Sheri Tepper - Grass

“We’ll make copies,” Brother Mainoa offered. “Merely sending the text off-planet wouldn’t do. The Hierarch could disclaim any such. Copies in his own hand, that’s what’s needed. And since this says the Hierarch is on his way here, we should get someone to take copies off-planet. There’s a Semling freighter in port, ready to leave. The Star-Lily .”

“How long to the nearest… how long to Semling?”

“Two weeks, Grassian time.”

“Thirty days,” she murmured. “How wonderful if we could have a cure by then.”

“We who?”

“The doctor here. She’s remarkable, Brother Mainoa. She studied on Semling. She studied on Repentance. She’s got some young helpers just back from school. She got interested in immunology, because of something she found here on Grass when she was a girl.”

“Something?”

“A — I’m no scientist. She wrote a book about the stuff. It has a long name I’ve forgotten. It’s a nutrient. Something our cells have to have in order to grow and reproduce. And here on Grass it exists in two forms, the usual one and one that’s inverted. Nowhere else. Only here.”

“When did she tell you this?”

“When I was visiting Stella. She was only talking to distract me, but she sounded so competent it gave me hope, some hope.” She took the letter from him, stared at it, still finding it hard to believe. “I suppose you’re right about this. If we don’t find a cure, what difference does it make whether people know? But if we do? Then people need to know about this letter. People are entitled to know what Sanctity intended to do!”

“All right, Marjorie. We’ll send copies off-planet, just in case. The Star-Lily still plans to leave tomorrow. Now that the tunnel is blown up, we’ll ask Alverd Bee to get the crew and the warehousemen back over to the port to get it ready to lift.”

“Tony,” she said. “We’ll send Tony.” It would be a good idea to send Tony. He was too vulnerable to the Hippae. She had to get him away before he was tainted by them, as Stella was. Except… there might be plague on Semling. Which risk was greater? All risks were equal. All were life or death. “Tell the crew to be careful. There must be another tunnel. Why else that great Hippae trail leading here!”

He nodded, patting her hand. “If the men keep someone on watch and an aircar or two standing by, they should be safe enough. And, just in case the Hierarch starts looking for me — which he may do, if Zoe tells him about me — I’ll hide myself away somewhere. I’ll go back to the forest, that’s what. Rillibee will come along to take care of me. If they come looking for me, tell them I went back into the forest. If they come looking for the letter, you never saw it. Rigo never saw it. When a cure is found, Tony will see that the letter is widely disseminated, just as the cure is.”

Rillibee was beside them. “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll get Brother Mainoa up in a tree somewhere, and we’ll wait until one of the foxen comes to get us.”

She found herself trying to think of an excuse why she should go herself. She wanted to go herself. She wanted to be there, among the trees, not here with all these people. She looked around, seeking some reason, and turned back to find Rillibee already gone.

Damn. She felt unutterably sad but forbade herself to cry. “Does everyone accept that there’s probably another tunnel?” she asked Roald Few, trying to distract herself.

“Oh, yes,” Roald said. “Probably more than one. Probably not finished yet, or they’d be all over us.”

“A tunnel could just as easily come in on this side of the wall,” she whispered, looking around to be sure that no one else heard her. “It could come out below the town. Have you thought of that?”

Roald nodded wearily. “Lady Westriding, we’ve thought of that and of three or four other things that would be equally dreadful. People are beginning to talk about the winter quarters, how long they could hold them against a Hippae assault.”

“So, if the tunnel isn’t finished, what will the Hippae do next?”

“Burn the estancias,” he replied, “just as they did Opal Hill. That’s one of the things we figured out while you were out there enticin’ the Hippae. We all agreed. Given their nature, if they can’t get in here yet, they’ll start fires.”

“Has anyone warned the estancias?”

He buried his head in his hands. “Nobody’s had time! And who are they going to listen to? Obermum bon Damfels? They might believe her. They certainly won’t believe me.”

Marjorie went away to make copies of the letter, to get Tony onto the Star-Lily, and to find Rowena.

No one answered the tell-me at Klive. At the bon Laupmons’, someone answered but declined to respond either to the information that Taronce had survived or that the estancia should be evacuated. At Stane, however, after learning that both Dimoth and Vince were dead, Geraldria bon Maukerden begged Rowena to send whatever help would come from Commoner Town to evacuate the house and village. Mayor Bee already had all available aircars and trucks going to all the villages, the bon Damfels village included.

“The damned bons can char on their own griddle if they want to,” he snarled. “But we’ll get our village people out.”

It was too late to get them out of Klive. Even before the tunnel had been blown up, Hippae had attacked Klive. There were no people left alive there, not in the estancia, not in the village, except one man, Figor, found wandering among the charred houses, a laser knife in his hands.

When she heard the news, Rowena wept, wiping the tears away with her left hand. The right arm and shoulder were in a Heal-all, mending. “Emmy’s here,” she said. “Amy’s here. Shevlok’s here, alive in a way. Figor will be all right. But oh, I grieve for Sylvan. And my cousins. And old Aunt Jem.”

No one had time to grieve with her. There had been a trail leading from Klive to the swamp forest. All the Hippae on Grass seemed to be congregating there.

The evacuation fleet shuttled back and forth across the prairies, continuing even after fires sprung up at Stane and at Jorum, the estancia of the bon Bindersen’s. Obermun Kahrl and Obermum Lisian refused to leave the bon Bindersen estancia, but their children, Traven and Maude, left willingly enough with the people of the village and many others from the big house.

At the bon Haunser place, Eric joined the evacuees along with Jason, the Obermun’s son. Felitia had died outside the bon Laupmon walls, during what Rigo had come to remember as “The Joust.”

The bon Laupmon place was totally destroyed before the cars arrived, though the commoners had cut a fire break around the village and, armed with harvesting knives, were standing fast with their livestock. At the bon Smaerloks’, the drivers were told that the bons had gone hunting with the bon Tanligs. All of them, even the old folks. A vast crowd of hounds and mounts had showed up early on Hunt morning, and every occupant of the estancias had gone a-hunting. The only people left in the estancias were children. The children and the villagers were evacuated; a wide Hippae trail led from the estancias toward Commons.

The order station became the nerve center for Commons. From there one could see what went on at the port and receive messages from approaching ships. From there one could direct the defenses if Hippae came in through some other tunnel-In the winter quarters below the order station a makeshift hospital was set up to house Rowena, Stella, Emmy, Shevlok, Figor, and a dozen others who had been badly injured before or during the evacuation. People with only superficial injuries were treated and dismissed. When the last of them had been attended to, Lees Bergrem insisted upon going back through the gates to the hospital with several of her assistants.