Wix finally kicked a rock off the hill and turned back to Stipock. "Quit the guessing game. You want to show us something, show us."
"Right," Hoom said. "All that we can see from here is forest and Heaven City ."
"And there's the answer," Stipock said, clapping Hoom on the back. "That's Heaven City . Over there, isn't it?"
"Where else would it be?" Cirith asked.
"Look down on this side. Is Heaven City here?"
No, of course not, they said.
"Well then. What if a man crossed the river with his wife, and they built a house here. Would that house be in Heaven City or not?"
And now they began to catch a glimmer of the idea. "It wouldn't have to be, would it?" Dilna said.
And Hoom added, "And if the people who lived here had the boats, they could pretty much decide who came and who didn't."
"They could even keep the damned Warden and his stupid laws on the other side," Wix said. "We could vote on everything, like you've been saying!"
But the excitement was dampened when Stipock said, "And could you keep Jason on the other side?"
They shrugged. They shuffled. They didn't know. After all, you never knew what Jason could do.
"Let me tell you, then," Stipock said. "You can't keep Jason away. Because Jason has machines that let him fly."
Fly! Hoom stared in wonderment at Stipock. The man was strange — for hours he would talk to them about how Jason was just a man, like any other; and then he would say things like this, or talk about Jason piloting a great ship between the stars. Who could know? Even Stipock himself couldn't seem to make up his mind as to whether Jason was God, as the old people said, or whether he was just a man.
"And not just Jason. Which of you owns a cow?"
None of them did.
"Or an ax? Or anything at all?"
"I have my tools," Wix said, but he was the oldest of those who followed Stipock, and few of the others had turned fourteen and reached adulthood.
"Are your tools enough to build a town?"
Wix shook his head.
"Then we're back where we started, aren't we? Because you can't be free from Heaven City until you don't need Heaven City anymore. But it's still worth thinking about, isn't it? Still worth, perhaps, planning for. Perhaps?"
"Perhaps," Hoom said, so solemnly that he earned several punches and jests from the others all the way down the hill. But as he sat at the tiller on the way back, he couldn't keep from looking back often at the shore they had left. Land as good as any at Heaven City . But perhaps there the young, who, like Hoom and Wix, cared little for the old people's single–minded attention to every word that dropped from Jason's mouth, might be able to set up another city, one that depended on the will of those governed, as Stipock had so often said, rather than the will of those governing.
Now as they crossed the river, the current was trickier. They had to steer into it again, though it took them far from the direction they wanted to go, because the wind was directly against them returning. Once they had crossed the main stream, though, they let the eddies carry them lazily back across Linkeree Bay , around the point, and into the shallow cove where they had built the boat.
They splashed to shore (except Hoom at the tiller) and tied the boat to three trees, and then they all laughed with each other and made funny remarks about having to go back to the old people again, and then they parted.
Because Dilna lived in the Main Town , she and Hoom had to go back in the same direction, which was perfectly all right with Hoom. He wanted to talk to her anyway, had wanted to ever since he had met her in the group that met to listen to Stipock months ago, while he was still talking about the stars and planets and billions of people on other worlds (as if anyone much cared what really existed in heaven). As they wound their way through the forest toward the Pasture, Hoom held her hand, and she only held the tighter when he tried to do the courteous thing, and let go as they reached level, open ground.
That was encouragement enough for Hoom. "Dilna," he whispered as they walked through the Pasture. "Dilna, in a month I'll be fourteen."
"And I'll be fourteen in two weeks," she said.
"I'm moving out of my father's house that day," Hoom said.
"I'd move, too," she answered, "if only I had a place to go."
Hoom swallowed. "I'll build you a house, if you'll come to live in it with me."
She tossed back her head and laughed softly. "Yes, I'll marry you, Hoom! What did you think I was hinting at so much all these months?"
And then they kissed each other, clumsily, but with enough fervor to make the experience all they had hoped it would be. "How long will I have to wait?" Dilna asked.
"I'll have it built before Jason's Day."
"Will he come back, do you think?"
"This year?" Hoom shook his head. "This year he won't come. Not with grandfather as Warden."
"I was hoping he would be able to marry us himself," Dilna said, and then they kissed again and she took off running, heading for Noyock's Road, which would take her down into the Main Town . Neither of them noticed the incongruity of wanting Jason himself to perform their marriage, even as they planned and worked to remove themselves from the city he governed. After all, Jason may not be God, as Stipock always told them. But that didn't mean he wasn't Jason. And everyone knew that Jason could read what was in people's hearts, and that made him more than anybody else. God or no God, Jason still wasn't, in any way, ordinary.
Hoom reached the house and quickly scrambled up the horizontal logs to his window. He pulled it easily ajar, and slipped through, barring the window behind him.
His tallow lamp was sputtering, but hadn't gone out. He doused it, and undressed in the darkness. The room was cold, and his blankets were colder still, He shivered and he slid his naked body under the wool — but he was tired enough, and he was quickly asleep.
He woke when his door crashed open violently and his father shouted, "Hoom!" The boy sat up in bed, holding his blankets around him as if they would offer some protection. "Father — I —"
"Father!" Aven said in a high voice, mocking him cruelly. "Father." And then he roared, "Don't you call me father, boy! Never again!"
"What is it? What have I done?"
"Oh, are we innocent this morning? Didn't I tell you not even to unbar the window? And certainly not to leave this room for a week! Do you remember why I told you that?"
"Because," Hoom said, "because I disobeyed you and went on the river —"
"And have you obeyed me when I told you to stay here as punishment?"
Hoom knew then that the beating was coming. He had long since learned that when he was caught, it was better not to lie. The beating was easier then, and the shouting was over sooner.
"I have not obeyed you," Hoom said.
"Come to the window, boy," Aven said, his voice lower and so all the more frightening. Hoom climbed uncertainly out of bed. The early autumn air was chilly, and when his father unbarred the window and flung it open, it became freezing cold on Hoom's naked and sleep–slowed body. "Look out the window!" Aven commanded, and Hoom became really afraid — he had never seen his father so furious.
Down at the foot of the wall of the house, the dirt showed clearly Hoom's footprints leading from the grass to the wall. In two hours, they would not have showed — but the slantwise morning sun made the prints black on the dark brown soil.