She looked beyond the first huge trunk to see others standing at either side of the path and down the slopes, with smaller feathery growths beneath them, unmistakably young ones of the same type.
“They’ve never been here before,” she said unnecessarily. “Unless we’re lost.”
He nodded. There hadn’t been trees before. And they weren’t lost. The trail led to the foot of the tree and resumed at the other side of the trunk.
“Do you suppose it’s like the mushroom house, where everything sort of grows overnight?” she asked. “Like that thing that was pushing up the floor stone?”
Jep had his head back and was trying to estimate the height of the tree he had almost run into. He thought it looked about the same as the width of a scissor hockey court, which would make it about a hundred feet. It was almost as wide as it was tall, great branches spreading to every side, each one supported from below with stout growths which curved down and back into the main trunk. Some of the larger branches had several supports, some only partway grown, half-curved down toward the trunk.
“Overnight?” he asked, incredulously. “It had to take longer than that. When was the last time we came up here?”
Saturday thought about that. “It’s been a long time, but Willum R. went creely fishing about ten days ago, and this is the only way to come. If he’d seen these trees, he’d have said something. We can tell your mom. She’ll come look at them, and she can tell us what they are.”
Jep, swallowing deeply, went around the tree and proceeded on his way. If Willum R. hadn’t seen these when he came up ten days ago … Well then, it was very strange, that’s all.
As the day went on, they came back to the subject of trees, more disturbed than either of them let on, but worrying away at it as they tried to reach a solution. Though they picked at the subject of the trees, they avoided the matter of the kiss and were careful not to get too close to one another, not knowing what would happen. Anything that happened might be more than they could handle. The world they knew was tenuously balanced on nothing much, teetering upon oddities. Until they returned at evening, tiptoeing through the new forest, which loomed even more strangely in the shadowy light, they kept everything very ordinary.
Then, at Saturday’s door, Jep tried the kiss again, just to see if whatever had happened would happen again. Whatever it had been was still there and kept being there, each time they did it, and they did it quite a lot, hugging one another in pleased wonder and undisguised anticipation.
When Saturday came into the sisterhouse, Africa saw the slightly swollen lips and glowing eyes and turned away to hide a mixture of peevishness and chagrin, self-awareness and parental anxiety. She herself had been kissed—really kissed—first when she was what? Thirteen? About Saturday’s age. It had happened in one corner of the equipment yard, behind a big loader. Africa could still remember the smell of the lubricating grease, the hard bite of the steel edge as she had been pressed against it. Who had it been? Not anyone currently in the settlement. His name trembled in her mind, ready to announce itself. Someone who had gone away.
“How’d the creely fishing go?” she demanded. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Saturday dumped the sack on the kitchen table, laughing at the pile of wriggling legs, joyous about life in general.
Africa watched her daughter as she might watch a sprouting field, half apprehensive, half gloating. Things lay in wait for the ripening grain, danger was in store, but there was also the hope of harvest. A name swam into memory. Osmer. Gard Osmer. He had tasted of salt and apple-eating boy and smelled like the grass. He had kissed her and said sweet, fumbling things, his eyes alight. They had gone for walks together, holding hands. His family hadn’t really been happy on Hobbs Land. No, she dug into memory. It had been Gard’s father that hadn’t been happy. He had insisted upon their giving up their accumulated land credits and moving to Pedaria. Africa had been fourteen. She had cried on and off for months. It was Spiggy who had rousted her out of her pain, Spiggy who was at the holiday camp the same time Africa was. He told her to have a baby and study leadership. He started her on her career. He was only a few years older than she, but he knew things she didn’t. “Apple-sweet,” Spiggy had called her childhood romance. “Apple days,” he had said. Apple days with Gard. And apple days with Spiggy, too. Five children since, three boys, two girls, but this, her eldest, summoned up so many memories.
“You had a good day,” she said gently to her own child, in memory of Gard, in memory of Spiggy, in memory of apple days.
“Oh, yes,” Saturday cried. “Oh, yes, it was a good, weird, wonderful day, and listen to my surprise! I have to tell you what we found!”
• China was amazed when Jep told her about the grove of giant trees. A complete catalog of native flora had been made during the decade after Settlement. She requested a copy, and the inventory swam upon the stage, from mold to tree, with nothing in it at all resembling giant trees with upcurving support branches. She would go up there the next day, she resolved.
When Jep asked her later that evening—apropos of nothing much so far as China could tell—how old she had been when she had had her first love affair, one part of her mind was grateful that he had waited until his little sister was in bed and had couched his question in terms of love rather than sex, but another part wished fervently he had been satisfied with what they learned at school—which was quite complete enough—and hadn’t asked her a personal question. She did not speak of Sam, of what had happened between them when she was twelve. That had been only confusing and wild, like being at the center of a storm. She had never thought of herself as a participant in that, or as a victim, but rather as a kind of observer.
Instead, she said, “I had what I’d call my first love affair when I was fourteen,” she said. “I was terribly fond of this wonderful boy. It went on almost two years, and then his mother was offered a position at CM, and they moved. We never became sexual lovers, though I think we would have in time, but being together was very sweet, nonetheless.”
China was pleased with her reasonable tone, until she saw the pallor on her son’s face, the darkness of the skin around his eyes, like a member of the chorus in an ancient tragedy, ready to cry woe. “Jep, what’s wrong?”
“You never saw him again? He just went away, and you never saw him again?” he cried dolefully.
“Of course I saw him again,” she said, wondering what was going on. “Of course I did. I rode in to CM on off-days, and he came here. And we sent one another messages. But, after a while he found someone else and sort of … stopped keeping in touch.”
“That’s rotten!” he proclaimed. “You must have just hated that.”
It would have been easiest to agree with him. “No,” she said honestly. “By that time, I had found someone else, too.” She had found Samasnier, or found him again, or he had found her. Samasnier, through whose enjoyments Jep had been conceived. Sam, who at that time hadn’t yet achieved Topman status, but who was on his way. Sam, whom she loved then, and probably now, still, despite everything.
“This isn’t like that,” he cried in protest, as he carried the bowl of creely shells into the kitchen. “This isn’t like that at all.”
China, wondering what this was, decided not to badger him. Since Jep had spent the day with Saturday, she could extrapolate the probable cause of his anxiety. It would probably be a good idea to talk with Africa early tomorrow. With their children growing up so quickly, perhaps it was time the two sisters got together with their brothers, Asia, Australia, and Madagascar Wilm, and discussed clan strategy. Africa said she had enough children, but China had thought of having another. If she was going to do that, better do it before Saturday made her a grandaunt.
Having another child was rather an attractive idea. The problem was, of course, that there hadn’t been anyone she had felt particularly drawn to. Not except Sam. No other than Sam. As though she had chosen Sam once and for all, as in some marriage culture. There were
others who would become her lover in a moment, of course. Jebedo Quillow had been hinting around for at least two years, priming his sister Fearsome with self-touting little messages designed to be dropped into China’s ears. Jebedo did not move her. Nor did any other person in Settlement One, or in CM, or any of the other settlements. She didn’t want just anyone. She really didn’t. Sam was the only one she wanted. Even crazy the way he was getting to be. Even if he was out of his mind, wild, the way people said.
Even if that thing he had killed out there in the strange canyon was the missing person from Settlement Three everyone had been told to watch for. Jamel something. Who had run off rather than emigrate as he’d been ordered to do, and everybody thought he’d attacked Sam, because he was known to do things like that. Even though the skull and bones hadn’t looked human at all. The teeth were too long. It had claws. It was more like some monster.
Jep, who was observing her troubled expression from his hideaway in the kitchen, wondered at her concentration and thought she might be worrying about him and Saturday. Smugly, he thought she didn’t need to worry. Saturday had a very good head on her, and so did he.
• • •
• There was always routine business to take care of at CM, and—since the situation at Settlement One was not an emergency—it was over thirty days before the department heads and Zilia Makepeace made the trip Dern Blass had requested. None of the four had been content to leave matters in the hands, or to the interpretation, of the others, and scheduling a date when all four were free of conflicting appointments or responsibilities took time. During the journey, they went over the reports of hostilities in the settlement and agreed that was the priority item to be examined, immediately upon arrival.
When they reminded Samasnier they wanted to discuss the recent outbreak of incivility, however, Sam stared at them blankly and responded, “But that was all over long ago! Right after I got back from CM.”
They were initially doubtful, and Zilia was sneeringly incredulous. Sal made her logs available. Sam pulled out stacks of filed reports. The five Team Leaders, interviewed individually, said they’d had no trouble for twenty or thirty days now. Since there was no evidence of current difficulty, the visitors could only agree that whatever-it-had-been seemed to be over.
Horgy wide-beamed a gratified smile, even as he admitted to himself that he’d been more than a little worried. Though he dealt with hostilities in the settlements on a daily basis, dealing with hostility here in Settlement One was not something he had done before. He wasn’t sure which emotions to push, whose egos to stroke. He didn’t like situations that lay outside his experience, because then he had to rely upon improvisation. While he improvised quite well, supremely well when he was in a panic, originality was strenuous and anxious and never as comfortable as the experience-tested solutions to familiar problems. Familiar problems were like old friends. They were like a girl you’d made love to enough that she knew what you liked. They made one feel adept and serene and avuncular. Women liked men who were experienced and serene and … well, perhaps not avuncular.
“Do you have any idea what caused the hostility before?” Horgy asked Sal, turning up his radiance slightly. He had always fancied Sal, though until now there had been no opportunity to do anything about it. Besides, if anyone knew about Sam and his strange new hobby—if that’s what it was, and Dern was sceptical about that—wouldn’t it be Sal? “Even though the whole business is over, there were some problems, weren’t there?” Horgy liked gossiping about problems that either he or someone else had already solved: showing an interest, smiling sympathetically, nodding to show he understood. Women liked that, too.
Sal melted, as women almost always melted for Horgy, and described the trouble, which came out sounding like nothing much, really. “My personal opinion is that we were simply very upset because of that thing that happened when the God died.”
Zilia pressed her lips together, and there was an uncomfortable silence.
“Of course, now there’s this new thing,” said Sal, wanting to break the silence. “There’s the beast that attacked Sam!”
This not only broke the silence but also the complacence of everyone present who had been assured repeatedly there were no dangerous beasts on Hobbs Land. Sam’s story was solicited, and he gave it, briefly. Seeing the doubt in their faces, he asserted that Jebedo Quillow had found its bones.
The Central Management people looked at one another in wonder. Sam had said he’d had his knife out of his belt.
“Knife out of your belt?” asked Spiggy, who had heard about the sword belt.
“I always carry one,” said Sam, pointing to his replacement knife. He had gone back to the canyon to see if he could find his own knife—and because he wanted to see the bones—but without success. The replacement was an ordinary tool in a vlish-leather sheath.
“Jebedo did find the bones,” said Sal, firmly. “The skull and everything. Rather primatelike, we all thought, though it had monstrous teeth, and claws. And Sam had to have the bite in his arm sealed shut. The thing bit him.”
Incredulity changed to apprehension. “We certainly want to see where that happened,” Horgy said. “Meantime, you don’t mind if we wander around and talk to people? Just to see if anyone’s seen any strange … beasts. Later, we’ll want to go see that canyon you mentioned.”
“Just don’t bother any of the work crews until quitting time,” said Sam in a firm but friendly voice. “After that, do as you like. Be our guests.” He had previously assigned a settler as escort to each of the four visitors so the people from CM wouldn’t wander off alone and kill themselves by stumbling in front of a harvester.
Zilia, accompanied by China Wilm, made straight for the temple of Bondru Dharm. When she got there, she turned, glared, and asked, as China had almost known she would, “Someone destroyed it, didn’t they? Who was it, really?”
China shook her head. “I’m sure you’ve seen the report I sent to CM, Zilia. Sam assigned me as your escort just so I could tell you about it personally. I was right here when it happened, and nobody did it. The thing just fell in. The Theckles were here, too. You can ask them.”
“I find that very hard to believe,” Zilia sniffed, watching China from the corner of her eye, “considering the way you all felt about the God.”
“I think most of us rather liked Bondru Dharm,” China commented, not at all put off by Zilia’s manner, which everyone in Hobbs Land had encountered at one time or another. “Actually, Zilia, I don’t think you have any idea how we felt about Bondru Dharm. He was ours. He was Settlement One’s own thing. It was kind of prestigious to have something none of the other settlements had. We rather liked it.”
“You didn’t pay any attention to it!” Zilia charged, as though this neglect had been China’s personal fault, and ignoring the fact that in the two years Zilia had been on Hobbs she herself had visited Bondru Dharm only once. “None of you paid attention to the God.”
“Most of us didn’t,” China admitted, “but your inference from that fact is all wrong. Most of us went to a sacrifice maybe once a year, out of curiosity more than anything. But we all put in our share to support Vonce and Birribat, and they spent all their time maintaining the temple and serving the God, which means they spent no time helping with production. Settlements aren’t required to support nonproductive personnel, except for children and the disabled and their own retirees. In this case, we all voted to do it, and, as I recall, it was a unanimous vote.”
Zilia shook her head in her customary expression of skeptical disbelief and turned back along the road toward the recreation building where Sal was flirting with Horgy. Zilia ignored them, taking plenty of time to peer into each of the other ruined temples as they went by. When she and China came up to Sal and Horgy, Zilia interrupted their fun to say she was going on out the north road to inspect the other ruins. Horgy let go of Sal’s hand, which he had been stroking in a suggestive way, and said he’d go along.
Chin
a gave Sal an exasperated glance, which Sal ignored, and they walked on toward the northern edge of the settlement. On the way they picked up the other two visitors with their escorts—Jebedo and Fearsome Quillow, uncle and mother, respectively, of Gotoit and Sabby Quillow—outside the Supply and Administration building. All eight of them continued northward along the dusty road, all the settlement people except Sal, who had enjoyed flirting with Horgy, feeling that this visitation was a total waste of valuable time.
As they crossed the stream north of the settlement, they were joined by children: the two Tillan boys and all four of the Quillow kids, as well as Jeopardy and Saturday Wilm—the entire wolf-cedar logging crew. Horgy and Zilia led the group, closely followed by Spiggy and Jamice, as they strode up the slope to the temple.
Though the CM people had noticed the restored roof while they were still a good distance away, no one said anything until they were close enough to be sure it was no illusion. It was Zilia who put what they were all wondering into the most accusatory words possible.
“On whose authority was this temple rebuilt?”
Jebedo and Fearsome stared at the roof with their mouths open and shook their heads to say they didn’t know what it was or who had done it. Sal was equally ignorant. China had a kind of idea, based on something Africa had told her. “The children did it as a recreational learning experience,” she said mildly.
“On whose authority,” Zilia quivered. “Who gave them permission?”
“I don’t think they needed authorization or asked for permission,” China found herself saying in a dead-calm voice, without emotion or apprehension. “You didn’t ask anyone, did you, Jep?”
“No, Ma’am. We didn’t think anyone would care,” said Jep in an equally casual tone. “It’s outside the settlement proper but within the utilization zone, so we didn’t need to ask CM. We did it outside schooling time, a whole bunch of us, so we didn’t need our teachers’ permission. Since we were rebuilding, not tearing down, we didn’t need Ancient Monuments approval. The AM Panel directives say reconstruction doesn’t need approval. I did ask Aunt Africa about proper crew management when we put the roof on, and some of the grown-ups helped with that.”