A city. Home of Heineman's Uncle's Circus.
The rest of the mail was routine, but for a letter from Idosolaris. It was from Heineman's Uncle Ilo, Ilo Inca Ma Macromius Jubiladilia, owner-manager of the Champion Sea Circus. Two photos slipped out of the letter. One showed Ilo himself, unchanged since his last photo: same black hair, same luxuriant moustache (it had to be false!), same circus-master's swagger-stick. The second showed a woman in a swimsuit feeding a fish to a dolphin.
Heineman did not need to read the letter to know it contained the same old inviting promise: a job awaits you in Idosolaris. That offer was both temptation and a threat. As if he had already accepted that offer, he confronted the possibility of a future which would find him alone in the huge hollow night of a strange city. He imagined himself confronted, on some vital social occasion, by the bone biscuits of Idosolaris, or by a meal of bloodfruit and vomit-basted bats. His refusal to eat would be taken as - what?
And even if he successfully negotiated the terrors of the dining table, how would he cope with the other dangers? The trick coins, for instance, the coins which changed their value with the changing light, he didn't understand how those were supposed to work, but he had heard of them, you could get cheated of a fortune in a bank or a shop. [EoH Ch15]