The Final Encyclopedia

Inside was a space about ten meters square, divided by a room-wide counter with a gate that marked off the back half of the space into an area with three desks and some office equipment. A thin, handsome boy about ten or twelve years old got up from one of the desks and came to his side of the counter as Hal walked up to the front of it. He stared at Hal for a moment, then visibly pulled himself out of his first reaction.

  "I'm sorry," he said, "my aunt's the Mayor and she's out in the hills at the moment. I'm Alaef Tormai—"

  He broke off, gazing at Hal, penetratingly once more.

  "You're not even Dorsai," he said.

  "No," said Hal. "My name's Hal Mayne."

  "Honored," said the boy. "I'm sorry. Forgive me. I thought—I thought you were."

  "It's all right," said Hal. For a moment, a sort of bitter curiosity moved in him. "Tell me what made you think so?"

  "I—" the boy hesitated. "I don't know. You just do. Only something's different."

  He looked embarrassed.

  "I'm afraid I'm not too good an observer. After I get through my training—"

  "It's not you," said Hal. "A couple of adult Dorsai have already had to look twice at me to see what I was. What I'm hoping is to get up in the hills myself and take a look at Foralie. Not for any particular purpose. I've just always wanted to see it."

  "There's no one there now," said Alaef Tormai.

  "Oh?" Hal said.

  "I mean, all the Graemes are off-world right now. I don't think any of them are due back for a standard year or so."

  "Is there any reason I can't go up and look around, anyway?"

  "Oh, no!" said Alaef, uncomfortably. "But there'll be no one home…"

  "I see." Hal thought carefully for a second about how to phrase his next question so as not to hurt the other's feelings. "Isn't there someone close to the Graemes I could talk to? Someone who might be able to show me around?"

  "Oh, of course!" Alaef smiled. "You can go talk to Amanda. Amanda Morgan, I mean. She's their next door neighbor. Fal Morgan's her homestead—do you want me to show you how to get there?"

  "Thanks," said Hal. "I'll have to rent a vehicle."

  "I'm afraid there's nothing in town here you could rent," said Alaef, frowning. "But that's all right. I can slide you up there on our skimmer. Just a minute, I'll call Amanda and tell her we're coming."

  He turned to a screen on one of the desks and punched out call numbers on its deck of keys. A line of printing flooded across the screen in capital letters. Hal could read it from where he stood.

  "GONE TO BRING IN THE BRUMBIES."

  "She's gone after wild horses?" Hal asked.

  "Not wild." Alaef turned back to him from the screen and looked embarrassed again. "Just the stock she's had running loose for the summer in the high pastures. That's what we mean when we say brumbies, here. It's time to bring them in to shelter for the winter. It's all right. We can go ahead. She's got to be back before dark; and she'll probably be home by the time we get there."

  He started out the gate to Hal's side of the counter.

  "What about the office?" Hal asked.

  "Oh, that's all right," Alaef said. "This late in the day, no one's likely to come by. I'll leave word with my aunt on the way out of town, though."

  Hal followed him out, and five minutes later found himself a passenger in an antique-looking ducted-fan skimmer being piloted up one of the slopes enclosing the valley that held Foralie Town, headed toward the high country beyond.

  The sun was reaching down toward the mountaintops and a time of sunset, when they came at last over a little rise and Hal saw before them a high, open spot surrounded in front and on both sides by wooded gullies like the one from which they had just emerged; and, beyond that, having a small open field that lifted at the far end to a treed slope, enclosed by the omnipresent mountainsides. In the center of the open area stood a large, square two-story building with walls of light gray stone, accompanied by what seemed to be a long stable, some outbuildings and a corral, all of log construction.

  "I guess she isn't back yet, after all," said Alaef, as he brought the skimmer up close to the house. "She's left her kitchen door ajar, though, to let people know she'll be right back."

  The skimmer's fans died and the vehicle settled to the grassy earth outside the partly open door with a sigh.

  "Do you mind if I just leave you here, then?" said Alaef, looking at Hal a little anxiously. "It's hardly polite, I know, but I told my aunt I'd be home in time for dinner. Amanda's got to get those brumbies in corral before sundown, so she'll be along at any minute; but if I wait with you I'll be late. You can just go in and make yourself comfortable."

  "Thanks," said Hal, standing up from his seat in the open skimmer and stepping down onto the earth. "I think I'd just as soon stand out here and watch the sunset. You get on back; and thanks for bringing me up here."

  "Oh, that's just neighborliness. Honored to have made your acquaintance, Hal Mayne."

  "Honored to have made yours, Alaef Tormai."

  Alaef started up the fans, lifted the skimmer on them, spun it about, waved and slid off. Hal watched him until the vehicle and youngster dipped into a gully and were lost from sight. He turned back to look at the sun.

  It was touching the tops of the mountain range with its lower edge and the light was red and full. For a moment the color of it brought back a memory of another sunset with the red light upon the water of the private lake of the estate on which he had been brought up; a sunset-time in which he had been racing the edge of moving sun-shadow across the water and Malachi and Walter had been standing on the terrace of the house…

  He shivered, slightly. There was something stark and real about this Dorsai landscape that let the mind and the emotions run full out in any direction that beckoned them. He looked about once more at the edges of the tabletop of land on which he stood, alone with the Morgan house and outbuildings. If this Amanda was indeed sure to be in before dark, she would have to be putting in an appearance very shortly.

  Barely a couple of seconds later, his ear caught a sound of distant whooping, followed by an increasing noise of hoofbeats and torn brush; and, as he watched, horses boiled up over the edge of one of the gullies, flanked by a blue-capped rider who passed them up and raced flat out before them toward Hal and the clump of buildings.

  By this time, somewhere between a dozen and fifteen loose horses were up on the flat, being chivvied forward by two other riders, who looked to be no older than Alaef. Meanwhile, the one in advance had galloped to the corral and was unlatching and swinging open its gate, throwing one quick glance at Hal as she passed.

  This, he thought, had to be the Amanda Morgan he was here to see, although she did not look much older than her two assistants. She was tall, with the breasts and body of a grown woman, in spite of her slimness; but an amazing litheness and an indefinable general impression of youthfulness made it hard for him to believe that she was much beyond her middle teens.

  She swung the gate wide. The other two riders were already driving the loose horses toward the corral. These thundered past Hal at less than ten meters of distance. One gray horse with a white splash on its face balked at the gate, dodged and spun about, bolting toward Hal, the house and freedom beyond. Hal ran forward, waving his arms at full length on either side of him and shouting. The gray checked, reared, and dodged aside again only to find its way barred by one of the young riders, who turned it finally back into the corral.

  They were all in, and the sun's upper edge disappeared as the gate was swung to and locked. Suddenly shadow and a breath of coolness flooded over all the level land. Amanda Morgan said something Hal could not quite catch to the two younger riders. They waved, swinging their mounts around, heading off at a canter in the direction from which they had come.

  Hal, fascinated, watched them down into the gully and out of sight. He looked back, finally, to find Amanda dismounting in front of him. For the first time he got a good look at her. She was as square-shou
ldered as she was slim, dressed in tan riding pants, heavy black-and-white checkered shirt and leather jacket, with a blue, wide-billed cap pulled low over her eyes as if to still shade them against the direct sunset light that had now left them. Twilight filled the area below the surrounding mountains.

  She took off the cap and he saw that her barely shoulder length hair, gathered and tied behind her, was white-blond; her face was slim-boned and regular with a beauty that he had not expected.

  "I'm Amanda Morgan," she said, smiling. "Who're you, and when did you get here?"

  "Just now," he answered automatically. "A boy called Alaef Tormai from the Foralie Town Hall office brought me up on a skimmer. Oh, I'm Hal Mayne."

  "Honored," she said. "You've got business with me, I take it?"

  "Well, yes…"

  "Never mind," she said. "We can talk about it in a moment. I've got to put Barney here into the stable. Why don't you go into the living room and make yourself comfortable? I'll be with you in twenty minutes."

  "I—thank you," he said. "All right, I will."

  He turned and went in, as she led the horse off by its reins toward the long, dark shape of the stable.

  Through the door, the interior air of the house was still, and warmer than the first night-coolness outside. The lights in the ceiling came on automatically and he saw he had stepped into a large kitchen. He turned right from it down a short corridor that had a large painting on one wall, apparently of the woman he had just met—no, he corrected his thought on stopping to examine it more closely, the woman pictured was at least in her thirties, but so alike to the Amanda Morgan he had met outside that they could have been sisters, if not twins. He went on into another room furnished with large couches, overstuffed chairs and occasional tables, all of them articles of solid furniture, with nothing of float construction visible.

  At his left as he entered was a wide fireplace, the mantlepiece above it filled with small, apparently homemade bits of handicraft, ranging in artistry from obviously childmade objects such as a long-skirted woman's figure made of dried grass stems tied and glued into shape, to the bust of a horse, its head and arched neck only, carved in a soft reddish stone. The lifelikeness of the horse was breathtaking. Hal was reminded of some early Eskimo carvings he had seen in the Denver museum on Earth, in which an already wave-formed rock had been barely touched by the carver's tool, to transform it into the figure of a seal, or that of a sleeping man. The same kind of creative magic had been at work here, even to the red graininess of the rock evoking the texture and skin-coloring of a roan horse.

  In a multitude of small ways, he thought as he took one of the comfortable chairs, it was the kind of room he had not seen since he left his own home on Earth. Not just the noticeable lack of modern technologies created this feeling. There had been none at all to be seen in the farmhouses that had put him up, together with the other Command members, on Harmony. But there was something different, here. A deliberately archaic feel lived within the walls surrounding him—as if it had been a quality consciously sought for and incorporated by the builders and owners of this place. The same sort of feel had been evident to an extent in Foralie Town also, and might be typical of the Dorsai in general for all he knew; but here, it amounted almost to a fineness, like the warm sheen upon cherished woodwork, lovingly nurtured and cared for over the years.

  Whatever it was, like Foralie Town itself, it touched and comforted him like a home long familiar to which he was just now returning. The emotion it raised in him relieved some of the depression he had been feeling ever since the garden on Mara. Sitting in the armchair, he let his thoughts drift; and they slid, almost in reflex, back into a maze of memories from his own early days, memories that for a change were happy ones, of the years before Bleys had appeared.

  So caught up in these memories was he that he only woke from them with the entrance of Amanda into the room, her cap and jacket removed, carrying a tray with cups, glasses, a coffee pot and a decanter on it that she set down on a square, squat table between his chair and the one facing it.

  "Coffee or whiskey?" she said, sitting down facing him on the other side of the table.

  Hal thought of getting used to one more taste-variety of coffee.

  "Whiskey," he said.

  "It's Dorsai whiskey," she said.

  "I've tasted it," he said. "Malachi—one of my tutors—let me taste some one Christmas when I was eleven."

  He saw her raised eyebrows.

  "His full name was Malachi Nasuno," he added.

  "It's a Dorsai name," said Amanda, tipping some of the dark liquor into a short, heavily-walled glass, and handing it to him. Her eyes studied him with an intensity that tightened the little muscles in the nape of his neck. Her gaze reminded him of the way young Alaef Tormai had stared in the first moment of their meeting at the Town Hall. Then she bent the silver crown of her head and poured coffee for herself, breaking the moment of her glance.

  "I had three tutors," said Hal, almost to himself. He tasted the whiskey, and its fierce burn brought back more memories. "They were my guardians, as well. I was an orphan and they raised me. That was on Earth."

  "Earth—so that's how you know about horses. That—and being raised by a Dorsai, explains it," she said, looking up and meeting his eyes again. He noticed the color of hers, now. Under the indoor lighting they were a clear, penetrating bluish green, like deep sea waters. "I took you for one of us at first glance.''

  "So have a number of other people since Omalu," said Hal. He saw her glance was questioning. "I landed there from Mara, just a few hours back."

  "I see." She sat back in her chair with the coffee cup, and the color of her eyes seemed to darken as they met his now in the last of the twilight that was flooding the room through its wide windows. "What can I do for you, Hal Mayne?"

  "I wanted to see Foralie," he said. "Alaef said none of the Graemes were home, but you were their closest neighbor; and I could talk to you about looking at the place."

  "Graemehouse's locked up now; but I can let you in, of course," she answered. "But you won't want to go tonight. Aside from anything else, you'd see a lot more in daylight."

  "Tomorrow?"

  "Tomorrow, by all means," she said. "I've got an errand to run, but I can leave you there on the way over and collect you on the way back."

  "That's good of you." He swallowed the rest of the whiskey in his glass, breathed deeply a moment to get his voice back, and stood up. "Alaef ran me up here, but he had to be back in time for dinner. I don't want to impose on you but do you know anyone I can call for transportation back to Foralie Town?"

  She was smiling at him.

  "Why? Where do you think you're going?"

  "Back to town, as I said," he answered a little stiffly. "I've got to arrange for a place to stay."

  "Sit down," Amanda said. "Omalu has a hotel or two, but out here we don't run to such things. If you'd stayed in town, the Tormai or one of the other families there would have put you up. Since you're out here, you're my guest. Didn't your Malachi Nasuno teach you how we do things, here on the Dorsai?"

  He looked at her. She was still smiling at him. He realized suddenly that, as they had talked, he had completely lost his earlier image of her as a barely-grown young woman. For the first time he began to consider the possibility that her chronological age might be even greater than his own.

  Chapter Forty-two

  He sat at a table in the large kitchen of Fal Morgan while Amanda fixed dinner. It was a square, high-ceilinged room panelled in some pale wood gone honey-colored with time, which reflected the house lights that had seemed to strengthen as the outside twilight faded. It had two entrances; the one to the hall by which he had gone to the living room and by which they had come back in, and one to a presently-unlighted dining room in which Hal could dimly see dark panelling, straight-backed chairs, and part of a long, dark table. In the kitchen the cooking surfaces, the food storage cupboards, and the phone screen hanging high on one wall
were modern and technological. Everything else was home-built and simple. Amanda moved about with an accustomed dexterity and speed. His own hands were idle.

  "I could give you something to make it look like you're helping," she had told him as they had come in, "but there's no point to it. There's nothing you can do here that I can't do faster and better myself. So just sit back out of my way, and we'll talk as I go. More whiskey?"

  "Thank you," he had said. Sitting with a glass in his hand at least gave him the appearance of a reason for sitting still while she worked.

  He had expected to feel self-conscious sitting there, nonetheless; but the essential magic of the house, the warmth of the kitchen with her movement about in it, made all things right. Only, for a second, and reasonlessly, watching her now, he felt an unusually sharp stab of that loneliness that had been always part of him these last four years. Then he put that aside too, and merely sat, sipping the dark, fierce whiskey, wrapped in the comfort of the moment.

  "What do you like—mutton or fish?" she asked. "That's our choice, here."

  "Either is fine," he said. "I don't eat much."

  Strangely, this had been true since his time in the cell on Harmony. His familiar, oversize appetite had been lost somewhere. On the trip from Harmony to Mara, he had eaten only when meals were pushed upon him; and on Mara itself the indifference had continued. It was not that food did not taste good to him once he began to eat—it was just that hunger and appetite had somehow lately become strangers to him. He did not think of eating until he had been some time without food; and then just enough to take the edge off his immediate need was all he would find himself wanting.

  He became aware that Amanda had paused at his answer, and was looking back intently across the room at him from the food storage cupboard she had just unsealed.

  "I see," she said after a second. She went back to taking things from the cupboard. "In that case why don't we have both? And you can tell me which you like best."

  Hal watched her as she worked. It seemed that Dorsai cookery had something in common with that on Harmony. Here, as there, a little meat was made to go a long way by adding a lot of vegetables. Fish, however, was used somewhat more freely. There appeared to be a fair amount of preparation to all the dishes Amanda made; but each came together and went onto the cooking surface with surprising speed.