they thought all they had to do was point out the error and the Hippae would avoid it.”
“Of course it wasn’t an error,” Marjorie said. “The Hippae enjoyed the killing.”
Father James demurred. “I have a hard time believing in that kind of mind…”
Brother Mainoa sighed. “She’s right, Father. They’ve translated the word the Hippae trampled into the cavern. It’s an Arbai word, or rather a combination of three or more Arbai words. One of them means death, and one means outsiders or strangers, and one means joy. Semling gives a high probability to translating it as
“They think they have a right to kill everything but themselves?”
Father James shook his head.
Marjorie laughed bitterly. “Oh, Father, is that so unusual? Look at our own poor homeworld. Didn’t man think he had a right to kill everything but himself? Didn’t he have fun doing it? Where are the great whales? Where are the elephants? Where are the bright birds who once lived in our own swamp-forests?”
Brother Mainoa said, “Well, they couldn’t kill the ones who lived here in the tree city. The Hippae can’t swim, they can’t climb, so they couldn’t kill the Arbai who were here.”
“It must have been too late for the ones who lived here, nonetheless,” Marjorie said, looking at the shadow lovers who had just returned to the bridge and leaned there in the sun, whispering to one another. Shadow lovers, perilously intent upon one another. Not seeing what was to come. “Perhaps they died when winter came. It was too late for all the others, out there on other worlds.”
“The ones here in the city must have been immune to the disease,” Father James said. “They could have gone underground. Why didn’t they? We must be immune, too. All the people on Grass must be immune.”
“Oh, yes,” Marjorie said. “I’m sure we’re immune, so long as we stay on Grass. It stands to reason the Arbai on Grass were immune, also. That’s why the Hippae killed them as they did. But it doesn’t help to know that! Nothing we’ve found out helps! Nothing tells us how it started. Nothing tells us how to cure it once it’s started. I keep thinking of home. I have a sister back home. Rigo has a mother, a brother, we have nieces and nephews. I have friends!”
“Shhh,” he said. “We know one way to cure it, Marjorie. Anyone who comes here—”
“We don’t even know that,” she contradicted. “Even if we could bring every living human from every populated world to Grass, we don’t know whether they’d catch it again after they left. We don’t know whether we will get it if we leave. We don’t know how it is spread. The foxen know something that will help us, but they won’t tell us! It’s almost as though they’re waiting for something. But what?” She looked up to confront a shadowed mass across the railing. There were eyes, for a moment. Something brushing through her mind. She shook her head angrily. “I have this dreadful feeling of hopelessness. As though it’s already too late for all this. As though things have gone past the point of no return.” Something had changed irrevocably. Some point had been passed. She was sure of that.
A foxen touched her mind with incorporeal hands. She heard a comforting voice saying, “Hush, dear, hush.” She leaned her forehead on a vast shoulder which was nowhere near. The foxen danced in her mind, and she with them.
Abruptly the shoulder was withdrawn. She looked up. The foxen had gone.
In a moment she understood why. She heard human voices ringing over the susurrus of Arbai speech. It was too soon for Tony to be back. They were not voices she recognized.
“Listen,” she said, turning to locate the sound. Not far off in the trees someone saw her and young voices yodeled a paean of anticipation.
There was something threatening in that shout. Marjorie and the two old men retreated across the plaza, watching apprehensively as the three forms flung themselves through the trees, dropping upon the platform like apes.
“Brother Flumzee,” said Brother Mainoa in a calm, weary voice. “I hadn’t expected to see you here.”
Brother Flumzee posed on the railing, one knee up, his arms folded loosely about it. “Call me Highbones,” he chirruped. “Meet my friends. Steeplehands. Long Bridge. There were two more of us, but Little Bridge and Ropeknots got eaten by Hippae out there.” He waved, indicating somewhere else. “Along with Elder Brother Fuasoi and his little friend Shoethai. Not that we’re sure of that. We heard a lot of howling, but maybe they escaped.”
“Why were you out there at all?” Brother Mainoa asked.
“They sent me for you, Brother.” Highbones smiled. “They said you are no longer one of us. You are to be dispensed with.”
“But you said Fuasoi was with you! And Shoethai!”
“We didn’t expect them to come along. They were kind of, what would you say, last-minute additions. They were going to drop us off and then go somewhere else.”
A shadow figure moved among the three climbers. Highbones beat at it, as though it were a swarm of gnats. “What the hell are these things?”
“Only pictures,” said Marjorie. “Pictures of the people who once lived here.”
Highbones turned his head, surveying the city. “Nice,” he said. “A climber’s place. Is there enough to eat so somebody could live here?”
“In summer,” said Brother Mainoa. “Probably. Fruit. And nuts. There may be edible animals, too.”
“Not in winter, hmm? Well, in winter we could go into town, couldn’t we. Probably want to go there anyhow. Pick up some women. Bring them back here.”
“You mean stay here?” Long Bridge asked. “After we do the thing, you mean stay here?”
“Why not?” Highbones asked. “You think of any better place for climbers than this?”
“I don’t like these things.” Long Bridge batted at the shadow forms moving before him. “I don’t like these monsters all over me.”
The two men had been listening and watching, noticing the tense muscles in the climbers’ arms and legs, the strained lines of their necks and jaws. Brother Mainoa thought that all this talk meant nothing. The talk was only to make a space of time, to allow them to size up their opposition. And what was their opposition? An old man, a soft man, and a woman.
Brother Mainoa reached out toward the foxen. Nothing. No pictures. No words.
“Are you hungry?” Marjorie asked. “We have some food we can share with you.”
“Oh, yes, we’re hungry,” leered Highbones. “Not for food, though. We brought enough food of our own.” He ran his tongue along his lips, staring at her, letting his eyes dwell lasciviously on her. She shivered. “You look young and healthy,” Highbones went on. “There was talk back there at the Friary about plague. You don’t have plague, do you, pretty thing?”
“I could have,” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm. “I suppose. There was plague on Terra when we left.”
The two followers turned to Highbones, questions on their lips, but he silenced them with a gesture. “It’s naughty to tell lies. If you got it there, you’d be dead by now. That’s what everybody says.”
“Sometimes it takes years to manifest itself,” said Father James, “but the person still has it.”
“What’re you?” Highbones said with a laugh. “Dressed up like that? Some kind of servant? Mind your manners, servant. Nobody was talking to you.”
“If Fuasoi sent you after me,” Mainoa said thoughtfully, “he could have had only one reason. If he didn’t want knowledge about the cause of the plague disseminated, then he must have been a Moldy.”
Marjorie caught her breath. A Moldy here? Already? Had they been too late!
Highbones ignored the interchange. He put both feet onto the deck, stood up easily, stretching. “You boys ready?” he asked. “Each of you take one of the geezers. I get the woman first—”
“Highbones.” The voice called from above them, from the sun spangle among the high branches. “Highbones the coward. Highbones the liar. Will he climb?”
Marjorie felt the breath go out of her. Rillibee. But only Rillibee. No other voices.
Highbones had turned, neck craning as he searched the high dazzle. “Lourai!” he shouted. “Where are you, you peeper!”
“Here,” the voice called from above. “Where Highbones can’t climb. Where Highbones can’t reach.”
“Keep them quiet,” Highbones snarled, gesturing toward Marjorie and the old men. “Until I get back.” He leapt upon the railing and outward, into the trees “Wait for me, peeper. I’m coming to get you.”
Marjorie’s pack was just inside the door. There was a knife in it. She turned, moving toward it. Steeplehands
