Sheri Tepper - Grass

“If they decide to do so,” Rigo agreed.

“What do you think?” Roald asked, throwing a side long glance at his son-in-law, the Mayor.

“I think the Hierarch is doubtful,” Rigo replied. “If I were the Hierarch, my next step would be to send the scientists down.”

“Wouldn’t he have told you that?” the mayor wanted to know.

Marjorie laughed, an unamused sound. “We aren’t among the Sanctified, Mayor Bee. He doesn’t like us, doesn’t trust us. Probably he doesn’t like or trust much of anyone. He’ll get what he can from us, but he won’t give us anything in return.”

“Smart man,” remarked Alverd. “Not to trust us Commons. We’ve no love for Sanctity. He’s one should die of plague.”

“When that letter of his becomes public, he may wish he had,” Marjorie said. “Until then, we simply hang on and get in his way as much as possible.”

They were given no further opportunity to impede the Hierarch. Sanctity scientists came down and occupied the hospital, setting up their own mysterious equipment.

“It doesn’t matter what they find out,” Marjorie reminded Rigo. “So long as Dr. Bergrem finds it, too.”

“It would be better if she found it first,” Rigo objected, taking Marjorie by the arm and leading her to a quiet corner. “You and I need to agree on what we will say if the Hierarch asks more questions. All of Commons needs to agree on what they will say.” They discussed their strategy, at first alone, then with Roald and Alverd. When they had worn the subject thin, they returned to their rooms in the winter quarters, to more sleep and more of Kinny’s cooking.

Late in the evening Rillibee came in from the swamp forest, waking the Yrariers. Marjorie came out of her room yawning, wrapped in a light robe, to find Rigo sitting up in his bed with Rillibee perched on the foot of it.

“I’ve come to get Father James,” he said. “And the other Father, if he’ll come back.”

“What’s going on, Rillibee?”

“I wish I knew exactly. The foxen are trying to figure something out. It’s because of something you did, Marjorie. You talked to the foxen, didn’t you?”

“During the… the episode out there. Yes.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Rigo said, almost angrily.

“It wasn’t anything very real to me at the time,” she said calmly. “I would have a hard time quoting the conversation. Mostly I was thinking words, but the foxen seemed to understand the threat I intended.”

“It wasn’t anything to do with a threat, I don’t think. No. It was something else. Brother Mainoa is tearing what little hair he has left trying to figure it out. Whatever you did, it was the key to some change in their attitude. There are hundreds and hundreds of foxen in the forest, you know. All talking at one another, growling, yowling, thinking, sitting and looking at each other with their claws tap-tapping. It’s like having shadow beasts projected all over you. You can’t see them. You walk around them without knowing why. You hear them, and your mind tries to make wind noises out of it. After a while, you lie down and put your hands over your head, wishing they’d all go away…

“Anyhow, they’re having some major discussion. Something’s going to happen. A foxen wants you, Marjorie, but I told him I didn’t know if you could come. He’ll settle for Father James.”

Marjorie shook her head, longingly. “I mustn’t leave here. If I were to vanish, the Hierarch could get very suspicious. He’s got a thousand armed men, and he might not hesitate to destroy the swamp forest or the town or anything else he felt like. Father James will probably go with you, if he feels up to the trip.”

“I’d like to take Stella, too,” Rillibee said, looking at his feet.

Marjorie sighed and turned away. Stella was still at the temporary hospital, though no longer encased in a Heal-all. “Have you seen her, Rillibee?”

“I stopped there first.”

“She’s not… she’s not like herself.”

“She’s like a child,” Rillibee agreed. “A nice child.”

“What use do you have for a nice child?” Rigo asked, his mouth in a grim line.

Rillibee drew himself up, a slight, wiry figure, somehow dignified in this circumstance by his very lack of stature and bulk. “I’m not interested in molesting her, if that’s what you’re imagining. She’s in danger here. You all are. But you can choose what you’ll do and she can’t. I’d like to take Dimity, too. And Janetta. For the same reason. If the Hippae ruined them, maybe the foxen can help to heal them.”

“Why not?” Marjorie said. “If Rowena and Geraldria are willing to have you take their daughters, why not? You’ll have to ask them, but as far as I’m concerned, yes, take Stella.”

“Marjorie!” Rigo was outraged.

“Oh, stop roaring at me, Rigo,” she snapped in a voice he had never heard. “Think! You’re doing it again, all these automatic responses of pride and masculinity.”

“She’s my daughter!”

“She’s mine, too, and there’s nothing in her head at all. She doesn’t know me. She plays with a ball, bouncing it off a wall. What are you going to do with her? Take her back to Terra and hire a keeper for her?”

“This… this…” he pointed at Rillibee.

“What?”

“This young man,” she said, “who has been ill used by Sanctity, as we all have. This young man, who has certain talents and skills. What about him?”

“You trust him not to—”

“I trust him not to do anything to her nearly as bad as the Hippae have already done,” she cried, “because you let them. I trust him to care for her better than we did, Rigo! Better than her father or her mother. I trust him to look after her.”

Rillibee, who had tried to make himself inconspicuous during most of this, now asserted, “I will do for her what is best for her. From the moment I first saw her, I wanted only what was best for her. Right now there is only one good place left on Grass, and the Tree City is it. If there is trouble on Grass, it has not touched the trees.”

Rigo did not reply. Marjorie could not see his face. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see it, and she did not wish to argue it further with him. At the tell-me she reached Geraldria and Rowena, telling them of Rillibee’s offer and advising them to accept it. When she turned, Rigo was there, and she said impatiently, “Yes?”

“Yes,” he responded, as though granting a favor. “I’ll accept this for now. It may be the best place for her for a time.”

She tried to smile, not quite successfully. “I hope I am right about this, Rigo. I’d like to be right, a few times.”

He didn’t reply. Instead, he turned and left her, going back to his own room. Though she tried to get back to sleep, she could not. It was only hours later, near dawn, when the Seraph and his armed escort came for them, that she learned he had been as sleepless as herself.

They were given little time to dress. Perhaps it was only imagination, but it seemed they were treated with less courtesy than previously. When they were escorted into the Hierarch’s presence, two other persons were already there. Rigo’s hand tightened on Marjorie’s arm as he saw the first. Her face grew momentarily rigid as she saw the second.

“Admit!” she cried in what she hoped was a glad-sounding voice. “Rigo, it’s Admit Maukerden. I’m so glad you escaped the fires at Opal Hill. Sebastian and Persun went back time after time, but you weren’t among the people they brought in.”

“My name is Admit bon Maukerden,” he said.

“A bon? Jerril bon Haunser told me he would provide a lateral,” she exclaimed.

“I was assigned to find out what you were doing on Grass,” he said. “The bons wanted to know what you were up to. As this one does, now.” He gestured through the glass at the Hierarch. “He wants to know what you were up to.”