“What concerns me more right now are the rumors of the Peshtak,” said Tag.
“They are more than rumors,” said Rayag. “But it seems not to be a general movement.”
“Let Tor speak for me,” said Waldura. “But be sure he assumes the position of a Shumai settler.”
“Is that possible? I had heard he is the quintessential axeman.”
“If he is, then one of his main assets is a vivid insight and imagination,” Rayag returned.
“Well,” said Haeol, the other Sentani, “I can see no other way than to try to make contact. Here are the issues. If there are people in the dome—and that is now obvious—they are in trouble if they stay there. We all, as honorable people, are bound to try to help them. Then, if they have knowledge, we could not only benefit from it, but we had better make them a part of us rather than against us if they get out. And with the land so empty as it is, it would be a long time before any time of fire were again needed by anyone, for any purpose. In that time, we could perhaps learn the skills of interaction that the Pelbarigan conservatives are worried about. Furthermore, we seem to be capable of immense destruction without any devices they might bring us. The fight for Northwall showed that. That was disruptive and murderous enough, was it not?
“Then there is this other aspect, which I admit is only speculation. Let’s assume that the Peshtak are moving westward. What would push them? Not the Coo, with whom they are occasionally rumored to be allied. Not the Lake Sentani. The Peshtak have raided in the territory of the Tall Grass Sentani, so our reports say. That leaves only the eastern cities, exerting pressure westward. If Celeste’s people have any knowledge that would help bring our power into a balance with the cities of the east, then the people in the dome will be an asset to us.”
Jestak sighed. “You seem to have worked it all out, Haeol. I still can’t ignore the fact that we are clearly all one people, from the eastern cities to the western mountains and beyond. I would hope to end our power struggles and see our unity.”
“With the Peshtak?”
“That would be hard, I admit. But think of the dome people. Assumedly, they have been inside that structure ever since the time of fire. How pathetic that is. Some of them must be descended from blood relatives of some of us. They are surely of our culture—or what it was. We must rescue them as we would snatch somebody from a fire. What is the matter, Tristal?”
“Nothing. Just chilly, sir.”
“There is another thing, too.”
“What, Jes?”
“If they are people of great knowledge, perhaps they will know how to heal Stantu of his affliction from crossing the empty place.”
Tag gave a light, fluttering, and bitter laugh. “Then I will go and dig them out with my bare hands.”
“The dome is in an empty place,” said Tristal. “Stel hoped to build a rock causeway out across it from the edge to the dome. It is near the edge, and the barren part is shrinking.”
Jestak rose and crossed the room. He was limping very slightly, as he had ever since the battle at Northwall. He put his hand on Fahna’s head. “Quiet, then, little one?”
A flare of annoyance crossed her face. “Of course,” she said. “If that boy could bring the message, I can surely be quiet about it.” Tristal blushed, and Tia moved her eyes from the boy to Fahna, amused.
“Tag,” said Jestak. “Perhaps you and Stantu could put Tristal up tonight.” His arm went across the boy’s shoulders and squeezed him sideways. “Tristal, you are already in Heart River history. The man who found the first of the dome people.” Tristal blushed again. “Now,” Jestak added, “I will seek an evening audience with the Protector.” He left abruptly, and Tag slowly rolled up the map as the others rose and began to leave.
Tristal and Tag were alone, with Fahna in the doorway, when Tag finished tying a string around the map cylinder. “How old are you, Tris?” she asked.
“Fourteen. Just fourteen.”
Tag shook her head. “Had Stantu not had his affliction, we might have had a son almost as old. See Fahna? She is Tia’s first, and Tia and Jestak were married less than a year before we were. Here, let me look at you.” She took Tristal by the shoulders and looked at him straight-on. “You even resemble Stantu a little bit.”
“I see no likeness whatsoever,” said Fahna in the doorway.
“Ah, Thistle. I am glad to see you like him, too. Watch out, Tristal, or she will thread you on her necklace of admirers. Well, how good it would be to have a child like you.” She suddenly clasped him against her. His ear squeezed tight against her breast, he could hear the even thumping of her heart. Then she quickly let him go, and said, “Come, you will need to wash and sleep. It may be a good idea for you to leave before light.” Turning again, she rumpled his hair. “But you can come back and stay when secrecy is not important. Really. You could be our son.”
“But Tor—”
“Yes, your uncle. Remember, though.”
They passed into the front room, where Tia sat with two children smaller than Fahna. She was reading to them from a book with large pages.
“Did you have enough to eat, Tristal?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you. It was very good. Raran and I have been living on rabbits and fish on the way, and neither of us likes fish.”
“Raran?”
“My dog. She is with Stantu.”
“Stantu has always been natural with animals. All of them love him right off.”
“Hold me once more, Dexter. I don’t want to leave. Why can’t we tell the others? Let me stay with you. Surely they will see that their genetic methods have not worked.”
“Not yet, my love. We will have to be careful. They may separate us, or drug us. Then we will feel nothing for one another. Now. You must really go before 2920. I am due to make a routine check of the rodentry, by instrument from here, and that is something they could monitor.”
“Oh, Dexter. What are we to do?”
“Do? Don’t worry, Ruthan. It will all work out all right. Now, please go. The hallway is clear.”
Ruthan kissed him and slipped out the panel. Dexter turned, shook his head, and suddenly grinned to himself. He ran his rodentry check. Nearly all was in order. But on row 27B, another mother had unaccountably killed two newborn offspring. He would have to go over that. This tendency seemed on the increase. He touched a control, and a panel slid back, revealing an enormous, and fat, white rat. Dexter took an algae biscuit in his lips and held it up to the animal, which put its pink paws against his cheeks and reached out to nip the biscuit from his mouth. He dug her in the fat belly with a forefinger as she retreated into the cage to eat it.
“Ha. My love, very good. You do tricks almost as well as Ruthan, and you are much easier to satisfy. You get your reward and go.” He shook his head. “It is a different sort of game, Ariadne. Rodents seem to think much more clearly than humans. You are so marvelously objective. Don’t you think so?” He held up three fingers. Ariadne nodded her head three times and went back to her chewing. “Ah. I’m glad you agree.” Dexter chuckled, commanding the front panel to shut. Then he set out for the rodentry to harvest the mother rat on row 27B and reassign the remaining tiny newborns to mechanical feeder-warmers.
Raran still sat by Stantu, panting lightly. She stood as Tristal and Tag came, then turned and rooted her nose under Stantu’s hand. Stantu rubbed her nose, then, with effort, stood.
“Look, Stan. Tristal could be a member of your family. See how he looks like you,” Tag said.
“I saw. The south Shumai often look like that. It is a small group. Well, did you settle your business? I saw Jes go to the city.”
“We are settling it. Tristal will stay with us tonight. I think he will probably leave before sunup, to separate his coming from whatever has to be done. Tris, will you be rested enough?”
The boy shrugged, arms out. “I’m all right. I will run a while, probably, then rest tomorrow afternoon. I am in no hurry.”
They went i
nside and prepared Tristal a basin of water and a place to sleep on a small, raised dais in the front room, under the west window. They gave him two fresh-smelling quilts and a feather pillow, then went back outside to the bench there. Tristal heard them conversing in low tones as he prepared for bed. He was not sleepy and watched the moonlight move slowly across the wall. He heard Jestak return, and further low talk. After a time, Tag came in and went toward the inner room, then paused, looked at Tristal, and came and sat by him in the semidarkness. He didn’t move. He breathed evenly, and guardedly squinted at Tag, who gazed dimly down at him. After a time Stantu came in.
“Stan,” she whispered.
He paused and turned. Then he came over and sat on the other side of Tristal, the only room left on the dais. They sat silently a long time.
“You mustn’t bring these feelings up in yourself, Tag,” Stantu whispered.
“It is not sad. Look at him. Isn’t he beautiful?”
“Beautiful? He is a boy, Tag. But he is a handsome one, yes.”
“Do you think he might stay with us?”
“Tor is really his father now.”
“But this Tor has had to give up his band and his hunting. Would he not want to resume it?”
“I don’t know, Tag, my love. We have to face it. I will not be with you long. My helplessness increases. I don’t know how you stand me now as I am, doddering and useless, ugly and sagging.”
Tristal could hear Tag sobbing very quietly.
Finally she said, “You—you have changed some. It would be idle to deny it. But you still have the same spirit. And you still radiate calm loyalty. Look. Didn’t the dog still feel it? She accepted you instantly. Those things are what you are to me, and they will always be there.”
Stantu sat silently a long time, then whispered, “You still have never experienced the wild free life Tristal has known, with the wind in your face, the open skies of the plains, the joy of running, the sharp points of the stars when you are sleeping out uncovered, alone at night—the whole sky alive with them, each in its place, and you thinking, Here I am, alone, alone with Sertine and all the lovely earth, and hard enough to bear it, to love it, to feel it run through my backbone. That is what he has known, my love. He has no Tag to draw him from it, and he has Tor to lead him to it. Let him sleep. If it would please you, we can talk to Tor about it. Let’s not trouble the boy. He has his own life. Ours has been rich, but it is full of trouble. Let’s not pull him into more trouble.”
“Kiss me.”
The two leaned across Tristal and slowly kissed each other. Then they quietly went into the inner room and shut the curtain. Raran, who had been sitting by the door, came over to Tristal and clumped down by him, stretching her neck out and sighing.
Tristal lay thinking. He almost felt like crying out, “Yes, yes. I will stay with you. It doesn’t matter, Stantu. When you die, Tag and I will—” No. Tag was still young enough. Her wound would close. Someone would fill Stantu’s place, though that would seem unthinkable to her now. She would have her peace. Tristal realized that he was the embodiment of a lost hope, lost as part of the continuing price of the time of fire, and feeling that, he felt more alone than ever. But he also felt the hard strength of Tor’s loyalty—and his own unaccountable attraction to Celeste. Raran edged closer to him. At last he slept, sinking into it like a deep pool, deeper and deeper, as if forever. Then he felt a hand reach down into the well of his slumber and gently draw him out of it.
It was Stantu. “I have fixed you some breakfast,” he said, giving Tristal a pouch. “Eat it after you have crossed the river. Go upriver first. You will find a path to the bank. Look for three cottonwoods. A boat lies fast to one of them. Take it. We will return it. Draw it up on the west bank and tie it to one of the silver maples by the shore near the stone wharf. Good-bye now.”
Tristal sat up, still drenched in sleep, but shaking it off. When he stood, Stantu embraced him, and Tristal felt the residual strength in his back and shoulders.
“Good-bye, Stantu,” he said. “Tell the others good-bye. May Sertine bless you all.” He returned Stantu’s embrace, then turned and left the house, Raran at his heels. He felt the shock of cool night air and came suddenly awake. The first hint of light grew in the east. He stirred into a silent jog, which he maintained until he found the path to the bank.
He was on the river, watching the west bank beyond Raran’s upright ears, before he really felt alone and wary again, as if the circle of thought from the hills above Northwall radiated outward, and he had just broken through it. It was like a dream. Were Tag and Stantu real? What had he heard in the night? Did Tag really think to assuage her own agony with a boy like him? What a mistake she would make there. Tristal cinched the boat line fast and trotted westward along a clear path up-river from the Shumai farms. Lights glowed from some of the houses. Tristal stirred his sleepy legs to be beyond them when the dawn finally rose.
VII
ONCE again Eolyn was worried. She had rechecked The New Yorker tapes. Clearly those slender shapes from ancient times, mouths pursed in hauteur, resembled her. She had even shaken out her hair and redone it, clasping it with the finest polyethylene lab clips, in pale yellow, and Dexter still didn’t notice. But he seemed also to stay aloof from Ruthan. That was new. On her part, Ruthan maintained her usual demure bearing, as well as apparently being wholly fascinated by some new genetic studies she was conducting on her beans and tomatoes, but also, to Eolyn’s awakened eye, she seemed to glow in a quiet radiation of satisfaction. That itself was a clue. Something was going on. Eolyn determined that she would find out.
Late that time cycle, she prepared a tiny electronic tracer for each, as small as the moon on her forefinger-nail, and as they stood chatting before seating themselves for a meeting of principals, she managed to affix one to each of their neckbands. The minuscule, flat, adhesive buttons were designed to transmit only when in proximity.
Then Royal called the meeting to order to discuss the disposition of Butto and the comps. The aberrant principal had now recovered from his drug-induced confusion and seemed calm and sensible. For the moment, though, they kept him confined. The comps also remained partially sedated, though otherwise apparently drug-free. The one exception was Bill, for whom Cohen-Davies had spoken, then Dexter. As a result, he was made an official principal, replacing the dead Zeller. Whether that would work, with him directing his former equals, remained to be seen.
Royal began the meeting with his own report on Butto. “My examinations and tests have confirmed several things regarding Butto,” he said. “The depression which caused his creation of that strange nest down on level seven was entirely drug-induced. He now shows none of those tendencies and is, in fact, amazed and uncomprehending when I explain his former behavior to him.
“Then, too, I am not wholly sure that he is free of echoes of drug behavior, because spontaneous combination of chemicals he has absorbed has created new compounds related to hallucinogens, and the components of these compounds remain, in tiny amounts, in his system. New compounds could form at any time and reinduce his former state.
“Furthermore, Butto exhibits the oddly emotional nature that seems to harbor and perpetuate such reactions. An individual like Eolyn, with her superbly logical attitudes, would be able to handle the situation well enough.
“However, Butto has a reason for depression. He has discovered that the fluids in our genetic banks have not kept well. The production of monstrosities in the Brat Shack is not wholly a matter of his lack of skill. Microscopic examination of cells chosen at random has indicated a disruption of the genetic structure. He has gone over the whole history of the storage of these materials, and as far as he can tell, there is no fault in it. He concludes that their capacity to remain in storage is limited. He has tried to induce growth from whole cells, as in the theoretical cloning process, but has not had success.
“Furthermore, Butto has found that tests on the present people of the dome and levels indicates
that much sterility is present. Of course, he has not tested all. But he knows that all the comps, he himself, and probably Eolyn are incapable of producing offspring. Zeller was sterile as well. I know I am too old, as Susan is, of course. Celeste is nowhere to be found. He proposes testing the others as soon as possible, and I concur.
“I suggest allowing Butto to resume status as a principal, while monitoring his condition as closely as possible to insure that he will not revert to his depression, and, while under it, perform some disastrous action against the survival of our environment. Are there any questions?”
None was posed. By silent assent, the principals readmitted Butto to their number, and he was summoned by Bill, who freed him from his confinement. He came, thinner, rubbing his hands, sheepishly embarrassed, but also grinning, elfish, and apparently bubbling with good spirits.
He sat down without a word, then, casting his eyes around, stopped his look at Eolyn and whistled lightly. “Well, Eo, you surely look lovely. Have I awakened in paradise? Are you an angel? Bill is your cherub, surely. We must bring in the other comps to hover about—”
“Butto,” Royal interrupted. “If it is all right, we have business to conduct.”
“Ah, yes. True. Sorry.” He looked down abruptly but continued occasionally to gaze at Eolyn.
“Bill, have you investigated the dome, as requested, for signs of anything Celeste might have done there?”
“Yes, Royal,” said the small man, “I have, and I found the seal on one lower door had been burned back, probably with an ultrasonic pointer.”
“A lower door? But that leads only to earth.”
“Not any longer, I believe, sir. I tested the locking levers and found they moved quite easily. I could see that the pointer had cleaned them as well. While I was moving them, the door cracked open, and light entered.”
Eolyn gasped. “That would admit radiation. What was the reading?”
“Extremely low, Eolyn. Less than a ten thousandth of that emitted by our upper wand.”
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