Sheri Tepper - Grass

“Probably because they wouldn’t let you,” Tony said. “It would make a handy weapon.”

“It would, wouldn’t it?” Sylvan said, turning the device over and over in his hand. He sighed, gave it back to Tony, and turned his attention to carrying wood. Still, he thought of the knife with wonder. Why hadn’t he known about such things?

Brother Mainoa awoke about the time the food was ready, quite willing to interrupt his rest to join them for supper When they had eaten, when the utensils were cleaned and put back in the panniers, they sat around the fire, waiting.

Marjorie said, “Well, Brother Mainoa. So, we are here.”

He nodded.

“Are we any closer to Stella than when we set out?”

“The trail led along the swamp-forest,” he said. “Outside it, unfortunately. We could not have stayed there.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Perhaps If the Hippae have gone. Tonight we would be unable to see anything.”

She sighed.

Tony said, “Mother, it’s just as well. The horses couldn’t have gone much farther.”

Marjorie was still looking at Brother Mainoa “You know something,” she said. “You obviously know much more than you have told us.”

He shrugged. “What I know, or think I know, is not something I can share with you, yet. Perhaps tomorrow.”

“Will you decide?” she asked with a percipient glare.

“No,” he admitted. “No, the decision won’t be mine.”

“What does it — they — want? To look us over?”

He nodded.

Tony asked, “What are the two of you talking about?”

“Yes, Marjorie. What are you — ?” Sylvan asked.

Father James gave Marjorie a percipient glance and said, “Let it alone, Sylvan. Tony. For now. Perhaps Brother Mainoa has already presumed upon his acquaintance with… well, the powers that be.”

Mainoa smiled. “A way of saying it, Father. If you can bear it, Lady Westriding, I would suggest that we rest. Sleep, if possible. We are quite safe here.”

Safety was not what Marjorie wanted, if she had been in danger of her life, at least she would have felt she was doing something. To sleep in safety meant that she was slacking while Stella was in danger, but there was no argument she could make. It was already too dark to find a trail. She rose from her place beside the fire and made her way among the trees to the grassy area where the horses grazed. There she sought the comfort from them which she did not receive from those in her company. It was only when she leaned against Quixote’s side that she realized how desperately tired she was.

Behind her the others made their beds near the fire. Tony put his mother’s bed to one side, screened from the others by low brush, where she would have some privacy. When she returned, he pointed it out to her, and she went to it, grateful for his help. Silence came then, broken by Mainoa’s low, purring snores, the cries of peepers distant upon the prairie, and the cries of other less familiar things in the swamp around them.

Marjorie had thought she would lie sleepless. Instead, sleep came upon her like a black tide, inexorably. She went down into it, dreamless and quiet. Time passed, with her unconscious of it. The hand that was laid upon her arm did not wake her until it shook her slightly.

“Ma’am.” said Rillibee Chime. “I’m hearing something.

She sat up. “What time is it?”

“Midnight, more or less. Listen, Lady. It’s sounds that woke me. People, maybe?”

She held her breath. After a moment she heard it — them — the sounds of voices, wafted to them on a light wind which had come up while she slept. A conversation. No words she could understand, but unmistakably the sound of people talking.

“Where?” she breathed.

He put his hand on her cheek and pushed so that her head turned. As she faced in another direction, she heard them more clearly. “Light,” she whispered.

He already had it in his hand, a torch which shed a dim circle before their feet. He handed her another, and they walked among the trees, through the meadow where the horses grazed with a sound of steady munching, beyond the meadow into the trees once more. Rillibee pointed up. It was true. The sounds came from above them.

She was no longer sure they were people. The sound was too sibilant for human people. And yet…

“Like the sounds in the Arbai village,” she said.

He nodded, peering above him. “I’m going up,” he said.

She caught at him. “You won’t be able to see!”

He shook his head. “I’ll feel, then. Don’t wait for me. Go back to the others.”

“You’ll fall!”

He laughed. “Me? Oh, Lady, at the Friary they call me Willy Climb. I have the fingers of a tree frog and the toes of a lizard. I have stickum on my knees and the hooves of a mountain goat. I can no more fall than an ape can fall when it creeps among the vines. Go back to the others, Lady,” and he was away, his torch slung about his neck, the light dwindling up the great trunk of the tree as he swarmed up it like a monkey.

When the circle of light had dwindled to nothing, she went back the way she had come, certain now that she would not sleep again. Yet when she lay down upon her bed she found sleep waiting for her. She had time only to wonder briefly what Brother Lourai would find among the branches before she was deeply asleep once more.

At the Friary, Elder Brother Fuasoi was sitting late at his desk, angrily turning the pages of a book. Yavi Foosh sat disconsolately on a chair nearby, yawning, trying to keep from nodding off.

“No sign of Mainoa or Lourai, then?” Fuasoi asked for perhaps the tenth time.

“No, Elder Brother.”

“And they didn’t mention to anyone where they were going?”

“There wasn’t anybody there to mention to, Elder Brother. Mainoa and Lourai were all alone at the ruins. The library crew had changed shifts three days ago. Shoethai and me didn’t take the replacement men back until this evening. When we got there, Shoethai and me went to tell Mainoa, but he was gone. Him and Lourai. We looked all through the ruins, Elder Brother.” He sighed, much put upon. He had told the story four times.

“And you found this book where?”

“Shoethai found it, Elder Brother. On Brother Mainoa’s worktable. He thought — since they were gone — there might be something written down somewhere. The book was the only writing Shoethai found. He brought it straight here to you.”

Fuasoi glared at the book, obviously a new one, with only a few pages written in. Oh, indeed there was something written down. All in Brother Mainoa’s own hand. Conjecture about the plague. Wonderment that it hadn’t infected Grass. Conjecture about the Moldies, and whether there might not be some on Grass. And if so, what they might be up to. Interest in the people at Opal Hill, and what they were doing, which was working to thwart the work of the Moldies. Working for Sanctity to stop the plague. To find whatever had kept Grass free of it up until now.

He swore, slamming the book shut. Mere chance had kept Grass free of the plague until now! Mere chance. The virus hadn’t come here until now because… because it was remote. Because it simply hadn’t, yet. There couldn’t be anything on Grass that stopped it.

But… but if there were, no one could be allowed to learn of it. If they learned of it, they might stop the plague elsewhere. Mainoa and those from Opal Hill would have to be stopped. “Elder Brother?” Yavi murmured. “Yes,” he snarled.

“Could I be excused now? I’ve been here for a very long time.”

“Go,” he growled. “Go, for God’s sake, and send Shoethai here.”

“Shoethai, Elder Brother?” Shoethai had been dismissed an hour ago.

“Are you deaf? I said Shoethai.” Not that Shoethai would be of any help, but at least he would listen to Fuasoi talk.