18
In the Tree City of the Arbai two religious gentlemen sat in the mild breezes of evening, eating fruit which had been brought from the surrounding trees by foxen, one of whom had remained to join the feast.
“Like plums,” said Father James. He had arrived at the city by foxen back in midmorning. Father Sandoval had refused to come. Brother Mainoa had come to the city earlier, an exhausting trip from which he had not yet recovered. Now the Brother reclined against the breast of a foxen, like a child in a shadowy chair, while Father James tried to convince himself yet again that the foxen were real — not dreams, not amorphous visions, not abstractions or delusions. Conviction was difficult when he couldn’t really see them. He caught a glimpse of paw, or hand, a glimpse of eye, a shadowed fragment of leg or back. Trying to see the being entire was giving him eye strain and a headache. He turned aside, resolving not to bother. Soon everything would resolve itself, one way or another.
“Chameleons,” Brother Mainoa whispered. “Psychic chameleons. The Hippae can do it too, though not as well.”
Father James’ lips trembled. “Don’t you think the fruit is like plums?” he repeated, longing for something familiar. “Though perhaps the texture is more like a pear. Small, though.”
“Ripening this early, they’d likely be small,” Brother Mainoa offered in a breathy whisper. “The fruits of summer and fall are larger, even from these same trees.” He sounded contented, though very weak.
“They fruit more than once during the season, then?”
“Oh, yes,” Mainoa murmured. “They fruit continually until late fall.”
Along a bridge leading from the plaza Janetta bon Maukerden was dancing, humming to herself. Dimity bon Damfels watched from the plaza, mouth open around a thumb, eyes remotely curious. Stella was with Rillibee in a room facing the plaza. The older men could hear his voice.
“Take the fruit in your hand, Stella. That’s it. Now, have a bite. Good girl. Wipe your chin.
“He’s very patient,” whispered Brother Mainoa.
“He would have to be,” murmured Father James. “Three of them!”
“Poor unfortunates,” Father James said. “We’ll help him with them while we’re here. It’s the least we can do.” He thought a moment, then added, “If we’re here long enough.”
A group of shadow Arbai came toward them, checkered them with arms and legs and shoulders, battered them with sibilant conversation, then moved on past. A swoop of scarlet and brilliant blue swept below them, from one tree to another, a colorful almost-bird, quite different from the Terran species, yet enough resembling them that one would think “parrot” on seeing them. Out on the bridge where Janetta danced, one of the shadow figures grasped a railing with shadow hands and squatted over the edge. The Arbai had been casual about elimination.
“It will be your choice,” Brother Mainoa said in a weak whisper. “Your choice, Father. Whether to stay or go.”
The priest protested “We’re not even sure we can live here! Food, for example. We’re not sure these fruits will sustain our lives.”
Brother Mainoa assured him, “The fruit plus grass seeds will be more than enough. Brother Laeroa has spent years determining the nutrient value of various grass seed combinations. After all, Father, on Terra many men lived on little else than wheat or rice or corn. They, too, are seeds of grass.”
“Harvesting grass seed would mean going out into the prairies,” Father James objected. “The Hippae wouldn’t allow that.”
“You could do it,” said the Brother. “You’d have protection…” He shut his eyes and seemed to drift off as he had been doing ever since they arrived.
“Though, come to think of it,” said Father James, suddenly remembering farms he had visited as a child, “here in the swamp one could have ducks, and geese.” He tried to summon a hearty chuckle, but what came out instead was a tremulous half sigh. The young priest had just remembered that the few humans on Grass might be all the humans there were. Whether one could have ducks or not, there might be nowhere else to go.
“Wipe your chin again,” said Rillibee Chime. “Oh, Stella, that’s such a good smart girl.”
Janetta spun and hummed, then stopped momentarily and said, quite clearly, “Potty!” She hitched up her smock, grasped the railing, and squatted where she was on the bridge, her bottom over the edge in the same pose the shadow Arbai had adopted moments before.
“She can talk,” said Father James unnecessarily, his face pink as he turned it away from Janetta’s bare buttocks.
“She can learn,” Brother Mainoa agreed, suddenly awake once more.
Father James sighed, his face turned resolutely away. “Let’s hope she can learn to be a bit more modest.”
Brother Mainoa smiled. “Or that we can learn to be — as, evidently, the Arbai were — less concerned with the flesh.”
Father James felt a wave of sadness, a wash of emotion so intensely painful that it seemed physical. He suddenly saw Brother Mainoa through some other being’s senses: a fragile friend, an evanescent kinsman who would not be concerned with the flesh at all for very much longer.
Someone was watching him. He looked up to see a pair of glowing, inhuman eyes, clearly fixed on his own. They were brimming with enormous, very human tears.
Shortly following the detention of the Yrariers, the Seraph in command of the Hierarch’s troops took a few of his “saints” in battle dress — more to impress the populace than for any tactical reason — and made a sweep through the town and surrounding farms, searching, so the Seraph said, for someone named Brother Mainoa. Everyone had seen him at one unhelpful time or another. Several people knew where he slept. Others knew where he had been having supper hours before. No one knew where he was at that moment.
“He was depressed,” an informer by the name of Persun Pollut told them with transparent honesty. “About all the Brothers getting burned up out at the Friary. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d gone down into the swamp forest. There’ve been several people done that recently.” All of which was true. Though he pulled a mournful face and sighed at the Seraph, Persun couldn’t wait to see the Tree City for himself.
The troop made a cursory search along the edge of the trees, sending a patrol some little way into the forest. Troopers returned soaked to the thighs saying they couldn’t quite remember seeing anything. Spy eyes sent into the dim aisles of cloaking vines saw nothing either. Or, those who followed the spy eyes on helmet screens were sure they saw nothing, which amounted to the same thing. It was conceded among those who had inspected the swamp forest close up that if this Brother what’s-his-name had gone in there, he was probably drowned and long gone.
Meantime, the troopers remaining in town were offered cakes and roast goose and flagons of beer and were treated to a good deal of garrulity which had nothing to do with what they were looking for. The search continued with increasing laxness and joviality while the day wandered inconclusively toward evening.
The Seraph was an old hand at appearing Sanctified, one who could and did spew catechetical references at every opportunity. In Commoner Town he found his views listened to with such flattering attention that he actually began to enjoy himself, though — as he told anyone who would listen — he would have felt more secure with a few hundred saints deployed, rather than a scant two score. According to these good people, there were hostiles on the planet, hostiles that had already built themselves one route under the forest.
“Haven’t you any devices to detect digging?” he asked. “Any mechanisms that listen for tremors? That kind of thing?”
“Grass doesn’t have tremors, not like that.” Roald Few told him. “About the worst shaking we get is when the Hippae go dancing.”
The Seraph shook his head, feeling expansive “I’ll bring some detectors down from the ship. Standard issue. We use them to locate sappers coming in under fortifications. They’ll do the job for you here.’
