She smiled. “A welcome interruption, Firstling.”
“But, uh, you depend on it for your livin’. If you’d rather go on with it—”
She chuckled. “Pray take not away from me this excuse for idleness.”
“Oh. I see.” He hated to pry, it went against his entire training, and he knew he would not be good at it. But he had to start frank discussion somehow. “It’s only, well, it seemed to me you aren’t exactly rich. I mean, Jaan hasn’t been makin’ shoes since—what happened to him.”
“No. He has won a higher purpose.” She seemed amused by the inadequacy of the phrase.
“Uh, he never asks for contributions, I’m told. Doesn’t that make things hard for you?”
She shook her head. “His next two brothers have reached an age where they can work part time. It could be whole time, save that I will not have it; they must get what learning they can. And … Jaan’s followers help us. Few of them can afford any large donation, but a bit of food, a task done for us without charge, such gifts mount up.”
Her lightness had vanished. She frowned at her cup and went on with some difficulty: “It was not quite simple for me to accept at first. Ever had we made our own way, as did Gileb’s parents and mine ere we were wedded. But what Jaan does is so vital that—Ay-ah, acceptance is a tiny sacrifice.”
“You do believe in Caruith, then?”
She lifted her gaze to his, and his dropped as she answered, “Shall I not believe my own good son and my husband’s?”
“Oh, yes, certainly, my lady,” he floundered. “I beg your pardon if I seemed to—Look, I am outsider here, I’ve only known him few days and—Do you see? You have knowledge of him to guide you in decidin’ he’s not, well, victim of delusion. I don’t have that knowledge, not yet, anyway.”
Nomi relented, reached across the table and patted his hand. “Indeed, Firstling. You do right to ask. I am gladdened that in you he has found the worthy comrade he needs.”
Has he?
Perhaps she read the struggle on his face, for she continued, low-voiced and looking beyond him:
“Why should I wonder that you wonder? I did likewise. When he vanished for three dreadful days, and came home utterly changed—Yes, I thought a blood vessel must have burst in his brain, and wept for my kind, hard-working first-born boy, who had gotten so little from life.
“Afterward I came to understand how he had been singled out as no man ever was before in all of space and time. But that wasn’t a joy, Firstling, as we humans know joy. His glory is as great and as cruel as the sun. Most likely he shall have to die. Only the other night, I dreamed he was Shoemaker Jaan again, married to a girl I used to think about for him, and they had laid their first baby in my arms. I woke laughing … ” Her fingers closed hard on the cup. “That cannot be, of course.”
Ivar never knew if he would have been able to probe further. An interruption saved him: Robhar, the youngest disciple, knocking at the door.
“I thought you might be here, sir,” the boy said breathlessly. Though the master had identified the newcomer only by a false name, his importance was obvious. “Caruith will come as soon as he can.” He thrust forward an envelope. “For you.”
“Huh?” Ivar stared.
“The mission to Nova Roma is back, sir,” Robhar said, nigh bursting with excitement. “It brought a letter for you. The messenger gave it to Caruith, but he told me to bring it straight to you.”
To Heraz Hyronsson stood on the outside. Ivar ripped the envelope open. At the end of several pages came the bold signature Tanya. His own account to her had warned her how to address a reply.
“Excuse me,” he mumbled, and sat down to gulp it.
Afterward he was very still for a while, his features locked. Then he made an excuse for leaving, promised to get in touch with Jaan soon, and hurried off. He had some tough thinking to do.
XIX
None but a few high-ranking officers among the Companions had been told who Ivar was. They addressed him as Heraz when in earshot of others. He showed himself as seldom as feasible, dining with Yakow in the Commander’s suite, sleeping in a room nearby which had been lent him, using rear halls, ramps, and doorways for his excursions. In that vast structure, more than half of it unpopulated, he was never conspicuous. The corps knew their chief was keeping someone special, but were too disciplined to gossip about it.
Thus he and Yakow went almost unseen to the chamber used as a garage. Jaan was already present, in response to word from a runner. A guard saluted as the three men entered an aircar; and no doubt much went on in his head, but he would remain close-mouthed. The main door glided aside. Yakow’s old hands walked skillfully across the console. The car lifted, purred forth into the central enclosure, rose a vertical kilometer, and started leisurely southward.
A wind had sprung up as day rolled toward evening. It whined around the hull, which shivered. The Sea of Orcus bore whitecaps on its steel-colored surface and flung waves against its shores; where spray struck and evaporated, salt was promptly hoar. The continental shelf glowed reddish from long rays filtered through a dust-veil which obscured the further desert; the top of that storm broke oft in thin clouds and streamed yellow across blueblack heaven.
Yakow put controls on automatic, swiveled his seat around, and regarded the pair who sat aft of him. “Very well, we have the meeting place you wanted, Firstling,” he said. “Now will you tell us why?”
Ivar felt as if knives and needles searched him. He flicked his glance toward Jaan’s mild countenance, remembered what lay beneath it, and recoiled to stare out the canopy at the waters which they were crossing. I’m supposed to cope with these two? he thought despairingly.
Well, there’s nobody else for job. Nobody in whole wide universe. Against his loneliness, he hugged to him the thought that they might prove to be in truth his comrades in the cause of liberation.
“I, I’m scared of possible spies, bugs,” he said.
“Not in my part of the Arena,” Yakow snapped. “You know how often and thoroughly we check.”
“But Terrans have resources of, of entire Empire to draw on. They could have stuff we don’t suspect. Like telepathy.” Ivar forced himself to turn back to Jaan. “You scan minds.”
“Within limits,” the prophet cautioned. “I have explained.”
Yes. He took me down into mountain’s heart and showed me machine—device—whatever it is that he says held record of Caruith. He wouldn’t let me touch anything, though I couldn’t really blame him, and inside I was just as glad for excuse not to. And there he sensed my thoughts. I tested him every way I could imagine, and he told me exactly what I was thinkin’, as well as some things I hadn’t quite known I was thinkin’. Yes.
He probably wouldn’t’ve needed telepathy to see my sense of privacy outraged. He smiled and told me—
“Fear not. I have only my human nervous system, and it isn’t among the half-talented ones which occur rarely in our species. By myself, I cannot resonate any better than you, Firstling.” Bleakly: “This is terrible for Caruith, like being deaf or blind; but he endures, that awareness may be helped to fill reality. And down here—” Glory: “Here his former vessel acts to amplify, to recode, like a living brain center. Within its range of operation, Caruith-Jaan is part of what he rightfully should be: of what he will be again, when his people return and make for us that body we will have deserved.”
I can believe anyway some fraction of what he claimed. Artificial amplification and relayin’ of telepathy are beyond Terran science; but I’ve read of experiments with it, in past eras when Terran science was more progressive than now. Such technology is not too far beyond our present capabilities: almost matter of engineerin’ development rather than pure research.