'You're asking what I do for a living?'
'All on planet Walden are living, I hope. Not saved?'
'Yes, we are.' Spur grimaced. He rose from the tell and retrieved his wallet from the night-stand beside the bed. Maybe pix would help. He flipped through a handful in his wallet until he came to the one of Comfort on a ladder picking apples. 'Normally I tend my orchards.' He held the pix up to the tell to show the High Gregory. 'I grow many kinds of fruit on my farm. Apples, peaches, apricots, pears, cherries. Do you have these kinds of fruit on Kenning?'
'Grape trees, yes.' The High Gregory leaned forward in his throne and smiled. 'And all of apples: apple pie and apple squeeze and melt apples.' He seemed pleased that they had finally understood one another. 'But you are not normal?'
'No. I mean yes, I'm fine.' He closed the wallet and pocketed it. 'But… how do I say this? There is fighting on my world.' Spur had no idea how to explain the complicated grievances of the pukpuks and the fanaticism that led some of them to burn themselves alive to stop the spread of the forest and the Transcendent State. 'There are other people on Walden who are very angry. They don't want my people to live here. They wish the land could be returned to how it was before we came. So they set fires to hurt us. Many of us have been called to stop them. Now instead of growing my trees, I help to put fires out.'
'Very angry?' The High Gregory rose from his throne, his face flushed. 'Fighting?' He punched at the air. 'Hit- hit-hit?'
'Not exactly fighting with fists,' said Spur. 'More like a war.'
The High Gregory took three quick steps toward the tell at his end. His face loomed large on Spur's screen. 'War fighting?' He was clearly agitated; his cheeks flushed and the yellow eyes were fierce. 'Making death to the other?' Spur had no idea why the High Gregory was reacting this way. He didn't think the boy was angry exactly, but then neither of them had proved particularly adept at reading the other. He certainly didn't want to cause some interstellar incident.
'I've said something wrong. I'm sorry.' Spur bent his head in apology. 'I'm speaking to you from a hospital. I was wounded… fighting a fire. Haven't quite been myself lately.' He gave the High Gregory a self-deprecating smile. 'I hope I haven't given offense.'
The High Gregory made no reply. Instead he swept from his throne, down a short flight of steps into what Spur could now see was a vast hall. The boy strode past rows of carved wooden chairs, each of them a unique marvel, although none was quite as exquisite as the throne that they faced. The intricate beaded mosaic on the floor depicted turtles in jade and chartreuse and olive. Phosphorescent sculptures stretched like spider webs from the upper reaches of the walls to the barrel-vaulted ceiling, casting ghostly silver-green traceries of light on empty chairs beneath. The High Gregory was muttering as he passed down the central aisle but whatever he was saying clearly overwhelmed the tell's limited capacity. All Spur heard was, 'War ‹crackle› Memsen witness there ‹crackle› our luck ‹crackle› ‹crackle› call the L'ung…'
At that, Spur found himself looking once again at a shining green turtle resting on a rock on a muddy river. 'The High Gregory of Kenning regrets that he is otherwise occupied at the moment,' it said. 'I note with interest that your greeting originates from a jurisdiction under a consensual cultural quarantine. You should understand that it is unlikely that the High Gregory, as luck maker of the L'ung, would risk violating your covenants by having any communication with you.'
'Except I just got done talking to him,' said Spur.
'I doubt that very much.' The turtle drew itself up on four human feet and stared coldly through the screen at him. 'This conversation is concluded,' it said. 'I would ask that you not annoy us again.'
'Wait, I -' said Spur, but he was talking to a dead screen.
Four
But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. - Walden
Spur spent the rest of that day expecting trouble. He had no doubt that he'd be summoned into Dr. Niss's examining room for a lecture about how his body couldn't heal if his soul was sick. Or some virtuator from Concord would be brought in to light communion and deliver a reproachful sermon on the true meaning of simplicity. Or Cary Millisap, his squad leader, would call from Prospect and scorch him for shirking his duty to Gold, which was, after all, to get better as fast he could and rejoin the unit. He had not been sent to hospital to bother the High Gregory of Kenning, luck maker of the L'ung - whoever they were.
But trouble never arrived. He stayed as far away from his room and the tell as he could get. He played cards with Val Montilly and Sleepy Thorn from the Sixth Engineers, who were recovering from smoke inhalation they had suffered in the Coldstep burn. They were undergoing alveolar reconstruction to restore full lung function. Their voices were like ripsaws but they were otherwise in good spirits. Spur won enough from Sleepy on a single round of Fool All to pay for the new apple press he'd been wanting for the orchard. Of course, he would never be able to tell his father or Comfort where the money had come from.
Spur savored a memorable last supper: an onion tart with a balsamic reduction, steamed duck leg with a fig dressing on silver thread noodles and a vanilla panna cotta. After dinner he went with several other patients to hear a professor from Alcott University explain why citizens who sympathized with the pukpuks were misguided. When he finally returned to his room, there was a lone greeting in his queue. A bored dispatcher from the Cooperative informed him that he needed to pick up his train ticket at Celena Station before 11 a.m. No video of this citizen appeared on the screen; all he'd left was a scratchy audio message like one Spur might get on his home tell. Spur took this as a reminder that his holiday from simplicity would end the moment he left the hospital.
The breeze that blew through the open windows of the train was hot, providing little relief for the passengers in the first-class compartment. Spur shifted uncomfortably on his seat, his uniform shirt stuck to his back. He glanced away from the blur of trees racing past his window. He hated sitting in seats that faced backward; they either gave him motion sickness or a stiff neck. And if he thought about it - which he couldn't help but doing, least for a moment - the metaphor always depressed him. He didn't want to be looking back at his life just now.
A backward seat - but it was in first class. The Cooperative's dispatcher probably thought he was doing him a favor. Give him some extra legroom, a softer seat. And why not? Hadn't he survived the infamous Motu River burn? Hadn't he been badly scorched in the line of duty? Of course he should ride in first class. If only the windows opened wider.
It had been easy not to worry about his problems while he was lounging around the hospital. Now that he was headed back home, life had begun to push him again. He knew he should try to stop thinking, maybe take a nap. He closed his eyes, but didn't sleep. Without warning he was back in the nightmare sim again… and could smell burning hair. His hair. In a panic he dodged into a stream choked with dead fish and poached frogs. But the water was practically boiling and scalded his legs… only Spur wasn't completely in the nightmare because he knew he was also sitting on a comfortable seat in a first-class compartment in a train that was taking him… the only way out was blocked by a torch, who stood waiting for Spur. Vic had not yet set himself on fire, although his baseball jersey was smoking in the heat… I'm not afraid, Spur told himself, I don't believe any of this… the anguished face shimmered in the heat of the burn and then Spur was dancing to keep his shoes from catching fire, and he had no escape, no choice, no time… with his eyes shut, Spur heard the clatter of the steel wheels on the track as: no time no time no time no time.
He knew then for certain what he had only feared: Dr. Niss had not healed his soul. How could he, when Spur had consistently lied about what had happened in the burn? Spur didn't mean to groan, but he did. When he opened his eyes, the gandy in the blue flowered dress was staring at him.
'Are you all right?' She looked to be in her late sixties or maybe seventy, with silver hair so thin that he could see the freckles on her scalp.
'Yes, fine,' Spur said. 'I just thought of something.'
'Something you forgot?' She nodded. 'Oh, I'm always remembering things just like that. Especially on trains.' She had a burbling laugh, like stream running over smooth stones. 'I was supposed to have lunch with my friend Connie day after tomorrow, but here I am on my way to Little Bend for a week. I have a new grandson.'
'That's nice,' Spur said absently. There was one other passenger in the compartment. He was a very fat, moist man looking at a comic book about gosdogs playing baseball; whenever he turned a page, he took a snuffling breath.
'I see by your uniform that you're one of our firefighters,' said the gandy. 'Do you know my nephew Frank
