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As if I were really Darkovan born, and entirely on my own
!
He had halfway anticipated being stopped at the gate, but he passed through the archway withoutchallenge, and went out into the city.
It was the hour when workmen were returning home, and the streets were crowded. He walked throughthem without attracting a glance, a strange breathless excitement growing under his ribs, and bursting inhim. With every step, he seemed somehow to leave the person he had been, further behind. It was as ifhis present dress was not a masquerade, but rather as if he had simply discovered a deeper layer ofhimself, and was living with it. The pale cold sun hung high in the sky, casting purple shadows across thenarrow streets and alleys; he found his way through the outlying reaches of the city with the instinct of acat. He was almost sorry when he finally reached the distant quarter where the house of the Altons lay.
The nonhuman he had seen before opened the door for him, but Kennard was standing in the hallway,and Larry wondered briefly if the Darkovan boy had been waiting for him.
“You did make it,” Kennard said, with a grin of satisfaction. “Somehow I’d had the feeling you wouldn’t
be able to, but when I looked this afternoon, I realized you would.”
The words were confusing; Larry tried to make sense of them, finally decided that they must be some Darkovan idiom he didn’t understand too well. He said, “I thought, for a while, that I couldn’t come,” buthe left it at that.
The nonhuman moved toward him, and Larry flinched and drew away involuntarily, remembering hisencounter with one in the streets. Kennard said quickly, “Don’t be afraid of the
kyrri
. It’s true that ifstrangers brush against them they give off sparks, but he won’t hurt you now he knows you. They’vebeen servants to our families for generations.”
Larry allowed the nonhuman to take his cloak, looking curiously at the creature. It was erect and vaguelymanlike, but covered with a pelt of long grayish fur, and it had long prehensile fingers and a face like amasked monkey. He wondered where the
kyrri
came from and what sort of curious relationships couldexist between human and non-human. Would he ever know?
“I brought you the books I promised,” he told Kennard, and the other boy took them eagerly. “Oh, good! But I’ll look at them later. We needn’t stand here in the hall. Do you know how to play darts? Shall we have a game?”
Larry agreed with interest. Kennard showed him the game in a big downstairs room, wide and light, with
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translucent walls, evidently a game-room of some sort. The darts were light and perfectly balanced, feathered with crimson and green feathers from some exotic bird. Once Larry grew accustomed to their weight and balance, he found that they were well matched in the game. But they played it desultorily, Kennard breaking off now and again to leaf through the books, stare fascinated at the many photographs, and ask endless questions about star-travel.
They were in one such lull in the game when the curtained panels closing off the room swirled back and Valdir Alton came in, followed by another man—a tall Darkovan, with copper hair sweeping back froma high stern forehead marked with two wings of white hair. He wore an embroidered cloak of a curiouscut. The boys broke off in their game, and Kennard, with a start of surprise, made the stranger a deepand formal bow. The newcomer glanced sharply at Larry, and, not wishing to seem rude, Larry repeatedthe gesture.
The man spoke some offhand phrase of polite acknowledgment, nodding pleasantly to both boys; but ashis gray gaze crossed Larry’s, he started, narrowed his brows, then, turning his head to Valdir, said, “Terran?”
Valdir did not speak, but they looked at one another for a moment. The stranger nodded, crossed theroom and stood in front of Larry. Slowly, as of compelled, Larry looked up at him, unable to draw hiseyes away from his intense and compelling stare. He felt as if he were being weighed in the balance,sorted out, drawn out; as if the old man’s searching look went down beneath his borrowed clothes,down to the alien bones under his flesh, down to his deepest thoughts and memories. It was like beinghypnotized. He found himself suddenly shivering, and then, suddenly, he could look away again, and theman was smiling down at him, and the strange gray eyes were kind.
He said to Valdir, speaking past the boys, “So this is why you brought me here, Valdir? Don’t worry; Ihave sons of my own. Introduce me to your friend, Kennard.”
Kennard said “The lord Lorill Hastur, one of the Elders of the Council.”
Larry had heard the name from his father, spoken with exasperation but a certain degree of respect. Hethought,
I hope my being here doesn’t mean trouble, after all
, and for a brief instant almost regrettedcoming; then let it pass. The tension in the room slackened indefinably. Valdir picked up one of thebooks Larry had brought Kennard, turning the pages with interest; Lorill Hastur came and looked overhis shoulder, then turned away and began examining the darts. He drew back his arm and tossed oneaccurately into the target. Valdir put the book down and looked up at Larry.
“I was sure that you would be able to come today.”
“I wanted to. But I may not be able to come again,” Larry said.
Valdir’s eyes were narrowed, curious: “Too dangerous?”
“No,” said Larry, “that doesn’t bother me. It’s that my father would rather I didn’t.” He stopped; he didn’t want to discuss his father, or seem to complain about his father’s unreasonableness. That was something between his father and himself, not to be shared with outsiders. The conflict touched him again with sadness. He liked Kennard so much better than any of the friends he had made in Quarters, and yet this friendship must be given up almost before it had a chance to be explored. He took up one of the darts and turned it, end for end, in his hand; then flung it at the target board, missing his aim. Lorill Hastur turned and faced him again.
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“How is it that you were willing to risk trouble and even punishment to come today, Larry?”
It did not occur to Larry to wonder—not until much later—how the Elder had known his name, or theinner conflict that had forced a choice on him. Just then it seemed natural that this old man with thesearching eyes knew everything about him. But he still wasn’t ready to sound disloyal.
“I didn’t have a chance to make him understand. He would have realized why I had to come.”
“And breaking your word would have been an insult,” Lorill Hastur said gravely. “It is part of the code
of a man to make his own choices.”
He smiled at the boys, and turned, without formal leave-taking. Valdir took a step to follow him, turnedback to Larry.
“You are welcome here at any time.”
“Thank you, sir. But I’m afraid I won’t be able to come again. Not that I wouldn’t like to.”
Valdir smiled. “I respect your choice But I have a feeling we’ll meet again.” He followed Lorill Hasturout of the room.
Alone with Kennard, Larry found room for wonder. “How did he know so much about me?”
“The Hastur-Lord? He’s a telepath, of course. What else?” Kennard said, matter-of-factly, his face buried in a book of views taken in deep space. “What sort of camera do they use for this? I never have been able to understand how a camera works.”
And Larry, explaining the principle of sensitized film to Kennard, felt an amused, ironic surprise.
Telepath, of course
! And to Kennard this was the commonplace and something like a camera wasexotic and strange. It was all in the point of view.
Far too soon, the declining sun told him it was time to go. He refused Kennard’s urgings to stay longer. He did not want his father to be frightened at his absence. Also, at the back of his mind, was a memorylike a threat—if he was missing, might his father set the machinery of the Terran Empire into motion tolocate him, bring down trouble on his friends? Kennard went a little way with him, and at the corner ofthe street paused, looking at him rather sadly.
“I don’t like to say goodbye, Larry,” he said. “I like you. I wish—”
Larry nodded, a little embarrassed, but sharing the emotion. “Maybe we’ll see each other again,” hesaid, and held out his hand. Kennard hesitated, long enough for Larry to feel first offended, then worriedfor fear he had committed some breach of Darkovan manners; then, deliberately, the Darkovan boyreached both hands and took Larry’s between them. Larry did not know for years how rare a gesturethis was in the Darkovan caste to which the Altons belonged. Kennard said softly, “I won’t saygood-bye. Just—good luck.”
He turned swiftly and walked away without looking back.
Larry turned his steps toward home, in the lowering mist. As he moved between the dark canyons of thestreets, his feet steadying themselves automatically on the uneven stones, he felt a flat undefined sorrow,as if he were seeing all this with the poignancy of a farewell. It was as if life had opened a bright door,
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and then slammed it again, leaving the world duller by contrast.
Suddenly, his feeling of sadness thinned out and vanished. This, was only a temporary thing. He wouldn’tbe a kid forever. The time would come when he’d be free and on his own, free to explore all the worldsof his own choosing— and Darkover was only one of many. He had tasted a man’s freedom today—andsome day it would be his for all time. His head went up and he crossed the square toward the spaceport,steadily. He’d had his fun, and he could take whatever happened. It had been worth it.
He had the curious sense that he was re-living something that had happened before, as he entered theirapartment in the Quarters building. His father was waiting for him, his face drawn, unreadable.
“Where have you been?”
“In the city. At the home of Kennard Alton.”
Montray’s face contracted with anger, but his voice was level and stern.
“You do remember that I forbade you to leave the Terran Zone? You’re not going to tell me that you
forgot?”
“I didn’t forget.”
“In other words, you deliberately disobeyed.”
Larry said quietly, “Yes.”
Montray was evidently holding his anger in check with some effort. “Precisely why, when I did forbidit?”
Larry paused a moment before answering. Was he simply making excuses about having done what hewanted to do? Then he was sure, again, of the rightness of his position.
“Because, Dad, I’d made a promise and I didn’t feel it was right to break it, without a better reason than just that you’d forbidden it. This was something
I
had to do, and you were treating me like a kid. I tried to make sure that you wouldn’t be involved, or the Terran Empire, if anything had happened to me.”
His father said, at last, “And you felt you should make that decision for yourself. Very well, Larry, Iadmire your honesty. Just the same, I refuse to concede that you have a right to ignore my orders onprinciple. You know I don’t like punishing you. However, for the present you will consider yourself underhouse arrest—not to leave our quarters except to go to school, under any pretext.” He paused and ableak smile touched his lips. “Will you obey me, or shall I inform the guards not to let you pass withoutreporting it?”
Larry flinched at the severity of the punishment, but it was just. From his father’s point of view, it was theonly thing he could do. He nodded, not looking up. “Anything you say, Dad. You’ve got my word.” Montray said, without sarcasm, “You have shown me that it means something to you. I’ll trust you.
House arrest until I decide you can be trusted with your freedom again.” The next days dragged slowlyby, no day distinguishing itself from the last. The bruises on his face and hands healed, and his Darkovanadventure began to seem dim and pallid, as if it had happened a long time ago. Nevertheless, even in the
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dullness of his punishment, which deprived him even of things he had previously not valued—freedom to go about the spaceport and the Terran city, to visit friends and shops—he never doubted that he had done the right thing. He chafed under the restriction, but did not really regret having earned it.
Ten days had gone by, and he was beginning to wonder a little when his father would see fit to lift thesentence, when the order came from the Commandant.
His father had just come in, one evening, when the intercom buzzed, and when Montray put the phonedown, he looked angry and apprehensive.
“Your idiotic prank is probably coming home to roost,” he said angrily. “That was the Legate’s office in Administration. You and I have both been ordered to report there this evening—and it was a priority summons.”
“Dad, if it means trouble for you, I’m sorry. You’ll have to tell them you forbade me to go—and if you don’t, I will. I’ll take all the blame myself.” For the first time, Larry felt that the consequences might really go beyond himself.
But that’s not my fault—it’s because the administration is unreasonable. Why should Dad be blamed for what I did
? He had never been in the administration building before, and as he approached the great white skyscraper that loomed over the whole spaceport complex, he was intrigued to the point of forgetting that he was here for a reproof.