The Shadow and Night (9 page)

“Last night? I was safely asleep indoors last night at the Antalfers. But
wait.
 . . .” Something like ice seemed to run up his spine. “When was this?
Last
night?” Merral stared into Jorgio's eyes.

“Aye, last night. . . .”

“You're sure?”

The old man wrinkled his weathered face and bit his bottom lip in puzzlement. Then he grunted. “Tut. No! I'm sorry. It wasn't. It was the night before.”

Merral stepped back, feeling as if a chill hand had touched him. “No, it wasn't a bear,” he said, suddenly both chastened and grateful. “But it was something. I don't know what it was. And I'm very glad you prayed. Very glad.”

For a moment, Jorgio stared at him, as if waiting for an explanation. Merral found himself oddly disinclined to say anything about his dream and suggested instead that they stable Graceful.

Ten minutes later, having said farewell to Jorgio, Merral was still oscillating between puzzlement and thankfulness as he made his way down to the loading bay. There, floodlit beneath the weather shelter, he could see the brick red, faceted bulk of the six-wheeled Light Groundfreighter with the code
F-28
stamped on its side by the Lamb and Stars emblem.

He was striding toward it when his attention was caught by a slender female figure with long black hair tied back walking ahead of him with a strangely familiar pace.

“Ingrida Hallet!” Merral called out.

The woman spun round smoothly and gave a little cry of recognition. “Why! Merral D'Avanos!”

They hugged each other affectionately. Ingrida had been a year above Merral at college, but they had been close friends. Separating himself from her embrace, Merral stepped back and they looked at each other.

“I heard you were here,” she said. “I gather you've been riding around up north. Going all right?”

“Fine, but no room to relax. The winters could be warmer, the summers cooler. But what brings
you
here?”

“Ah.” She smiled brightly. “You don't know? Of course, you've been out of touch and it's not been posted yet. I've been asked to work here. Forestry Assistant and so on. So I decided to come and look round on my Nativity break.”

“Oh, but I thought I'd heard that you were going south. That you'd got the rainforest assignment they have been wanting to fill. I was wrong?”

She shook her head in an amused way and grinned at him mischievously. “Oh, we talked it through. The board thinks this is more suitable. I'm inclined to agree, although this—”she gestured to the farm complex—“will be a bit of a backwater when the enlarged Herrandown village is up and running and the new Northern Forest extension is the front line. No, I think the tropics job requires more than I have got. There's a better candidate.”

“I'd be surprised; tropical systems are tough. But I'm sure you'll get on fine here. I like it up north myself.”

She gave him the grin again, only this time he felt laughter was just below the surface. “Not too much, I hope.”

“Sorry, I don't understand.”

“Oh, Merral, you haven't changed. Not a bit! You are the last person to recognize your gifting.
You
are the one they want for the tropical assignment.”

In his astonishment, Merral struggled for words, aware that a man in rust-red overalls was waving at him from the side of the freighter.

“Me? This is all news to me. I've always seen it as
your
job.”

“No. You are outgrowing here. Ask anybody.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Anyway, take it with my blessing, Merral. Do a really great job. Look, that's your driver, you'd better go. Swing by sometime. Love. . . .”

Then Ingrida was gone and the hatch door on the freighter was opening.

The six-wheeler took four hours to cover the one hundred and eighty kilometers to Ynysmant, slowed down by patches of ice on some of the ridges, a track washout, and a herd of golden deer that refused to move. Merral spent most of the time in conversation with the driver, Arent, who was an enthusiast for this particular Mark Nine Groundfreighter, which he'd driven for thirty years. Merral liked enthusiasts of any sort, even if wheeled, winged, or finned engines of transport were not a personal interest.

Yet, in a strange way, Merral was glad of being forced to concentrate on Arent's lengthy discourse on the advantages of the Mark Nine over the old Mark Eight. There was too much crowding into his tired brain now and he was glad of a relatively simple distraction. The prospect of the tropical forestry posting was staggering. When, a few months ago, he had originally heard about it, he had expressed regret that it hadn't come up two years later when he felt he might have been ready for it. Tropical forestry was held up as the great challenge in his profession, and only those who had proved themselves in temperate or cold realms were asked to serve in it. The saying was that cold or temperate forest work was like juggling with three balls; but with tropical, it was eight. The many more species gave a multitude of interactions, and everything happened so fast. He wondered whether Ingrida had made a mistake. In the meantime, he forced himself to follow Arent's explanation of why it would take at least another twenty years of careful design before it was worthwhile producing the Mark Ten Light Groundfreighter.

They were winding through the beech woods on what Merral knew was the last ridge before Ynysmere Lake when Arent looked upward through the transparent roof panel. “Tell you what, the clouds have cleared and we are ahead of schedule. Let me put her on nonvisual waveband sensing and slow the speed.”

The rapid flickering of the tree trunks in the headlights eased. “Now we cut the lights. We should get a great view of the stars and the town.”

Merral had seen it done before, but found it as impressive as ever. For a moment everything outside was total darkness and then gradually his adapting eyes made out the stars, high, sharp, and diamond brilliant above the rushing black smear of branches, and ahead over the ridge, the golden beacons of the Gate and the sharp, clear pinpoint that was the gas giant planet Fenniran were clearly visible.

Arent looked upward and spoke in hushed, reverent tones. “Nativity's Eve, Merral. I always feel somehow that high heaven is that bit nearer tonight. But I suppose that'd be the sort of thing you learned folk would smile at?”

“Oh, ‘learned folk' indeed, Arent!” Merral laughed. “This night of all reminds us of the folly of that idea. I recollect that it was to shepherds in the fields the angels appeared, not to the wise in Jerusalem. Anyway, I'm not as learned as you are on your F-28.”

“True enough.”

“And you may well be right, I suppose, Arent. High heaven may be nearer to us tonight—but we have no instruments to measure its proximity.” Then, without thinking, he added, “Or that of hell either.”

He sensed Arent's face, looking curiously at him in the darkness. “Sorry, Merral. Did you say something?”

“Sort of. . . .” He paused, puzzled at where the words had come from. “But I didn't mean to.”

There was a long silence as the road flattened, and then they crested the hill. Ahead and below them in a sea of blackness appeared a cone of tiny twinkling points of silver light, as if some sort of faint human echo of the glory above.

And as he looked carefully at the town of Ynysmant perched on its steep island in the lake, Merral could see how the reflection of the lights shimmered as the lake's dark waters stirred in the wind.

Home,
he thought, and the word had a peculiar taste of welcome to it that he felt it had never had before.

Merral left the freighter at the island end of the causeway, thanked Arent, and half walked and half ran up the winding steps into the town. With it being Nativity's Eve there were many groups on their way to parties and concerts, and Merral picked up a sense of excitement in the air.

The lights were on at his house, a narrow three-story unit in the middle of a sinuous terrace with overhanging eaves. Merral pushed open the door, vaguely surprised to find the hall and kitchen empty. There was ample evidence of recent cooking with a tray of small jam cakes on the side table, and the smell made him realize suddenly how hungry he was. Putting his bag down, he took off his jacket and slung it on a chair. He was suddenly aware of feeling tired and sweaty. It had, he decided, been a long day. Eventually the smell of the cakes was too much for him and he helped himself to one, putting it whole in his mouth and finding it as delicious as he had expected. As he stood there, he heard talking in the general room beyond and, swallowing the last cake fragments, pushed the door open.

His mother, dressed in a skirt and blouse patterned with flowers, rose from her chair suddenly at his entry. She gave a little cry of “Merral,” came over, and kissed him warmly. As they broke free from each other, he saw behind her a thinly built, dark-skinned man of medium height wearing a neat blue formal suit rising from a chair.

His mother took his arm and stretched it out.

“I'm so
glad
you're back. Merral, let me introduce you to—I think I have the name right—Mr. Verofaza Laertes Enand.”

The young man smiled gravely and gave a slight bow. “Indeed,” he said. “Verofaza Laertes Enand,
sentinel.
A pleasure.”

Merral stared at him, hurriedly trying to wipe crumbs off his lips with his left hand. The name made no sense. There was only one sentinel on Farholme, an old man, and this was not him. Besides which the man's accent was out of the ordinary, but somehow familiar. Merral felt he had always known it.

“Merral Stefan D'Avanos,” he said, awkwardly swallowing the last fragments of cake as he shook hands. Then he looked at the guest.
“Sentinel?
Here?” he asked. “But have you replaced old Brenito? He's not . . .?”

The man stood back, his smile slightly awkward, even shy.
He's young,
Merral thought,
probably my age—midtwenties.

“No, he is alive and well. I have traveled farther than your capital.”

Merral realized that he had answered in Communal, not the Farholmen dialect. He was suddenly aware of his mother tugging his arm and speaking to him in a quiet intensity of excitement. But even as she spoke he knew what she was going to say, for he had understood why the accent was familiar and why he had known it since childhood.

“Merral,” she said in an awed voice, “he's come from Ancient Earth.”

4

M
erral stared at the stranger. At college, he had once been in a meeting that had been addressed by someone from Ancient Earth, and he had met pilots and others who had trained there. But he personally had never as much as shaken hands with anybody from there. Indeed now, as he scrutinized the visitor, he felt there was something unusual about him. The suit had a strangely severe line, the black curly hair was cut in a peculiar way, and the rich dark brown skin was darker than any he had seen on Farholme. On their own, these things were merely oddities; taken together they said that the visitor was not from his world.