The Shadow and Night (30 page)

“But of course,” answered Merral, once again wondering at the extraordinary perspective that Vero brought to bear on so many things. “Is there any other way?”

“Ah, that is the interesting thing. If you read the pre-Intervention literature or watch—if you can stomach it—their imaged data, so much of what they said was to actually disguise rather than reveal.”

“To disguise—”

“Oh, come on! It comes over in the Book. For instance, when King Herod says he wants to worship the baby Jesus as well. It is a pretense.”

“But he was an evil man.”

“However, the principle still stands. Anyway, with your uncle and aunt I detected a watchfulness. They thought before they spoke.”

“True. I suppose I had noted a lack of freedom, perhaps. But I hadn't seen the significance.”

Vero adjusted his backpack and looked across with thoughtful eyes. “It was there all the same. But as I said yesterday, I didn't come here to investigate the Antalfers.”

“Yes, I suppose that's fair.”

Vero gave Merral a thoughtful look. “Come on; it's a long walk to the Rim Ranges.”

He shook his head ruefully. “And besides, who knows what we will meet on the way?”

11

A
s the track out of Herrandown began to steepen and the weight of their packs made itself felt, Merral and Vero fell silent. As he strode up the slope, Merral reminded himself that he had been here with Isabella only a few days ago. And as she came to mind, he realized how perplexed he was there. What was going on? And yet it wasn't just her; his own feelings seemed to have polarized. A few weeks ago, there had been just a low, deep friendship. Now at least two things had happened. His feelings for her seemed to have evolved into an intensity of desire that almost scared him. And yet another part of him was counseling caution and almost screaming that there was something wrong. It was a conflict that he could not easily resolve. And to make it all worse, he had already made some sort of promise to her.

Abruptly he saw that they had come to the point where Elana had seen the creature. Merral gestured to Vero to stop and his friend looked at him expectantly. “It was here?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so.” He stared around at the view. “Yes, a fine vantage point. And on a day like this, a particularly pleasant view of a charming spot.”

Merral agreed. There was a hint of white blossom on the apple trees now and the other trees were covered in fresh greenery. Over the whole scene the sun shone out of a perfect blue sky flawed only by the faintest high-altitude haze.

Turning their back on the view, they moved into the woods, and Merral paused at the site where he had found the cut twig. Vero took off his pack and spent a few minutes looking around the site and seemed vaguely satisfied.

“I am no bushman, and the trail is very cold and has been overprinted by others—I presume you and Isabella. But let us go on.”

Cautiously, letting his eyes adjust to the lighting under the trees, with the gloom broken in places by brilliant shafts of light, Merral led them on, trying to avoid trapping his pack on the branches.

They paused briefly at the site where they had found the hair and then moved onward. Now, beyond that part of the trail that he and Isabella had examined, Merral found himself being more watchful. It was not just that the traces they were following were now faint, it was that, somehow, he found himself anxious not to come across anything unexpectedly.

The trail was still visible as a line of broken, buckled grass, vague imprints in dry soils, and torn and snapped stalks and twigs. Once, Vero stopped to examine the dents in the ground. He looked up at Merral. “Hard to be sure, isn't it? But I feel there was something heavy through here.”

Merral gestured to a clumsily broken branch just above his head.

“Big, too.”

“So it would seem.” Vero looked up and grimaced. “I'm not sure I want to meet it in a bad mood.”

“I'm not sure I want to meet it in a good one.”

“True.” Vero stroked his chin. “You know, I have seen wild gorilla tracks on Earth and, although smaller, they looked similar.” Then he stared ahead, at the way the trail went straight along the valley side. “But were they ever so purposeful?” he added in a baffled tone.

Over the next hour, Merral led them on at a steady pace as they went northwest under the trees, dropping slowly down toward the Lannar River. He felt a need for urgency. The trail was already very cold and he knew every extra day would make following it harder. Another rainstorm—perfectly possible within the next few days—could make following the trail harder or even impossible. Besides, they could ill afford any delay; in order to allow them to travel faster they had taken only enough food for four days.

Finally, they started to come to the edges of the wood, so that the trees became absent from the valley ridges and were confined to the base and flanks of the stream valley. There, under the shade of a gnarled, flute-barked oak, they stopped to drink water and have a mouthful of food. Vero wiped the sweat from his face and flicked a fly away. “Forester, what do you think of the track so far?”

“Interesting. Whoever—
whatever—
made it is no fool. Down in the gully itself it is very muddy and the going would be slow.”

“Yes. But why not take the ridge route? You'd make faster progress there.”

Merral looked up at the bare, grass-covered ridge. “Yes, a puzzle. Perhaps it isn't that smart.”

Vero looked at him carefully. “Now if you had sentinel training like me—that curious way of bending your brain so that you see nothing as it really is—you might think that the ridge would be avoided because you would be open to being seen from above.”

For a moment, Merral stared at Vero, then he looked back at the ridge as it lay open to the sun. “What a very curious idea. So our watcher doesn't like to be watched?”

“A suggestion. That's all.”

Then they moved on down the stream flanks toward the Lannar River. As the morning passed, it began to be warm and humid under the trees, and Merral began to be conscious of a sweaty feeling along his back as the weight of the backpack pressed on him. Every so often he stopped, gestured for silence, and as Vero dutifully froze, listened carefully. There was the noise of flies, distant birds in the trees, and increasingly louder as the morning passed, the liquid rustling of the river. But he heard nothing unusual.

“And what do you think, Sentinel?” he asked at one point.

“Seems like a normal temperate wood to me. Of course, it's subtly different. That beech, for example; the trunk seems wider and more ridged while the branches are stubbier. I presume that's an adaptation. A bit short of animal life, though.”

“Oh, give us time, Earther!” Merral said with a laugh. “Just remind yourself that if we went back a mere twelve thousand years here you would have been choked by carbon dioxide, slowly dissolved in an acid rain, and fried on rocks as hot as any home oven. Your world has had far, far longer. In another few thousand—the Ruler of All permitting—Farholme will match old lady Earth.”

Vero smiled and made a little bow as if to admit defeat. “No, you are right. Forget the Gates, forget the Library, forget our Cities-in-Space. Of all the wonders we have done with the Most High's permission, the Made Worlds are the greatest. To have turned near-molten rubble and poison gas to soil, woods, flowers, and air is—by God's grace—our race's finest achievement.”

And yet, Vero's point is true enough; I still long to see, someday, the woods of which these are the copies.

After half an hour they stopped to get their breath back and took their backpacks off.

Vero turned to Merral. “Jorgio's vision. What do you think about it?”

“I found it made me very uneasy. It's like nothing I have ever heard of. And, well, visions are not my line.” Merral patted a birch trunk. “Trees, yes; visions, no.”

“If we assume that it was genuine, then how do you interpret it?”

Merral thought for a moment. “The candles are the Assembly and the farmhouse is Farholme. That much seems beyond doubt. And in both cases, as a testing, a threat is being unleashed.”

“Exactly. But a threat of what? Where?”

Merral shrugged and Vero continued. “There the vision stops and our insight fails. If we knew what we faced it would be easier to obey the charge to watch, stand firm. And perhaps to hope. But visions never tell all.” He sighed. “I desperately want to talk to Brenito about all this and will do when I get back. But, in the meantime . . .” He fell silent.

“I think we need to focus on the task ahead. So let us move on. And watch,” Merral said and, putting his backpack back on, set off. Vero followed him.

Ten minutes later the trees began to open out. Vero touched Merral's arm lightly and whispered, “I think we should be careful down here. We will soon be out into the open.”

“I agree,” Merral answered with reluctance. “Although the track still shows no sign of being younger than four or five days.”

Merral listened again, but heard nothing to alarm him. Nevertheless, he felt uneasy. An intangible
something
seemed to be present.
Why is it that I don't like these woods?

Vero seemed to sense his unease. “You're not happy, are you?”

“Ah, you talked earlier about our Assembly transparency. No, I'm not happy.”

“May I make a suggestion?”

“Of course.”

“From now on have your tranquilizer gun ready. I'm going to wear my bush knife.”

Merral suddenly realized what lay behind Vero's interest in the knives the previous day. “A
weapon!
You're planning to use it as a weapon?”

“Not planning,
please,
” Vero looked vaguely hurt. “Preparing, perhaps. As a last resort.”

For a moment, Merral could not say anything as he tried to grapple with the concept of a weapon. No, he decided, this was too much. It was important to impose some limits on what were plainly excesses in sentinel thinking, and now was as good a time as any.