After dinner he went into his room and locked the door. That was what she didn’t understand.
She contemplated knocking and asking if he was all right, but she didn’t. Not for a while anyway.
4
Within the bounds of the Nashuite Empire there are many worlds that only a limited number of men are allowed to visit. Within the bounds of the Nashuite Empire there are five thousand worlds that are totally closed. Once there were more than three times that number, but times alter and men learn to cope with the unknown.
Not all Closed Planets are dangerous. At least several in every octant are spring lands reserved for the use of a highly placed few.
There are an infinite number of legitimate reasons for closing worlds, but in general they fall into two categories. Simple men must be protected from dangerous worlds. Simple worlds, too, must be protected.
Pewamo had been a closed world for a peculiar reason. In 1187, a statistician named Bohumir Hinkle (remembered in chess circles for his ability to hold the center in general, and for Hinkle’s Gambit in particular) published a paper demonstrating the likelihood of intelligent life on planets fitting a list of particular criteria. Some of these criteria were familiar: small planet, large moon—the old “Tidal Disturbance” theory. Some were less familiar: iodine concentration and what Hinkle calls the Solimões Factor, after the planet of the same name. Pewamo, one of seven worlds that fit eighty percent or better of Hinkle’s criteria, was closed in 1189 and consequently was not included in the Tanner Trust when that was cobbled together in 1207, in spite of its proximity to the central planet of the Trust.
Hinkle later discarded his own theory when he discovered a systematic bias in the data on which he had based his Solimões Factor. The Solimões Scandal was another result, of course, ending with the suspension of an entire Planetary Commission.
Hinkle’s Theory is scarcely remembered today except by devotees of chess and governmental corruption, but the planets that were closed as a result of his theory remained closed. Intelligent life was ultimately discovered on two of them, though not on Pewamo. There being no other reason to keep it closed, in time Pewamo was opened.
In 1462, Pewamo was still rough and largely undeveloped. In spite of its proximity to Shiawassee, its attractive climates, its large moon and its iodine, Pewamo saw few vacationists. At that time, only Four Points, first built of Pewamo’s resorts, was paying for itself. Shiawassee was conservative, and it is well known that Nobody who is Anybody will go to the sort of place to which Nobody who is Anybody goes. Which means Pewamo.
* * *
Three connected volcanic peaks form the backbone of Binkin Island. The island had been named in the usual fashion—by its discoverer, Seymour Binkin, after himself. The three peaks are named Mount Seymour, Mount Ernest, and Mount Binkin. If you say the names over ten times, they somehow acquire majesty—they become mighty names for mighty mountains. Mount Binkin is the center and highest peak.
Places, like people, have personalities. Some are types, found over and over. Some are individuals. Some are obvious on first acquaintance. Some take knowing to love. Some brood, some are mild and shy. Some giddy, some wild. Some dour and enduring.
The peaks of Binkin Island are projections of a single great sea mount that rears thirty thousand feet from the ocean floor and fifteen thousand more to the top of Mount Binkin. It is a volcanic island. There is constant smoke above the mountains but it is hard to distinguish from haze and snow.
There is snow at the tops of the mountains. Glaciers rise out of cirques and make ermine drapes high on the mountain shoulders. There are four forests at different altitudes, each with its own rich variety of trees, its own animals and birds. Where lightning has struck and burned acres, there are meadows filled with flowers. It is possible to follow spring up the mountain from meadow to meadow, watch the same flowers bloom again and again, and see migrant birds traveling higher and higher with the changing weather.
A brown road loops around the island, sometimes near the sea girt, sometimes following the mountain shoulder, sometimes lost in forested valleys out of sight of both mountain and sea. Roads are patient, and this one is content to eternally nibble on the tip of its own tail.
Green Mountain Resort is located on the lower slopes of Mount Binkin. Near it are a handful of farms and the headquarters of the Development Area. There are seven developed camping areas. These and the road are the only signs of man on the island. The total resident population is 247.
The island has been Surveyed and Cleared. Two large and potentially dangerous carnivores have been identified and Class B Shields designed to deal with them. To these two animals a shield says flatly, “I don’t smell pleasant. I’m ugly. Ugly. If you eat me, I’ll make you sick!”
Lesser predators see and smell man as he really is, and make their own decisions.
* * *
The Big Beaver Ideal is to begin naked in the wild and reproduce civilization. Fred had compromised with this ideal for the sake of the others and was content with a moderate simplicity. The first evening they erected tents in a mountain meadow and built a fire. A cold clear night.
There was mist in the morning. It chilled and dampened all that it touched. Villiers was reluctant to pull himself from his warm bed. He stood, one foot in his tangled bed and the other on the smooth tent floor. The difference in temperature was startling. He limited his esthetic appreciation of the contrast by quickly bringing his cold foot home. He put his stockings on first while goose pimples sprouted. Then he went into a circulation-restoring dance: hop, hop, one trouser leg; hop, hop, the other. Buckle, hop, hop. Muted repeat of theme with tunic. Balance, shoe on. Balance, lose balance. Balance, other shoe. Pick up jacket and curdler and out of the tent.
Fred and Torve were already up and doing useful things. To earn his breakfast Villiers went for water. He, as well as Fred, had changed in ten years.
It was a quarter mile through grass, around rocks, and between trees. The day was brightening when he followed what was becoming a path back up the hill, the water in his buckets sloshing an arrhythmic accompaniment to his uneven footsteps. When he set the buckets down, he revolved his right shoulder.
“I knew it would stiffen,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” Fred asked, handing him a plate of hot food. Villiers demonstrated that he was suffering no permanent injury by accepting the plate with his right hand.
“It means that I can put this vacation to good purpose by exercising a few neglected muscles.”
The theme of this vacation was Follow Your Own Weird. Villiers was interested in constructive activity. Fred wanted to explore and discover the appropriate woodcraft to deal with Binkin Island. Torve was intending to spend most of his days two miles away at Green Mountain Resort; that is, unless the lines of occurrence should specify otherwise.
Villiers was still lingering with his breakfast and Fred was toweling his mustache when Torve carefully placed the things he wished to carry with him on the rear platform of his red tricycle and climbed aboard. He pedaled off down the path to waves from Fred and Villiers.
The bicycle is the best primitive vehicle ever invented by mankind. Villiers and Fred had bicycles, but Trogs and bicycles are as incompatible as humans and the treadle wheels that Durelians roll down their streets in. However, Torve could manage the large bucket-seated trike, and even achieve a substantial speed on downhill runs.
With steady pedaling, he could travel the two miles in much less than half an hour. It took him twice that long because he stopped by the roadside to talk to a friendly pink cloud.
* * *
Villiers was kneeling by the fire. He carefully set down his cup and tensed. If they had found him, it was too soon. He was not ready. Then he relaxed and said, “Fred,” and pointed.
Fred turned. The skinny boy at the forest edge hesitated on the edge of flight, and then came forward. He held his hat in his hand. His black hair, nearly shoulder-length like Fred’s and Vil
liers’, was clubbed at the sides. He wore a blue coat one size too large against the thin chill of morning.
“Sirs,” he said in an averted voice. In an embarrassed afterthought he made an arm wave that could be taken for a salaam.
Villiers’ manners could pass anywhere in polite society. Ralph’s could easily pass on Shiawassee. This adolescent’s could pass nowhere but on a country planet. Nowhere but Pewamo. It was plain that he had had no formal schooling in politeness. He twisted his neck one way and then the other.
Villiers said, “Sit down. Would you like something to drink?”
Fred touched his mustache with tentative fingers that sought the assurance that it still rose and set over his lip. Finding that it did, he said, “How may we help you?”
This boy was one of those with whom communication becomes a matter of gentle leading questions that are either ignored or answered by a minute nod. Silences of disquieting length. Few words and those neither well-turned nor confidently spoken. Impenetrable eyes downcast.
He was seated on a rock, and a cup was put in his hand. Villiers and Fred hunkered so as not to be threatening, and introduced themselves. The boy didn’t say who he was. He did move his eyes to the Big Beaver emblem on Fred’s jacket and then shyly showed a copy of the Big Beaver Book.
Fred said, “Are you a Big Beaver?”
No response.
Fred caught the conversation at the last possible moment. “Both of us are Big Beavers.”
No response.
“We’re both Chief Beavers.”
No response. A silence of this sort is neither empty nor stupid. It is a wild trapped intelligent silence that challenges a speaker to utter profundities and inevitably causes him to lapse into inanity.
“Um, is there a Big Beaver organization on Pewamo?”
(A response. A response.) A little no shake of the head.
Villiers said, “I think you have the proper line of questioning.”
“But you want to be a Big Beaver? Do you want to be a Big Beaver?”
Two definite little nods. Then black eyes were hidden behind the cup.
“Well, Fred,” said Villiers, “it’s a real challenge. As well as a duty, as I see it.”
Fred said, “You were always one for inventing hurdles to jump. Wait a minute, though. Wait right here. Let’s see what we can do.”
The boy watched them both with keen quiet interest. Villiers watched him back with equal interest. Fred was too absorbed to watch or be aware of watching. He came from the tent into the dappled sunshine with four bright green volumes in his arms. He brought them over and plunked them on the ground.
“There,” he said. “The Pewamo Reports. It’s fortunate I thought to bring them. We ought to be able to establish basic standards for the Binkin Island Big Beavers. What’s your name again?”
Swallow. Very slowly, “David Clodfelter, sir.”
“Can you come here every morning, David?” A nod.
Villiers said, “Are you going to sign your own charter?”
“Why not?” Fred said.
Then Villiers said, “Do you still have that pad of all-purpose forms?” at the same time that Fred said, “I still carry my pad of forms, you know.”
They laughed, and then Fred said, “I, Fred Fritz, am Manitou of Binkin Island.”
“Ta-daa,” Villiers said in ringing commemoration, and the boy smiled for a brief instant.
“Tony, you are First Graypelt.”
“All right.”
“And Keeper of the Homefire.”
“You should have said that more confidently. No, you’ll have to make your own notes. I will make an offer, though. If you want to spend your time making David a Big Beaver, I’ll mind things here, do the cooking and scut work.”
“Are you trying to disney me?” Fred asked. “That isn’t the Villiers I remember.”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
“I don’t remember that you ever have.”
“Then take me at my word.”
“I take you at your word. I accept, but I don’t understand.”
“Just accept. It’s the best way to approach life.”
Fred waved for young David to stand. The boy rose. Throughout their exchange his eyes had moved regularly from one to the other, becoming a trifle wider when they looked at Fred. This was quite natural—Manitous are more worthy of close attention than First Graypelts. He stood silent.
“David, you are now a Paddletail. We’ll see if we can’t promote you a couple of times before I have to leave. Call me Fred. We’ll have a reconnaissance hike today and I’ll go over the Basic Laws of the Big Beavers with you. Tony will test you when we get back.”
It may seem odd that an outsider should so blithely name himself Manitou of Binkin Island, but this was not the first time Fred had founded a branch of the Big Beavers. He knew specifically how to deal with a variety of climates, terrains, flora and fauna. Better yet, however, he knew his principles well enough to produce appropriate responses to the unfamiliar. On the other hand, being a native of a planet entitles you to nothing better than Paddletail. If you know more, it is easy enough to find out. Most don’t.
* * *
After Fred and David had left on their hike, Villiers began to look over the camp with a critical eye. He searched his memory and Fred’s manuals for the possible and the necessary. Latrine pits. He picked a spot for those. A garbage pit. A pantry pit. Drainage gutters around the tents. A tripod to hang the water supply from. A spit over the fire. Villiers looked carefully at the trees and rocks within the camp to see how they might be turned to comfortable advantage.
He dug the garbage pit immediately, and then cleaned up the remains of breakfast. When he was finished the air had warmed or he had exercised enough to think so. He washed and dried his hands and picked up two of the Mrs. Waldo Wintergood books, Sammy Swims Upstream and The Snuggily Winter. Putting them under his arm, he set off.
As an exercise, he backtracked young David, following his trail through the woods as far as was practicable. Then he broke off and made a wide circle around the camp, admiring the beauty of Maude Binkin Memorial Camping Area in all its diversity. He was not so out of condition as he had intimated, but nonetheless when he emerged at the upper end of the meadow he was content to stop and sit, to rest and read.
He was hot and shed a jacket, and within minutes put it back on again. The wind-stirred meadow was cool.
He read Mrs. Waldo Wintergood. He read the books with great delight. They were animal stories, one about a poor blind fish that courageously makes its way upstream to expire in ecstasy and be reborn in higher form, the other about a mother and her young in a warm earthen den under high-piled snow and a wind singing icicle songs, and their emergence to the pink and green of spring.
Most people enjoy stories about the workings of nature. However, these books told more about the workings of nature than a conservative Shiawassee author could possibly intend to say, and no doubt were unconsciously loved by their readers for exactly that same reason. For his part, Villiers liked them both as animal stories and as metaphors.
He glanced up to see what appeared to be a small pink alto-cumulus cloud hanging thirty feet above the camp tents in the lower meadow. It hovered there for some minutes, looking like an elegant unsupported coiffure, and then slowly drifted down the mountain.
Villiers picked up the bright orange volume of The Pewamo Reports that he had appropriated on impulse. He found the passage on the fauna of Binkin Island. They were there, called plonks, their whither-thither habits described in detail, and their obvious similarities to other aerial life forms discussed.
The next entry was for the native catamount, larger of Binkin Island’s two major carnivores. Thirty yards behind Villiers, a gray catamount at the forest verge put forepaws on a fallen log. It looked toward Villiers and strained its senses for intelligence of this intruder. Suddenly it curled its lip and sneezed convulsively as though to clear its mind and bounded away
.
Villiers cocked his head at the sneeze, but since it was not listed in his book as a characteristic cry of the catamount he failed to respond with the lightning reflexes required of a Class B Shield-wearing carnivore observer. When he did look around he saw nothing.
In a little while he came down the hillside, put the books where he had found them, and shouldered his shovel. Ah, the shovel—symbol of simplicity. Proceeding in order of need, he dug a latrine.
* * *
Where does the sea begin? Stern hard rocks lined the coast. Fred skirted stranded tidepools, jumped from rock to rock above exploring seafingers, and at last reached the point where there were no more rocks and the free sea spread before him.
The sides of the rock were covered with a yellow-green cushion of slime, the top was bare and dry. The sea was gentle today and lapped rather than broke. Fred knelt on one knee and let the sea touch a hand. That’s where the sea begins—where a tag-playing wave has a thousand miles to dodge and run.
It was past noon. Fred stood and said, “Well, why don’t we stop and eat?”
He was the elder—past his first prime. He was the stranger here. He was carrying the pack filled with Big Beaver Essentials (The “Ten B.B.E.s”—it’s all in the Big Beaver Book). He had set the pace all morning. He had found the way when the terrain was difficult. And yet it was young David who was tired and ready to stop. Tell the truth, Fred was feeling pretty chipper. Only an unselfish regard for his fellow prompted him to propose the rest.
David failed to respond. Fred expected no verbal answer—not even a simple yes or no. But there are nonverbal means of communication and Fred had every reason to expect the flicker at his elbow that meant a nodded head.
At the lack of response, he turned to find no David at all. He turned further and there David was, sitting well back on higher rock, hands on knees, leaning forward, breathing, resting. It is one thing to go hiking; quite another to bounce off on exhausting sidetrips to shake hands with the ocean or discover what the world looks like halfway up a tree.
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