Arran had been in hiding long enough to understand something important. Who found himself lost among the endless everblues of Skye—and this sort of pointless tragedy had been reported more than once in his brief lifetime, oftenest when village-living peasants wandered off upon picnics—and was afterward discovered dead of hypothermia (more frequent in summertime than otherwise) or starvation, such a hapless individual had to be a prize-winning fool. Life was easy in untraveled and uncultivated places, as long as one took caution to stay warm and was unparticular how the many things which could sustain him tasted. As Robret approached the cavelet where his brothers awaited him, Arran observed that the greater part of his burden consisted, as he had anticipated it would, of wild shrooms which grew in abundance everywhere upon the planet but its anti-
podes. This variety, as he recalled, felt, smelt, and tasted like fried bacon.
In this, he was compelled to admit, they were lucky fugitives as well as well-dressed. Moisture-rich Skye afforded home to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of varieties of edible fungus, constituting the sole profitable item among the Holdings' exportables. Some—valued elsewhere for pharmaceutical properties, and which they believed they had thus far avoided—had strange effects upon the mind, yet not a solitary species was toxic to man or any tame beast, oflfworld or domestic. Arran knew this was not the case upon other worlds, although he had heard of places where no poisonous reptiloids or insects lived. This was not so upon Skye. Whatever cornucopia of textures and flavors was available, their good fortune—as is fortune's habit—was limited. Shrooms consisted of little more than water, carbohydrates, and minerals. They could not live long upon them, did they consume keys of the things every day.
Where fortune failed them, intelligence sufficed. As Robret knelt and spread his discoveries upon the moss a measure from where his youngest brother sat, it became apparent he had not limited himself to shrooms. Several multicolored handsful of berries—greenberries being just one species in the great forest—Arran recognized. They were tart, sweet, and doubtless carried within them disease-preventing vitamins they all needed. At this thought, his ears began itching somewhere deep inside, and he sneezed.
Robret had used a cunning tool from one of the §-riders' kits to cut and peel the inner bark of an everblue. As long as they were among trees they would not starve, no matter how jaded their palates. The white, stretchy stuff he had harvested was tart like the berries, bitter but filling. It would soon dry, even in this climate, to a light, crumbly, self-preserving food, heavy in complex sugars, the boy guessed. Arran's mouth watered at the sight, and, catching himself, he shook his head in wonder and mild self-pity.
Protein continued to represent a problem. The youngest Islay, at least—still growing, and, to a certain extent, still recuperating—was beginning to feel the effects of deprivation. None of the brothers was desperate enough as yet to essay the bill of fare available beneath any rotting, phospho-
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rescent log or largish stone they might care to turn over. However, in the baffling absence of large animals—which, at their father's insistence, Robret and Donol had hunted, but never without appropriate weapons, guides, and beaters— Arran never entertained the slightest doubt they would come to it. Having been raised upon domestic meat, with a bit of wild game as an infrequent variation in their diet, the brothers had no knowledge about methods of trapping smaller animals, or even that it could be done. Nor did it occur to them that their very presence here was what had driven off the larger animals.
Earlier, Arran had considered expending some of his remaining precious cartridges. Old Henry had proved in the most graphic manner that they possessed small value for self-protection except in a rare, unrepeatable instance such as had recently preserved their lives and liberty. However, the boy appreciated all too well that he and his brothers were hunted animals themselves, and one of many instruments bent to the purpose would be sensitive to noises far less conspicuous than the ear-stabbing roar of a pistol-thrust. Arran pondered what had happened to Old Henry. With effort now becoming reflex, he suppressed a thousand answerless questions about life and death, along with the pain they evoked. Without consciousness or volition, he transferred his curiosity to a safer topic, wondering whether the kinergic thnistible might have been invented for no better reason than to eliminate inconvenient noise.
He felt his other brother stir behind him. "Leave it to Donol," Robret's griii belied his words, "to sleep until the prospect of eating arises."
The jest, they all knew, was unfair. Donol had kept watch throughout the rainy night while the other two slept. What Robret and Arran did not know was that it was also inaccurate. The truth was that, curled up in his burrow all morning, Donol had been feigning sleep while his mind raced. Now, sliding from his muddy, makeshift bed, he yawned, brushed at his torn and soiled attire, and, kneeling, began picking at the products of Robret's foraging.
"Aye," he answered Robret. "Lucky one among us understands life's priorities, which I refrain from listing for fear of embarrassing an elder brother with my erudition and a
younger with knowledge he is unready for. This is terrible stuff you have brought; what have you been up to, besides? Do they still talk about us at home?" He nodded toward the brush in which the §-riders, their charges nearing exhaustion by the flight to this place, had been concealed to replenish themselves. After the lengthy, high-velocity escape, they would be at it a while. Still, they were not altogether useless: each possessed a low-powered transceiver similar to the 'com damaged aboard the draywherry. This was somehow known, for the whirling mirror of the Holdings' emergency laser-caster had been active every moment since they had left, by turns gloating upon Morven's behalf, screaming demands of them and the rest of the planet, and offering bribes.
Robret shook his head. "It took most of the morning finding something to eat—I wonder if we get back from our food what we put in looking for it—and did not listen. Why?"
Donol arose from his crouch. "Let us do it now." It cost him a moment's effort to clear the brush away, the better to receive glimmerings of the invisible coherent light they knew permeated the air they breathed. In one respect, the §-riders represented a danger, since all three thought it likely that metal detectors would be used to search for them. Once recharged, they would provide means for swift flight. In the meantime, they offered certain conveniences. This one lay upon its side, no longer able to maintain an upright position, thanks to switches thrown once they had arrived in this place. Thus Robret had conserved power in order to keep a figurative ear pointed backward whence they had fled. Donol's brothers arose and joined him beside the disabled machine.
"— outlaws in hiding, cold, friendless, hunted, and miserable," it began at once, with uncanny accuracy describing their condition as it had for uncounted repetitions since it was first enthilled and lasercast, "Give no thought to what you once believed was your inheritance. You are foredoomed, the same as the Old Islay, to be hunted and put to death, unless, in return for your prompt public acceptance of the legitimacy of— "
"His usurpation!" Arran now knew that his father, whom the smug, vile 'casts named "Old Islay," as was customary
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with the passing of a Drector, had been dragged off in power-restraints and had died, he suspected, more of anger and humiliation than any torture he had suffered at Morven's hands. Through bribery transparent even at this remove, through blackmail, lies, and outright threats, the Islay had been convicted, in the convenient absence afforded by his death, of crimes which the brothers were confident Morven himself was guilty. This turnabout must have given the second son of Shandish immense satisfaction. He had had his revenge, and at the same time enhanced his already-great power and wealth, all in a daring swoop. Even now, although the lasercast voice was his, he must be cackling over it with his evil daughter.
Donol waved Arran to silence. "But—" Both his brothers hushed him.
"— nece
ssity of the actions of the designated representative of the Monopolity of Hanover, and thereby earn an amnesty, full freedom, and immunity — and, of course, your lives — which I, your lawful ruler, Tarbert Morven, Drector-Protempore of Skye, promise you." The lasercast ended. It would begin repeating itself within five minutes' time.
Excitement filled Donol's voice. "I have been thinking on this!"
"You have been thinking, this morning," Robret growled, "of nothing but the insides of your eyelids!"
Realizing that his enthusiasm had almost betrayed him, the middle brother took caution. Life, as he had lived it, had taught Donol never to let anyone see into his thoughts or feelings. For a moment he had believed, not altogether consciously, that this tragedy sweeping into their lives might have changed things between his brothers and himself, but now he saw he had been mistaken. The old, unnif-flable shrewdness crept back into his voice. His brothers, although they realized it not, had been disturbed by the alteration of his character, however positive and healthy it might have been. They were calmed now, just as subtly and unconsciously, by a return to the familiar in him, however sinister.
"Go easy with him, Robret."
"What?" Of all the changes he had witnessed in the past days, this, in Arran, was most amazing to Robret. That it
was not a change at all was something he had never been in a position to appreciate, the difference in their ages being so great and he having been preoccupied with his own affairs.
"I told you, go easy. Between bad food and worse sleep, we are all in a failing way. Perhaps he has been thinking the same thing I am."
"And what," Donol asked, peering with suspicion and alarm at one who claimed to know his thoughts, "might that be, baby brother?" Had Arran's kind and spirited defense come but seconds earlier, at Donol's unguarded moment, it might have fostered yet another change in their lives— something none of them, not even Donol, was ever to know.
Arran turned to Donol first and afterward to Robret. "We must take the rapespawn's offer."
Chapter XVI: The Shortest Twig
"One among us," Arran hurried before his brothers could discover they were taking counsel with a twelve-year-old, "must return to the Holdings—"
"Shamefaced," Robret interrupted, a bitter expression writing itself across his features, "affecting the humiliated manner of a whipped triskel."
Arran bit his lip. "Better a whipped triskel than a dead one.
The three still squatted over the down-powered §-rider, Morven's appeal from the Holdings all but ignored. Donol agreed with what he could anticipate of Arran's plan. It was, he believed, and only differing in detail, the very notion which had excited him moments before.
"You must—" Thinking better of it, and with a new idea forming, Arran began again. Neither of his brothers ever learned which he had intended by the word you. "Whichever of us is chosen, by whatever means, he must accept the risk of Morven's amnesty, surrendering against the likeli-
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hood of yet another treachery, with the idea of getting back into the graces of what passes in these evil days for law upon the planet Skye."
Donol made a noise of shrewd consideration at the back of his throat. "I feel—and believe I can persuade you to my point of view—that less risk may be involved in this course than might first appear to be the case." Both brothers looked at him as he ticked off points upon his upraised fingers. "In the first instance, did not our father keep the peace here for three long decades, never by the threatened force of weaponry alone, but through an agreement which all concerned felt was bound by love?"
"Yes," Arran answered.
"Yes," his eldest brother agreed.
Indeed they all believed the Bargain to be more than political. Robret "the" Islay—Old Robret as he was now called, even in their own minds—had been wont to refer to peace between Hanoverians and Skyan woodsrunner as "kept by ties of blood, nor streams of it." Old Henry had used the phrase, as well.
"In the second instance," Donol continued, "Morven must face, is already facing, the severest difficulties consolidating his rule of our birth planet, since he had no part in the history which all upon it share."
"The speculation," Robret agreed, for once following a line of political reasoning, with the most urgent incentive, and fascinated by it, "is likely." Arran remained silent, having accomplished what he intended. His brothers were making his argument for him, and with a measure of eloquence.
"In aid of consolidation," Donol suggested, "the apparent assent, even of one Islay brother, would be received with gratitude, would it not?" It was clear Robret had not considered this possibility. A look of amazement—and renewed hope—came over him. He began to nod his head with considerable vigor. "This agreed upon," Donol rushed on, not giving Robret time to interrupt in a first blush of new and unaccustomed insight, "with one of us at the Holdings, another must remain in hiding, his purpose being to rally those faithful retainers who have fled, and recruit woodsrunners from among our mother's old friends—our
father's old enemies—who would assist us in prevailing against this black usurper."
"Yes," Robret answered, "I agree."
"Now, brothers," Donol prepared to make his final point, "while none of our family possessed—indeed ever sought— close acquaintance with political intrigue, eschewing involvement in the peril-laden intricacies of the Ceo's 'Droom, our father was a genuine, much-admired hero of the Thousand Years' War. In addition, as the three of us know well, he was a man graced with an open, winning way." Arran suppressed a sudden urge to tears at the remembrance of his father. His eldest brother gulped in a similar effort. Donol, however, was still moved by practical necessity. "Moreover, even did our father not have friends, it is an ancient, essential fact of politics, appreciated by the most naive observer—present company excepted—that, for every party in predominance, at least one (and, in common practice, more than one) displaced and malcontented faction considers its subordinate position no more than a galling temporary circumstance, a merely ephemeral obstacle to inevitable victory, vindication, and vengeance."
"In arts of warfare, politics, or love," Robret stared past them into empty space, quoting the sweetheart who now seemed lost to him forever, "nothing is ever settled or to be taken for granted,"
Donol blinked. "Well spoken, brother! You have un-plumbed depths I had not anticipated." Robret gave him a look of irritation but offered not another word. "In consequence, we surviving Islays cannot be without influence of our own, at least potentially, within the Monopolity."
The discussion continued a long while. For the most part the brothers agreed—Arran sitting quiet, keeping counsel with himself as long as conversation flowed in the direction he thought wisest—that aid were likeliest enlisted among many of their recent visitors, wedding guests now embarking, it was presumed, for the capital and other worlds.
"Therefore," Donol concluded, having run out of fingers to make points upon, "with one of us surrendered at the Holdings and one in hiding with the woodsrunners, the third must somehow find his swift and surreptitious way aboard one of the starships still in orbit awaiting propitious
circumstances—" Time was a factor, as well as ever-changing subatomic currents. "—for departure from the vicinity of Skye. None of us being destined to sail the Deep, we were never schooled in the relevant observations and calculations. More than a possibility exists that whoever undertakes this task will find himself at ... at Alysabethport too late to accomplish his mission. Nonetheless, I, for one, believe it worth an attempt."
"Stow away?" Robret demanded.
"All the way to Hanover?" Arran finished for him.
"Upon the contrary," Donol replied. "Whoever the unlucky fellow may be, he would not attempt to reach the capital himself, but seek converse with those powerful individuals who still hold our family in esteem—"
"Or," Arran interrupted, still a boy in spite of his precocity and no longer able to resist displaying his powers of reas
oning, "and this may be more to the point, individuals representing interests in the 'Droom at odds with those to which the Black Usurper is allied."
Donol chuckled, v/hether at his younger brother's broadening enlightenment or his elder's density he could not have attested. A period of silence followed.
"Well enough," Robret vowed at last, determination filling his voice. "Nothing can bring our father back. Yet perhaps we can begin unmaking some small portion of the many injustices Morven has wrought."
"Done," his middle brother answered him.
"And done," Arran confirmed.
Thus it came to pass that the three brothers cast lots. With solemnity revealing not the slightest trace of his accustomed sarcasm, Donol took it upon himself to arise from where they sat and snap three twigs of differing lengths from the bush which concealed them and the §-field rider whose transceiver they had been listening to when the conversation first began.
All else was quickly decided among them. The longest of the three twigs would determine which of the brothers would surrender himself to Morven. The middle-sized twig would be drawn by he who would remain fugitive and counter-
revolutionary. Who drew the shortest twig would make his way south to the landing pentagram—Donol's reference to "Alysabethport" had earned him sour looks—and attempt to gain audience with potential friends and allies.
Donol held up both grubby fists, having arranged the twigs in such a manner that no difference could be perceived among them. He rolled his palms against one another, saying not even he should be able to declare which twig was which. At his brothers* impatient insistence, he closed one hand while the other drew out the first twig for himself.
It was longest. Donol would return to possible torture and execution, but also the hope of deceiving their enemy. Despite the risk, this suited him, as it did his younger brother. Both felt—and explained by turns to Robret—Donol to be the most sophisticated of the three, the closest match for Morven's treacherous talent, and (Arran meant no insult by it, even Donol had to agree) better equipped for the required dissimulation.
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