On Dritta's advisement Gorodek was carried away by the Coastal Police to be returned to the Interworld Court, and Osset taken aboard the
Ocean Star
under guard to be given medical help; Dritta had given a concise account of all that had happened and Hasso did not try to embellish it.
Hasso stood at the railing and looked out to sea, free of enemies and rubbing his head in relief at not needing a helmet, happy enough that he could not catch sight of Dead Moon Crater or its outcast island.
He had heard from Tharma through the ship's communication channels that Gorodek had actually arranged to gather a fighting force on one of the Fthel worlds in order to raid the Isthmuses in a hugely expensive and risky scheme, but she did not know any more of the details. She did add that Skerow, in spite of her unwillingness to travel, was coming down to meet him in Burning Mountain.
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The Lyhhrt had gone to stay alone in a cabin and do his best at healing his battered self.
Ekket recovered her spirits; glowing with pleasure at her freedom, she came to thank Hasso.
“For what, dems'l? I am not any kind of hero. Only,” he smiled to disarm her seriousness, “the same plain fellow who grew up by the Sea of Pitch.”
Ekket smiled back at him, and he knew that though she would not love him she saw a dignity in him that he would never have looked for in himself.
She said, “You and Tharma helped more than anyone else in the world to stand between Gorodek and me. And she could not have done it without you.” And added:
:when evil has turned
gold
into filth
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even the Sea of
Pitch
smells sweeter:
“
If I work at it perhaps I will write
seh
almost as good as your goodmother Skerow's.”
Then she left, to walk and look about her through the ship's world without, as Hasso could not resist thinking, let or hindrance. He went on looking at the sea, though he was tired of it.
But Dritta appeared so soon after Ekket's leaving that Hasso wondered if she had not been standing in line. She was composed as usual, and Hasso thought of the years of effort that composure must have cost.
“Now I have someone to thank,” he said.
“I'm not pleased with myself,” Dritta said briskly. “I should have found some way to avoid endangering everyone.”
“I don't know how, with so many circumstances beyond your control. I'm sure Tharma doesn't blame you.”
“No, she doesn't, but my own standards are ⦔ She fell silent.
“After all, we are unharmed, so don't make your standards into shackles.”
She smiled then, briefly. And said very carefully, “I saw you taking notice of my bracelet ⦔
“Yes, I should not have let you see, but I couldn't help thinking of Skerow.”
“My case was much the same. I married too young, had a difficult lying-in, and ended sterile and without a husband ⦠I have a child, a girl six years old. My mother cares for her.”
“You must have spent some time in Burning Mountain, where Tharma was stationed, since she knew of you.”
“I served under her there for a year, after my divorce. It was easier then than now to visit my daughter, my mother's house is downriver near Port Dewpoint, where Ekket is going. But the pay at the new court is better for all of us.”
Hasso said with great daring, so much so that it made his scales rise, “My goodmother would so much enjoy meeting you. And your daughter too, as would I.”
She looked at and through him as clearly as the Being would do. “Tharma has given me generous time off,” she smiled again, “with pay, and from Dewpoint to Burning Mountain is a sight-seeing day-trip ⦠but now, I still have a great thirst for sleep ⦠.”
Hasso stood alone at the rail again, not needing sleep yet, so filled with hope that he shook with fear.
But he had not finished the venture he set out on.
He closed his eyes and leaned on his staff. He thought
of the monstrous gargaranda in the Great Equatorial River's depth that rose to draw air through its flute-shaped nostrils, and sank to blow an underwater mist of froth that masked it from its prey as it drove forward with wide-hinged jaws. Almost he thought he might see it astern in its trail of bubbles, though he knew that these waters were not its territory ⦠and again of the greater thouk and the blue small-winged scavengers that flew under its great sails to catch the scraps that fell from its horned mouth. As he leaned with an arm on the rail and the staff in his hand he could feel sleep gathering behind his eyes, though that was not what he was after ⦠.
Presently the voice formed itself:
yes i found what people are and not alike
What do you want with us?
i want to know
About peopleâ
about myself i knew no other like me people
Did you come in that ship on the mesa, and bring us here?
what is a ship i know yes it is not
Are you saying that vessel is not a ship?
it has no energy to move itself
True ⦠no one has been able to explain that yet.
i made that when i was looking for others like me and i picked them off their worlds and put them in something so i could bring them with me
And how did you makeâ
i looked inside the structure of the stones and they told me how to form but it was too hard for me to carry and too far from any sun
And you putâthose who were not people butâ
ones like those under the water and in the sky
âInto a specimen case!
i found your originators on another world i was
very young then and knew no better or i would not have taken them without thinking
But you lost the â¦
i only meant to take them away to some place where i could make them move for me and see if they were like me when i stopped to rest here first some of those creatures ran away or fell out of it and then the world opened up and it fell in the world closed over it i did not know how to get it back and i was very tired and shrinking and needed the sun but i did not make your people perhaps i may have been ignorant enough to try that if i thought of it but you became people by the way they become i know nothing else
My people are not going to like that explanation ⦠and I'm damned if I am going to tell them!
when they truly want to know they will discover but i know nothing i do not know if there are others of my kind i do not know where i came from or where they are and i will go to the limit of the universe and look until i know perhaps they are asleep in the cores of the stars that feed them as they feed me dreaming of us i am tired and want sleep now and perhaps i will dream of them I have not found them on this world and I am leaving now
Waitâwhy did you choose to speak to me?
no one else would let me you seemed to know so much and i thought you might really know
Being, I wish I did.
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Hasso opened his eyes. There was no voice and no Being. The sea and sky were as empty of that presence as they were of the gargaranda and the blue scavenger. Perhaps he had been dreaming.
“You were not dreaming,” the Lyhhrt said from beside him. “I hope you are not offended when I confess that I shared your experience.”
“I'm grateful,” Hasso said. “Otherwise I might have lived the rest of my life believing I was a bit crazy. Perhaps I have been honored in some way, and wonderfully fascinated too ⦠but I must confess I will not miss that Being.” He was thinking of the horrifying possibilities of religious unrest and violence as the Diggers, Watchers, Hatchlings contended over a Truth that only might exist somewhere out beyond the stars. Of course he would tell Tharma everything. Perhaps she would know what to say to the world, if anything.
“I want to tell you something else.” The Lyhhrt hesitated, and Hasso waited.
“That crevice we were trying to hide in led to a hollow, not quite large enough to call a cavern ⦠. I don't know how he came there, but I sensed that an Ix was living in that place. He had built a small fire, its smoke was drowned out for you by the smell of trash burning. He was roasting thumbknuckle buds and eating them when they popped ⦔
This homely picture could not but resonate in Hasso's mind. Horribly. He could hardly manage to choke back air enough to say, “That might have been the one who murdered my father.”
“No. He was a child. Born accidentally in an impossible time. With nowhere to go, no way to breed, nothing to do but die ⦠perhaps you believe I should have destroyed him.”
They looked at each other steadily, and Hasso said: “You know I could never destroy anyone.”
“I know it, and as for myself, I want to go home to Lyhhr in peace.”
“I thought you would. I hope you find peace and much more on your world, even though I will miss you deeply.”
“I may come back. I am your friend wherever I am.”
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Bonzador:
The Briar Patch
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Ned was reaching for his breakfast pack when Spartakos came up quickly. “Change of plans.”
Ned stopped dead and whispered, “What?”
“My Maker has destroyed the Other but not before he told his captains to kill us.”
Ned could feel the grafted skin on his polymer jaw turning white and then red. His mind kept saying,
yes, it is real, it's real, yesâ
His mouth said, “Jeez, is this the way to make a living.” And then, “When, Spartakos?”
“As soon as possible.”
“And they don't know here that âother' is out of the way.”
“It won't matter if they have the weapons to use or sell.”
“They'd use them first. These chukkers wouldn't want witnesses. You've got to bring a carrier down here, Spartakos.”
“My Maker is returning.”
“Is he? I won't count on that. There's that aircar we came in, but it doesn't hold more than fifty.”
“And it's a drone they keep out of the camp. Eat your meal, my-friend-Ned-Gattes. And another, if you can find one.”
“Not very hungry ⦠Spartakos, you and Rrengha could get out of here.”
“I am your weapon,” Spartakos said. “And my people are here.”
Rrengha said,
:And I have nothing better to do.:
These two could take me out of hereâif I didn't mind being sick of myself for ever.
His face was plastered with
every version of insect in the district, and he wiped at it distractedly, leaving a smear on his arm.
The sky was almost clear, for once; sun and wind had left the ground baked hard.
He was squatting by his tent eating when Lek came running, battling his own cloud of insects. “Listen, I had that dream, then Azzah told meâwas that our big red friend at work?”
“That's the kind of dream Rrengha has.”
“God damn it, I brought a hundred people into this hell-pit! You've got to tell me if it's true!”
Ned looked hard at Lek, and said, “It's worse than true. It's going to happen here, not there. And any time.”
Lek froze for a moment. He had been in as many dark corners as Ned. “You're not skinning me ⦠if we got out, there's nowhere to go.”
“Spartakos might be able to call in some kind of ship that could get us out of here.”
“They'd kill us first. Just when do you think is âany time'?”
“The easiest'd be when we're sleeping.”
“Nobody's gonna sleep tonight.” He added, half-whispering, “We've got to get out somehow. There's no time to make real plans.”
“The alternative may be dying without knowing or trying to fight.”
“Who do I tell about this?”
“Anybody you trust, just keep Rrengha alongside.”
A loud voice yelled, “Awright, you, it's worktime, you forgot it?”
Ned looked up to see if the work-boss was that rouser, Cawdor, but it was only somebody come out of the same factory. This one liked to go round waving his zapstick and touching leaves to hear the sizzle. The look in his eyes said,
You'll die as good as the rest of them.