“But the living become vital,” Gar said, “as they should.”
A strident clanging rolled out through the evening air. Looking up, they saw one of the clansfolk running an iron rod around the inside of a metal triangle hung from a pole.
“I wondered what that was for,” Alea said.
“Dinner call,” Gar interpreted, “and a celebration of life after nearing death. Let’s join them.”
“Let’s,” Alea agreed. “What do you suppose confused us all, anyway?”
They left the next morning, with anxious well-wishing from the clansfolk. As they hiked out of earshot, Alea said, “That was very informative, but how much can we learn going from farmstead to farmstead this way?”
Gar looked down at her with barely concealed concern. “You’re not thinking of going off on your own, are you?”
“Why not?” she asked, bristling. “I can take care of myself!”
“I don’t doubt that,” Gar said quickly, “but two are always safer than one.”
“Oh, so you don’t think I can cope with whatever comes along?”
“No, no! There’s scarcely anything that could hurt you, with the skills you’ve learned.”
“Then what are you worried about?” Alea demanded. “ ‘Scarcely’ could happen entirely too often,” Gar explained. “What’s the matter?” Alea jibed. “Don’t you trust your own teaching?”
“Now that you mention it,” Gar said, “no.”
“Then trust my learning!” Alea snapped. “I can read other people’s thoughts now, at least well enough to find out if anyone with a rifle is lurking in the underbrush—and if they try attacking me with a knife or a stick, I can counter them with my staff.”
“How many is ‘them’?” Gar asked with a jaundiced eye. “I’m up to three at once, you’ve said so yourself!”
“Unless they know tricks you don’t.”
“Which means their knowing tricks you don’t! Or have you been holding out on me?”
“You’ve been making excellent progress…”
“So you haven’t been telling me everything!”
“Well, I can’t teach you all at once,” Gar protested. “It takes years.”
“It’s been years!”
“Only two of them. Mind you, you’re still able to cope with nine out of ten dangers you’re apt to meet…”
“Then what are you worried about?”
“Number ten.”
Alea felt a warm glow, hearing that he was worried about her. It added heat to her arguments. “You want me to be safe? I’ll pose as a peddler! These people ought to honor traders—they’re so starved for things they can’t grow or make themselves! You should outfit yourself as a packman, too!”
“Good idea.” Gar nodded. Alea stared at him, stunned.
“It would give you a chance to hide a few hand grenades and a blaster among your trade goods,” Gar explained.
That brought Alea out of her stupor. “We want less mayhem on this planet, not more! Show these people a grenade and they’ll start cobbling them up themselves!”
“Well, all right, but they couldn’t make blasters…”
“So you want them to discover research? Aren’t there better ways to motivate them?”
It went on for a while longer, and all in all, she found it a highly satisfying argument. When Gar called up to Herkimer to drop two packs of trade goods during the night, though, that made her victory seem too easy. Alea developed a suspicion that Gar had been enjoying their verbal sparring as much as she had—either enjoying it or suffering from a vastly misplaced sense of chivalry. She had heard him argue much more strongly than that. As they settled down for the night, she reflected smugly that he definitely did care about her, even if it wasn’t the passionate regard she craved.
She went stiff at the thought, staring unseeing at the night around them. What was she thinking? Passion? She certainly didn’t want that!
They were on the road again as the sun rose and separated at the first fork.
“Be careful, now,” Gar said anxiously.
“You be careful, too,” Alea retorted, then turned back to him, frowning. “Wait a minute! All through this, you haven’t said a word about your own safety!”
“Well, of course not.”
“Oh, you’re sure of being able to handle a small army all by yourself, are you?” Alea’s eyes blazed.
“It’s not that,” Gar protested. “It’s just that if I get hurt, it doesn’t matter.”
Alea stared at him, frozen for a second. Then she threw her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his chest. “It matters to me. It matters most horribly to me! Make sure you listen for thoughts on the road and duck away from them before they can hurt you!” She tilted her face up, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, said, “Take care of yourself!” and turned to stalk away down the left-hand road, face flaming.
Gar stared at the back of her head, at the rich chestnut fall of her hair beneath the broad-brimmed hat, and pressed a hand to his cheek, bemused. When she had gone out of sight, he turned slowly away and started down the right-hand fork.
He had gone perhaps a hundred yards before he heard the double click of a rifle being cocked.
Gar dove off the road and into the underbrush as the gun blasted.
6
Gar heard the ball smack into a tree trunk, heard two rifles crack, one from ahead one from the far side of the road and to the rear. He turned, gathering himself and readying his staff even as his mind searched for his attackers.
There they were, reloading their rifles, thoughts hot with avarice and rank with resentment and rage. Gar crouched in the underbrush, waiting, silent. Finally a voice from ahead called, “He’s dead, Lem.”
“He’d better be, with you calling out like a banshee,” Lem answered in a furious whisper. Gar tracked the voice—the man to the left, the one who had shot first.
“He’s out cold, at least,” the voice from behind answered. “Or playing possum,” Lem answered. “What’s got into you, Farrell? You used to know better than to sound off!”
“Aw, he can’t hurt us,” the first voice said. “Didn’t have no rifle, anyways—and no clan; he’s just a trader.”
“Then every clan would be out to avenge him! Okay, Zeke, we’ll go look, but you better hope it’s out cold, and not dead, if you don’t want the Farlands teaming up with the Gillicutties and the Orkneys to clean us out of these woods!”
“We’ll be right beside you, loaded and cocked,” Zeke assured him. “What’s he going to do when he’s looking down three gun barrels, hey?”
It was a good question, Gar decided. As a precaution, he focused his thoughts into gathering moisture into the pans of the flintlocks, saturating the priming powder into sludge. It wouldn’t go off even if one of them did manage to squeeze a trigger, but Gar didn’t intend to give them the chance.
Lem came close first, but stopped six feet short of the underbrush to wait for his friends to come up. With a man of normal height that might have been enough, but Gar shot out of the brambles staff first, extending his seven feet of length into ten.
The butt caught Lem in the belly and he folded, mouth gaping in pain as the rifle dropped from his fingers.
Farrell shouted in anger and came running, but Lem called, “Stay back!” Gar heard his hammer click in the pan, then his curse at the gun’s refusing to fire.
Farrell had paused, but now he charged in again, rifle leveled for a point-blank shot. Gar swung his staff, knocking it away. The useless hammer clicked and Gar swung the end of the staff to crack against Farrell’s head.
Zeke shouted in anger. Gar whirled to see him charging in, face red and distorted with rage, swinging his rifle by the barrel, stock arcing down at Gar where he still crouched by the roadside.