SLARVATHOffice of Off-World Correspondence

Bureau of Returning Persons — area sheet

Dollen

Dollen in watercolour: a single track coming down from the far horizon at the left across open rolling dry-grass ground and running off the bottom right; six poured and carved rooms standing beside it, three on each side; to the lower right a grassy hollow holding a small level pool of pale fog with a faint mist lifting off it; groves of small trees, two standing stones, and hazy hills behind.
Cf. FilmThe ground the plate is drawn from.
DOLLEN

a halt on the Crossing

Dollen is where the Crossing stops. It is not where anyone is going.

You stopped here on the way to the Belt, because everyone does. The fog stands in a hollow at the side of the track, level and small, and it is fed from underneath: there is always as much of it as there was.

There are rooms at Dollen for one night. Nobody takes a second. The rooms are kept by people who have never crossed the Belt and do not intend to.

Grieth is fifty kadd behind you. The Belt is a hundred and fifty ahead, and the figure is for the crossing.

There are a few hollows at the side of the fog, kept by the ones who keep the rooms. They are small, and there is always as much in them as there was.

FrameA small closed oval. Dollen is a stop on a track and is drawn as one. ViewpointDrawn from above, as inhabited areas are.
Key
  1. 15 Dollen rooms for one night
  2. 16 The hollow there is always as much of it as there was
From here

How far is not recorded. How long is.

Office annotationFifty and one hundred and fifty make the two hundred the Bureau entered for the Crossing. The Office did not expect them to.