Sheri Tepper - Grass

Rigo asked Sebastian Mechanic to accompany him to the bon Laupmons’ place. He asked Persun Pollut and Asmir to come along as well, spending a few futile moments wishing the men were bigger, wishing they had weapons, wishing they were not commoners but bons so they would be taken seriously. Well, what use to wish? They were commoners and there were no weapons on Grass, none he had seen. None except the harpoons of the hunters, and the ungainly length of those instruments made them useless for protection. He felt very much alone and was foolishly ashamed of himself for feeling so.

He dressed with meticulous care, hating the froggy spread of the trousers, the effete look of the long pointed toes on his boots. Finally he took his hat and gloves from his villager-turned-valet and examined himself in the glass. At least from the waist up he looked like a proper gentleman. As though that made any difference. As though anything would make any difference!

He would not apologize for taking Persun and Sebastian and Asmir along, it was certainly not improper to take servants to the Hunt. Others did. When a bon Haunser returned from a bon Damfels Hunt and went into the bon Damfels’ guest quarters, it was his own servants who had prepared a room for him, his own servants who had kept the bath hot and laid out fresh clothing. When Rigo had ridden for the first time, he hadn’t known. No one had told him. He and Stella had had to return all the way to Opal Hill before they could bathe.

When he had ridden the second time he had brought a man along but there had been no question of bathing. Stella had vanished, and that is all he had been able to think of. Now, for the first time, he wondered what would have happened if Stella hadn’t vanished. He, Rigo, had taken a man along. He had forgotten to provide anyone for Stella. It was an uncomfortable thought, and he pushed it aside.

“Rigo?” A soft voice from the door.

He turned his self-hatred on her. “Eugenie! What are you doing here?” Ridiculously, for a moment he had thought it was Marjorie.

“I thought you might need some help. With Marjorie gone—”

“I have a valet, Eugenie.” Behind him the man prudently left the room. “Marjorie doesn’t dress me.”

She fluttered her hands and changed the subject. “Have you had any news about Stella?”

“I haven’t heard anything about any of them. And you don’t belong here in my bedroom. You know that.”

“I know.” A tear crept down her cheek. “I don’t feel like I belong anyplace.”

“Go to Commons,” he told her. “Take a room at the Port Hotel. Amuse yourself. For God’s sake, Eugenie, I don’t have time for you now.”

She caught her breath. Her face went white and she turned away. Something in that turn, the curve of the neck. Like Marjorie. Now he had insulted them both! God. what kind of man was he?

Full of angry self-loathing, he went out to the gravel court where the aircar waited, then stood about impatiently while Sebastian arranged for the other car to take Eugenie to Commons if she wanted to go. Women. Damned women. With no other driver available, Asmir would have to stay to take Eugenie into town.

“Grass can be very boring for women,” Persun Pollut remarked.

“My mother has often mentioned that.” Persun stood with his hands linked behind him, his long, lugubrious face turned toward the garden.

“From what you have said, your mother keeps very busy,” Rigo commented, his voice still full of edgy hostility.

“Oh, I don’t mean life is boring in Commons, Your Excellency. I mean out here. Out here can be death for women. From boredom. From the Hunt. From so many things…”

Rigo did not want to think about women. He did not understand women, obviously. He was no good with women. Marjorie. No good with her. Who would have expected her to take the initiative this way, go running off to involve Green Brothers, dragging Tony and Father Sandoval along. She had never been like that. On Terra she’d contented herself with being mother or horsewoman. There’d been that little charitable thing that took too much of her time, Lady Bountiful carrying cast-off clothing to the illegals. But then, what had she had to do with herself otherwise? She wasn’t like Eugenie, to spend half a day at the loveliness shops. Or like Espinoza’s wife, that time, getting hauled in by the population police because she’d been mixed up in illicit abortions to save some ignorant little cunts from getting executed. Poor ’Spino hadn’t been able to face his friends. No, whatever Marjorie had done on Terra, she’d kept it insignificant, she hadn’t encroached on Rigo’s responsibilities…

There was some kind of mental trap there. He avoided it by returning to his earlier thoughts about weapons. Why were there no weapons on Grass? Surely the order officers at Commons must have some kind of tanglefoots or freeze batons. Such items were ubiquitous wherever there were ports and taverns and the need to knock down unruly men. Why didn’t the people at the estancias have them? Characteristically, preferring actual ignorance to the appearance of it, he did not ask Persun, who could have told him.

He got into the car at Sebastian’s summons. They flew in silence. The bon Laupmon estancia was about an hour distant, farther east than the bon Damfels’ place. Rigo was considering how he might approach Obermun Lancel bon Laupmon. What he might say to Eric bon Haunser, or Obermun Jerril bon Haunser. Both of them had been helpful and diplomatic when the Yrariers had arrived upon Grass. Still, they were hunters, and hunters did not seem to act logically. There was no point in talking to Gerold bon Laupmon, Lancel’s brother. According to Persun, the man’s comprehension was exceedingly limited. Lancel was a widower. There was a son. Taronce, related somehow to the bon Damfels, but Rigo had not met him. Perhaps there had been other children. Perhaps they had vanished, and bon Laupmon had ignored that fact, just as Stavenger had. As he continued to do.

Rigo ground his teeth. There had been a time on Terra when children had been sacrificed. To Moloch. To Poseidon. Even to God. There had been dangerous rites on Terra long ago. Maenads had run wild upon mountaintops, tearing youths apart with their teeth. Secret societies had demanded blood and silence. And yet, he could not recall a time in Terran history that men had lost their children and pretended not to notice. Never. Now, nowhere else. Only here, on Grass.

He shuddered, then drew in a deep breath, confused. Why was he going to this Hunt? Was he really going to ride? Again? Knowing what he knew now?

Why was he going?

To demand help in finding Stella, of course.

From whom? He went over the roll of all the bons he had met, listing them by families, ticking them off, going back to see if he had forgotten any.

“Pollut,” he said at last in a shamed voice. “Will any of them help me find my daughter?”

Persun Pollut gave him a long look. Around the eyes His Excellency looked rather like an old bit of carving, badly abused, chipped, and abraded. For a moment Persun considered equivocation, then discarded the idea. He owed it to Lady Westriding to tell the truth.

“No,” he said finally. “None of them will.”

“Marjorie warned me,” Rigo said in a whisper.

Despite the whisper, Persun heard him. “Many of us tried to warn you, sir. Lady Westriding has a clear eye. She was not taken in by these Hippae.”

“You believe it’s true that they do things to people’s minds…”

With some effort Persun kept any taint of sneer from his voice as he asked, “Has the ambassador any other explanation?”

“Landing!” said Sebastian. “There’s a considerable crowd on the court, sir. Almost as though they were waiting for us.”