CHAPTER 6
"Take a float at the desk, here," Ajela answered, looking at the tall, remarkably young-looking woman, whose hair was so light blond it was almost white. "There's one waiting for you."
As Amanda came from the door, which had provided some measure of her size, her height became less apparent. The length of her arms, legs and body, and her breadth of shoulder, so well matched her size that only by some kind of contrast was it noticeable. She was, thought Ajela, like Hal in that. You did not realize how large he was, either, until someone you knew to be of ordinary size stood close to him. She was wearing serviceable, neutral-colored clothing that somehow did nothing to detract from her presence.
What Ajela found herself noticing in particular was the lightness with which Amanda moved. She had the body balance of a dancer, and that trait was curiously in harmony with the otherwise difficult to believe youthfulness she seemed to project. She could pass, thought Ajela, for a girl in her teens - and yet Ajela knew her to be certainly older than Hal, and possibly older as well than either Rukh or herself - not that either she or Rukh were out of their twenties.
The appearance of youth in the newcomer was so unbelievable it could be appreciated only when you were actually looking at her. After she had gone, memory would be doubted. That, taken together with the classical quality of her from beauty - even her shoulder-length fair hair and the apt turquoise eyes somehow fitted - seemed to set her a little everyone else. And yet, even the sum of all the different elements failed to explain the strongest effect she makes on a viewer. There was a power in her.
It was a quality which words failed as memory would. But it was like something Ajela had never felt before in anyone, It was curiously comparable to, though not the same as she felt there to be in Hal when close to him. In his actual presence she had always been able to feel a concern in him for those around him that was like the warmth radiated by a lighted fireplace.
With Amanda it was something different. The closest Ajela could come to expressing it, was that in the other woman there was something which strongly reminded Ajela of the strength and clean white lines of an Ionic pillar, in a temple of classical Greece.
To Amanda, on the other hand, as she approached the desk, Rukh and Ajela were both much as she had pictured them from Hal's descriptions. She had wanted to see them for herself, for a long time. Not only because of what they were, but obviously because of what they each in their separate ways meant to Hal, and because it was also obvious that Hal's affection for each was deep and strong-running.
It was not that she feared competition for his love of her. She was the Third Amanda in eight generations of Morgans ,and she had been hand-picked by the Second Amanda as a baby, in the other's old age. Hand-picked, and with her natural abilities trained until she was set apart from the mass of people around her, like a queen.
In this there was more to it than the fact there had been only three Amandas in eight generations of the Morgans of Foralie, on the Dorsai. In a very real sense, there had only been three Amandas since the human race began, and it had fallen to her to be the last and strongest. With or without Hal, she would be that. But she loved him.
However, now that she saw them in person, she knew that she would like them, and they would end up liking her - though Ajela would be the slower of the two to come to it. They were both strong women, and life had also made each of them the equivalent of royalty, in her own right. Moreover, Ajela had now had experience in the possession and exercise of great authority.
She was dressed in what seemed more like leisure than working clothes. She wore a sleeveless tunic of medium brown, ornamented with gold brocade over a blouse of filmier material with balloon-shaped sleeves, above darker brown pantaloons. Amber bracelets were on her wrists and amber earrings in her ear. Still, the way she sat and the level gaze of her hazel eyes made these garments and even her jewelry seem to fit her like a uniform of authority. Rukh, on the other hand, had been born, as Amanda knew, with unusual strength of spirit in her, but plainly counted it as nothing in her own scale of values. Far outranking any personal power of her own, the quality that was in her of what she called Faith shone through the dark lantern of her body, even through the long, high-collared, wine-red dress she was now wearing, like the light of a candle through the horn windows of some ancient lantern, illuminating everyone around her. Also, Rukh was older than Ajela in her experience of life and death, and, like Amanda, had been a warrior. In fact she was still a warrior, for all that she lived and preached peace. She always would be. In that one element, if in no other, it was immediately recognizable to both of them as their eyes met, that they were alike. "I came right away, as soon as the message reached me," said Amanda, taking the empty float. She looked at the others sympathetically. It would not have been easy for either of these to admit to themselves that they were helpless, and that she might do what they could not. "Faster than we expected," said Rukh. "We didn't dare say so in the message, but it's Hal, of course. We knew you'd read that between the lines and come quickly."
Amanda smiled. "It was clear enough, what you wanted to tell me," she said. "You'd know it would take something like that to bring me back like this. What is it with Hal?" "He's a case of burn-out," said Ajela bluntly.
She checked herself, rubbing her fingers for a second over her eyes. "Would you explain to her, Rukh? With Tam and all... I think you'll do a better job of it than I can, right now." "He wants to go looking for death," said Rukh, "or tells himself that's what he wants, because, you know as well as I, it's not in him to do that. He's just told us he wants to give up his search for the answer we all need, the search he's been on all his life." "What brought him to this?" said Amanda. "Frustration-" Ajela broke off. "Sorry, Rukh. I asked you to tell it. Go ahead." "But you 're right," said Rukh. She turned her gaze back to Amanda. "Ever since he got the necessary people back here on Old Earth and the phase-shield up, he's been expecting at any moment to find the last step to the Creative Universe he's dreamed of reaching for so long. He's been working at it without a break, all that time. In the process, he's found a way to make all the knowledge of the Final Encyclopedia available to his mind. But even with that and all else that's in him, he's made no progress at all. Now he believes he's got to find a breakthrough, give up, or go insane, and, as all of us know, he won't accept insanity as a way out. So he plans to quit. Leave. Enlist with the Earthborns under another name for Dorsai training. " "The first Dorsai that sees him will recognize who trained him - pick him out in two seconds from the rest," I said Amanda. "Would that Officer force him to reveal himself as Hal Mayne?" Rukh's voice was level.
There was a moment's silence. "No... Of Course not," said Amanda then. "Not if Hal didn't want it. That's not our way - if he had personal reasons for not being recognized or promoted, no explanation from him would be necessary. But even at that, it's only a short matter of time until Bleys would find out who and where he was and then all the worlds would know." "Hal wants the Worlds to know," said Ajela. "He says it's a matter of the fabric of historic forces. He believes his going would leave a vacuum that'd work against Bleys." "He could be right in that," said Amanda slowly, after a moment. "But he's wrong in giving up. Besides, he can't quit. For him, that's impossible. He must have just worked himself blind enough to make himself believe he can go hunting the dragon."