s banishment begin as breaches of Ferlang’s formal customs. During the Meditation Frolic, he sucks his teeth insolently; when the Regional Grand Ubiquitor spits at him, Detringer switches his tail widdershins. Ordinarily, these acts would have brought only a few dozen years of Plenary Ostracism.

His offenses escalate at Godmemory Meeting, where he audibly recalls sexual exploits despite being expected to observe the gathering’s conventions. The decisive transgression is violence against a Ukanister. It causes only minor bodily injury, but major damage to the victim’s ego, and marks the first act of Open Public Aggression since the primitive era of the Death Games. The Ferlang authorities impose Extraterrestrial Banishment, the supreme punishment described in the account. The progression from ritual discourtesy to sexual impropriety and then public violence makes the severity of the sentence legible within the society’s stated hierarchy of offenses.

Exile and First Contact

After Detringer is taken into intergalactic space and left adrift, his connection to Ferlang persists through Ichor, his loyal mechanical servant, who voluntarily accompanies him. The exile also places Detringer in an unforeseen position beyond the planet’s authority: he becomes the Ferlang People’s representative when they are about to meet the first intelligent aliens their race has ever encountered.

Ichor recognizes the irony of this historic opportunity falling to a criminal. Detringer replies that he did not seek the encounter and proposes that they conceal his differences with the Ferlang authorities. Ferlang therefore remains present in the first-contact episode not through its officials, but through an expelled citizen whose account of his home and punishment he intends to withhold.