Alternate Realities

by C. J. Cherryh

  He went to the University that night, and Sbi went, and another of the ahnit. There was Pace and Phelps, but Gytha stayed outside in view of the crowd. He had put on blue robes himself, as many did, and stood on the steps to keep matters calm.

  “Come and go as you like,” Herrin told the colonel. “Enter University. We honor all agreements that benefit us both, but we won’t have weapons in the streets.”

  “What about the First Citizen?”

  “He doesn’t want to come out,” Herrin said quietly. He had tried; himself, he had tried, but Waden stayed to his own refuge. “Someday, perhaps.” They had buried Keye, with the rest of the dead that day, all in one sad grave. “We welcome visitors, colonel. But while you may have your port compound, once across that line, you’re on our soil and in our State, and while we’ll be hospitable, we’ll issue the invitations. We take responsibility for ourselves, and for those who come here.”

  The colonel said nothing for a moment. Perhaps he remembered walking through that vast, quiet crowd outside.

  “So,” said Sbi, “do we—issue the invitations.”

  “That puts the matter,” the colonel said, “in a special category. If there’s native government.”

  “Oh,” said Sbi, “there is.”

  The colonel did not stay long, even on the world itself. Outsiders came and went, silently building their station and dealing in trade.

  There was a time that Herrin found it possible to walk the streets again unescorted. “Master Law,” they would hail him there, and touch his sleeve very gently, with great reverence. He talked to them in the streets, and sometimes sat down on a step where half a hundred would gather to listen to him reason with them. Sometimes Sbi gathered crowds mixed of ahnit and human, or they reasoned together. Perhaps they did not all understand, but Herrin tried, at least, to use the simplest of things.

  There was a path worn to the statue in the hills, and there were always humans and ahnit thereabouts; it was the tradition to walk, even when it became possible to use transport.

  His parents came on the bus from Camus, and came sorrowfully and begged his pardon. He forgave them, even understanding that they came because he was visible again, and people asked them about him, and they could no longer pretend him away. Sbi and Leona Pace, Gytha and Phelps and John Ree ... they knew him much better, and loved him, and so it was only a little painful to regret that his parents did not.

  Harfeld died; Herrin was sorry: he would have gone to Camus to be with the old man, who had evidently wanted that, but it was too late when he heard the man was gone.

  And finally Waden Jenks came, from his dark refuge in the Residency, thin and blinking in the sun, and brought by ahnit, who had finally persuaded him out. “Waden,” Herrin said, and offered him an embrace, which Waden accepted, and looked in his eyes.

  “It’s not so bad, your reality,” Waden confessed. “I’ve seen it ... from the windows. I thought I would come out today.”

  “Good,” Herrin said, laid a hand on his shoulder—the hands healed, but never quite straight—and walked with him along the street, with Sbi and the other ahnit who had brought him out. He let Waden choose the way he would walk, but knew where Waden would go, ultimately.

  And Waden stood in the dome, tears running down his face while he looked at the hero-image the morning sun made of him. There were others there, surprised by sudden visitors, but the silence was very deep.

  “There are years to come,” Herrin said. “There’s need of you, Waden.”

  Waden looked at him, nodded slowly.

  Herrin left him there, walked away with Sbi and the others, trusting that Waden would follow, in his own time.

  1 Forthcoming in hardcover from DAW Books

  DAW TITLES BY C.J. CHERRYH

  THE ALLIANCE-UNION UNIVERSE

  The Company Wars

  DOWNBELOW STATION

  The Chanur Novels

  THE PRIDE OF CHANUR

  CHANUR’S VENTURE

  THE KIF STRIKE BACK

  CHANUR’S HOMECOMING

  CHANUR’S LEGACY

  Merovingen Nights

  ANGEL WITH THE SWORD

  The Hanan Rebellion

  BROTHERS OF EARTH

  HUNTER OF WORLDS

  The Era of Rapprochement

  SERPENT’S REACH

  FORTY THOUSAND IN GEHENNA

  MERCHANTER’S LUCK

  The Mri Wars

  THE FADED SUN TRILOGY OMNIBUS

  The Age of Exploration

  CUCKOO’S EGG

  VOYAGER IN NIGHT

  PORT ETERNITY

  THE MORGAINE CYCLE

  THE MORGAINE SAGA

  EXILE’S GATE

  EALDWOOD

  THE DREAMING TREE

  THE FOREIGNER UNIVERSE

  FOREIGNER

  INVADER

  INHERITOR

  PRECURSOR

  DEFENDER1

  EXPLORER1