"Did you see that?" Signe asked, turning her head so abruptly that her tired horse tossed its own in protest at the shift in balance.
"What?" he said abstractedly; one of the great things about horses was that they had autopilots when it came to ambling straight ahead, so you could think about something else.
"The graffiti," she replied.
"No," he answered, surprised. Corvallis was a very tightly run ship these days; he supposed it came with all the civic spirit. "What did it say?"
"Help, I've fallen into the RenFaire and I can't get out!"
She giggled and her brother and sister-in-law smiled; Mike Havel gave a full-throated laugh. Mary and Ritva turned puzzled eyes on their elders.
"I bet that was written by someone over forty," Havel chortled.
They turned right again and into a district where most houses were a century old or more; this part of Corvallis was laid out along a grid, and the streets were broad and tree-lined. Traffic was thick as the sunlight died, another strangeness in a world that mostly went home with the sun. Bicycles and pedi-cabs were numerous, and oxcarts and horse-drawn wagons, people on foot still more so as men and women walked home from work. The sound of human voices and feet was louder than wheels or hooves; most ground floors were workshops or small stores, with the proprietors living over them. Street vendors pushed barrows and cried out their toasted nuts and hot dogs in buns or toffee apples or hot cider; children ran home from school with their slates slung over their shoulders, and housekeepers came back from daily markets in chattering clumps with their full baskets; once a splendid red fire engine pulled by six glossy Belgians trotted past. That looked like a museum piece and probably had been until ten years ago, and it was pursued by still more children.
Feels more crowded than American cities this size ever did before the Change, Havel thought. Even in rush hour. They've built up most of the old open space and there are a lot more people per house. Well, you have to jam em in, when you've got a wall around them. Every extra foot of defensive perimeter means spreading your forces that bit thinner. But they aren't poor, crowded or no. Even the smelly types sweeping up the ox dung and horseshit into those little pushcarts look reasonably well fed.
Lamplight from most windows shone on the sidewalks, adding to the streetlights to make the night nearly bright enough to read by. The Havel children goggled at cobblers, tailors, bakers and saddlers, shops selling books and bicycle repairs, lanterns and eggbeaters, swords and knives and crossbows, candles and vegetables, eggs and jams and hams and bacon, taverns lively with raucous singing or even more raucous student arguments that spilled noise out into the chilly air along with the odors of frying onions, French fries, hamburgers and wine and beer, at churches of half a dozen varieties besides the two styles of Catholic, a miniature Buddhist temple and a couple of covensteads. There were doctors' offices, architects': and once even a law firm's shingle.
Civilization, Havel thought, grinning to himself and shaking his head. Christ Jesus, we've got lawyers again. Ten years ago we were fighting off cannibals.
"Penny for 'em, honey," his wife said.
"I was just thinking that I'm starting to gawk like a hayseed," he said. "And this place is smaller now than the town where I went to high school!"
"You are a hayseed, darling."
"I am?" he said, making his eyes go round in mock surprise.
Signe laughed. "You were born on a farm and lived on it until you enlisted in the Marine Corps. You thought Parris Island was the big time."
"My dad worked the mines, mostly. We were close to town. The farm was just our homeplace."
"Where your family raised spuds and pigs and cooked on a woodstove. And your idea of a good time was hunting deer."
"Chasing girls and running my motorcycle were right up there. Besides, you like hunting deer too."
"I do now. Back then I was a vegetarian. And when you got out of the Corps, you went and became a bush pilot in Idaho. You, my darling, are a hayseed of hayseeds and a hick of hicks. It's why you've done so well!"
The smile died a little as she looked around at the busy brightness and rubbed an index finger on the little white scar that nicked the bridge of her straight nose. "You know, it's scary, but I'm sort of impressed myself, and I grew up in the big city."
"Portland's still bigger than this," he said grimly.
"Portland isn't a city anymore," she said shortly. "It's a labor camp and a mine. The city's dead. This is alive, at least."
He nodded, then cast off gloom as they turned into a residential street overshadowed by huge oriental sycamores and lined by old homes, on Harrison near Twenty-third; it was less crowded, and some of the traffic was closed carriages with glazed windows, the CY9 equivalent of a stretch limo. Most of the homes belonged to the well-to-do, merchants and high officials of the Faculty Senate, with a sprinkling of the sororities and fraternities where the scions of Corvallis' elite did their bonding. A pair of the big brick houses were owned by the Bearkillers, for times like this when a delegation was in town; the arrangement was more or less like an embassy, though less formal. It would be undignified for the Outfit's leaders to stay at an ordinary inn. Staying with friends in town would be an imposition, and besides that give political ammunition to the friends' rivals.
Corvallis had what was officially described as "vigorous participatory democracy"; Havel tended to think of it as more along the lines of "backstabbing chaos."
Staff from Larsdalen had gone on several days ahead to prepare the Bearkiller consulate for them, and the windows were bright and welcoming, with woodsmoke drifting pungent from the brick chimneys. Hugo Zeppelt crowded out onto the veranda and bellowed greetings as he windmilled his arms: "It's the tall poppies! G'day, sport-good to see yer! And the little sheilas; Uncle Hugo's got a lollie for the both of you."
He was the sort who could be a crowd all on his own, a short, stocky balding man with a glossy brown beard going gray. He'd been winery manager at Larsdalen from the mid-nineties until the fifth Change Year, and had taken over as steward of the Bearkiller properties here partly because it ministered to his second passion, food.
"It's the Unspeakable Antipodean," Signe said with a mixture of sarcasm and goodwill. Zeppelt's Australian drawl was as rasping as ever. "Hi, Zeppo."
"Still a bit of a figjam, eh?" he laughed back at her. "And grinning like a big blond shot fox, my Lady Signe is."
"Dinner's ready, I hope?"
"Fair dinkum, no fear," Zeppelt said. "On the bloody table, and it's grouse tucker."
"Did you ever talk like that in Oz?" Havel said curiously, dismounting and tossing the reins to a groom.
"Why, that would have been superfluous considering the cultural context, would it not?" Zeppelt answered in dulcet tones.