When Rillibee and Brother Mainoa arrived at the dig, Mainoa lectured upon what was known about the Arbai while the two of them walked through the topless tunnels that had once been streets. To either side the fronts of houses were charmingly carved with stylized vines and fruits and humorous figures of the Arbai themselves, frolicking among the vines.
“These pictures aren’t of them when they were here on Grass, then,” Rillibee remarked. “There aren’t any vines like that out here.”
Mainoa shook his head. “No vines like that out here on the prairie, no. But there are vines with leaves and fruit like that in the swamp forest, twining around the trees, making hammocks and bridges for the birds. Almost everything that’s carved on these walls and doors can be found somewhere here on Grass. There’s Hippae and hounds and peepers and foxen. There’s flick birds and different kinds of trees, carved so detailed you can tell what kind of trees they are, too.”
“Where are the trees?” Brother Lourai wanted to know.
“In the swamp forest, boy. And in copses, here and there. I’ll show you a little copse not half a mile from here.”
“Trees,” breathed Brother Lourai.
“There’s thousands of pictures of the Arbai themselves on these walls, doing one thing and another,” Brother Mainoa went on. “Happy things on the fronts of the houses, ritual things on the doors. We think. At least, on the housefronts they seem to be smiling and on the doors they’re not.”
“That’s a smile?” Brother Lourai said doubtfully, staring at a representation of one toothy face.
“Well, given the kind of fangs they’ve got, we think so. What the researchers did was, they searched the archives for pictures of all kinds of animals in situations where one could postulate contentment or joy. Then they compared facial expressions. The high mucky-mucks say those are smiles. But the expressions carved on the doors aren’t. Those carved on doors are serious creatures doing serious things.” Brother Lourai examined an uninjured portion of door. The faces did seem very solemn. Even he could see that. The carving was of a procession of Arbai, bordered as always by the stylized vines. “But there aren’t any labels. No words.”
“Lots of words in the books, we think, but none that we’ve ever found connected to a carving, no.”
Brother Lourai sighed. It would have been pleasant to study the language of these Arbai, see what they had to think about things, see if it was the same as humans thought about things. There was a noise in the sky, away to the southwest, and his head came up — sniffing as though to smell out the sound the way Joshua always did when he heard something in the woods, like a bear, like a deer — peering into the clouds. “I hear an aircar.”
“Them from Opal Hill, I guess,” said Brother Mainoa. “I wonder what they wanted to see this place for.”
Marjorie, aloft in the car, was wondering the same thing. It was Rigo who had wanted to meet the Green Brothers, Rigo who had felt they might have useful information. Now, however, Rigo had no time to follow up any such idea. These days Rigo had time for nothing but riding.
Marjorie had volunteered to find out if the Brothers knew anything useful, but it was the invaluable Persun Pollut who suggested that if she wanted information she should stay away from the Friary.
“They’ve got a kind of committee there,” he had said, “an office. Acceptable Doctrine, it’s called. Everyone on the committee is mostly concerned about what people believe. They’re running things, too; don’t let them tell you they aren’t. Truth doesn’t enter in. If they’ve decided something is doctrine, they’ll ignore all evidence to the contrary and lie to your face. You don’t want to run afoul of those types, do you? Not if you have questions to ask. No. Better for you to meet some of the more sensible ones. I’ve met Brother Mainoa, now, when he’s come into the port for one thing and another. He’s just as down-to-earth as any one of us commons. If there’s any health problems among the Brothers, he’ll tell you.”
“How do I meet Brother Mainoa without involving the — the committee?” Marjorie asked.
“You might just ask to tour the Arbai ruin,” Persun suggested. “He’s usually there, and nine chances out of ten they’d send Brother Mainoa to guide you in any case. Mostly because the rest of them don’t want to be bothered.”
“I might ask to see the ruins at that,” she admitted, deciding after a moment’s consideration that it made good sense to do so, as well as offering a chance at amusement. There had been little amusement for any of them thus far on Grass.
Hungry for some family affection and fun, she packed an enormous lunch and asked the children if they would like to see the ruins. Tony said yes. Stella said no, she was tired, though what she had to be tired of, Marjorie couldn’t imagine. Though she believed she was aware of every emotion the girl felt, Marjorie had no notion that Stella spent each night riding endlessly across the simulated prairies of Grass, creeping down the stairs to ride the Hippae machine every night while the rest of the family was asleep, retreating to her bedroom only when dawn came. Stella had told no less than the truth when she said she was tired. Only the resilience of youth helped her give the appearance of normalcy.
So Tony and Marjorie had determined to make a party of it. At the last minute, however, Father Sandoval had asked if he and Father James could go along, and so there were four of them in the over-ornamented aircar piloted by Tony with reasonable proficiency, considering he had flown the thing only a dozen times. As they approached the ruin, a misty rain began to fall, fading all the colors of the landscape into indistinct grays. When they landed they were met by two of the green-clad Brothers, an old fat one with interested eyes and a young skinny one with a tight cap of brown, curly hair, and a sad, drawn expression. When the old one saw Father Sandoval, he blinked as though he recognized-what? A colleague? An age-mate? Someone who might be expected to be sympathetic? Or antagonistic?
“Religious?” asked Brother Mainoa. “Are you, sir, a religious?” He reached a hand toward the priest’s collar, turning it into a palm-up gesture of supplication. “You and the other gentleman?”
Father bent his thin shoulders and cocked his head, nodding, as though to ask why this minion of Sanctity should care, perhaps slightly offended.
“We are Old Catholics,” Father acknowledged. “This is Father James. I am Father Sandoval.”
“Look at them, Brother Lourai!” demanded Brother Mainoa. “Old Catholics. Now there are ones who chose their life. Not like us.” He winked at the older priest, cocking his head to a similar angle. “Brother Lourai and I, we were given, Father. Given to celibacy. Given to silence. Given to boredom. We had nothing at all to say about it. And when we couldn’t tolerate what we were given to, why, then we were sent here, for punishment.”
“I had heard something of that,” admitted Father Sandoval, not unsympathetically. “His Excellency the ambassador told me something of the kind.”
“I ask you to keep it in mind, Father. As we progress. With your tour…” He bobbed his head, chuckled, then turned and led them away. The rain had stopped. All around them the velvet turf was jeweled with droplets. Mainoa’s feet made dark tracks across the gemmed surface.
Father Sandoval looked questioningly at Marjorie. She shrugged. Who knew what the old man meant? He seemed to be amused by the idea of digging up an Arbai city as punishment, though she might have misunderstood. Only Father Sandoval had been introduced by name, but perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps the guides already knew who she was, who Tony was. As for them, the old one was Mainoa, no doubt, and he had called the other one Brother Lourai. Enough to begin with. She gestured the priest forward and followed him, Tony trailing behind her, his head swiveling as he tried to see everything at once.
The ruin was set in an area of violet grass, like soft fur upon the soil. Dug into this were sprawling trenches reached by a flight of stairs made out of ebon stems, the stout bundles staked into position, their tops flat, their stems rubbing together beneath the weight of feet to make a sound like a reprimand.
“Take off your shoes,” they seemed to say. “This is death’s ground. Show respect.”
It was as though the visitors heard the words. Almost, Tony knelt to take off his shoes, feeling his knees bend, coming to himself with a start, shamefaced. Father Sandoval crossed himself with an expression of alert surprise and anger. Father James reached out as though to catch himself from falling. Marjorie looked bemused, wondering. She had heard voices!
Brother Mainoa looked at them and chuckled. “You heard that? I hear it, too, and so does Brother Lourai here. Elder Brother Fuasoi doesn’t hear it, or says he doesn’t. You’re angry, Father? Thinking somebody’s playing tricks? I cut those grass bundles myself, Father Sandoval. No trickery to it. I just walked out into the prairie until I found a stand of grass thick enough, then I cut them and bundled them and put them down there with strips across the top to hold them flat. And I hear voices when people step on them, and you hear things when you step on them, but others don’t. Keep that in mind, Fathers, ma’am, young sir.”
The shallow flight of stairs led to a street paved in stone. Where had the builders found stone among these interminable prairies? And yet stone it was, glistening in the fall of light rain, still polished after buried centuries. The stone was interrupted at intervals by curbs and pediments surrounding open spaces in the pave.
“There were trees here.” Brother Mainoa gestured upward. They looked up, feeling the shadow of moving branches, hearing the rustle of leaves. Marjorie’s eyes widened. There were no trees. Only the empty plots. And yet she had seen, heard the sounds of foliage, the movement of leaves…
“What kind?” she asked. “Of trees, what kind?” The young, skinny brother answered, eagerly telling her what Mainoa had told him. “A tree found only in the swamp forest, ma’am. Some of the wood was still here when the town was uncovered. Preserved, it was. They examined the remains, and they weren’t a kind of tree that grows out here. A fruit tree, they think it was.”
Fronting on the narrow street were carved housefronts and wooden doors, the doors carved, so Brother Mainoa instructed them, with scenes of religious life among the Arbai.
’’Religious?” Father Sandoval asked. He was too well schooled to sneer, but his doubt was manifest-Brother Mainoa shrugged. They were scenes definitely mysterious, possibly mystical. What were they doing in those carvings? How could one be sure? What meant these figures offering tiny boxes or cubes to one another, these figures in procession? What meant these kneeling creatures, seeming to watch a grass peeper with expressions of awe upon their faces? The unknown artist had carved the peeper as though it was almost spherical and bracketed it with two hounds, noses pointed upward, surrounding the design with vines and leaves as all the designs were surrounded with vines and leaves. Personally, Brother Mainoa thought the carvings were religious. He smiled at Father Sandoval, daring him to disagree.
Father Sandoval smiled in return, keeping his opinion to himself. Father James looked from face to face, fretfully.
On another door two Hippae were back to back, kicking clods of earth at one another. Or perhaps at the strange structure between them. Was it a sculpture? Or a machine? Beside them the Arbai stood, solemnly watching. What did it mean? And how could one tell what details might have been lost when the doors were broken?
For they were broken. Splintered. Fragmented and crushed inward upon their hinges. Inside the excavated rooms — simple rooms, floored in the same stone as the streets, walled with what Brother Mainoa said was polymerized earth, with wide windows which had once looked out onto the prairies — inside those rooms were bones, hides, scales, mummified forms of people who had lived here once. Arbai. Near enough human-shaped to evoke human responses when humans saw their agony.
There were mouths open as though screaming. Empty eye sockets gazing upon horror. Here an arm and there the body, the remaining three-fingered, double-thumbed hand reaching toward the detached limb as though to reclaim it, possess it, at least to die whole — a denial of whatever horrible thing was happening.
Young ones, or at least small ones, torn in half, with adults clutching what remained to their breasts. Elsewhere, time had disintegrated the bodies and there were only piles of bones and piles of the glossy scales which had covered their hides. Everywhere the same, down every street, in every house.
Marjorie shut her eyes, hearing voices the next street over. A slippery language, full of sibilants, but punctuated with very human-sounding laughter.
“Are there other friars here?” she asked. “Digging? Working?”
“None today.” Brother Mainoa smiled, regarding her curiously. “What you hear is what you hear? The sounds of this city, perhaps? Or is it only the wind? How many times I have asked myself that question. ‘Mainoa,’ I say. ‘Is it only the wind?’ Or is it the sound of these people, Lady Westriding?” So he had already known her name.
Tony said, “I get the feeling that this place is… well, intentionally strange. For this world, I mean.”
Brother Mainoa gave him an approving look. “So I have felt, young sir. Intentionally made, by these poor creatures, a little like their own home place, perhaps?”
“There are many strange things about Grass,” Marjorie agreed, looking away from a screaming face. “Dr. Bergrem, in the town, has written about some things that make the planet unique. There is something our cells use, some long name I forget, which exists in a unique form here on Grass. She’s been studying it.”
“On any other world, the doctor would be renowned,” Brother Mainoa said. “Her reputation is greater than the people here know.”
“She could probably explain these sounds,” Marjorie remarked, fighting down an overwhelming terror and despair, trying to convince herself she did not hear murmured conversation in wholly unhuman voices, musical voices with a burbling, liquid sound. “Have you asked her?”
“I have reported the effects,” Brother Mainoa said. “I think the authorities believe I imagine them. So far no one has come to see whether I imagine them or not.”
Father Sandoval, seeing Marjorie’s distress, decided to warn her off. “Such places as this occasion superstitious awe in the unwary. We must be alert to protect ourselves from such, Marjorie. These were merely creatures, now extinct. There must have been some central business or supply area. These houses seem almost rural. They lack an urban feeling.”
“So it is with all Arbai cities or towns,” said Brother Mainoa. “Though we diggers know they traveled through space — perhaps in ships as we do, though we have found none, or by some other means — we know also they chose not to live in great aggregations as we humans often do. We have found no town capable of holding more than a few thousand or so of them. On most worlds there are several towns of that size, but never many.”
“And here?” Marjorie asked.
“This is the only one we have found on Grass.”
Father Sandoval frowned. “It is not a subject I know much about. Is it known where their home world was?”
Brother Mainoa shook his head. “Some think Repentance because there are several such cities on Repentance. I have not heard that anyone knows for sure.”
“Somewhere there could be Arbai still living, then?” Father James mused, kicking at a bit of protruding stone.
The Brother shrugged. “Some believe these dead towns were only outposts, that their cities will yet be found elsewhere. I don’t know. You asked about a business or market section in this town. What we assume is the market section is down this street to the left. At least, the structures there do not seem to be dwellings.”
“Shops?” Father Sandoval asked. “Storerooms?”
Mainoa shrugged. “There is an open space, a plaza. With three-sided structures that could have been booths for a market. There is a building full of jars of many sizes and shapes. A building full of baskets. A central dais in the plaza, surmounted with something that could be a machine, a sculpture, a place for posting notices. Perhaps it was an altar, or a place for a herald to stand, or a place to sit while watching the stars. Or even a stage for acrobatic display. Who knows? Who can say? One building is full of their books, books which look very much as our own did, a century or so ago, before we had scanners and decks and screens.”
“Bound volumes?” Marjorie asked.
“Yes. I have a team of penitents taking images of each page. I should say I have them intermittently. When there is nothing better for them to do. Though I am here much of the time, I have a crew at work only now and again. Copying the books is dull work, and lonely, but necessary. Eventually, a full set of copies will be available at Sanctity and at some major schools, like the University at Semling Prime.”
“But no translation.” Marjorie stared through an open door at the carnage within, willing it to be otherwise.
“None. Line after line, page after page, signs made of curving lines, intertwined. If there were something we could call a church, we could look for a repeated sequence and hope it meant ‘God.’ If there were a throne, we could look for the word ‘King.’ If there were words on the door carvings, we could feed the context into our computers, which might make sense of them. If there were even pictures in the books… I will show you some of the books before you leave.”
“Artifacts?” asked Father James.
“Baskets. Plates. Bowls. We do not think they wore fabric, but there are belts, or more properly, sashes. Woven strips of grass fiber about six inches wide and a couple of yards long. Nicely colored, beautifully patterned. The result is much like linen, the experts tell me. The Arbai have few artifacts. It is as though they chose very carefully each thing they used. Chose each one for line or color, what we would call beauty, though many of them — the pots, particularly — do not seem beautiful to us. Perhaps I should say, ‘to me.’ You may find them lovely. Each thing is handmade, but without inscriptions, nothing we might translate as ‘Made by John Brown.’ We will see the artifacts later, Lady Westriding. We have found nothing made by machines and nothing we are sure is a machine. There are the things called the crematoria and the thing in the center of the town. Perhaps they are machines. Perhaps not. And yet, the Arbai traveled. They must have had machines. They must have had ships, and yet we have never found any.”
“Are the towns everywhere like this?” Tony ran his hands along the carving, cupping the time-worn line of an alien face.
“Where there is earth, they built of earth, polymerizing the walls, making vaults or thatching the roofs. Where there are forests, they built of wood. Where there is sufficient stone, they built of stone. Here on Grass the stone comes from a quarry not far distant. The grasses have covered it, but the signs of Arbai work are there, nonetheless. Each city is different, depending upon the materials. On one planet they built high among the trees.”
“Where is that?”
He looked at her as though he had forgotten who she was, trying to remember something, his face intent upon some interior search. “I… I can’t remember. But I know they did…”
“How many of their cities have you seen?” Marjorie asked.
Brother Mainoa chuckled, himself once more. “This one, lady. Only this one. But I have seen pictures of them all. Copies of reports are shared among those of us sentenced to this duty. In case something found in one place casts light on something found elsewhere. Vain hope. And yet we go on hoping.”
“All like this. And all the inhabitants died,” Tony said.
“Perhaps. Or went elsewhere.”
They walked through what might have been a marketplace, or a meeting ground, or even a playground. At the center was the dais Brother Mainoa had described. Upon it an enigmatic strip of material curled and returned upon itself, making a twisted loop through which a tall man might walk. Tony struck it with a knuckle, hearing it ring in response. Metal. And yet it didn’t look like metal. Along the edges were scalloped and indented designs, as though the molten stuff had been imprinted by mysterious fingers. The same designs decorated the edges of the dais. In the open space small flags marked the places bodies had been found, slaughtered in the open, bodies now moved under cover for later study. One flag lay within the looped structure, several others lay beside the dais, as though a gathering had been interrupted there.
“What killed these people?” Tony asked.
“Foxen, some say. I think not.”
“Why do you think not?” Father James was curious, brought out of his usual reticence by the strangeness of this place.
Brother Mainoa looked around him, ignoring the presence of Brother Lourai, but looking for anyone else who might be within earshot. There were no diggers on duty today, but Brothers did drop in from time to time on one errand or another, to make a delivery of foodstuff, to pick up the most recent copies of Arbai books. Some of them were undoubtedly spies for Doctrine.
When he had satisfied himself that no one was listening, Mainoa said, “We Green Brothers have been here for many years, young sir. Many years. Many Grass years. Wintered here, packed up in winter quarters like so many pickles in a jar. We’ve spent every spring and summer and fall among the grasses. In all that time, not one of us has ever been attacked by the foxen.” His tone carried more than conviction. It carried certainty.
“Ah,” said Marjorie. “So.”
The Brother nodded, looking long into her eyes. “Yes, Lady West-riding. So.”
“You mean the Hippae?” Tony asked, appalled. “Surely not!”
“Tony!” Marjorie said emphatically. “Let him say.”
“I have nothing to say.” Brother Mainoa shook his head. “Nothing at all. I would not offend unwilling ears, young sir.”
“Offend my willing ones,” cried Marjorie.
He gave Tony a look which said volumes before turning to Marjorie. The boy flushed.
“To you, madam, then I say this. Look at these poor creatures dead all these centuries. Observe their wounds. Then look among the aristocrats at those who no longer hunt. Look at their artificial hands and arms and legs. And tell me, then, whether that which did the one thing has not also done the other.”
“But the Hippae are herbivores,” Tony protested still, thinking of his father. “Behemoths. Why would they—”
“Who knows what the Hippae do, or are?” offered Brother Mainoa. “They stay far from us, except to watch us. And when they watch us—”
“We see contempt,” breathed Marjorie so quietly that Tony was not sure he had heard her correctly. “We see malice.”
“Malice,” agreed Brother Mainoa. “Oh, at the very least, malice.”
“Oh, come, come,” said Father Sandoval doubtfully, almost angrily. “Malice, Marjorie?”
“I have seen it,” she said, putting her arm around Tony’s slender shoulders “I have seen it, Father. There was no mistake.” She confronted his scolding look with a fierce one of her own. Father Sandoval had always maintained the spiritual supremacy of man. He did not like discussion of other intelligence.
“Malice? In an animal?” asked Father James.
“Why do you say ‘animal’?” asked Brother Mainoa. “Why do you say that, Father?”
“Why… why, because that is what they are.”
“How do you know?”
Father James did not reply. Instead he reached out to help Father Sandoval, who was angrily wiping his brow and looking around him for a place to sit down.
“Over here, Fathers.” Brother Lourai beckoned. “We have made our home in this house of the Arbai. I have something here for us to drink.”
They sat, grateful for the refreshment and the chairs, somewhat disconcerted at the proportions of them. The Arbai had been a long-thighed race. Their chairs did not fit man. At least not these men. They perched, as on stools.
Father James returned to their conversation. “You asked why I thought the Hippae are animals? Well. I have seen them. They show no signs of being more than animals, do they?”
“What kind of sign would you accept?” Brother Mainoa asked. “Tool-making? Burial of the dead? Verbal communication?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. Since we’ve been here, I’ve heard no one suggest that the Hippae or the hounds or… or any other animal on Grass was any more than just that.”
Brother Mainoa shrugged “Think about it, Father. Ma’am. I do. It’s an interesting exercise, leading to much fascinating conjecture.”
They shared lunch together, the Brothers’ rations plus the plenty that Marjorie had packed. Then they walked again, down other streets. into other rooms. They saw artifacts. They saw books, endless books, pages covered with curvilinear lines. They came back past the thing on the dais that might be a machine but was definitely represented on at least one door carving, and they went on to see other things that might or might not be machines.
The light began to slant across the trenches, throwing them into shadow. Marjorie shivered as she asked, “Brother, would you come to Opal Hill to meet my husband? He is Roderigo Yrarier, ambassador from Sanctity to this place.”
Brother Lourai looked up, suddenly attentive. “But I have met him!” he exclaimed. “He came to Sanctity. The Hierarch was his uncle. We spoke about the plague. The Hierarch said he must go — come here, that is — because of the horses!”
Tony turned, mouth open, not sure what he had heard.
Brother Mainoa faced Marjorie, reached out to her. “My young colleague has been indiscreet. Acceptable Doctrine denies that plague exists.”
“Mother?”
“Wait. Tony.” She brought herself under control. So. He had found out. Better he than Stella. She turned to the nearest of them, Rillibee. “Brother, what do you know about the plague?”
Rillibee shivered, unable to answer. “Let me die,” the parrot cried from the top of a ruined wall, fluttering its gray wings.
’The boy saw his family die of it,” Mainoa said hastily. “Don’t ask him. Instead, think on this. Elsewhere, something killed the Arbai slowly. I know that here something killed them quickly. I know that men are dying, everywhere, and that no cure exists. So much I know. That, and the fact that Sanctity denies it all.”
Her jaw dropped. Was he saying that the current plague had happened before? “What do you know about it here, on Grass?”
“We at the Friary seem to have escaped it, thus far. What else is there to know?”
“How many have died of it here on Grass?”
He shrugged. “Who can count deaths that may be hidden? Sanctity says there is no plague. Not now. Since they deny plague exists, they do not tell us if anyone dies of it. And, since there is none now,
Sanctity finds it expedient to deny that there could ever have been plagues in the past. Acceptable Doctrine is that the Arbai died of ennui. Or of some environmentally related cause. But not of plague. ‘Not only are there no devils now, there never were,’ says Doctrine. Still, those of us who came from outside know that plague did exist, once. And devils, too.”
“You think that devils exist?” she asked with a sidelong look at Father Sandoval, whose mouth was pursed in distaste at this subject. “Have existed always, perhaps? Waiting for intelligent creatures to reach the stars? Waiting to strike them down, for hubris, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
“You have not answered. Will you come see my husband?”
He cocked his head again, staring over her shoulder at something only he could see. “If you send a car for me, ma’am, I’ll come, of course, since it would be discourteous to do otherwise You might want to consult me about the gardens at Opal Hill. I helped plant them, after all. It would be an understandable request. If you ask my superiors to send me for any reason, likely they won’t.”
She was silent for a moment, thinking. “Are you very loyal to your superiors, Brother Mainoa?”
Rillibee/Lourai snorted, a tiny snort. Brother Mainoa gave him a reproving glance.
“I was given to Sanctity, ma’am. I had no say in the matter. Brother Lourai, here, he was given, too. And then, when we didn’t like it, we were brought here. We had no say in that, either. I don’t recollect ever being asked if I was loyal.”
Father Sandoval cleared his throat and said firmly, “Thank you for your time, Brothers.”
“And yours, Father.”
“I’ll send a car,” Marjorie promised. “Within the next few days. Will you be here?”
“Now that we’re here, we’ll stay until someone makes us go back, Lady Westriding.”
“How is it, Brother, that you knew who I was, though we had not met before?”
“Ah. A friend of mine has been interested in Opal Hill. Your name came up.” He smiled vaguely. “During our discussion.”
The Brothers watched the aircar leave and then returned to their quarters, where Brother Mainoa took out his journal from a hidey-hole and wrote his comments upon the happenings of the day.
“Do you always do that?” asked Rillibee/Lourai.
“Always,” the older man sighed. “If I die, Lourai, look in these pages for anything I know or suspect.”
“If you die.” The other smiled.
Mainoa did not return the smile. “If I die. And if I die, Lourai, hide this book. They will kill you, too, if they find it in your possession.
Tony heard the word “plague” as he would have heard a thunderclap. The word began to resonate in his mind, causing other ideas to reverberate with them. Plague. One had heard of it, of course. One whispered about it. Sanctity denied there was any. For the first time he wondered why Sanctity had to continually deny something that did not exist. Why had his father gone to Sanctity and met with the Hierarch about plague?
Plague. He had seen no signs of it here. No one even talked of it, here. Tony spent a good deal of time with Sebastian Mechanic down at the village, learning the local way of things, meeting the people, getting to know them, but no one had mentioned plague. Illness, yes. The people had illnesses. Things went wrong with old bones and joints. Hearts wore out. There was very little lung trouble, though. The air breathed cleanly and caused no problems here. There were few if any infectious diseases. They had been wiped out in this small population, and the quarantine officers at the port kept Commons clean.
But plague?
“Mother,” he asked softly, thinking of people he had left behind, of one person he had left behind, “is there plague at home?”
She turned a horrified look upon him, prepared to lie as she had told herself she must. “Yes,” she confessed to his open, waiting face, feeling the words leave her in an involuntary exhalation. “Yes, there is plague at home. And on every other inhabited world as well.”
“Here?”
“Except here. Maybe. We think. We have been told.”
“You’re here to find out?”
She nodded.
“You didn’t tell us?”
“Stella…” Marjorie murmured. “You know Stella.”
“But me, Mother. Me?”
“It was thought you were too young. That you might forget yourself.”
“A secret? Why?”
“Because…” said Father Sandoval, leaning forward to grip the young man’s arm, “because of the Moldies, the nihilists. If they learned of it, they would try to bring the plague here. And because the Grassians do not care if all the other worlds die. They do not wish to be disturbed.”
“But… but that’s inhuman!”
“It is not fair to say they do not care,” Marjorie murmured again. “Let us say rather that they do not perceive. Various efforts to make them perceive have resulted in nothing but their annoyance. Father Sandoval is right, they do not wish to be disturbed; but there is more to it than that. Something psychological. I should say, pathological. Something that prevents their seeing or attending So we are here under false pretenses, Tony, as ambassador and family. What we are really here for is to find out whether there is plague here. If there is not, we must somehow get permission for people to come here and find why not.”
“What have you found?”
“Very little. There does not seem to be plague here, but we are not certain. Asmir Tanlig is finding out from the villagers and from servants in the estancias whether there are any unexplained deaths or illnesses. Sebastian Mechanic knows many of the port workers, and he is trying to find out the same information from them. The two men don’t know why they are asking the questions. They’ve been told that we’re making a health survey for Sanctity. We need information from the bons, as well, but we seem unable to establish any contact with them beyond the purely formal. We have been trying to make friends.”
“That’s why the reception was held.”
“Yes.”
“Eugenie’s showing up with that girl didn’t help things, did it.”
“No, Tony. It didn’t.”
“Eugenie hasn’t the brains of a root peeper.” He said it hopelessly, waving his fingers, as though to wave Eugenie away. Neither he nor Stella could understand their father’s fondness for Eugenie. “No brains at all.”
“Unfortunately, that’s probably close to the truth.” She caught Father James’ eyes upon her and flushed. Rigo’s nephew probably had family loyalties to Rigo. She should not have criticized Rigo before him. She should not do it before Tony, either, except that Tony already knew… so much.
“I wondered what could be important enough to get you to come,”
Tony said, shaking his head. “Leaving your work at Breedertown that way. But surely they can’t be depending only on us. What is Sanctity doing?”
“According to Rigo, everything they can. They can’t get any animal, including man, to create an antibody to the virus. They can kill the virus, but not in a living creature. Eventually, if we find there is no plague here, we will ship some tissue samples from here back to Sanctity.”
“Tissue samples? Will the bons let you do that?”
“They have no physicians among themselves, Tony. If they are injured, they must call upon doctors from Commons. I think we can buy whatever samples will be needed.”
“But so far, Sanctity has found nothing.”
“Nothing. No tissue they have tested makes antibodies to the virus.”
The four of them were huddled together like conspirators. “Tony, you mustn’t—”
“Mustn’t tell Stella. I know. She would blurt it out, just to prove we can’t tell her what to do.”
Father Sandoval nodded in agreement. “I think that’s probably true.” He had known Stella since she was a child. She confessed a fair number of sins — usually, with maximum drama, not the ones she was most guilty of. Anger, mostly. Anger at Marjorie for not having provided that indefinable something Stella had always wanted. After long thought and meditation, Father Sandoval had decided it was perhaps the same thing Rigo wanted — the thing called intimacy. Though neither of them would set themselves aside long enough to work for it. They wanted family, but they wanted it on command, like water from a spout, ready when they turned it on, absent otherwise. “Help me now, give me now, comfort me now. Then, when you’ve done it, get out of my way!”
Father Sandoval sighed again, wishing his years had given him better insight into Stella, and into her father, Stella, of course, would eventually marry and could then be instructed to be obedient to her husband as she was now instructed to be obedient to her parents. But what could one do with Rigo? Both he and Stella were too impatient to woo. They would storm or nothing. Overwhelm, or nothing. They would not beg. They would take by right. Even things they should not take at all.
Unaware of Father Sandoval’s concern, Stella, meantime, was upon the simulacrum in the sixth hour of her current ride: eyes glazed, back braced, beyond hunger or thirst in a trance of her own evoking.
Her father had finished his own session on the machine hours ago. Hector Paine was gone. No one else would come into the winter quarters. She had set the timing mechanism for seven hours, two hours longer than she had ever ridden before, and had vaulted aboard. There was no way to stop the machine once she had started, no way to get off the mount save by falling.
On the screens around her the grasses whipped past. Devices at her side mimicked the blows of the blades, striking her hat, her coat. The machine rocked and twisted, always slightly off rhythm so that she could not relax. The body stayed alert, but the brain eventually gave up thinking and retreated into some never-never land beyond exhaustion. Stella was there now, dreaming of Sylvan bon Damfels. During the reception at Opal Hill, she had watched him as he danced with Marjorie, watched, devoured, swallowed him whole. When she had danced with him, she had absorbed him through her skin, taken his image into herself so that he dwelt there, a paradigm of the real and genuine man. And since that time she had undressed him and possessed him and done with him all those things she had not yet done with others, not through any sense of morality but because she had not yet found one she thought worthy of herself. Now she had. Sylvan was worthy. Sylvan was noble. Sylvan was one to whom she might be mated. No! The one to whom she would be mated. In just a little time. In the time it would take for her to ride, as he rode, so that she might ride by his side.
She ignored what he had said to Marjorie about riding, ignored his advice to the Yrariers. It did not fit her picture of him, so she struck it from his image as she built him anew, according to her own needs — the gospel of St. Sylvan, according to Stella, his creator.
The machine galloped on, its springs and levers walloping and sliding, the sound of hooves thundering softly from its speakers, the pictured stems of grass fleeing everlastingly on either side, the blades lashing at her with softly sounded strokes.
In some remote part of her mind she told Elaine Brouer all about Sylvan, about their meeting, the way their eyes had met. “He loved me in that moment. In that very moment, he loved me as he had never loved anyone before.”
Sylvan was saying much the same thing to himself as he walked a winding path deep in the famed grass gardens of Klive. “I loved her in that moment. I loved her the moment I saw her. The moment I took her into my arms. As I have never loved before.”
He was not speaking of Stella. He was speaking of Marjorie.