Marjorie thought: It always comes down to something like this, doesn’t it. No matter what our consciences say, no matter how much doctrine we’ve been taught, no matter how many ethical considerations we’ve chewed and swallowed and tried to digest, it always comes down to us arming ourselves with weapons as deadly as we can manage and going out into combat…
I should be frightened but it doesn’t feel much different from competition, really, A high wall. Always the possibility of a fall, even a bad fall, even getting killed. Not the safest sport in the world. Still, it’s only time and energy and staying on and trusting the horse. Thinking with the horse, not for him…
I really don’t have to think about anything except killing as many of them as I can. Killing them, and not worrying about the ethics until later. Forget that every Hippae at the bottom of the hill has the potential of becoming a foxen. A being more intelligent than I am. Every Hippae I kill or maim means one less like Him. Don’t think about Him. Unthink Him. The whole thing was delirium, that’s all. Imagination.
Where’s the justice in this? If man had never come to Grass, nothing like this would have happened. If man and Arbai had never come. If no one ever went anywhere, nothing like this would happen…
Except that it would. Some wild, malevolent virus would have found its way to us stay-at-homes. Something like the Hippae would come screaming through our windows, breaking down our doors, killing and raping and mutilating us.
Oh, Lord, I have been such a good girl! I have always attended mass, always gone to confession, always done my penance. I’ve done charity work. I’ve loved and cared for my children, no matter how hard they made it. I’ve tried my damnedest to love my husband. I thought about killing myself, but I repented that. I’ve lived a very acceptable, proper life at home, there… Piss on it.
I’d rather be here. Even if I die, I’d rather be here. If there’s anything important for a very small being to do, it’s fighting the plague. That’s first. We’ve got to buy time to find the answer. The only thing that matters now is the plague. We’ve got to find the cure and make sure that Sanctity doesn’t get it before someone else does. And if we do that then… then there’s something else. Oh, God, let Him talk to me. I want Him to talk to me.
Rigo thought: This damned lance doesn’t balance right. It needs to be heavier at the butt so it’ll swing with less strength. Maybe it’s just that I feel lousy. Sick, weak. I should still be back there in a chair letting somebody put a blanket over my legs. Instead, I’m here. Where is here? How the hell did I get here? Well, no one forced me. I’m the only one of us who’s ever fought a Hippae. I’m the only one who knows where to hit them. Legs first, jaws second. Cut their legs out, their jaws off, let the damned, stinking things die.
I’m not healed yet. My legs don’t feel right. My thighs feel soggy, like wet sponges As though there were no muscle there. Someone may die out here today. Maybe me. Better me than Marjorie or Tony. They haven’t played the fool, the way I have.
But if it’s me, she’ll be free. Free to do whatever she likes, go to whomever she likes. Sylvan. Look at him. Never ridden a horse before, but he looks like he was born riding. Well, it’s not that different. The strengths are the same; legs, back.
If I get killed, will she go to him?
If she does, is it any worse than my having Eugenie? Poor Eugenie. Damn. I wish they’d saved her Lovely Eugenie. Nothing in her head but how to make things pretty and taste good and smell good and feel good. No high aspirations. No high-minded innocence to offend against. No modesty to invade. No expectations to fall short of. No serious thoughts at all. Still, she deserved better than to die like that.
If she died. God. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe the hounds took her, the Hippae took her, the way they took Stella…
Don’t think of that! The only thing that matters now is the plague. We’ve got to save Commons from being overrun, just for a while, until someone can come up with the answer. We will, will come up with an answer. Mankind will come up with an answer! Something always saves, us, just in the nick of time. God will intervene. There’ll be time. Marjorie will turn back to me. She always has. Always, no matter what happens…
Sylvan thought: You have to give him credit. Not a day out of bed, half killed by the mounts, and here he is. He keeps looking at me, letting his eyes slide across me. I know what he’s thinking. If he gets killed, I get Marjorie. Fool. If he gets killed, Marjorie does what she pleases, and that doesn’t include me. I don’t know why. I’ve never had trouble with any woman I’ve ever wanted, but I’m no good with her. I’m the real fool. I thought she was like one of us. What’s the Terran word? Pleasure-seeking. Hedonistic. Well, what else have we had to think of but pleasure? The damned Hippae haven’t let us think of anything else. They’ve tapped into us and enslaved us and kept us right where they wanted us…
Look at Marjorie! Like a queen! Regal and tall and rides that thing as though she were part of it. That thing! Ha-ha. Horse. Horse. They make soft noises when you pat them and they look at you kindly when you get on. This one, Her Majesty, she does what I ask her to. It’s almost like loving a woman. Horse. Not Hippae.
Tony’s watching me, too. He doesn’t like me. I thought at first it was because of Marjorie, but that’s not it. I offend him somehow. My manner. My bon manner. Maybe it was because I didn’t take their plague seriously. I didn’t know. Did I even think it mattered whether there was anything left of humanity, elsewhere? That’s what the Hippae thought. They didn’t care. If they thought it, we thought it How long have they been doing our thinking for us? They don’t want there to be another intelligent race. And they won’t believe that they themselves become another intelligent race. Foxen. What was it Brother Mainoa said? We never believe we’ll get old. The Hippae don’t know what they have in them to be. They’ve stopped themselves, half grown. They’ve stopped themselves at adolescence. Brutal time, that. Hateful time. Not a child. Not grown. Full of strength and fury and no place to put it…
Well, they stopped us there, too. Marjorie looks at me the way she looks at Tony. As though I’m a boy. And when have I ever had the chance to be anything else…
Mother. Mother. You shouldn’t be out here at all. Oh, Mother, do you really think this pays back for Dimity…
Tony thought: Let’s get this over with and go home. If I die, I die, but if I don’t die, let me go home. Let’s leave these people, these crazy bons, let’s go! Let me go through this hour, two hours, whatever it takes, then we’ll go, I’ll go, somehow. Let’s get it over with. If I die…
Rowena thought: Dimity. For Dimity. For Emmy. For Stavenger. For my other children, dead so long ago I’ve almost forgotten their names. For all of you. For all of us.
Sylvan. Oh, Sylvan. Whatever happens, remember that I love you, I love you all…
Don Quixote thought: She is riding. Trust her. Trust what she does. And listen, all of you. Listen for the voices.
At the foot of the hill they were separated from the Hippae at the tunnel entrance only by a few deep pools and a screen of foliage. Only Rigo rode all the way down, measuring the distance at a mental gallop. Then he turned back, summoning the others to a line that seemed an appropriate distance from the bottom. They wanted the slope of the hill to aid them, but there had to be space to turn along the hillside without being forced into the sucking pools at its foot. Silently Rigo checked his lance while the others did likewise, then began rattling the butt of his lance on his buckler, screaming insults at the same time. “Hippae fools. Mock horses. Stupid beasts.” Not that they understood what he was saying, but they could pick the intent up from his mind.
“Genocides,” shrieked Marjorie at the top of her lungs. “Ingrates! Malicious beasts! Curs!”
“Oh, wah. wah, wah, wah,” screamed Tony, making as much noise as he could but incapable of thinking words.
“For Dimity,” cried Rowena. “For Dimity, Dimity, Dimity.”
“Cowards,” trumpeted Sylvan. “Cowards. Animals. Peepers. Mig-erers. Muddy migerers with no more honor than a mole.”
The Hippae came out of the screening brush in a rush, then stopped while those on the hill fell silent. The humans had expected Hippae. They had not expected them to have riders. Foremost among them was a great gray mount bearing someone they all knew on its back. “Shevlok,” breathed Rowena. “Oh, for the love of God, my son.”
“It’s not Shevlok,” Sylvan spat at her. “Look at his face.” The face was a mask, empty as a broken bottle. There was nothing there. “You’re fighting the beasts, not the riders,” trumpeted Rigo. “Remember that. The mounts, not the riders!” He kneed El Dia Octavo into a trot. Behind him the others did likewise, falling into a diagonal line so that each would have room to charge and turn without endangering the ones behind.
Rigo counted as he rode. There were ten of the Hippae. The one bearing Shevlok’s body was to the fore with three others beyond to Rigo’s right. Well and good. The one in front would take the brunt, and better Rigo to attack that one than to expect the bon Damfels to do it. The other Hippae riders — who were they? He risked a quick glance. Lancel bon Laupmon. Three of the bon Maukerdens: Dimoth, Vince, and one whose name he had forgotten. He didn’t know any of the others, or he didn’t recognize them. The faces didn’t look like faces at all. They had been transfigured into something merely symbolic. Something wholly possessed.
He was only a few feet from them when he felt them pushing at his mind, erasing his intent. He howled, the howl driving them out, away. He flicked the trigger to turn on the knife and signaled Octavo for a slow, collected canter. The gray Hippae reared high, and Octavo ran toward it, then turned to the right without hesitation as Rigo clipped off its front feet with the fiery lance. It hadn’t expected that! One. One, screaming, but down!
Octavo stretched his stride and galloped along the hillside, running swiftly as three of the Hippae came up from the swamp and tried to intercept him from the left. Cursing, Rigo lifted the tip of the lance from under his left arm, brought it across and anchored it in his right armpit, then stretched out his left arm to hold the lance perpendicular to the line of Octavo’s movement. The humming flame caught the first interceptor low across its shoulders. Leg muscles severed; it fell as the other two screamed and turned away. Two.
Sylvan was behind him, Her Majesty flying in the face of the Hippae, swift as a bird. He saw Rigo shift the lance and shifted his own almost simultaneously. The object was to get the creatures moving in pursuit, he reminded himself. Not necessarily to kill them yet. Now, if possible; eventually, yes, but not necessarily now. He jabbed the lance toward a green-mottled Hippae and heard it bellow in angry pain. Then he was past. He cast a quick glance across his shoulder and saw the green monster coming after him. Good. Well and good. He pointing the lance in the direction he was moving and leaned forward to whisper soft words in Her Majesty’s ear. They were words he had whispered to lovers in time past. He saw nothing incongruous in urging Her Majesty on with them now.
Rowena was behind Sylvan, copying his tactics a little too late to make the wide turn he had made. It was only when her lance had chopped into the throat of a shrieking mud-colored creature that she remembered they had to flee. Millefiori had already decided it was time. Wheeling on her hind legs, she set out in pursuit of the other two while the mud-colored monster staggered behind them, screaming, being rapidly outdistanced by two other, uninjured Hippae.
Three, Marjorie thought to herself. Three down. Four in pursuit of the three horses, two of them at least slightly wounded. Three waiting for her, and for Tony. Little Tony. White-faced. The way he always got when he rode. Fearful. Not thinking about it.
“Anthony!” she screamed in his ear, “Follow me!”
She thumbed the lance on, sighted a line of travel that would take her in front of two of the remaining Hippae, The third one was hanging back, as though for an ambush. “Watch that one,” she cried, pointing to the mottled wine-colored beast half screened by the trees.
Tony cried something in answer, she couldn’t tell what. Then Quixote was crossing the path of the two, both charging at her, necks twisted to one side to bring the barbs to bear. She flipped the lance to her left as the others had done and raked them with the blade. Screams. Bellows. She turned Quixote up the hill and around.
Tony. He was facing the final Hippae, his lance dipping and swirling, the beast staying well back, out of range. Tony was too close. If he turned to flee, the other would have him!
She looked behind her. The two she had touched were not badly hurt. Surprised into inaction for the moment, but not badly hurt. She had touched their necks, not their legs. She pulled Quixote up and back, wheeling on his hind legs. “Come on,” she cried to Quixote, riding directly at the monster confronting Tony. Beyond the beast was a patch of level ground.
Her heart was hammering so loudly that she could hear only it, nothing else, a pulse in her ears that drowned out the fall of hooves. She took the lance in her left hand, held it loosely. They came closer. “We’re going to jump,” she told Quixote. “We’re going to jump over him, boy. Over him.” Then there was no time to say anything. Quixote’s haunches gathered under him; they were high, high over the monster’s back and the lance was pointed down, down and back, then they had landed on the other side.
They were on a tiny island, only large enough for Quixote to stop on, stop and wheel and jump once more, back over the pool to the solid hillside. Tony was there, looking stupidly downward at the recumbent, slavering Hippae with the severed spine while two wounded ones stalked toward him.
Four.
“Anthony!” she cried as she went past. “Come, Blue Star!”
Horse heard her if rider did not. Quixote lunged up the hill, faster than the wounded Hippae, with Blue Star close behind. When they had gained a little distance, Marjorie turned to the south. Blue Star was even with her. She risked a look at Tony. He looked almost like Shevlok, his face white and expressionless. She drove Quixote at Blue Star’s side so that they raced only inches apart, then leaned out and slapped Tony with her glove, and again.
He came to himself with a start, tears filling his eyes. “I couldn’t think,” he cried. “It got into me and didn’t let me think.”
“Don’t let it!” she demanded. “Yell. Scream. Call it dirty names, but don’t let it!”
Perhaps a half mile ahead of them on the hillside, Octavo and the two mares raced side by side with four of the Hippae in pursuit.
“Now,” Marjorie cried, pointing ahead and to the right. “We’re going to intercept them.”
She leaned forward. Rigo, Sylvan, and Rowena were riding on the level line of the hill, around it. not up it. The full circuit of the sloping ground, back to the gate, would take two or three hours, riding at top speed the whole way. If she and Tony went slightly uphill and to the west, they should intercept the others a bit past the southernmost point of their arc. Quixote and Blue Star stretched out, galloping side by side like twins joined at the heart. Behind them came the two wounded Hippae, still screaming, still with their blank-faced riders aboard. They were not fast enough to be an immediate threat, but the laser knife had cauterized as it cut, so they were not being greatly weakened by blood loss, either.
’They’re still trying to get into my head,” Tony called. “So I’m thinking about going home.”
She smiled at him, nodded encouragingly. Whatever worked. She herself could not feel them at all. She felt something, but not Hippae. Something else. Someone else.
“You didn’t kill your bad individuals,” Someone commented, quietly curious. “Why are you killing ours?”
“Because I could tie mine up and keep them from hurting anyone,” she replied. “I can’t do that with these creatures.”
“You could figure something out,” the voice suggested. “No!” she said, angrily. “Everyone always says that. It isn’t true. If you can figure something out, you do. If you don’t, it’s because you can’t. Can’t because you don’t have the time, or the money, or the material. Can’t because there isn’t any way or any time or you’re not smart enough.”
A thought very like a sigh. A touch, like a caress. “Damn it,” she cried aloud. “Can’t you see that theoretical answers are no answers at all! It has to be something you can do!”
Shocked silence. Tony was staring at her. “What was that?” he cried.
“Nothing,” she muttered, concentrating on riding. “Nothing at all.” The ground fled by beneath them. The leather of their saddles creaked.
Occasional bunches of tall grass whipped at them Brush materialized before the horses’ feet. Rocks and holes and hollows were there, were jumped, were gone. Behind them the wounded pair came on, howling. Time went by, swift but interminable. Time past was nothing, no matter how long. Time ahead was everything, no matter how brief. Tony’s eyes were glazed with his effort to keep the Hippae from commanding him. Marjorie sat quietly, helping Quixote by her quiet. He would do all he could do for her without her bothering him. The arc of the hill against the sky seemed no closer, no matter how long they rode.
And then at last it was there. They came upon the height to see Rigo and the others to the south below them, coming around toward them to make the arc which would bring them back along the west side of the long hill on which Commons was built. The four Hippae still pursued Rigo and-the other two riders, more closely than before. “Come on, Quixote,” she cried, urging him down, wanting to let Rigo know she was there but judging the distance too great for him to hear her yet.
She looked at the point where the two lines of travel would intersect, laid her body along Quixote’s neck, and urged him on. When they had halved the distance, she yodeled, seeing three heads come up. Rigo looked over his shoulder, apprehending what Marjorie intended. She could come in behind the four Hippae pursuing Rigo, Rowena, and Sylvan. Rigo and the others could then turn and take them from the front while Marjorie and Tony attacked from behind. Which would have been an acceptable tactic except for the two other Hippae, just now coming over the hill behind Marjorie and Tony. Their presence would put her between two groups of them. He waved, pointing behind her.
She turned, saw what was coming, and cursed. She had thought the horses could outdistance the wounded beasts, but the Hippae had kept pace. That made the odds six Hippae to five humans. Even though four of the Hippae were slightly wounded, it wasn’t good. Not good enough.
From the east came a great crumping sound, a concussion of air, like thunder. The ground shivered. The two Hippae on the hill screamed in rage, realizing before Marjorie did what had happened. Alverd Bee’s men had blown up the tunnel. The tunnel. For the first time, Marjorie realized that the tunnel had been too narrow and low to allow a sudden, full-scale invasion. If the Hippae had been planning their attack for long, there were probably other tunnels. There was that great trail out there in the grass. There had to be other tunnels… “We’re looking,” said Someone. “We haven’t found any others yet.” Which didn’t mean there weren’t any.
“Are you going to help?” she demanded. “Are you going to let us get killed doing this all by ourselves?” There was no answer.
Rigo had heard the explosion. Now he leaned over Octavo’s neck and urged him forward. Her Majesty and Millefiori fled along behind him, moving like the wind, opening the distance between them and the Hippae.
Marjorie turned more to the north. It would do no good to come up behind the other riders. Now they had simply to outrun their pursuers. Get to the stony ridges of Com, get to the gate. “If it were your people, I’d try to help,” said Marjorie. “Humans have been helping the Hippae kill foxen,” came the answer, snappishly, not at all allusively, in clear words. Not the familiar voice, another one. “All along.”
“You know damned well that’s not so,” she cried. “Humans have been used by Hippae to kill foxen. That’s entirely different.” At least partly a lie, too. Humans had been all too willing to lend themselves to that Hunt. No answer.
They ran. Quixote was lathered, breathing harshly. It had been a long hill and the armor was heavy. Marjorie held the reins in her teeth, took her knife from her pocket, and cut the straps that held the armor, one around Quixote’s breast, two on each side. The plates dropped off and the horse made a noise that sounded like a prayer. Tony saw what she was doing and did likewise.
Rigo had been watching. He nodded and called to the other two. Sylvan followed suit, as did Rigo himself. Rowena cried out in dismay. She had no knife. She had come last, and no one had thought to give her one.
As though distracted by this cry, Millefiori stumbled and fell. Rowena went rolling away, coming up wild-eyed. Then she was up, running toward the horse, mounting all in one fluid motion as Millefiori struggled to her feet, limping. Then the mare was running again, though awkwardly, slowly, with a wide space opening between Rowena and the others.
Sylvan saw. He turned Her Majesty and made a tight circle which brought him to his mother’s side. He reached out, pulled her onto the saddle before him. Now Her Majesty was carrying double. She slowed Millefiori slowed. Sylvan edged back to give his mother room. One of the Hippae leapt forward with stunning speed and gaping jaws, snatching him from Her Majesty’s back. Another ran even with Millefiori, ready to leap. Rowena, face like death and mouth wide with an unheard howl, rode on.
Sylvan had vanished. Where he had been was nothing, no movement. Marjorie screamed in anger and pain, tears streaking her face. “I’ll begin by burning the swamp forest. It won’t burn easily, but we’ll do it somehow. Then the grasses, all of them. That will take care of the plague and the Hippae. There’ll be no more Hippae.”
“What about us?” voices cried.
“What about you?” she snarled. “If you’re no help, you’re no help. You don’t care about us. Why should we care about you?”
A whine. A snarl. A slap, as from one being to another being. Then, suddenly, there was something behind Millefiori, rising to confront the approaching. Hippae Mauve and plum and purple, a lash of tail and ripple of shoulders, a moving mirage of trembling air.
“If He has to do it alone,” Marjorie cried, “I’ll still burn the forest, even if I have to do it by myself.”
“The ones behind us are gaining,” Tony called. “Blue Star’s exhausted.”
“We’re all exhausted,” she cried, tears running down her face. Where Sylvan had been was a tumult of beasts. “Turn more toward the road.” She looked behind her, then up at the sun. They’d been running for well over an hour. Perhaps two. Thirty miles, more or less, all of it over rough ground and a lot of it uphill. With another twelve or fifteen miles to cover before they got back to the gate. “If I die out here,” she threatened, “my family will burn the forest, I swear to God they will.”
“What’s going on down there?” cried Tony. “The Hippae have stopped.”
They had stopped. Stopped, turned, were running away. Not back the way they had come, unfortunately. Uphill. Toward Marjorie. “Foxen,” Marjorie cried. “Not quite where I would have wanted them, but better than nothing, I suppose.”
She was trying to feel philosphical about dying, not managing it, trying not be frightened, and not managing that, either. “Tony, we have to take out the two behind us before those others reach us.”
He turned a stricken face upon her.
“We have to! If the other four reach us first, we’ll have them all around us.”
He nodded, biting his lip. She saw blood there, the only color in his face.
“Turn on your lance.”
He’d forgotten about it. He thumbed it on. looking at the humming blade almost as though hypnotized.
“Tony! Pay attention.” She motioned, showing him how she wanted him to circle — the two of them wide, in opposite directions, coming back to hit the wounded Hippae from both sides.
They broke from one another, circled tightly, and were running back toward the pursuing monsters before the Hippae understood what was happening. Then they, too, broke, one headed for each of the horses. Marjorie tried to forget about her son, concentrate on what she was doing. Lance well out in front, the blaze of its blade apparent even in the light of day.
There was a roar above her. She looked up to see Asmir Tanlig and Roald Few beckoning from an aircar, screaming at her. She lip-read. “We’ll pick you up, pick you up.”
Leave Quixote and Blue Star to face these beasts alone! She shook her head, waved them off. no. Only when the car rose did she realize what she had done. Oh, God, how silly. How silly. And yet…
The Hippae was before her, circling just out of reach, darting forward, then back. He could maneuver more quickly than Quixote could. Quixote kept his head toward the beast, dancing, as though he wore ballet shoes, as though he stood on tiptoe. Behind her she heard Tony yell. She didn’t dare look. Again dance, dance. Then Quixote charged. She hadn’t signaled him to do it. He simply did it. There was an opening, the lance found it, and they were dancing away again while the Hippae sagged before them, yammering at the sky, its neck half cut through.
Five, her mind exulted as she tried to find Tony. Five. Six was standing over her son while Blue Star fled toward the distant gate as though she knew where it was, as though she had been told it meant safety. Great jaws wide, the crouching Hippae howled at the boy, ready to take off his face in one huge bite. Quixote raced forward, screaming…
There was a furry blur on the Hippae’s back. Another between the jaws and the boy. Another at its haunches, clawing at it. Three foxen. The screaming battle tumbled to one side and rolled toward the hill. Tony lay still.
She dismounted and struggled to get him onto Quixote’s back. The horse knelt to receive him, again without a signal to do so. Then Marjorie was up once more, holding her son before her, and they were running the way Blue Star had gone. Not really running. Moving, at least.
Down the hill, other foxen had taken on the other Hippae. Rowena was just behind Rigo. Millefiori came behind, limping badly.
“Now,” thought Marjorie. “Now bring out your damned aircar or airtruck or what-have-you. Now.”
And it was there, only a short distance from them all, with Persun Pollut driving it and Sebastian Mechanic dropping out a ramp for the horses.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave the horses,” Persun called as they came aboard. “I told Asmir you wouldn’t, but Roald said you wouldn’t be that silly.”
Silly, she said to herself. Silly. As though that were the answer to a problem that had bothered her for a very long time. In her mind she sensed an enormous, unqualified approval.
Headquarters had been set up in the order station under James Jellico’s watchful eye. A dozen eager volunteers offered to rub down the horses. Aside from Millefiori’s bad leg they seemed to be all right. In one corner Dr. Bergrem was looking at Rowena with an expression of concern. Rowena had broken something in that fall. Her shoulder, maybe. Something inside her had broken as well. She sat still and white-faced, unresponsive. When Marjorie went to her, she was whispering Sylvan’s name, over and over.
“We found him,” Marjorie said. “We went out and found him, Rowena.”
“What?” she asked. “How?”
“He’s dead, Rowena. The fall broke his neck. They didn’t touch him.”
“He’s not… oh, he’s not—”
“No, Rowena,” she cried. “He’s not. We brought his body back to be buried.”
She returned to Tony, who was sitting white-faced in a corner, slowly coming to himself. Beyond him she saw Brother Mainoa seated at the tell-me. Marjorie fumbled awkwardly at her pocket flap with hands that seemed frozen from their long grip upon lance and reins.
Her fingers were made of wood. Eventually she got the pocket open and the letter out.
She laid it before Brother Mainoa. “I think this should be sent to Semling,” she said.
He read it, his face turning gray as the sense of it reached him. “Ah… ah,” he murmured. “Ah, yes… but—”
“But?”
He rubbed his forehead, started to speak, stopped to think again. “If you spread this around now, there will be panic, rebellions, riots. Then, if we find a cure, the authorities will be so occupied with maintaining order, they won’t be able to disseminate the cure. This letter shouldn’t be made public until there’s a cure, Marjorie.”
“All right,” she agreed. “But I’m concerned that it might not get out at all if we wait. Who knows what those—”
“Devils,” he offered. “Sanctified devils. The Hierarch and his retinue.”
“It’s your faith. I didn’t want to…”
“It’s what I was born to,” he admitted. “What I was given to. That’s not the same thing. No. This was written by someone unworthy of any faith, Marjorie.”
She threw up her hands. “You know what I’m saying, Brother. What’s-his-name, Zoe, may miss this letter at any time. May come looking for it. May take steps to stop its getting out.”
“We’ll make copies,” Brother Mainoa offered. “Merely sending the text off-planet wouldn’t do. The Hierarch could disclaim any such. Copies in his own hand, that’s what’s needed. And since this says the Hierarch is on his way here, we should get someone to take copies off-planet. There’s a Semling freighter in port, ready to leave. The Star-Lily.”
“How long to the nearest… how long to Semling?”
“Two weeks, Grassian time.”
“Thirty days,” she murmured. “How wonderful if we could have a cure by then.”
“We who?”
“The doctor here. She’s remarkable, Brother Mainoa. She studied on Semling. She studied on Repentance. She’s got some young helpers just back from school. She got interested in immunology, because of something she found here on Grass when she was a girl.”
“Something?”
“A — I’m no scientist. She wrote a book about the stuff. It has a long name I’ve forgotten. It’s a nutrient. Something our cells have to have in order to grow and reproduce. And here on Grass it exists in two forms, the usual one and one that’s inverted. Nowhere else. Only here.”
“When did she tell you this?”
“When I was visiting Stella. She was only talking to distract me, but she sounded so competent it gave me hope, some hope.” She took the letter from him, stared at it, still finding it hard to believe. “I suppose you’re right about this. If we don’t find a cure, what difference does it make whether people know? But if we do? Then people need to know about this letter. People are entitled to know what Sanctity intended to do!”
“All right, Marjorie. We’ll send copies off-planet, just in case. The Star-Lily still plans to leave tomorrow. Now that the tunnel is blown up, we’ll ask Alverd Bee to get the crew and the warehousemen back over to the port to get it ready to lift.”
“Tony,” she said. “We’ll send Tony.” It would be a good idea to send Tony. He was too vulnerable to the Hippae. She had to get him away before he was tainted by them, as Stella was. Except… there might be plague on Semling. Which risk was greater? All risks were equal. All were life or death. “Tell the crew to be careful. There must be another tunnel. Why else that great Hippae trail leading here!”
He nodded, patting her hand. “If the men keep someone on watch and an aircar or two standing by, they should be safe enough. And, just in case the Hierarch starts looking for me — which he may do, if Zoe tells him about me — I’ll hide myself away somewhere. I’ll go back to the forest, that’s what. Rillibee will come along to take care of me. If they come looking for me, tell them I went back into the forest. If they come looking for the letter, you never saw it. Rigo never saw it. When a cure is found, Tony will see that the letter is widely disseminated, just as the cure is.”
Rillibee was beside them. “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll get Brother Mainoa up in a tree somewhere, and we’ll wait until one of the foxen comes to get us.”
She found herself trying to think of an excuse why she should go herself. She wanted to go herself. She wanted to be there, among the trees, not here with all these people. She looked around, seeking some reason, and turned back to find Rillibee already gone.
Damn. She felt unutterably sad but forbade herself to cry. “Does everyone accept that there’s probably another tunnel?” she asked Roald Few, trying to distract herself.
“Oh, yes,” Roald said. “Probably more than one. Probably not finished yet, or they’d be all over us/’
“A tunnel could just as easily come in on this side of the wall,” she whispered, looking around to be sure that no one else heard her. “It could come out below the town. Have you thought of that?”
Roald nodded wearily. “Lady Westriding, we’ve thought of that and of three or four other things that would be equally dreadful. People are beginning to talk about the winter quarters, how long they could hold them against a Hippae assault.”
“So, if the tunnel isn’t finished, what will the Hippae do next?”
“Burn the estancias,” he replied, “just as they did Opal Hill. That’s one of the things we figured out while you were out there enticin’ the Hippae. We all agreed. Given their nature, if they can’t get in here yet, they’ll start fires.”
“Has anyone warned the estancias?”
He buried his head in his hands. “Nobody’s had time! And who are they going to listen to? Obermum bon Damfels? They might believe her. They certainly won’t believe me.”
Marjorie went away to make copies of the letter, to get Tony onto the Star-Lily, and to find Rowena.
No one answered the tell-me at Klive. At the bon Laupmons’, someone answered but declined to respond either to the information that Taronce had survived or that the estancia should be evacuated. At Stane, however, after learning that both Dimoth and Vince were dead, Geraldria bon Maukerden begged Rowena to send whatever help would come from Commoner Town to evacuate the house and village. Mayor Bee already had all available aircars and trucks going to all the villages, the bon Damfels village included.
“The damned bons can char on their own griddle if they want to,” he snarled. “But we’ll get our village people out.”
It was too late to get them out of Klive. Even before the tunnel had been blown up, Hippae had attacked Klive. There were no people left alive there, not in the estancia, not in the village, except one man, Figor, found wandering among the charred houses, a laser knife in his hands.
When she heard the news, Rowena wept, wiping the tears away with her left hand. The right arm and shoulder were in a Heal-all, mending. “Emmy’s here,” she said. “Amy’s here. Shevlok’s here, alive in a way. Figor will be all right. But oh, I grieve for Sylvan. And my cousins. And old Aunt Jem.”
No one had time to grieve with her. There had been a trail leading from Klive to the swamp forest. All the Hippae on Grass seemed to be congregating there.
The evacuation fleet shuttled back and forth across the prairies, continuing even after fires sprung up at Stane and at Jorum, the estancia of the bon Bindersen’s. Obermun Kahrl and Obermum Lisian refused to leave the bon Bindersen estancia, but their children, Traven and Maude, left willingly enough with the people of the village and many others from the big house.
At the bon Haunser place, Eric joined the evacuees along with Jason, the Obermun’s son. Felitia had died outside the bon Laupmon walls, during what Rigo had come to remember as “The Joust.”
The bon Laupmon place was totally destroyed before the cars arrived, though the commoners had cut a fire break around the village and, armed with harvesting knives, were standing fast with their livestock. At the bon Smaerloks’, the drivers were told that the bons had gone hunting with the bon Tanligs. All of them, even the old folks. A vast crowd of hounds and mounts had showed up early on Hunt morning, and every occupant of the estancias had gone a-hunting. The only people left in the estancias were children. The children and the villagers were evacuated; a wide Hippae trail led from the estancias toward Commons.
The order station became the nerve center for Commons. From there one could see what went on at the port and receive messages from approaching ships. From there one could direct the defenses if Hippae came in through some other tunnel-In the winter quarters below the order station a makeshift hospital was set up to house Rowena, Stella, Emmy, Shevlok, Figor, and a dozen others who had been badly injured before or during the evacuation. People with only superficial injuries were treated and dismissed. When the last of them had been attended to, Lees Bergrem insisted upon going back through the gates to the hospital with several of her assistants.
“Whether there’s another tunnel or not. the equipment I need is at the hospital,” she told Marjorie. “I may be in a position to do more about this plague thing than anyone else, but I have to get to my equipment. I can’t let those Hippae keep me away.”
“Do you have any ideas? Any line of attack?” Marjorie asked. “Nothing. Not yet. I have a few ideas, but I’m not really onto a line of inquiry at this point!” She shook off Jelly’s remonstrances and went, her helpers with her. all of them laden with food and drink and various esoteric supplies they had carried in when the Commercial District had been evacuated.
There was nothing else Marjorie could do. Tony was sleeping in the order station dormitory, ready to leave when the Star-Lily left — a matter of hours. Mainoa and Rillibee were in the forest. Persun and Sebastian were helping Mayor Bee get the evacuees settled and fortify the winter quarters.
There was nothing more that Marjorie could do “Roald’s offered us a room at his place in town,” she told Rigo. “His wife, Kinny, is fixing us some supper. We can walk down…”
He tottered to his feet with an apologetic grimace. “I’m not sure I can walk.”
Persun overheard this and came forward. “I’ve got a little runner outside, sir. Room enough for you and Lady Westriding, if you don’t mind being crowded. I have to go down to town anyhow.”
Rigo smiled his thanks, and they rode in exhausted quiet to the Few summer quarters.
Kinny, with tears in her eyes, led them to a suite of comfortable rooms below. “We only lost one village,” she said, weeping. “Only one out of seven. But everybody in town was related to someone there. Everyone’s mourning Klive-”
Marjorie herself could mourn Klive, mourn the waste of it.
Kinny went on, shaking her head in amazed, pained annoyance. “Those bons, already trying to take over, did you know?”
“No,” said Rigo. “How do you mean, take over?”
“Oh, Ambassador, you wouldn’t believe — Well now, let’s see. It’s Eric, brother to the dead Obermun Jerril bon Haunser, and Jason, Jerril’s son. And it’s Taronce bon Laupmon, nephew to Obermun Lancel that died, and Traven, that’s the dead Obermun bon Bindersen’s brother. The four of them. They’ve decided to take over Commons, for the time being.” She laughed, angry and amused, both at once. “They told Roald they had elected themselves a council of four to run things. Roald and Alverd are tryin’ to explain things to ’em. Not easy. Not with them.”
“Did they think you would all take orders from them?” Rigo asked, amazed.
“They really did. Yes. Well, we always pretended to, when we went out to the estancias. you know. It pleased the bons, and it didn’t do us any harm. But there’s too much at stake here in Commons to let them meddle with it. They’re so ignorant.” She made a face and asked them if they were ready to eat something.
“I think so.” Marjorie said with a sigh. “I can’t remember when the last meal I had was. In the Tree City, I think.”
“Oh, I want to hear about that! You folks take your time washing up, and supper’ll be ready when you come up.”
Kinny served them in the kitchen while she chattered about the Tree City and a dozen other things, interrupting herself to cry occasionally, then interrupting her tears to laugh about something she remembered. It was only when they had eaten and were sitting over cups of tea that she remembered. “Oh, Roald called while you were down below. He told me to tell you. There’s a big ship coming in tomorrow. From Sanctity. Roald says the big high mucky-muck himself is on it. The what-do-you-call-him. The Hierarch.”
“Is he going to let it orbit?” Rigo asked, his stomach clenching as he thought what such an arrival might mean.
Kinny shook her head. “Roald said tell you he doesn’t want to, nor Mayor Bee. Question is, how would you keep it from sittin’ up there if it wants to?”
Marjorie’s imagination had leapt ahead, far ahead. “Rigo, we have to get Dr. Bergrem away from the hospital. It’s right by the port. If that ship comes down. If Sanctity finds out what she’s working on…
He groaned as he got to his feet. “Let’s go talk to Alverd Bee once more.”
“What is ‘Galaxy class’?” Mayor Bee wanted to know.
“It’s a Sanctity ship,” one of the port controllers said. “Called the Israfel. I’ve never seen one like it.”
They were in the winter quarters of the order station. From the adjacent rooms came the moans of someone wounded and the wail of frightened babies. Someone bustled down the hall and the moans ceased. The babies went on crying.
The man at the tell-me paid no attention. “Warship,” he said, staring at a diagram on the screen. “Sanctity navy. Big son-of-a-hound.”
“It’s a troop carrier,” said Rigo, staring narrow-eyed across the operator’s shoulder at the diagram. “And a battleship. Old. All their vessels are old.”
“No matter how old, it carries a thousand men,” the port controller agreed. “With real combat weapons.”
“Dr. Bergrem has to go,” Marjorie said. “On the Star-Lily. She can’t stay here”
“Dr. Bergrem doesn’t intend to go anywhere,” said the woman’s voice from behind them. “What is all this?”
The doctor divested herself of her cloak and sat down as though to stay awhile. “I was on my way into town to pick up some book I need, and I hear my name being taken in vain.”
“Sanctity’s new Hierarch is about to arrive,” Marjorie told her. “Cory Strange. You don’t want to be here when he gets here.”
“Why in hell not?” The woman settled herself firmly into her chair.
“Do you have a cure?”
“Not yet, no. But I think I’ve happened on a line of inquiry. If I just knew—”
“Then you must go,” Rigo snapped.
The doctor flushed angrily.
“Shh,” said Marjorie. “Dr. Bergrem, no one is trying to push you around. Read this.” She took a copy of the note to Jhamlees Zoe from her pocket and handed it to the woman.
Lees Bergrem read it, then again. “I don’t believe this!”
Rigo started to retort. Marjorie covered his lips with her fingers. “What don’t you believe?”
“That anyone could — This must be faked…” She looked into their faces, finding nothing there but apprehension. “But why would — Damn!” She handed the note to Alverd Bee.
“You have to go,” Marjorie repeated. “You may be close to finding a cure, or something that will lead to a cure. You said so yourself. If you find the answer here, with that ship in port you’ll never get a chance to tell anyone. A thousand troops can put us all under house arrest. We were going to send our son to Semling with copies of this letter. But you could disseminate it even better. You’re known at the University there ”
“You send me off-planet, I can’t do any good at all,” Lees Bergrem said. “I need tissue samples and soil samples. I need things that don’t exist on Semling. Forget it.”
Alverd Bee looked up from the note, his face strained and angry. “If you won’t go off-planet, then we’ll have to hide you somewhere, Lees. That means moving your equipment. Tell us fast what you need. We have about six hours to get you hidden and Star-Lily away. After that, it’ll be too late.”
“The new Hierarch won’t know anything yet,” Rigo said. “Jhamlees Zoe can’t tell him anything until he lands on Grass.”
“Jhamlees Zoe can’t tell him anything, period,” said Persun Pollut as he entered the room. “Sebastian and I’ve been out to the Friary to see if they’d changed their mind about being evacuated. The Hippae have hit the place. We saw the flames all the way from Klive. Half this piece of Grass is burning.
“So this Hierarch won’t know,” the doctor announced, turning around as though to renew the argument. “I’ve moved out of the hospital once already. We just got set up again. I can stay there. The Hierarch won’t know what I’m doing.”
“He won’t care what you’re doing,” Marjorie pleaded. “Once he’s here on Grass, you’ll do what he says, or else. Dr. Bergrem, you haven’t dealt with Sanctity. Rigo and I have. Believe me! Even their own people have few rights against Sanctity; unbelievers have none at all except what they can enforce for themselves. If the Hierarch chooses to deploy a thousand troopers, we couldn’t enforce the coming of summer!”
“Oh, all right, all right. I’ll hide! Tissue samples, Alverd. I need snips from whatever bons have survived. I’ll send one of my people to get those. Samples from the children, too. I need soil samples. From in here and out there. Persun, come with me and I’ll describe what I need. I’ll pack up my stuff. It’s heavy. Send some men over to load it.”
And she was away.
“What about you two?” asked Alverd.
Rigo drew himself wearily to his feet. “There’s nothing we can do just now. Tony’s asleep down below, and there’s no point in waking him until he needs to board the Star-Lily. I think we’ll try to get some sleep. When the ship from Sanctity arrives, we need to be alert. At that time, some misdirection may be in order.”
The Israfel bloomed like a star, and like a star remained in the heavens. One small shuttle came down to unload a small detachment of men commanded by a Seraph with six-winged angels on his shoulders. He was met by Mayor Bee.
“The Hierarch wishes to speak to Administrator Jhamlees Zoe at the Friary of the Green Brothers. We have been unsuccessful in reaching the administrator through your communications system.”
Mayor Bee nodded sadly. “The Friary was wiped out by prairie fires,” he said. “We’re searching now for survivors.”
There was a thoughtful silence. “The Hierarch may want to come down and verify this for himself”
“We evacuated the Port Hotel for the Hierarch’s use,” the Mayor agreed. “The fires have burned great stretches of grassland and seven villages. The town is full of refugees.”
“The Hierarch may choose the town, nonetheless,” said the Seraph. “Well, certainly, if he wishes,” said Mayor Bee, nodding. “Though there is sickness in the town which we assumed the Hierarch would wish to avoid.”
The Seraph’s expression did not change, though something wary came into his voice. “The office of the Hierarch will advise you. Any particular kind of sickness?”
“We’re not sure what it is,” said Mayor Bee. “People breaking out in sores…” Rillibee had told him what it looked like. Rillibee had told them a good deal more than any of the commoners had wanted to know. The small detachment made room for themselves at the empty hotel, but the Hierarch did not come down to Grass. Instead, he sent for Rigo. Marjorie insisted upon going along.
“For verisimilitude,” she said. “We came here together. Let us support one another.”
“I need you. Marjorie.”
She gave him a thoughtful look “You have never said that to me before, Rigo. Did you often say it to Eugenie?” He flushed. “I may have.”
She said wonderingly, “It’s a different thing, being needed, from being wanted, which you often said to me, though that was long ago. I think the Seraph is waiting for us.”
“Seraph,” he snorted. “Why can’t they call him a colonel or a general? Seraph!”
“We mustn’t betray our biases! This Hierarch is not your uncle. and he may already be suspicious of us simply because we’re outsiders.”
The Hierarch betrayed no suspicion, though it would have been difficult to detect, since he greeted them from behind a transparent partition, calling their attention to it as though they could not see it for themselves. “My advisors,” he said in an annoyingly satisfied though self-deprecating tone. “They won’t allow me to expose myself to possible risk.”
“Very wise,” said Rigo.
“Is there risk here, Ambassador?” The Hierarch was clad in white robes with golden angels embroidered at the hem and in a wide border up the front. Their metallic wings threw a coruscant flicker around him, like an aureole. His face was ordinary. It had no feature more distinguished than the others. It was a face one could instantly forget. One would not forget the robes, however. The Hierarch repeated his question. “Are there deaths? Unexplained ones? Or deaths from plague?
“We don’t know,” said Rigo, remembering it was probable that the Hierarch had an analyzer on them. The least risk lay in disclaiming absolute knowledge. One could almost always do that truthfully.
“People do disappear on Grass,” Marjorie offered honestly. “We’ve been trying to find out how, and why. It might help if we knew precisely what drew Sanctity’s attention to Grass initially. The information we were given was not very specific.”
The Hierarch gave her a long looking over, head to toe, as though assessing how well she would dress out for meat. It was not a look Marjorie had met before, and it chilled her. The Hierarch was not interested in her as woman or person, so much was clear.
“I will tell you precisely what we heard. A minor official at Sanctity was visiting his family. One of his visiting kinfolk worked as a port controller on Shame. Sometimes this kinsman stopped in at a port tavern after work. On some unspecified occasion, he talked over his ale with a crewman from an unnamed freighter, The crewman said his friend, unnamed, had come down with some sores on his legs and arms just before the ship landed on Grass. The sick man was in a quarantine pod. The ship was on Grass an unspecified length of time. When it arrived at some farther destination, the man was cured.”
“That’s all?”
“Our official repeated this story to us when he returned from his visit to his family. Our computers say the likelihood is great that the unnamed crewman had plague, but we’ve been unable to verify the story. The man who told it to our official died of plague shortly after leaving Terra. We don’t know where the alleged ship went from Grass. We have been unable to identify the ship or the crewman.”
Rigo threw up his hands, indicating frustration. “Assuming the story is true, the cure could have come about here or elsewhere. Or he might not have had plague at all. Plague isn’t the only thing that causes sores!” He let his voice and manner indicate frustration and fear. That was normal, and it would cover his agitation.
The Hierarch stared at them expressionlessly. “Have any survivors from the Friary been found?”
Rigo nodded. “A few, yes. Some are beginning to wander back to the site as they realize we’ll be searching for them there.”
“My old friend Nod — that is, Jhamlees Zoe?”
Rigo shook his head, unwilling to trust his voice. No. Jhamlees Zoe hadn’t turned up. If Rigo said that aloud it wouldn’t take a machine to detect that he rejoiced in the fact.
The Hierarch nodded, as though someone had asked him a question. “I think we’ll remain here for the time being. Zoe may yet turn up. Or you may find some more definite information.”
In the shuttle, Marjorie asked, “Rigo, the crewman in the quarantine pod, assuming there was one, would have been given Grassian food and water and air, would he not?”
“Certainly.” He nodded, indicating the men seated in front of them. “Quarantine pods allow nothing out, but materials do go in.”
She chased an idea, worrying at it, but she asked no other questions.
They were escorted back to the order station by a handful of troopers. “There are definitely enough armed men on that ship to control the planet.” Marjorie said to Roald Few.
“If they decide to do so,” Rigo agreed.
“What do you think?” Roald asked, throwing a side long glance at his son-in-law, the Mayor.
“I think the Hierarch is doubtful,” Rigo replied. “If I were the Hierarch, my next step would be to send the scientists down.”
“Wouldn’t he have told you that?” the mayor wanted to know.
Marjorie laughed, an unamused sound. “We aren’t among the Sanctified, Mayor Bee. He doesn’t like us, doesn’t trust us. Probably he doesn’t like or trust much of anyone. He’ll get what he can from us, but he won’t give us anything in return.”
“Smart man,” remarked Alverd. “Not to trust us Commons. We’ve no love for Sanctity. He’s one should die of plague.”
“When that letter of his becomes public, he may wish he had,” Marjorie said. “Until then, we simply hang on and get in his way as much as possible.”
They were given no further opportunity to impede the Hierarch. Sanctity scientists came down and occupied the hospital, setting up their own mysterious equipment.
“It doesn’t matter what they find out,” Marjorie reminded Rigo. “So long as Dr. Bergrem finds it, too.”
“It would be better if she found it first,” Rigo objected, taking Marjorie by the arm and leading her to a quiet corner. “You and I need to agree on what we will say if the Hierarch asks more questions. All of Commons needs to agree on what they will say.” They discussed their strategy, at first alone, then with Roald and Alverd. When they had worn the subject thin, they returned to their rooms in the winter quarters, to more sleep and more of Kinny’s cooking.
Late in the evening Rillibee came in from the swamp forest, waking the Yrariers. Marjorie came out of her room yawning, wrapped in a light robe, to find Rigo sitting up in his bed with Rillibee perched on the foot of it.
“I’ve come to get Father James,” he said. “And the other Father, if he’ll come back.”
“What’s going on, Rillibee?”
“I wish I knew exactly. The foxen are trying to figure something out. It’s because of something you did, Marjorie. You talked to the foxen, didn’t you?”
“During the… the episode out there. Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Rigo said, almost angrily.
“It wasn’t anything very real to me at the time,” she said calmly. “I would have a hard time quoting the conversation. Mostly I was thinking words, but the foxen seemed to understand the threat I intended.”
“It wasn’t anything to do with a threat, I don’t think. No. It was something else. Brother Mainoa is tearing what little hair he has left trying to figure it out. Whatever you did, it was the key to some change in their attitude. There are hundreds and hundreds of foxen in the forest, you know. All talking at one another, growling, yowling, thinking, sitting and looking at each other with their claws tap-tapping. It’s like having shadow beasts projected all over you. You can’t see them. You walk around them without knowing why. You hear them, and your mind tries to make wind noises out of it. After a while, you lie down and put your hands over your head, wishing they’d all go away…
“Anyhow, they’re having some major discussion. Something’s going to happen. A foxen wants you, Marjorie, but I told him I didn’t know if you could come. He’ll settle for Father James.”
Marjorie shook her head, longingly. “I mustn’t leave here. If I were to vanish, the Hierarch could get very suspicious. He’s got a thousand armed men, and he might not hesitate to destroy the swamp forest or the town or anything else he felt like. Father James will probably go with you, if he feels up to the trip.”
“I’d like to take Stella, too,” Rillibee said, looking at his feet. Marjorie sighed and turned away. Stella was still at the temporary hospital, though no longer encased in a Heal-all. “Have you seen her, Rillibee?”
“I stopped there first.”
“She’s not… she’s not like herself.”
“She’s like a child,” Rillibee agreed. “A nice child.”
“What use do you have for a nice child?” Rigo asked, his mouth in a grim line.
Rillibee drew himself up, a slight, wiry figure, somehow dignified in this circumstance by his very lack of stature and bulk. “I’m not interested in molesting her, if that’s what you’re imagining. She’s in danger here. You all are. But you can choose what you’ll do and she can’t. I’d like to take Dimity, too. And Janetta. For the same reason. If the Hippae ruined them, maybe the foxen can help to heal them.”
“Why not?” Marjorie said. “If Rowena and Geraldria are willing to have you take their daughters, why not? You’ll have to ask them, but as far as I’m concerned, yes, take Stella.”
“Marjorie!” Rigo was outraged.
“Oh, stop roaring at me, Rigo,” she snapped in a voice he had never heard. “Think! You’re doing it again, all these automatic responses of pride and masculinity.”
“She’s my daughter!”
“She’s mine, too, and there’s nothing in her head at all. She doesn’t know me. She plays with a ball, bouncing it off a wall. What are you going to do with her? Take her back to Terra and hire a keeper for her?”
’This… this…” he pointed at Rillibee.
“What?”
“This young man,” she said, “who has been ill used by Sanctity, as we all have. This young man, who has certain talents and skills. What about him?”
“You trust him not to—”
“I trust him not to do anything to her nearly as bad as the Hippae have already done,” she cried, “because you let them. I trust him to care for her better than we did, Rigo! Better than her father or her mother. I trust him to look after her.”
Rillibee, who had tried to make himself inconspicuous during most of this, now asserted, “I will do for her what is best for her. From the moment I first saw her, I wanted only what was best for her. Right now there is only one good place left on Grass, and the Tree City is it. If there is trouble on Grass, it has not touched the trees.”
Rigo did not reply. Marjorie could not see his face. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see it, and she did not wish to argue it further with him. At the tell-me she reached Geraldria and Rowena, telling them of Rillibee’s offer and advising them to accept it. When she turned, Rigo was there, and she said impatiently, “Yes?”
“Yes,” he responded, as though granting a favor. “I’ll accept this for now. It may be the best place for her for a time.”
She tried to smile, not quite successfully. “I hope I am right about this, Rigo. I’d like to be right, a few times.”
He didn’t reply. Instead, he turned and left her, going back to his own room. Though she tried to get back to sleep, she could not. It was only hours later, near dawn, when the Seraph and his armed escort came for them, that she learned he had been as sleepless as herself.
They were given little time to dress. Perhaps it was only imagination, but it seemed they were treated with less courtesy than previously. When they were escorted into the Hierarch’s presence, two other persons were already there. Rigo’s hand tightened on Marjorie’s arm as he saw the first. Her face grew momentarily rigid as she saw the second.
“Admit!” she cried in what she hoped was a glad-sounding voice. “Rigo, it’s Admit Maukerden. I’m so glad you escaped the fires at Opal Hill. Sebastian and Persun went back time after time, but you weren’t among the people they brought in.”
“My name is Admit bon Maukerden,” he said.
“A bon? Jerril bon Haunser told me he would provide a lateral,” she exclaimed.
“I was assigned to find out what you were doing on Grass,” he said. “The bons wanted to know what you were up to. As this one does, now.” He gestured through the glass at the Hierarch. “He wants to know what you were up to.”
“Well for heaven’s sake,” Marjorie cried, “tell him, Admit. Tell the Hierarch anything he wants to know.”
“I am more interested in what this other one tells me,” the Hierarch said silkily from behind his transparent partition.
The other one lounged on his chair like a lizard on a rock, his relaxed manner belied by his scratched and bruised face and arms. Highbones.
“Brother Flumzee?” Marjorie asked the Hierarch. her voice calm. “He and his friends intended to kill me in the swamp forest. What else does he tell you?” She looked at Highbones gravely.
He saw the look and remembered what it was he had forgotten about women. They pitied you sometimes. When you didn’t even know why.
The Hierarch said in a silky voice, “He tells me that you were well acquainted with one of the Brothers, Brother Mainoa. He says that Brother Mainoa was thought to be a backslider. And that he knew something about plague.”
“Did he really? What did he know, Brother Flumzee? Or do you still prefer to be called Highbones?”
“He knew something,” Highbones shouted, hating what he saw in her face. “Fuasoi wanted him killed.”
“What did he know?” asked the Hierarch. “It would be in your best interest, Lady Westriding, and you, Ambassador, to tell me everything the Brother knew, or thought he knew.”
“We’ll be glad to,” Rigo said. “Though he himself would be able to tell you much more than we can—”
“He’s alive?” The Heirarch snapped.
Marjorie replied calmly, “Well, of course. Highbones left his two friends to kill Mainoa and Brother Lourai, but they didn’t succeed. I think Highbones hated Brother Lourai. and that was the reason for it.”
“Fuasoi ordered Mainoa killed!” Highbones shouted.
“Well, I suppose that’s possible,” Marjorie continued, keeping her voice calm, though she was in a frenzy of concentration. “Since Brother Mainoa thought Fuasoi was a Moldy.” She turned her face toward Rigo, nodding. She had never mentioned Brother Mainoa’s speculation to him. She prayed Rigo would understand what she was trying to do.
The Hierarch, who had started the inquiry with a furious intensity, now looked stricken. “A Moldy?”
“Brother Mainoa thought so,” Rigo said, following Marjorie’s lead. “Because—”
“Because Fuasoi wouldn’t have ordered Mainoa killed, otherwise,” Marjorie concluded. “If he thought Mainoa knew something about the plague, the only reason to kill him would be if Fuasoi was a Moldy. Anyone who was not a Moldy would want Brother Mainoa alive, talking about what he knew.” She looked at the Hierarch helpfully, feeling hysteria pushing at the back of her tongue.
“Moldies here, on Grass?” the Hierarch whispered, very pale, his mouth drawn into a rictus of horror. “Here?”
Rigo saw the man’s terror and was thankful for it “Well, Your Eminence,” Rigo offered in a placating tone, “it was only a matter of time until they came here. Everyone knew that. Even Sender O’Neil told me that!”
The audience ended abruptly. They were outside the chamber, being escorted to the shuttle once more. Highbones wasn’t with them. Admit bon Maukerden wasn’t with them. Those two were taken away in some other direction.
“Where are they going?” Marjorie asked.
“Down to the port,” the escort leader responded. “We’ll hold them there in case the Hierarch wants them again.”
Marjorie felt a surge of hope. If they had been believed, perhaps the Hierarch would depart. Perhaps this is all it would take! When Marjorie and Rigo reached the port, however, they were not allowed to return to the town. Instead they were taken to the empty Port Hotel and given a suite with a guard outside the door.
“Are we to stay here without food?” Marjorie demanded.
“Somebody’ll bring it from the officer’s mess,” the guard said. “Hierarch wants you here where he can lay hands on you if he needs you.”
When the door was shut behind them, Marjorie put her lips almost against Rigo’s ear. “Anything we say here can probably be overheard.”
He nodded. “I think Mainoa was right,” he said loudly. “I think Brother what’s-his-name was a Moldy. He probably had virus shipped in weeks ago. That’s probably what the people in town have. I think we ought to get off this planet, Marjorie. As soon as possible.” He shook his head at her tiredly. What more could they say or do than this mixture of half truth and part lies? If the Hierarch was frightened enough, perhaps his own fear would drive him away.
Rigo sat down, leaning back, eyes closed. Marjorie sat near him. The room was full of unsaid things and of the teasing memory of said ones. She looked at his exhausted face and felt an almost impersonal sorrow, like the feelings she had often had for the people of Breedertown. And she could help him no more than she had ever helped them.
Behind his slitted eyelids, Rigo wondered if it was too late. If too much had happened. Eugenie. Stella. His accusations against Marjorie. Stupid of him. He knew better. If he knew anything about her, he knew she had no appetites of that kind. Why had he accused her?
Because he had had to accuse her of something.
And now? Was it too late to forgive her for what she had never done?