what’s happening, so yes, we know where plague is. It is everywhere.”
Rigo flushed with sudden fury. “Well then, for the sake of heaven, why aren’t the scientists and researchers on the way there! Why come to me?”
“The aristocrats who run the place won’t give permission for scientists and researchers to visit the planet. Oh, we could send our people into the port town, yes. Place is called Commoner Town. It’s open to visitors. But there’s no such thing as immigration. They’d get a visitor’s permit, good until the next ship came through headed in the right direction. We’ve already done that a few times. Our people can’t find out anything. Not there in the port. And do you think they can get anywhere else on Grass? Not on your life. Not on anyone’s. Sanctity has no power on the planet.”
Rigo stared, frankly unbelieving. “You really have no mission there?”
“The only contact Sanctity has with Grass is through the penitential encampment working on the Arbai ruins. Not all our acolytes work out. It won’t do to send them home to teach other unwilling boys how to get out of their service. So we send them to Grass. Our encampment was already there when the Grassians arrived. The Green Brothers. So named because of the robes they wear. There must be over a thousand of them, but they have virtually no contact with the aristocrats. Over a hundred years ago the Hierarch ordered them to develop some interest they could use as common ground with the Grassians, but there really is no common ground.”
“Trying to make your penitents into more of your damn missionaries,” snarled Rigo.
O’Neil wiped his brow. “Oh, I won’t deny that’s what the man in charge of Acceptable Doctrine would like. His name’s Jhamlees Zoe, and he gets madder than a teased bull about our not converting the planet to Sanctity, by force if necessary. The Hierarch sends him word to calm down or come home, and it only makes him madder,” O’Neil wiped his forehead where the sweat glistened.
“What did the brothers do to develop ties with the aristocrats?”
“They took up gardening.” O’Neil laughed harshly. “Gardening! They’ve become specialists in that. Oh, they’ve become renowned for that. So well known even Jhamlees didn’t dare put a stop to it. But that still doesn’t give them any day-to-day contact with the rest of the planet, not enough to learn anything. And the damned aristos won’t let us in!”
“Not even when you told them…”
“The Grassians aren’t suffering. We’ve tried to describe to them what’s happening, but they don’t seem to care. They were separatists to begin with, more concerned with maintaining the privileges of their rank than with any human concerns. Lesser nobility. Or perhaps merely pretenders at nobility. European, mostly, and ridiculously proud of their noble blood, full of pretensions about it. That’s why they’ve consistently refused permission for a temple or a mission. Ten generations on Grass has only made them more isolationist, more… more strange It’s like they’ve had iron walls built in their heads! They refuse to be studied. They refuse to be proselytized. They refuse to be visited! Except, maybe, by someone like you…
“Sanctity has a navy.” Rigo said it as fact. He disapproved of that fact, but it was true. Planetary governments were isolated and parochial and content to be so, Once the initial explosive overflow of humanity had taken place, Sanctity had done everything it could to stop further exploration. The faith had not wanted men to be so widespread they couldn’t be evangelized and controlled. Discovery had stopped, along with science and art and invention. Though its military technology was centuries old, Sanctity maintained the only interstellar force.
Sender O’Neil sighed deeply. “It’s been considered. If we take troopers in there, the reason couldn’t be kept secret, not for long. All hell would break loose. We can’t even consider it until we know for sure that there’s something there. Please. Whatever you think of us, give us credit for some intelligence! We’ve computer-modeled everything. Our best people have done it over and over again. News of the plague
“Some kind of end-of-the-world sect, aren’t they?”
“End of the universe, more likely. But yes, they fervently desire the end of the world, the human world. They call themselves the Martyrs of the Last Days. They believe the time has come to end all human life. They believe in an afterlife which will only commence when this one has ended, for everyone. We’ve recently learned that the Moldies are ‘helping’ the plague.”
“My God!”
“Yes. Anyone’s God!”
“How?”
“Carrying infected materials from one place to another. Like the ancient anarchists, destroying so that something better can come.”
“What has this to do with—”
“It has this to do with. All Sanctity’s resources are tied up in tracking and expunging the Moldies. They seem to be everywhere, to breed out of nothing. If they heard… if they knew there was a chance that Grass—”
“They’d go there?”
“They’d wreck whatever slim chance there may be. No, whatever we do, it must be covert, quiet, without drawing any notice. According to the computers, we’ve got five to seven years in which to act. After that, the plague may have gone so far that — Well. The Grassians have said they’ll accept an ambassador.”
“I see.” And he had seen. The Grassians would consent to a delaying action. Enough to make Sanctity eschew any ideas of using force, but not enough to seriously inconvenience anyone on Grass.
“You say they ride?” Rigo had asked Sender O’Neil, trying to change the pictures of doom and destruction which had swarmed into his mind. “You say they ride? Did they take horses, hounds, and foxes with them when they settled there?”
“No. They found indigenous variants upon the theme.” O’Neil had licked his pursy lips, liking this phrase and repeating it. “Indigenous variants.”
The huge, amorphous creature was pulled struggling from the crown of the copse while bon Haunser described what was probably taking place below the trees. He spoke openly, almost offhandedly, carefully ignoring their reaction to the sight of the thing.
When they had returned partway to Klive, Rigo recovered himself sufficiently to say, “You seem very objective about all this. Forgive me, but your brother seemed… how can I describe it? Embarrassed? Defensive?”
“I don’t ride any longer.” said Eric, flushing. “My legs. A hunting accident. Those of us who don’t ride — some of us at least — we become less enthusiastic.” He said this diffidently, as though he were not quite sure of it, and he did not offer to explain what it was about the Hunt that made the current riders unwilling to talk about it. Each of the Yrariers had his or her own ideas about the matter, ideas which they incubated as they sailed silently over the prairies, in time each achieving an imperiled calm.
They arrived back at Klive before the riders did and were met, though scarcely welcomed, by Rowena. She escorted them to a large reception room overlooking the first surface, where she introduced them to the gaggle of pregnant women and children and older men who were eating, drinking, and playing games at scattered tables. She encouraged the Yrariers to tell the servants what they wanted to drink and serve themselves from the laden buffet, then she drifted away. Eric bon Haunser joined them. Very shortly thereafter a horn blew outside the western gate and the riders began to trickle in. Most went immediately to bathe and change their clothing, but a few came into the room, obviously famished.
Eric murmured, ‘They have drunk nothing for twelve hours before the Hunt except the palliative offered before the Hounds come in. Once the Hunt has begun, there is no opportunity to relieve oneself.”
“Most uncomfortable,” Marjorie mused, lost in recollection of the sharp implacable spines on the necks of the mounts. “Is it really worth it?”
He shook his head. “I am no philosopher, Lady Westriding. If you were to ask my brother, he would say yes. If you ask me, I may say yes or no. But then, he rides and I don’t.”
