“Gramma,” said Lytha, “is it really true?”
“Is what really true?” I asked.
“That the Home won’t he any more and that we will be gone.”
“Why yes, Lytha, why do you doubt it?”
“Because-because-” She gestured with the feather at the wall. “Look, it’s all so solid-the stones set each to the other so solidly-so-so always-looking. How can it all come apart?”
“You know from your first consciousness that nothing This-side is forever,” I said. “Nothing at all except Love. And even that gets so tangled up in the things of This-side that when your love is Called-” The memory of Thann was a heavy burning inside me-“Oh, Lytha! To look into the face of your love and know that Something has come apart and that never again This-side will you find him whole!”
And then I knew I had said the wrong thing. I saw Lytha’s too young eyes looking in dilated horror at the sight of her love-her not-quite-yet love, being pulled apart by this same whatever that was pulling the Home apart. I turned the subject.
“I want to go to the Lake for a good-by,” I said. “Would you like to go with me?”
“No, thank you, Granma.” Hers was a docile, little girl voice-oh surely much too young to be troubled about loves as yet! “We teeners are going to watch the new metal-melting across the hills. It’s fascinating. I’d like to be able to do things like that.”
“You can-you could have-” I said, “-if we had trained our youth as we should have.”
“Maybe I’ll learn,” said Lytha, her eyes intent on the feather. She sighed deeply and dissolved the feather into a faint puff of blue smoke. “Maybe I’ll learn.” And I knew her mind was not on metal-melting.
She turned away and then back again. “Gramma, The Love-” She stopped. I could feel her groping for words.
“The Love is forever, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Love This-side is part of The Love, isn’t it?”
“A candle lighted from the sun,” I said.
“But the candle will go out!” she cried. “Oh, Gramma! The candle will go out in the winds of the Crossing!” She turned her face from me and whispered, “Especially if it never quite got lighted.”
“There are other candles,” I murmured, knowing how like a lie it must sound to her.
“But never the same!” She snatched herself away from my side. “It isn’t fair! It isn’t fair!” and she streaked away across the frost-scorched meadow.
And as she left, I caught a delightful, laughing picture of two youngsters racing across a little lake, reeling and spinning as the waves under their feet lifted and swirled, wrapping white lace around their slender brown ankles. Everything was blue and silver and laughter and fun. I was caught up in the wonder and pleasure until I suddenly realized that it wasn’t my memory at all. Thann and I had another little lake we loved more. I had seen someone else’s Happy Place that would dissolve like mine with the Home. Poor Lytha.
The crooked sun was melting the latest snow the day all of us Old Ones met beside the towering shells of the ships. Each Old One was wrapped against the chilly wind. No personal shields today. The need for power was greater for the task ahead than for comfort. Above us, the huge bright curved squares of metal, clasped each to each with the old joinings, composed the shining length of each ship. Almost I could have cried to see the scarred earth beneath them-the trampledness that would never green again, the scars that would never heal. I blinked up the brightness of the nearest ship, up to the milky sky, and blinked away from its strangeness.
“The time is short,” said the Oldest. “A week.”
“A week.” The sigh went through the Group.
“Tonight the ship loads must be decided upon. Tomorrow the inside machines must be finished. The next day, the fuel.” The Oldest shivered and wrapped himself in his scarlet mantle. “The fuel that we put so completely out of our minds after the Peace. Its potential for evil was more than its service to us. But it is there. It is still there.” He shivered again and turned to me.
“Tell us again,” he said. “We must complete the shells.” And I told them again, without words, only with the shaping of thought to thought. Then the company of Old Ones lifted slowly above the first ship, clasping hands in a circle like a group of dancing children and, leaning forward into the circle, thought the thought I had shaped for them.
For a long time there was only the thin fluting of the cold wind past the point of the ship and then the whole shell of metal quivered and dulled and became fluid. For the span of three heartbeats it remained so and then it hardened again, complete, smooth, seamless, one cohesive whole from tip to base, broken only by the round ports at intervals along its length.
In succession the other five ships were made whole, but the intervals between the ships grew longer and grayer as the strength drained from us, and, before we were finished, the sun had gone behind a cloud and we were all shadows leaning above shadows, fluttering like shadows.
The weakness caught me as we finished the last one. David received me as I drifted down, helpless, and folded on myself. He laid me on the brittle grass and sat panting beside me, his head drooping. I lay as though I had become fluid and knew that something more than the fatigue of the task we had just finished had drained me. “But I have to be strong!” I said desperately, knowing weakness had no destiny among the stars. I stared up at the gray sky while a tear drew a cold finger from the corner of my eye to my ear.
“We’re just not used to using the Power,” said David softly.
“I know, I know,” I said, knowing that he did not know. I closed my eyes and felt the whisper of falling snow upon my face, each palm-sized flake melting into a tear.
Lytha stared from me to David, her eyes wide and incredulous; “But you knew, Father! I told you! I told you Gathering Night?’
“I’m sorry, Lytha,” said David. “There was no other way to do it. Ships fell by lot and Timmy’s family and ours will be in different ships.”
“Then let me go to his ship or let him come to mine!” she cried, her cheeks flushing and paling.
“Families must remain together,” I said, my heart breaking for her. “Each ship leaves the Home with the assumption that it is alone. If you went in the other ship, we might never all be together again.”
“But Timmy and I-we might someday be a family! We might-” Lytha’s voice broke. She pressed the backs of her hands against her cheeks and paused. Then she went on quietly. “I would go with Timmy, even so.”
‘Chell and David exchanged distressed glances. “There’s not room for even one of you to change your place. The loads are computed, the arrangements finished,” I said, feeling as though I were slapping Lytha.
“And besides,” said ‘Chell, taking Lytha’s hands, “it isn’t as though you and Timmy were loves. You have only started two-ing. Oh, Lytha, it was such a short time ago that you had your Happy Day. Don’t rush so into growing up!”
“And if I told you Timmy is my love!” cried Lytha.
“Can you tell us so in truth, Lytha?” said ‘Chell, “and say that Timmy feels that you are his love?”
Lytha’s eyes dropped. “Not for sure,” she whispered. “But in time-” She threw back her head impetuously, light swirling across her dark hair. “It isn’t fair! We haven’t had time!” she cried. “Why did all this have to happen now? Why not later? Or sooner?” she faltered, “before we started two-ing! If we have to part now, we might never know-or live our lives without a love because he is really-I am-” She turned and ran from the room, her face hidden.
I sighed and eased myself up from the chair. “I’m old, David,” I said. “I ache with age. Things like this weary me beyond any resting.”
It was something after midnight the next night that I felt Neil call to me. The urgency of his call hurried me into my robe and out of the door, quietly, not to rouse the house.