The Shadow and Night (78 page)

“Hmm,” Brenito began, paused, and then began again. “Merral, over lunch and afterward, Jorgio said more than he had said earlier. He told me some things that I did not especially wish to hear.” The big man paused again, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “He is an extraordinary person. There are depths to him that I really cannot fathom. His counsel is of great value. Not always easy to understand, of course. And he may be wrong. . . .”

Brenito paused again, staring at the spires and roofs of Ynysmant. “A pity. A town I never visited—” Then he seemed to focus back on Merral. “Yes, Forester, two things: First, guard and protect Jorgio. I have played my part, but I feel he has yet a great part to play. What part, I do not know. But our stable hand and gardener is not just someone who sees things; like you, Merral—but in a different way—he is a warrior. Do not neglect him, but at the same time do not expose him.”

Merral found Brenito's gaze oddly disconcerting.

Brenito's slow voice continued. “You know, if I were the enemy, the person among you I would most fear would be Jorgio. So keep an eye on him.”

“I will do that, sir, as best I can,” Merral answered, struck by the sentinel's solemn tone.

“Thank you. And secondly, a warning: I fear that you will all have many dangers to face. Jorgio sees the testing of the Assembly as being not just of an organization but also as a testing of people. I think he is right. You will face dangers. Some of those dangers may come from nearer at hand and in stranger fashions than you suspect. Jorgio warned me that not all who are drawn into the fight against the intruders will win. Some, alas, will be lost.”

“I see,” answered Merral, feeling very uncomfortable.

“That's all, Forester,” Brenito said, extending a hand. After they shook hands, he said, “Thank you, Merral, it has been good to see you.”

“I hope to see you soon with the results,” Merral said.

“Do you now?” A quite unreadable expression crossed the heavy face. “Perhaps
—
I would appreciate your prayers for the next week. I have much to do. Good-bye, Forester.”

Then he turned and, with Zak at his elbow, walked with a slow and unsteady gait to the plane.

Vero came over. “I won't ask what that was about. But he is in a funny mood.”

Merral, touched in a way he couldn't understand or express by what Brenito had said, just nodded.

“But thanks, Merral, for arranging this today. And as soon as you get something, get on a plane and fly over.”

“I will, trust me.”

Vero smiled. “Look, do what you can, as fast as you can, but don't worry. Even if we had a location, we aren't ready for an encounter yet. Realistically, we need three weeks.” He turned and looked northward beyond the strip and trees. “And will we be ready even then?” he said in a voice that was barely a whisper.

29

E
ight days passed. Merral's life remained dominated by the search. There were just two breaks: the Lord's Day and the annual holiday of Landing Day, traditionally marked by the first picnics of the year and a great deal of good-humored fun. This year, though, the picnics were not a success; they were blighted by a sudden rainstorm, and somehow the fun never really happened. And the next day, Merral was back again at his desk and staring at images on the screen.

Midmorning on the ninth day after Vero and Brenito's visit, an envelope was brought to Merral. He recognized Vero's handwriting on it and tore it open with a strange sense of foreboding.

“Oh no,” he heard himself say as he read the first line.

Dear Merral,

I'm sad to tell you that Brenito went Home a few hours ago. He was taken into Eastern Isterrane Main Hospital yesterday morning feeling unwell and had a series of heart failures which culminated in his death around three. They could have kept him alive longer, but we all knew it was the end. In the end, death—ever the King's servant—took him Home gently.

I was there, and he said to me toward the end, “Vero, I have done my bit in this business. I would have wished to see the matter through to the end, but that is not to be. You play your part.” He said other things, some of relevance to you, that I will pass on to you when we meet.

You can imagine my feelings. Since the loss of the Gate I had come to see him as part of my family. I had hoped that he would continue to be around to help us as we enter difficult days. I shall miss his bluff wisdom and his common sense. He discouraged some of my wilder ideas, and without him around, frankly, I fear for myself.

He told me over the last week that Jorgio had told him—in effect—to put his affairs in order. We agreed therefore that, contrary to usual practice, the funeral would be soon and private. We decided, and Corradon agreed, that as a matter of strategy, news of his death would not be made public. As you know, he had no family here. He will be buried in the Memorial Wood on the headland by his house. I will leave the planting of the tree till later. An oak perhaps?

He fought the fight well. May we do the same.

Yours in the service of the great Shepherd who protects all his sheep,

Vero

Merral sat back in his chair, suddenly realizing how utterly expected the news was. Yet it was a loss, and the idea that there was one less person to offer guidance was a hard blow. He left his office and went for a walk up through woods behind the Institute. There he found a quiet spot and gave thanks to the Lord for the life of Brenito Camsar, sentinel, formerly of Ancient Earth, and the man who, in summoning Vero to Farholme, had set in motion so much.

So much,
Merral thought as, half an hour later, he walked back to his office,
but so much unfinished business too.
He wrote Vero a letter of condolence and then, telling himself that it was what Brenito would have wanted, he sat down at his imagery again. Perhaps today, he told himself, he would find what they sought.

But he didn't.

Over the following days, Merral found that success continued to elude him. A week later, as he stood at the window of his office staring at the grayness of Ynysmere Lake, he realized that he was very close to despair.
Nearly three weeks of searching,
he thought gloomily,
and I have found nothing.

His unhappiness was not just because the ship was still hidden. It was also because things were changing—and changing for the worse—in Ynysmant. Joylessness and dreariness now seemed widespread, grumbling and criticism were now common to be heard, and even Team-Ball matches were marked by grumpiness and bad temper. Even the weather seemed to conspire to depress him. The delayed spring weather had only just arrived and yet already they were having those dry, dusty days with the winds buffeting out of the interior of Menaya that normally only came in summer.

At home too Merral had found things emerging between his mother and father that he was uneasy about. In particular, his mother now seemed—almost as a matter of habit—to be telling his father to tidy up either himself or whatever he was doing. Surely, Merral wondered, she had been more tolerant in the past? Or was his father getting more slovenly? There too something was wrong.

The situation with Isabella also troubled him, although Merral was not sure whether this was part of the general malaise or something purely personal. He had not seen much of Isabella because both she and he had been so busy. But when they did meet there were problems. True, the matter of the intruders was no longer an issue between them, but the matter of their “understanding” with each other had replaced it. Merral preferred to see this as merely an informal agreement that they had a serious relationship. Isabella, though, clearly saw it as something else: as an unofficial statement of commitment, the formal public precursor to engagement and marriage.

It was not that Isabella regularly mentioned the matter of their commitment; it was just that she always seemed to hint at it. Merral preferred not to raise the subject, hoping against hope that it would go away. Yet it didn't; the question of their commitment always seemed to be there between them. In his darker moments, Merral wondered if Isabella was doing, by accident or intent, what she had done with the intruders and employing slow, subtle pressure on him to yield and agree with her point of view. The effect was a renewed tension between them.

One other oddity was that he had spent more time than usual in the simulated world of his castle tree. Frequently, Merral entered the silent realm where his great tree stood before going to bed. He found a strange relaxation in drifting around in between the branches as, in speeded-up time, the clouds flew by overhead and the sun glided across the sky. He had decided that it was time for the tree to breed and had prepared those modifications to the program that would allow his tree to bear male and female flowers that his insects could pollinate. Eventually, he decided, he would make both male and female trees, but for the moment, his only specimen would have to be a hermaphrodite. Yet something about the growing intensity of his involvement with his personal creation troubled him. The sense of relief and release Merral felt as he entered the simulation was something that he had never experienced before. Was it, perhaps, an escape?

“Time is not on our side,”
Vero had said, and his words seemed to haunt Merral. Yet the one thing he could do that might change matters—find the ship—seemed to be impossible.

Merral frowned. Despite all his hours of poring over images on screens and printouts of various sizes, shapes, colors, and resolutions, he had made no progress. Indeed, in strange and unpleasant moments of mental darkness, he had even begun to wonder if what he sought existed. Clearly, if there was anything, it was hidden. Such a situation was, of course, quite logical; if the intruders were warlike, then one of the skills they would have mastered was camouflage. Satellite surveillance was a very old art and, he presumed, proficiency in avoiding it equally ancient.

Deeply troubled by his thoughts, Merral looked over the water to where, at the edge of his view, the outer houses of Ynysmant clustered round the lake margin.
I'm losing the battle; things are going downhill fast.

He turned away from the window; this was getting him nowhere. He wondered whether he should travel to Isterrane to talk with Vero. He had heard nothing from him since the announcement of Brenito's death. He needed to clear his mind. Sticking a note on his door, he left the office complex, walked past the stables, and paused at the paddock fence, watching the horses. After a minute, Graceful came over to see him, and he stroked her head for a few minutes, feeling the grit in her mane and wondering at the changes that had happened in the months since he had ridden her into Herrandown that cold winter's evening.

Then Merral walked slowly up the grassy rise, trying to minimize the intake of dust into his lungs. Halfway up the slope he found an empty wooden seat overlooking the lake. He sat on it and tried to think.
What am I doing so wrong that I cannot find this craft?

As he struggled with his thoughts, his attention was caught by the slow elevation of a hydraulic access platform down by the engineering complex. It was the time of year when the equipment that would be used over the summer was checked. He sighed; all the equipment and technology that he had used had failed him. Then, as he looked over the dust-tinted clouds of white and pink blossoms on the trees below him, the idea came to him that it might be the technology that was the problem. He gnawed away at the idea, progressively becoming more enthusiastic about it. After all, he had to recognize that it was in the area of technology that the intruders were superior. If there was a way of masking a ship's presence, they would know how to do it, and he, novice that he was, was not going to penetrate such a mask.

Merral sensed a glimmer of progress.
Perhaps, I now know what I have been doing wrong.
He tried to think of an alternative.