"Forget that. No. But forget the rest of it too, until we've settled other things. Until the dam is standing. My future on Hestia isn't all that certain until then. And to be honest, Meg, you just don't know me that well."
"I think I do."
"What do you know? That I'm from the other side of the sun and that's attractive to your romantical ideas? That I'm different and that makes me special?"
"And you think I'm a little girl from nowhere, who's going to get herself involved with you to keep you, and you're trying to keep me from making a mistake because I don't know any better. You're a kind man, Sam. Sometimes you're too kind."
Meg could cry charmingly, just a single tear slipping down her cheek. Merritt shook his head in despair, wiped it away and drew her tight against him until she stopped shivering.
"Well," he told her softly, "you're not far wrong, but I don't think you give yourself enough credit, Meg, not near enough. See, you think of me, and I have to think of you, and I'm not going to talk you into something you could regret. I'm not so sure you might not change your mind about a lot of things if I should have to leave Hestia, or if something goes wrong. Don't argue with me. Come on, right now. I'm taking you home."
"I don't care what people think."
"I care what they think about you." He set her on her feet and put his arm about her again, starting upslope toward the trail. "You don't make my nights any the more peaceful. I think about—staying. If the dam works, if—if this world will have me, if… so many things. I could be persuaded to stay, if a lot of things work together. But not at your expense. Not—tied here in an uncertain future. Not if I fail in this project. I don't know what my future may be. I'm afraid some of your neighbors don't understand reason, and I don't want anyone attached to me, anyone who could complicate matters."
They wouldn't be like that, Sam."
"I hope you're right, but I'm not going to let you involve yourself. After this first spring I may be able to think about things like that, about staying, maybe. And with you it would have to be staying, wouldn't it? There's nothing less permanent here."
He watched a flush come to Meg's cheeks. "If," she said, her lips trembling, "if I have to, I'll live with it, Sam. I—" She lost the thread and looked aside, and Merritt laughed gently and hugged her tight to his side, sorry that he had to laugh at her, because she began to cry.
"Meg, Meg, you're just not taught that way, are you? You couldn't; and I couldn't leave you in the mess I'd make for you with your neighbors. Come on, be sensible."
"I'd go with you, Sam, wherever you went."
"You're Hestian," he objected, and realized the tone of it after he had said it, that he had meant it less for her sake than for his: be pictured Meg Burns on a starship, or anywhere but on Hestia, and knew he would have to love her more than he felt capable of loving anything—to spend his life tied to her.
Meg caught his eyes and her own looked deeply hurt; he knew then she understood far more than he had said. She had been willing to take that step across to him, forever; and he had not been, and it was too late now to save her pride or pretend otherwise. She backed out of his embrace and drew a deep breath, pressed her lips together: no hysterics, and he admired her for that.
"You're honest," she said quietly.
"So have you been," he said, and did not know what more to say. Another woman might have walked away from him; Meg simply stood there, civilized, hands folded, trying not to cry.
"I feel too much for you," he said, "to let you be hurt worse than this. Don't hate me, Meg. Don't hate me."
She shook her head slowly. "It's all right," she said, and let go her breath. "It's all right."
"Come on," he said then, and offered her his hand. "Let's go back to the house."
She took his hand, slipped hers again within his arm as they walked as if there were nothing amiss, though she furtively wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, nineteen and with her dream in shambles. He had long leisure to think, of Lilith Courtenay, of himself at twenty-one and now at star-traveled twenty-eight; thought of trying to tell Meg of Lilith and Adam Jones, and could not think how to do that without making it seem Meg Burns was beneath that. Love was not something he could say and mean with Meg's simplicity; he realized that in the moment and he had never felt so crushed by anyone, the uncovering of a deficiency in himself he had never known. He had come to congratulate himself on his being on Hestia, on his seven years' gift, on his meticulous devotion to farmers who must look up to him, on his dreams for a world, and their gratitude.
And Meg Burns showed him himself.
They came in silence back to the station, and into the gates and within the yard now crowded by a new and makeshift barracks.
And suddenly, halfway to the steps of the house itself, Meg stiffened and turned back to look, her face stricken with alarm.
"Lady. Where's Lady? "
Merritt looked. The dog was nowhere in sight; and he could not remember when or where she had left them.
"She may have gone off across the hill or still be hunting," he said. "Don't worry about her."
"Oh, but she never strays. It's nearly sundown, and she's always back for dinner. She'd never wander off hunting when it's dinnertime."
He hesitated, looking at the shadowing sky and at her. "I know how you love that dog," he said, unable to see her further distressed. "I'll go back and look. Maybe I can find her."
Meg caught his arm as he started to go. "No. No. You know better than to do that. She'll come home on her own, she will. Please don't try."
She was saying it only to stop him; he knew it; and knew it was sense she was trying to prevent him, the most basic of rules of her life. He stopped, gave up the gesture. "I'm sorry," he said abjectly. "Meg, I'm sorry."
"She's not lost," Meg said, and assumed a cheerful confidence like putting on new clothes. "Come on, come on; she'll make it home without our help. Let's get out of the cold."
I'll tell you how it's going to happen." Porter's fist slammed down on the table between them so that the dishes rattled. "You're going to get started this week, Mr. Merritt. We've got men sitting idle out there. You're not putting us off til next summer or next winter."
"I'm not satisfied—"
"Well, I am. And so are the people downriver. Just how many of us are you prepared to argue with? My men came out there today ready to work, and they'll be there again tomorrow, and we expect to start, Mr. Engineer."
"Whatever we do up here, those families downriver had better get to high ground by spring, and that's the plain and hard truth. We've started cutting timber; we can start the diversion flume so we can work there, but I'm not ready yet to commit all our supplies and that number of lives on the site without more study on the far side of the river. You say we're running out of time. I'm telling you it's going to be a slower process all along than you think. I'm not satisfied we have time enough this season. If you insist on going ahead against my advice, I won't be responsible."
"You're going to be responsible, Mr. Merritt," said Porter, "because if those plans are faulty, you've been wasting our time. And you'd better hope you're some good, because if you're not, people downriver are going to get killed; and if people get killed, I very much doubt you're going to pick up your baggage and just walk away. Don't count on it."
I'm not going to be pushed."
"You'll take your chances in the valley same as us. If we go under, so do you, so think again, Mr. Merritt."
"Tom," said Frank Burns, "I don't think this is accomplishing anything. —Mr. Merritt, I promise you we're not trying to be unreasonable, but we're trying to make you see we'd rather take the chance. We're on the brink of starvation on some farms—not all, not all; and we aren't feeling the pinch yet, but we will if there's another disaster like last spring. We're remembering that: starving men can't work; and we're not willing to see another fifteen families go down the river while we sit waiting. Now, if you can show there's danger, well, we'll advise people to go to high ground right now, in the case we fail. The one thing you can't ask of us is to sit and do nothing."