Not that he really gave a damn.
She was dressed in a little of this and a little of that, worn here and there without much regard for his concepts of modesty. Many of the children wore nothing. It had been something of a shock when he arrived. Now he was almost used to it, but he still thought it incautious on the part of her parents. Did they really think the world was that safe, to let an eleven year-old girl go practically naked in a public place?
He sat there listening to her prattle about her friends-the ones she hated and the one or two she simply adored-with only part of his attention.
He inserted um's and uh-huh's in the right places.
She was cute, there was no denying it. She seemed as sweet as a child that age ever gets, which can be very sweet and as poisonous as a rattlesnake, almost at the same moment. She had the capacity to be warm, but it was on the surface. Underneath, she cared mostly about herself. Her loyalty would be a transitory thing, bestowed easily, just as easily forgotten.
And why not? She was young. It was perfectly healthy for her to be that way.
But did he dare try to touch her?
It was crazy. It was as insane as they all told him it was. It worked so seldom. Why would it work with her? He felt a weight of defeat.
"Are you okay?"
"Huh? Me? Oh, sure, I'm all right. Isn't your mother going to be worried about you?"
"I don't have to be in for hours, and hours yet." For a moment she looked so grown-up he almost believed the lie.
"Well, I'm getting tired of sitting here. And the candy's all gone." He looked at her face. Most of the chocolate had
ended up in a big circle around her mouth, except where she had wiped it daintily on her shoulder or forearm. "What's back there?"
She turned.
"That? That's the swimming hole."
"Why don't we go over there? I'll tell you a story."
The promise of a story was not enough to keep her out of the water. He didn't know if that was good or bad. He knew she was smart, a reader, and she had an imagination. But she was also active. That pull was too strong for him. He sat far from the water, under some bushes, and watched her swim with the three other children still in the park this late in the evening.
Maybe she would come back to him, and maybe she wouldn't. It wouldn't change his life either way, but it might change hers.
She emerged dripping and infinitely cleaner from the murky water. She dressed again in her random scraps, for whatever good it did her, and came to him, shivering.
"I'm cold," she said.
"Here." He took off his jacket. She looked at his hands as he wrapped it around her, and she reached out and touched the hardness of his shoulder.
"You sure must be strong," she commented.
"Pretty strong. I work hard, being a pusher."
"Just what is a pusher?" she said, and stifled a yawn.
"Come sit on my lap, and I'll tell you."
He did tell her, and it was a very good story that no adventurous child could resist. He had practiced that story, refined it, told it many times into a recorder until he had the rhythms and cadences just right, until he found just the right words not too difficult words, but words with some fire and juice in them.
And once more he grew encouraged. She had been tired when he started, but he gradually caught her attention. It was possible no one had ever told her a story in quite that way. She was used to sitting before the screen and having a story shoved into her eyes and ears. It was something new to be able to interrupt with questions and get answers. Even reading was not like that. It was the oral tradition of storytelling, and it could still mesmerize the nth generation of the electronic age.
"That sounds great," she said, when she was sure he was .through.
"You liked it?"
"I really truly did. I think I want to be a pusher when I grow up. That was a really neat story."
"Well, that's not actually the story I was going to tell you. That's just what it's like to be a pusher."
"You mean you have another story?"
"Sure." He looked at his watch. "But I'm afraid it's getting late. It's almost dark, and everybody's gone home. You'd probably better go too."
She was in agony, torn between what she was supposed to do and what she wanted. It really should be no contest, if she was who he thought she was.
"Well . . . but-but I'll come back here tomorrow and you-'
He was shaking his head.
"My ship leaves in the morning," he said. "There's no time."
"Then tell me now! I can stay out. Tell me now. Please please please?"
He coyly resisted, harrumphed, protested, but in the end allowed himself to be seduced. He felt very good. He had her like a five-pound trout on a twenty-pound line. It wasn't sporting. But, then. he wasn't playing a game.
So at last he got to his specialty.
He sometimes wished he could claim the story for his own. but the fact was he could not make up stories. He no longer tried to. Instead, he cribbed from every fairy tale and
fantasy story he could find. If he had a genius, it was in adapting some of the elements to fit the world she knew-while keeping it strange enough to enthrall her-and in ad-libbing the end to personalize it.
It was a wonderful tale he told. It had enchanted castles sitting on mountains of glass, moist caverns beneath the sea, fleets of starships, and shining riders astride horses that flew the galaxy. There were evil alien creatures, and others with much good in them. There were drugged potions. Scaled beasts roared out of hyperspace to devour planets.
Amid all the turmoil strode the Prince and Princess. They got into frightful jams and helped each other out of them.
The story was never quite the same. He watched her eyes. When they wandered, he threw away whole chunks of story. When they widened, he knew what parts to plug in later. He tailored it to her reactions.
The child was sleepy. Sooner or later she would surrender. He needed her in a trance state, neither awake nor asleep. That was when the story would end.
. . . and though the healers labored long and hard, they could not save the Princess. She died that night, far from her Prince." ,
Her mouth was a little round o. Stories were not supposed to end that way.
"Is that all? She died and she never saw the Prince again?"
"Well, not quite all. But the rest of it probably isn't true, and I shouldn't tell it to you." Ian felt pleasantly tired. His throat was a little raw, making him hoarse. Radiant was a warm weight on his lap.
"You have to tell me, you know," she said reasonably. He supposed she was right. He took a deep breath.
"All right. At the funeral, all the greatest people from that part of the galaxy were in attendance. Among them was the greatest Sorcerer who ever lived. His name... but I really shouldn't tell you his name. I'm sure he'd be very cross if I did.
"This Sorcerer passed by the Princess's bier . . . that's a-"
"I know, I know, Ian. Go on!"
"Suddenly he frowned and leaned over her pale form. 'What is this?' he thundered. 'Why was I not told?' Everyone was very concerned. This Sorcerer was a dangerous man. One time when someone insulted him he made a spell that turned everyone's heads backwards so they had to walk around with rearview mirrors. No one knew what he would do if he got really angry.
"'This Princess is wearing the Star stone,' he said, and drew himself up and frowned all around as if he were surrounded by idiots. I'm sure he thought he was and maybe he was right. Because he went on to tell them just what the Star stone was, and what it did, something no one there had ever heard before. And this is the part I'm not sure of. Because, though everyone new the Sorcerer was a wise and powerful man, he was also known as a great liar.
"He said that the Star stone was capable of capturing the essence of a person at the moment of her death. All her wisdom, all her power, all her knowledge and beauty and strength would flow into the stone and be held there, timelessly."