can’t feel anything anymore. She doesn’t know anyone anymore.”
“Give her back, Shevlok. I know there’s nothing there anymore—”
“Oh, there’s still something there. Something dreadful and perverse. Something they could use…” He gasped with sudden pain. “Damn them.”
His sister laughed bitterly, rubbing her bruised arm. “Damn
He shook his head like a baffled bull. “I didn’t know what the Hippae did.”
“My God, Shevlok, what did you think happened when girls disappeared? When they vanished? What did you think!”
“I never thought they did that,” he insisted. “Never thought they did that.”
“You never thought!” she shrieked at him. “Right! You never thought. It wasn’t you, so you never thought. Oh, damn you, Shevlok. Don’t go blaming the Hippae for getting her like that. You did it. You and Father and Figor and all you damn riders…”
“Not… not my fault.”
“If this hadn’t happened, you’d have married Janetta and had children and made them go hunting, too,” she accused him. “You’d have seen your daughters vanish and your sons get their arms bitten off, but you wouldn’t have stopped!”
“I don’t know. I might have. I don’t know.”
“Are you going to bon Laupmon’s to the Hunt today?”
He shrugged. “Probably.”
“You see! You know what happens, but you’ll still go. And some bon Laupmon girl or some bon Haunser girl will disappear, but that won’t matter because you’re not in love with them.” She wiped her face with her fingers, then pointed to the sleeping girl “What will happen to her?”
“I’ve got a woman from the village to come feed her, wash her, play with her, like a kitten.”
“If you’re going to Hunt, and Father goes…”
He shook himself, looking at her for the first time, trying to smile. He was fond of her, and of Emeraude. He kept trying to remember that. He was fond of her and Emeraude and Sylvan, and of his mother. “I heard about Emmy. You want an aircar, don’t you. To take Emmy in to Commons. Is she bad?”
“She’s as bad as Father could do before we pulled him off her. She won’t die, if that’s what you mean. Not if I can get her away from here. Her, and me.”
“Take her. then.”
“Father told the servants not to obey me. He didn’t tell them not to obey you.”
“I’ll tell old Murfon. After Father’s gone to bon Laupmon’s, Murfon will take you. I’ll tell him to pick you up from the village. Don’t let anyone see you.”
“Shall I take her, too?” Amy gestured toward the sprawled girl on the disordered bed.
Shevlok staggered to his feet and went to look down at the sleeping figure. He sobbed once, a sound that held more anger than grief. “You might as well. If you leave her here, I’ll kill her.”
14
Rigo asked Sebastian Mechanic to accompany him to the bon Laupmons’ place. He asked Persun Pollut and Asmir to come along as well, spending a few futile moments wishing the men were bigger, wishing they had weapons, wishing they were not commoners but bons so they would be taken seriously. Well, what use to wish? They were commoners and there were no weapons on Grass, none he had seen. None except the harpoons of the hunters, and the ungainly length of those instruments made them useless for protection. He felt very much alone and was foolishly ashamed of himself for feeling so.
He dressed with meticulous care, hating the froggy spread of the trousers, the effete look of the long pointed toes on his boots. Finally he took his hat and gloves from his villager-turned-valet and examined himself in the glass. At least from the waist up he looked like a proper gentleman. As though that made any difference. As though anything would make any difference!
He would not apologize for taking Persun and Sebastian and Asmir along, it was certainly not improper to take servants to the Hunt. Others did. When a bon Haunser returned from a bon Damfels Hunt and went into the bon Damfels’ guest quarters, it was his own servants who had prepared a room for him, his own servants who had kept the bath hot and laid out fresh clothing. When Rigo had ridden for the first time, he hadn’t known. No one had told him. He and Stella had had to return all the way to Opal Hill before they could bathe.
When he had ridden the second time he had brought a man along but there had been no question of bathing. Stella had vanished, and that is all he had been able to think of. Now, for the first time, he wondered what would have happened if Stella hadn’t vanished. He, Rigo, had taken a man along. He had forgotten to provide anyone for Stella. It was an uncomfortable thought, and he pushed it aside.
“Rigo?” A soft voice from the door.
He turned his self-hatred on her. “Eugenie! What are you doing here?” Ridiculously, for a moment he had thought it was Marjorie.
“I thought you might need some help. With Marjorie gone—”
“I have a valet, Eugenie.” Behind him the man prudently left the room. “Marjorie doesn’t dress me.”
She fluttered her hands and changed the subject. “Have you had any news about Stella?”
“I haven’t heard anything about any of them. And you don’t belong here in my bedroom. You know that.”
“I know.” A tear crept down her cheek. “I don’t feel like I belong anyplace.”
“Go to Commons,” he told her. “Take a room at the Port Hotel. Amuse yourself. For God’s sake, Eugenie, I don’t have time for you now.”
She caught her breath. Her face went white and she turned away. Something in that turn, the curve of the neck. Like Marjorie. Now he had insulted them both! God. what kind of man was he?
Full of angry self-loathing, he went out to the gravel court where the aircar waited, then stood about impatiently while Sebastian arranged for the other car to take Eugenie to Commons if she wanted to go. Women. Damned women. With no other driver available, Asmir would have to stay to take Eugenie into town.
“Grass can be very boring for women,” Persun Pollut remarked.
“My mother has often mentioned that.” Persun stood with his hands linked behind him, his long, lugubrious face turned toward the garden.
“From what you have said, your mother keeps very busy,” Rigo commented, his voice still full of edgy hostility.
“Oh, I don’t mean life is boring in Commons, Your Excellency. I mean out here. Out here can be death for women. From boredom. From the Hunt. From so many things…”
Rigo did not want to think about women. He did not understand women, obviously. He was no good with women. Marjorie. No good with her. Who would have expected her to take the initiative this way, go running off to involve Green Brothers, dragging Tony and Father Sandoval along. She had never been like that. On Terra she’d contented herself with being mother or horsewoman. There’d been that little charitable thing that took too much of her time, Lady Bountiful carrying cast-off clothing to the illegals. But then, what had she had to do with herself otherwise? She wasn’t like Eugenie, to spend half a day at the loveliness shops. Or like Espinoza’s wife, that time, getting hauled in by the population police because she’d been mixed up in illicit abortions to save some ignorant little cunts from getting executed. Poor ’Spino hadn’t been able to face his friends. No, whatever Marjorie had done on Terra, she’d kept it insignificant, she hadn’t encroached on Rigo’s responsibilities…
There was some kind of mental trap there. He avoided it by returning to his earlier thoughts about weapons. Why were there no weapons on Grass? Surely the order officers at Commons must have some kind of tanglefoots or freeze batons. Such items were ubiquitous wherever there were ports and taverns and the need to knock down unruly men. Why didn’t the people at the estancias have them? Characteristically, preferring actual ignorance to the appearance of it, he did not ask Persun, who could have told him.
