Lev left her there with Timmo’s mother and her own mother. He came out of the house and stood hesitant, then returned slowly toward the crowd. His father came forward to meet him; Lev saw the curly gray hair, the eyes seeking through torchlight. Sasha was a slight, short man; as they embraced Lev felt the bones beneath the skin, hard and frail.
“You were with Southwind?”
“Yes. I can’t—”
He clung for a minute to his father, and the hard, thin hand stroked his arm. The torchlight blurred and stung in his eyes. When he let go, Sasha drew back to look at him, saying nothing, intent dark eyes, the mouth hidden by a bristly gray mustache.
“You’ve been all right, Father?”
Sasha nodded. “You’re tired. Come on home.” As they started down the street he said, “Did you find the promised land?”
“Yes. A valley. A river-valley. Five kilos from the sea. Everything we need. And beautiful—the mountains above it—Range behind range, higher and higher, higher than the clouds, whiter—You can’t believe how high you have to look to see the highest peaks.” He had stopped walking.
“Mountains in between? Rivers?”
Lev looked down from the white visionary heights, into his father’s eyes.
“Enough to keep the Bosses from following us there?”
After a moment Lev smiled. “Maybe,” he said.
It was the middle of the bog-rice harvest, so that many of the farming people could not come, but all the villages sent a man or woman to Shantih to hear what the explorers reported and what the people said. It was afternoon, still raining; the big open place in front of the Meeting House was crowded with umbrellas made of the broad, red, papery leaves of the thatch-tree. Under the umbrellas people stood or squatted on leaf-mats in the mud, and cracked nuts, and talked, until at last the little bronze bell of the Meeting House went tonka-tonka-tonk; then they all looked at the porch of the Meeting House, where Vera stood ready to speak.
She was a slender woman with iron-gray hair, a narrow nose, dark oval eyes. Her voice was strong and clear, and while she spoke there was no other sound but the quiet patter of the rain, and now and then the chirp of a little child in the crowd, quickly hushed.
She welcomed the explorers back. She spoke of Timmo’s death, and, very quietly and briefly, of Timmo himself, as she had seen him on the day the exploring party left. She spoke of their hundred-day trek through the wilderness. They had mapped a great area east and north of Songe Bay, she said, and they had found what they went to find—a site for a new settlement, and a passable way to it. “A good many of us here,” she said, “don’t like the idea of a new settlement so far from Shantih. And among us now are also some of our neighbors from the City, who may wish to join in our plans and discussions. The whole matter must be fully considered and freely discussed. So first let Andre and Lev speak for the explorers, and tell us what they saw and found.”
Andre, a stocky, shy man of thirty, described their journey to the north. His voice was soft and he did not speak easily, but the crowd listened intently to his sketch of the world beyond their long-familiar fields. Some, towards the back, craned until they saw the men from the City, of whose presence Vera had politely warned them. There they were near the porch, six men in jerkins and high boots: Bosses’ bodyguards, each with a long sheathed knife on the thigh and a whip, the thong neatly curled, tucked into the belt.
Andre mumbled to a close and gave place to Lev, a young man, slight and rawboned, with thick, black, bright hair. Lev also began hesitantly, groping for words to describe the valley they had found and why they thought it most suitable for settlement. As he spoke his voice warmed and he began to forget himself, as if he saw before him what he described: the wide valley and the river which they had named Serene, the lake above it, the bog-lands where rice grew wild, the forests of good timber, the sunny slopes where orchards and root crops could be planted and houses could stand free of the mud and damp. He told of the river mouth, a bay full of shellfish and edible kelp; and he spoke of the mountains that stood above the valley to the north and east, protecting it from the winds that made the winter a weariness of mud and cold at Songe. “The peaks of them go up and up into the silence and sunlight above the clouds,” he said. “They shelter the valley, like a mother with a child in her arms. We called them the Mountains of the Mahatma. It was to see if the mountains kept off the storms that we stayed so long there, fifteen days. Early autumn there is like midsummer here, only the nights are colder; the days were sunny, and no rain. Holdfast thought there might be three rice harvests a year there. There’s a good deal of fruit in the forests, and the fishing in the river and the bay shores would help feed the first year’s settlers till the first harvest. The mornings are so bright there! It wasn’t just to see how the weather was that we stayed. It was hard to leave the place, even to come home.”
They listened with enchantment, and were silent when he stopped.
Somebody called, “How far is it, in days of travel?”
“Martin’s guess is about twenty days, with families and big pack loads.”
“Are there rivers to cross, dangerous places?”
“The best arrangement would be an advance party, a couple of days ahead, to mark out the easiest route. Coming back we avoided all the rough country we went through going north. The only difficult river crossing is right here, the Songe, that’ll have to be done with boats. The others can be forded, till you get to the Serene.”
More questions were shouted out; the crowd lost its enraptured quiet and was breaking into a hundred voluble discussions under the red-leaf umbrellas, when Vera came forward again and asked for silence. “One of our neighbors is here and wishes to talk with us,” she said, and stood aside to let a man behind her come forward. He wore black, with a broad silver-embossed belt. The six men who had stood near the porch had come up on it with him and moved forward in a semicircle, separating him from the other people on the porch.
“Greetings to you all,” the man in black said. His voice was dry, not loud.
“Falco,” people murmured to one another. “The Boss Falco.”
“I am pleased to present the congratulations of the Government of Victoria to these brave explorers. Their maps and reports will be a most valued addition to the Archives of the State in Victoria City. Plans for a limited migration of farmers and manual workers are being studied by the Council. Planning and control are necessary to ensure the safety and welfare of the community as a whole. As this expedition makes clear, we dwell in one corner, one safe haven, of a great and unknown world. We who have lived here longest, who keep the records of the early years of the Settlement, know that rash schemes of dispersal may threaten our survival, and that wisdom lies in order and strict cooperation. I am pleased to tell you that the Council will receive these brave explorers with the welcome of the City, and present them a suitable reward for their endeavors.”
There was a different kind of silence.
Vera spoke; she looked fragile beside the group of bulky men, and her voice sounded light and clear. “We thank the representative of the Council for his courteous invitation.”
Falco said, “The Council will expect to receive the explorers, and examine their maps and reports, in three days’ time.”
Again the pent silence.
“We thank Councillor Falco,” Lev said, “and decline his invitation.”
An older man tugged at Lev’s arm, whispering hard; there was much quick, low talk among the people on the porch, but the crowd before the Meeting House kept silent and motionless.
“We must arrive at decisions on several matters,” Vera said to Falco, but loud enough that all could hear, “before we’re ready to reply to the invitation of the Council.”