"The aristocrats who run the place won't give permission for scientists and researchers to visit the planet. Oh, we could send our people into the port town, yes. Place is called Commoner Town. It's open to visitors. But there's no such thing as immigration. They'd get a visitor's permit, good until the next ship came through headed in the right direction. We've already done that a few times. Our people can't find out anything. Not there in the port. And do you think they can get anywhere else on Grass? Not on your life. Not on anyone's. Sanctity has no power on the planet."
Rigo stared, frankly unbelieving. "You really have no mission there?"
"The only contact Sanctity has with Grass is through the penitential encampment working on the Arbai ruins. Not all our acolytes work out. It won't do to send them home to teach other unwilling boys how to get out of their service. So we send them to Grass. Our encampment was already there when the Grassians arrived. The Green Brothers. So named because of the robes they wear. There must be over a thousand of them, but they have virtually no contact with the aristocrats. Over a hundred years ago the Hierarch ordered them to develop some interest they could use as common ground with the Grassians, but there really is no common ground."
"Trying to make your penitents into more of your damn missionaries," snarled Rigo.
O'Neil wiped his brow. "Oh, I won't deny that's what the man in charge of Acceptable Doctrine would like. His name's Jhamlees Zoe, and he gets madder than a teased bull about our not converting the planet to Sanctity, by force if necessary. The Hierarch sends him word to calm down or come home, and it only makes him madder," O'Neil wiped his forehead where the sweat glistened.
"What did the brothers do to develop ties with the aristocrats?"
"They took up gardening." O'Neil laughed harshly. "Gardening! They've become specialists in that. Oh, they've become renowned for that. So well known even Jhamlees didn't dare put a stop to it. But that still doesn't give them any day-to-day contact with the rest of the planet, not enough to learn anything. And the damned aristos won't let us in!"
"Not even when you told them … "
"The Grassians aren't suffering. We've tried to describe to them what's happening, but they don't seem to care. They were separatists to begin with, more concerned with maintaining the privileges of their rank than with any human concerns. Lesser nobility. Or perhaps merely pretenders at nobility. European, mostly, and ridiculously proud of their noble blood, full of pretensions about it. That's why they've consistently refused permission for a temple or a mission. Ten generations on Grass has only made them more isolationist, more … more strange It's like they've had iron walls built in their heads! They refuse to be studied. They refuse to be proselytized. They refuse to be visited! Except, maybe, by someone like you …
"Sanctity has a navy." Rigo said it as fact. He disapproved of that fact, but it was true. Planetary governments were isolated and parochial and content to be so, Once the initial explosive overflow of humanity had taken place, Sanctity had done everything it could to stop further exploration. The faith had not wanted men to be so widespread they couldn't be evangelized and controlled. Discovery had stopped, along with science and art and invention. Though its military technology was centuries old, Sanctity maintained the only interstellar force.
Sender O'Neil sighed deeply. "It's been considered. If we take troopers in there, the reason couldn't be kept secret, not for long. All hell would break loose. We can't even consider it until we know for sure that there's something there. Please. Whatever you think of us, give us credit for some intelligence! We've computer-modeled everything. Our best people have done it over and over again. News of the plague and use of force would be equally disastrous! Have you heard of the Moldies?"
"Some kind of end-of-the-world sect, aren't they?"
"End of the universe, more likely. But yes, they fervently desire the end of the world, the human world. They call themselves the Martyrs of the Last Days. They believe the time has come to end all human life. They believe in an afterlife which will only commence when this one has ended, for everyone. We've recently learned that the Moldies are 'helping' the plague."
"My God!"
"Yes. Anyone's God!"
"How?"
"Carrying infected materials from one place to another. Like the ancient anarchists, destroying so that something better can come."
"What has this to do with – "
"It has this to do with. All Sanctity's resources are tied up in tracking and expunging the Moldies. They seem to be everywhere, to breed out of nothing. If they heard … if they knew there was a chance that Grass – "
"They'd go there?"
"They'd wreck whatever slim chance there may be. No, whatever we do, it must be covert, quiet, without drawing any notice. According to the computers, we've got five to seven years in which to act. After that, the plague may have gone so far that – Well. The Grassians have said they'll accept an ambassador."
"I see." And he had seen. The Grassians would consent to a delaying action. Enough to make Sanctity eschew any ideas of using force, but not enough to seriously inconvenience anyone on Grass.
"You say they ride?" Rigo had asked Sender O'Neil, trying to change the pictures of doom and destruction which had swarmed into his mind. "You say they ride? Did they take horses, hounds, and foxes with them when they settled there?"
"No. They found indigenous variants upon the theme." O'Neil had licked his pursy lips, liking this phrase and repeating it. "Indigenous variants."
Indigenous variants, Rigo thought now as he sat in a balloon-car poised above a copse of great trees on Grass and saw the thing called fox climb into view. He could not see it clearly. He did not glance at his family, though he felt the strain of their silence. He stared down, unconscious for the moment of the need to hide his feelings, and repeated O'Neil's phrase. "Indigenous variants." He said it aloud, not realizing he had spoken. When Eric bon Haunser looked at him inquiringly he blurted, without meaning to, "I'm afraid it is utterly unlike our foxes at home."
The huge, amorphous creature was pulled struggling from the crown of the copse while bon Haunser described what was probably taking place below the trees. He spoke openly, almost offhandedly, carefully ignoring their reaction to the sight of the thing.
When they had returned partway to Klive, Rigo recovered himself sufficiently to say, "You seem very objective about all this. Forgive me, but your brother seemed … how can I describe it? Embarrassed? Defensive?"
"I don't ride any longer." said Eric, flushing. "My legs. A hunting accident. Those of us who don't ride – some of us at least – we become less enthusiastic." He said this diffidently, as though he were not quite sure of it, and he did not offer to explain what it was about the Hunt that made the current riders unwilling to talk about it. Each of the Yrariers had his or her own ideas about the matter, ideas which they incubated as they sailed silently over the prairies, in time each achieving an imperiled calm.
They arrived back at Klive before the riders did and were met, though scarcely welcomed, by Rowena. She escorted them to a large reception room overlooking the first surface, where she introduced them to the gaggle of pregnant women and children and older men who were eating, drinking, and playing games at scattered tables. She encouraged the Yrariers to tell the servants what they wanted to drink and serve themselves from the laden buffet, then she drifted away. Eric bon Haunser joined them. Very shortly thereafter a horn blew outside the western gate and the riders began to trickle in. Most went immediately to bathe and change their clothing, but a few came into the room, obviously famished.
Eric murmured, 'They have drunk nothing for twelve hours before the Hunt except the palliative offered before the Hounds come in. Once the Hunt has begun, there is no opportunity to relieve oneself."
"Most uncomfortable," Marjorie mused, lost in recollection of the sharp implacable spines on the necks of the mounts. "Is it really worth it?"
He shook his head. "I am no philosopher, Lady We
striding. If you were to ask my brother, he would say yes. If you ask me, I may say yes or no. But then, he rides and I don't."
"I ride," said a voice from behind them. "But I say no."
Marjorie turned to confront the owner of the voice, tall, broad-shouldered, not greatly younger than herself, dressed in stained trousers and red coat, his hunting cap under his arm and a full glass held to his lips. She saw that those lips trembled, though so slightly she doubted anyone but herself would have noticed.
"Forgive me," he said. "I'm excessively thirsty." His lips tightened upon the rim of the glass, making it quiver. Something held him in the grip of emotion, slurring his words.
"I can imagine that you are thirsty," she said. "We met this morning, didn't we? You look quite different in your … in your hunting clothes."
"I am Sylvan bon Damfels," he said with a slight bow. "We did meet, yes. I am the younger son of Stavenger and Rowena bon Damfels."
Stella was standing with Rigo across the room. She saw Sylvan talking to her mother; her expression changed, and she moved toward the two of them, her eyes fixed on Sylvan as she came. There were other bows, other murmurs of introduction. Eric bon Haunser stepped away, leaving Marjorie and the children with Sylvan.
"You say no," Marjorie prompted him. "No, that riding isn't worth it, even though you ride?"
"I do," he said, coloring along his cheekbones, his eyes flicking around the room to see who might be listening, the cords of his throat standing out as though he struggled to speak at all. "To you, madam, and to you, miss and sir, I say it. With the understanding that you will not quote me to any member of my family, or to any other of the bons." He panted.
"Certainly." Anthony was still very pale, as he had been since he saw the fox – or foxen, as most of the Grassians called the beast, meaning one or a dozen – but he had regained his poise. "If you wish it. You have our promise."
"I say it because you may be asked to ride. Invited, as it were. I had thought it impossible until I met your husband. Now I still consider it unlikely, but it could happen. If it does, I caution you, do not accept." He looked them each in the eye, fully, as though seeking their inmost parts, then bowed again and left them, rubbing his throat as though it hurt him.
"Honestly!" Stella bridled, tossing her head.
"Honestly, indeed," said Marjorie. "I think it would be wise as well as kind not to repeat what he said, Stel."
"Of all the snubs!"
"Not so intended, I think – "
"Those mounts of theirs may scare you, and they may scare him, but they don't scare me! I could ride those things. I know I could." Marjorie's soul quaked within her, and it was all she could do to keep her voice calm. "I know you could, Stella I could, too. Given sufficient practice, I imagine any of us could. The question is, should we? Should any of us? I think we have one friend in this room, and I think that friend just told us no."
6
The Arbai ruin on Grass is, in most respects, like all Arbai ruins: enigmatic, recently abandoned – in terms of archaeologic time – and speaking of some mystery which man can feel without comprehending. Other cities of the Arbai, those found elsewhere, are populated by wind and dust and a scattering of Arbai bones. So few Arbai remains have been found in those other cities that man has questioned why, with such a meager population, the cities should have been so large. They are large in terms of size, of perimeter, if not in terms of height or mass. They sprawl. Their much-crafted streets curve and recurve; their carved housefronts arc gently in concurrence. No vehicles have ever been found in any of the cities. These people walked or ran about their mysterious business, whatever it may have been.
Each city has a library. Each has a mysterious structure in the town square which is identified variously as a sculpture or a religious icon. Outside each city are other enigmatic mechanisms which are thought to be garbage disposers or crematories. A few have suggested they might be transportation devices, no ships having ever been found. Some people think they may be all three. If they are furnaces, the bodies of the inhabitants of the cities could have been burned, which would explain the sparse scattering of remains. Equally well, the inhabitants might have moved on somewhere else. The diggers and theoreticians cannot agree upon either alternative, though they have argued learnedly for generations.
In the more representative Arbai cities only a few whole skeletons have been found, always in ones or twos behind closed doors, as though those Arbai who had stayed behind after the others had gone were too few to attend to the obsequies of departure. Not so upon Grass.
On Grass bodies lie by the hundreds in the houses, in the streets, in the library and the plaza. Everywhere the Green Brothers dig, they find mummified remains.
Most of the digging over the years has been done by strong young men who have had little interest in what they uncovered. Inevitably, however, there have been a few who found themselves fascinated and enthralled by the ancient walls, the ancient artifacts, the ancient bodies. Some few have willingly given their lives to this work, applying all their intelligence to it. Sometimes there have been two or three of these fanatics at a time.
But only one man is currently focusing his intelligence upon the Arbai. He, like others before him, has learned to hide his genuine interest from those in authority. Brother Mainoa, once a miserable young acolyte of Sanctity, long since exiled and grown to suck-toothed age, to the shaggy gray locks and the wrinkled eye-pockets of an elder though to none of the honors some find in that estate; Brother Mainoa, like his predecessors an amateur, a lover of his work, has found his heart's home amid these ancient stones. He has come to consider these trenchlike streets his own, these his dwellings and plazas, these his shops and libraries, though there is nothing in any of them that he can use or believes he will ever truly understand. Mainoa has uncovered almost half of the Arbai bodies himself. He has named them all. He lives out most of his life among them. They have become his friends, though not his only friends.
Of an evening, Brother Mainoa sometimes went away from the dig to a nearby copse where he could sit on a kneed-up root with his evening pipe, leaning against the trunk of the tree as he talked to the air. Tonight he reclined on his accustomed root with a sigh. His bones hurt. Not unusual. Most nights his bones hurt and some mornings, as well. Sleeping in barely heated quarters on a sack stuffed with grass didn't help much, though he'd been less achy since he'd fixed the roof. He took a deep puff of fragrant smoke, let it out slowly, then spoke, as though to himself.
"The purple grass, now, not that Cloak of Kings stuff but the lighter purple with the blue bloom on it. that goes well with the rose. Tests out a complete protein mixed about two to one, very sustaining. Flavor's nothing to proclaim at daily prayers, but it'll come, it'll come."
A sound as of some huge, interested purring came from the tree, high above the old man's head.
"Well, of course the yellowgrass is the old standby, just before I left the Friary last time to come down here to the dig, Elder Brother Laeroa told me he'd improved on it. I don't know whether to believe that or not; it'd be hard to do. Yellowgrass is almost perfect as it is, just that there's so little of it. It wants the tall orange stem on the sun side of it and something lower, like little green or middle 'zure, on the shade side, the blessed angels know why, but that's the way it is. Elder Laeroa says he's tempted to plant it in stripes and see how it does, but that'd stick out like a sore thumb … "
The purring again, with a note of interrogation.
"Of course they watch us," sighed Brother Mainoa. "Listen to the young Brothers, the cloud crawlers, the ones that wallow around up on that net among the towers. Listen to them tell it. What they see is eyes out there in the grass, staring at the Friary. Of course they watch us. That's what makes it so hard finding things out."
Nothing from above. Brother Mainoa risked a look straight up, seeing nothing but the pale sky through a thatch of twig and leaf, one star pricking out at the zenith, like a single sequin dropped from
the skirt of a careless angel. A little to his left, so high that it caught the final rays of the sun with a silken glimmer, he could see a few strands of the net among the towers at the Friary itself, just over the horizon.
"Talking to yourself again, Brother?" said a reproving voice. Brother Mainoa started. The figure under the neighboring tree was half hidden in shadow. The voice was that of Elder Brother Noazee Fuasoi, deputy head of the office of Security and Acceptable Doctrine at the Friary, and what the blazing hell was he doing down here at the dig!
"Just muttering, Elder Brother," Mainoa murmured as he rose and stood respectfully, wondering if the man had followed him, and if so, how long he'd been standing there. "Muttering about the dig, trying to figure it out."
"Sounded like gardening to me, Brother."
"Well, yes. That, too. Trying out effects in my head, so to speak."
i"Bad habit to get into, Brother Mainoa. Disruptive of the silence and demeanor of the order. Clinging to such bad habits is probably why you're still assigned to digging up ruins rather than to the more dignified duties your age would warrant. If you'd behaved properly, you'd have been assigned to a desk job back at the Friary a long time ago."
"Yes, Elder Brother," said Brother Mainoa obediently while thinking something not at all obedient about those who were assigned to desk jobs at the Friary. "I'll try to curb the habit."
"See that you do. I wouldn't want to call you up before Eldest Brother Jhamlees Zoe. Eldest Brother Jhamlees takes his Doctrine very seriously."
At least that was the truth. Jhamlees Zoe was too recently arrived to have calmed down yet. Still trying to find something on Grass to convert. Mainoa sighed. "Yes, Elder Brother."
"I came down here to tell you you're assigned to escort duty. We have a recalcitrant acolyte coming in from Sanctity. Brother Shoethai and I brought a car down from the Friary for you to use when you pick him up tomorrow morning."
Brother Mainoa bowed obediently and kept his mouth shut. Elder Brother Fuasoi belched and rubbed his stomach reflectively. "Boy had less than a year to go and he went jerky. Lost his demeanor and had a fit in refectory, so I'm told. He traveled under his birth name. Rillibee Chime. Think up a Green Friar name for him."