“Castor?” said Sirius. He felt a huge uneasiness, which made the hair stand up all down his back. He could not remember what he knew about the Castor people—except that they were vague and untrustworthy, and too many for their sphere, so that they were always trying to meddle with other people’s. “Tell me, Sol—Do you know—? My Companion—Is she—?”
“Still in her sphere, as far as I know,” said Sol. He was anxious to get on with his grievance. “It’s just as well they didn’t trust that amateur on his own. He’s set up some kind of trepidation that’s almost knocked my outer planet off course, and the next thing I knew there were floods, droughts and famines all over Earth, too. Now I may not be a high effulgent, but there are creatures here, and they’re my responsibility. I can’t have another Ice Age on Earth yet. So I went and gave Polaris a piece of my mind.”
Sirius could not help laughing. He could just see Sol doing it. “Did you?”
“Yes,” said Sol. “And I don’t think Polaris was very pleased. I told him just what I thought of this New-Sirius of his, and what he’s done to Pluto, and to Earth. And he turns round, cool as a cinder, and tells me that there’s nothing he can do, because the Sirius Zoi is missing and it’s loose in my system somewhere. A Z-z-z-zoi!” Sol said, angrily imitating Polaris.
Sirius jumped up and ran the full length of his rope toward Sol, nearly choking himself in his excitement. “What is this Zoi? Where is it?”
“Don’t you know?” said Sol. The rays of rage floated back against him and he became silvery somber with disappointment. “I was hoping you’d remember. I’ve never seen a Zoi. We don’t need power like that here. It’s far too strong for us. You must know what it’s like. You must have used this one.”
“Yes, but I can’t remember,” Sirius said desperately. “I know I’ve got to find it, but I don’t know what it is or what it looks like. I don’t even know why I’m here like this. Don’t you know?”
Sol laughed, a fierce little spurt of fire. “Then we’re both in the dark—hardly the right place for luminaries, is it? All I was told is that you’re looking for the Zoi. I didn’t go to your trial—I’ve too much to do here—but I was told that you lost your temper once too often and somebody’s sphere went nova over it. Does that bring anything back to you?”
Sirius sank down and put his head on his paws. “No,” he said miserably. “Not a thing. And have you no idea where this Zoi is?”
“It fell on Earth,” Sol said, frowning a little. “I’m sure of that now. A lot of things fall here, because there’s a belt of asteroids, and things come in from it all the time. But one came in with an almighty bump about six months ago. I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, but I think it may have been the Zoi.”
“So they put me on the right world?” Sirius said. It was good to know that, even if it was a little puzzling—almost as if somebody knew.
Sol seemed puzzled as well. He continued to frown, shot with red and orange as he thought. “Look here,” he said, “I’m beginning to think there’s been some jiggery-pokery somewhere. Your sentence was odd enough. Then they put you in the right place and don’t tell me—That makes me so angry that if that Zoi wasn’t messing up my whole system I’d leave them to it! Then there’s you—Did you kill that luminary, or don’t you know?”
Sirius lay and searched among welling, wheeling green things. He found strange facts there, and stranger faces, and terrible sadness. He found rage in plenty. But nowhere, as far as he knew, could he see anything approaching the kind of violence Sol meant. There was nothing even approaching the things he had seen on the television. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
“I wouldn’t have thought so, myself,” Sol said cheerfully, “from what I know of you. When you got angry, there was usually a good reason for it. So it looks as if someone may be out to injure you. And, since they’ve so kindly made you one of my creatures, they’ll have me to reckon with now. I’m not going to stand for this kind of thing. Would you mind if I made a few inquiries about that trial of yours?”
“Not at all,” said Sirius. He could see there would be no stopping Sol anyway. He was so heartened to have a being like Sol on his side that he grinned, a dog’s grin, with his tongue out and his head up. “Thank you.”
“And I’d like you to get out and look for that Zoi,” said Sol. “I think you’d know it if you saw it—which is more than I would. But—are you tied up all the time?”
“I can slip my collar,” said Sirius, “but I can’t open that gate.” His grin faded, and all the boredom and frustration of being shut in the yard came back to him. “Sol—” He looked up at the burning near-and-far figure imploringly. “Please, Effulgency, can’t you help me open that gate?”
Sol was both touched and embarrassed that the onetime Denizen of Sirius should appeal to him like this. The plumes of light lifted and shifted around his head, and rays fell crisscross over the gate as Sol made a great play of examining it in order to cover up his feelings. “The bolts and the latch are horribly rusty,” he said. “Oxidization of iron, you know, due to the presence of water—”
Sirius was amused. “Teach your grandmother, Sol. Can you or can’t you?”
Sol beamed at him, still rather flustered. “Well, you won’t be able to reach the top bolt until you’ve grown a bit. You’ll have to wait until after my winter solstice before you’ll be big enough. But I can settle the rust for you, so that you’ll be able to draw the bolts when you can reach them.”
This was immensely heartening. Sirius felt he could wait years, so long as he knew he would get out of the yard in the end. He grinned his wide dog’s grin and tried to set Sol at ease with a joke. “So you’ll help me to help myself. Is that how things work in your system?”
“Of course.” Sol was rather indignant. “Why? Is it different anywhere else?”
“I was trying to make a joke,” Sirius explained hastily. “I’m very grateful to you. Please don’t be embarrassed any more.”
Sol stood in his bar of light and flared with laughter. “You’re quite right. I did feel a bit awkward having you for a creature in my sphere. But you’re not half as awesome as I expected.”
“Awesome?” said Sirius, bristling suspiciously.
“That was a joke too,” said Sol. “Almost. I shall have to go now. I’ve no end of things to do.”
“Come and talk to me again,” Sirius called as Sol turned away.
“Of course,” said Sol. He beamed at Sirius over his shoulder and walked swiftly away up his bar of light, receding and dwindling as he went. Sirius, watching, was reminded of the way the picture in the television dwindled to a silver lozenge when someone turned it off. For a moment, he felt quite strange to be getting a creature’s view of a luminary. Then he remembered he was a creature. But it did not bother him as much as it would have done an hour ago. Sol had left behind him a wave of warmth and well-being and joy, and Sirius rolled over and stretched in it, just as the cats did in front of a fire.
6
Sirius found lying in the yard easier to endure after this. He knew he would get out in the end. Sol had said so. And if he felt too bored and miserable, he would stretch himself out in the bar of sunlight, knowing Sol would be aware of him. Most of the time, Sol was too busy for more than a hasty greeting before he swept on his way, but this Sirius quite understood. He remembered being busy himself once. And he was very grateful to Sol. Sirius did not know whether it was simply talking to another luminary, or some power in Sol himself, but those vast green thoughts now seemed like a proper part of him and did not keep escaping out of sight as they did before. He still could not see them all. But they were with him, and Sol had done it.
As Sirius watched Sol going about his business, he was inclined to think it was a special power in Sol. He was amazed at the amount Sol did. Sirius himself had done a great deal. But then his sphere had been incomparably bigger, and he knew that, whatever the Zoi was, he had used it to help him. Sol was a young and jo
yous luminary, but he did more than Sirius could believe possible, and he did it without a Zoi. Sirius began to suspect that Sol had more life and power in one lifting plume than many luminaries had in their entire sphere.
“I think you were right to say you didn’t need a Zoi,” he told Sol one evening, as he sank toward the roofs opposite. “You’re rather an exceptional luminary, aren’t you?”
Sol blazed red and gold laughter into his eyes. “So-so.”
Basil happened to be in the yard just then. “That Rat of yours must have the most peculiar eyes,” he told Kathleen. “I saw him looking straight at the sun a minute ago, and he didn’t even blink.”
“I told you—he’s very exceptional,” said Kathleen.
Proud as she was of her Leo, Kathleen could not help wishing he would not grow so horribly fast. It was quite natural. Sirius was growing into a big dog and he had not much more than a year to do it in. But Kathleen had moments of panic. The smart red collar was soon far too small and she had to buy another. Sirius, to his annoyance, had to go through the whole business of secretly scratching a raw spot until Kathleen made the new collar loose enough to slip off.
Then he had it all to do again just after Christmas, when he found he had grown again. Kathleen never dared tell Duffie just how much Leo ate, and he always seemed rather too thin. She took a book on dog care out of the library and worried about him.
“What’s the matter?” said Mr. Duffield, a little before Christmas, finding Kathleen staring wanly at an open book.
“It’s Leo, Uncle Harry,” said Kathleen. “I’m not feeding him right.”
Mr. Duffield looked down at Sirius, and Sirius thumped his heavy tail in acknowledgment. Sirius’s feathery coat was a glossy cream color, his nose was black and wet and his eyes were green and bright. His legs, with their fringes of curly hair, were awkwardly long and would not fold under him, but they were straight and strong. He had a surprisingly narrow waist, but Mr. Duffield could only see two of his ribs beyond it. “He looks all right to me,” Mr. Duffield said. “Growing into rather an elegant creature, isn’t he? What’s wrong?”
“He weighs as much as Robin,” Kathleen explained. “We balanced them on a plank in the yard yesterday. And it says here that dogs who weigh that much ought to have a pound of raw meat every day!”
“Good grief!” said Mr. Duffield. “I weigh three times more than that. We’re both being underfed. Would fifty pence a week help you support your horse?”
“Oh thank you!” said Kathleen. She had not the heart to explain that meat cost a great deal more than that. And fifty pence did help. By scrimping and saving, making Christmas presents for everyone herself and being very sweet and cajoling to the butcher, Kathleen managed to buy Leo raw lights every other day, and still saved enough to give him a red rubber ball for Christmas.
Sirius enjoyed the ball hugely. But Christmas was not a happy time. Nobody except Mr. Duffield bothered to give Kathleen anything. He gave her a book-token, which Duffie said was a waste of money, since Kathleen had a dog, didn’t she? And Kathleen had never cooked a turkey before. In her anxiety, she overcooked it and it was dry. Sirius and the cats ate dry turkey until they nearly burst. Duffie expressed herself savagely.
“If you want your turkey properly cooked,” said Mr. Duffield, “you might consider cooking it yourself.” As soon as the shops opened again, he took Kathleen out and bought her a new dress. Kathleen was delighted. The dress was a bright blue which matched her eyes. Sirius thought she looked enchanting in it. He tried to tell her so by bounding and squeaking, and he was so grateful to Mr. Duffield that he put his great front paws on his knee and licked his face. “Go away!” said Mr. Duffield, pushing him off. “I know she looks nice, but there’s no call to wash me for it.” He said to Kathleen, “You’d almost think that creature understands what goes on.”
“Oh, he does,” Kathleen said earnestly. “He knows English.” Sirius was surprised to hear her say that. He had not thought she had noticed. But Mr. Duffield just thought it was the expression of a touching faith in Kathleen, and he laughed at her.
Early in the New Year, an oil truck scraped and groaned its way along the back of the houses, through the lane behind the Duffields’ yard. The neighbors, two houses on, had installed central heating, and their fuel tank was awkwardly placed. Sirius sat up in the yard, a high and narrow dog these days, watching the men leaning out and cursing and the lorry grinding backwards and forwards, and wondered what was going on. He soon saw. As the truck came level with the yard gate for the third time, the heavy gray clouds that covered the sky parted for a moment, letting through a silvery shaft of light. The lorry gleamed. Then, somehow, oil was spurting from it, spraying the gate all over, until it was black and dripping. Sirius threw back his head and laughed his dog’s laugh toward the place where the clouds had parted.
“Thank you!”
Then the smell rolled over his sensitive nose. He backed away, sneezing and choking and frantically pawing his face. The men in the tanker, equally frantic, ran about shouting and turning stopcocks. Duffie stormed out from the house and spoke cold and shrill about careless idiots and the risk of fire.
Sirius rather thought Duffie got some money from the oil company to replace the gate. But nobody touched the gate. The Duffield family seldom bothered with things like that and, besides, the weather turned terrible. For six weeks, rain lashed down, hail bounced in the yard, and it grew colder daily. Sirius lay shivering in his shelter, watching sleet pile into transparent drifts with bubbles embalmed in them, and then the rain rattle down and melt the drifts again. He spoke to Sol about it, rather reproachfully, in one of the few glimpses he had of him.
“Blame the Zoi for some of it,” said Sol. “But you creatures always grumble about precipitation. You’d grumble even worse if you didn’t get it. It won’t hurt you to wait a month. And you didn’t want to live with that smell of oil, did you?”
“No,” said Sirius. “That’s true. Thanks.”
At the end of February, the weather turned mild and chilly. By this time, the gate was clean, except for the fastenings, which were black and sticky still. Sol beamed pale yellow from a pale blue sky. “You’re not far off full grown now,” he observed. “How’s your memory?”
“Not very good,” Sirius said glumly. Though his green nature was now always with him, his dog nature lay warm and stupid in front of it, just behind his eyes, and blotted out great tracts of the green.
“It’s bound to improve,” Sol said cheerfully, and strode on his way.
Sirius stood up and stretched, almost as carefully and thoroughly as Tibbles did. Tibbles herself was sitting on the wall. She watched, rather offended. When Sirius finished, she sneezed and was about to turn away. But her lime-green eyes widened and she stared when Sirius, instead of lying down again, backed firmly to the end of his rope and went on backing. His collar slid up over his ears, stuck a moment and then fell off over his nose.
“That was clever,” Tibbles said. “Can you get it back on again?”
“I expect so,” said Sirius. He advanced on the gate, waving his tail joyfully. “Can you show me how to get this open?”
“We are bold, aren’t we?” said Tibbles. “I’ve told you—I can do the bolt at the bottom, but I can’t reach the other fastenings.”
“I can reach the others if you show me how they work,” said Sirius.
“Very well.” Rather humped and grudging, Tibbles descended from the wall and sat elegantly down at the base of the gate. Sirius watched carefully as she extended a narrow white paw to the knob of the bolt, delicately pushed the knob upward and then patted it gently until it slid greasily back in the oily slot. “There. Can you do that?” she said, sure that he could not.
“I don’t know. I’ll try.” Sirius raised himself on his hind legs and leaned against the gate, full stretch. Like that, he was now rather taller than Kathleen. The top bolt was within easy reach of his clumsy right paw. He raised the paw and batted at the
bolt with it. Luckily, it was slightly stiffer. The knob went up to the right position and stuck there, and Sirius had to come down for a rest at that stage. Tibbles looked superior. But Sirius heaved himself up on his back legs again and gave the knob a sideways swipe, hasty and strong. As he sank down, the bolt went rattling back.
“That was quite clever,” Tibbles said patronizingly.
“That’s what I thought,” said Sirius. “How does the latch undo?”
“You push it up—that little sharp bit that sticks out,” Tibbles said.
Sirius tried. The gate jumped about in its moorings, but nothing else happened.
“Stupid,” said Tibbles, “Here, let me stand on your back and I’ll show you.”
“All right.” Sirius stood with his side against the gate, and Tibbles leaped easily up to the middle of his back. Both of them hated it. Sirius’s hackles went up, and he only just prevented himself snapping at Tibbles. And Tibbles felt so insecure that she dug all her claws into him, hard. Sirius rumbled out a growl, which made Tibbles’s hair stand up too.
“Listen,” she snapped. “I’m doing you a kindness.”
“I know!” Sirius snarled, craning around to see what she was up to. “Be quick.”
Tibbles put out a shaky paw and lifted the latch. Sirius had barely time to understand he had been hitting the wrong part, before Tibbles jumped clear. They stood glaring at one another, while, behind Sirius, the gate swung creaking open into the lane.
“Thank you,” said Sirius.
“You’re welcome.” Tibbles’s fur was still up. She raised one paw and gave it a quick, irritated licking. “That’s the last time I stand on a dog.”
“That’s the last time I let you.” Sirius bent his tall narrow body into a half-circle and looked out into the lane. It was empty. He slid through the gap, and then threw himself joyfully backwards at the gate. It shut, with a slam and a click. He was free. He put his nose down and was about to scour away down the lane.
“I say!” Tibbles was on the wall, crouching to look down at him.