possible.'
Wayness slowly adjusted herself to the news, which was bleak. 'How soon will that be?”
“The legal processes will take two or three days, depending upon whether old Bernard's leg is hurting him or not. After that, there is no reason for further delay but it always occurs. It would be better for everyone concerned if you were not on hand at this time.”
“So when must I go?”
“Sooner rather than later I fear.'
“Two days? Three days?”
“Three days at most, or so I would estimate, I will be glad to have the matter settled, since I am starting to suffer from nervous anxieties. The situation at Casa Lucasta does not seem stable.”
Wayness slumped back into the chair and stared numbly off across the room. Time passed; emotion gradually drained from her mind, leaving only a lump of resentment, directed toward everything and everyone, including Dr. Olivano and his indomitable rectitude.
Wayness finally managed a sour shaky laugh. Dr. Olivano’s responsibilities must be for the children, and her sense of betrayal was irrational. Dr. Olivano, after all, was not a member of the Naturalist Society.
Wayness rose to her feet and went to the window. Her circumstances were bleak; she was no closer to Moncurio than when she had first arrived in Pombareales — perhaps even farther away, since now she had antagonized Irena Portils, the single strand of connection to Moncurio.
Three days, at most, remained to her, and she could think of no constructive course of action other than searching the house. To date, there had been no opportunity; either Madame Clara or Irena was always on hand. Even had she been able to search, Wayness suspected that the effort would have yielded nothing, except for enormous embarrassment if she were caught.
She brooded down across the square, which was almost deserted. Tonight the wind blew strong, fluttering foliage and moaning on its way past the hotel. It was to be hoped that Lydia would not hear voices calling: “Weerooo! Come to us, come!' and decide to run.
Wayness felt too restless for bed. She donned her gray cloak, and leaving the hotel quickly along the silent streets to Calle Maduro. Overhead the stars glittered hard and brilliant in the black sky; low in the west hung the Southern Cross.
Tonight the town was quiet: few folk were abroad. The cantinas were almost empty though the red and yellow lights with which they festooned their fronts shone bravely through the dark. From the Cantina de Las Hermosas came the sound of a voice raised in song, perhaps issuing from the throat of Leon Casinde the pork butcher thought Wayness.
The winds whipped down Calle Maduro, sighing through the shrub and weeds of the pampas. Wayness stopped to listen, and thought to hear a low mournful tone drifting down from the upper air though she could distinguish no voices. She continued up Calle Maduro. The small houses were pale in the starlight. Casa Lucasta was dark. Everyone had gone to bed, to sleep, or perhaps to lie awake thinking.
Wayness stood in the shadows of the empty house. There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard but the wind.
For ten minutes she waited, the wind flapping her cloak, not at all sure why she was here in the first place, though she would not have been surprised to see a small thin shape emerge from Casa Lucasta and run out across the pampas.
Nothing of the sort occurred. The house remained dark. At last Wayness turned away and slowly returned down Calle Maduro, and back to the Hotel Monopole.
In the morning Wayness awoke with the mood of the night before still with her. The day outside her windows was overcast, and the wind had ceased to blow, so that the sky seemed to exert a curious oppressive weight.
As Wayness consumed her breakfast, her mood changed, and she began to scold herself. “I am Wayness Tamm of Riverview House! I am said to be a very talented person, also intelligent. Therefore, I must start to demonstrate these qualities, or feel foolish when I look into the mirror. So far I have been too diffident I have been waiting for information to float past on a silver tray! This is poor strategy! I must do something more dramatics such as — what?' Wayness considered. “If I could only convince Irena that I meant Moncurio no harm, perhaps she might help me, especially if I offered her money.” Wayness considered further. “I don’t dare bring up the subject — that’s the sad truth; indeed, I'm afraid of Irena.'
Nevertheless, Wayness set out for Casa Lucasta in a mood of determination. She arrived just as Irena was leaving for work. “Good morning, ”said Wayness politely. “It almost looks like rain, doesn’t it?'
“Good morning,” said Irena. She glanced around the sky as if she had never noticed it before. “Rain is not usual here.” She gave Wayness a vague smile and went off down Calle Maduro.
Wayness looked after her, shaking her head in perplexity. Irena was a strange one, and no mistake!
Wayness went to the door and touched the chime button. She waited. After an interval nicely calculated to express a maximum of contempt and resentment, the door was opened by Clara, who at once turned and went back to the kitchen, darting a single admonitory glance back over her shoulder. The message is clear, thought Wayness. “I am not one of Clara's favorites either.”
The children were at their breakfast in the dining room. Wayness greeted them, then took a seat at the end of the table and watched as they finished their porridge. Myron, as usual, was stern and lost in thought, Lydia seemed a trifle peaked.
'Last night the wind blew hard,” said Wayness. “Did you hear it?”
“I heard it,' said Lydia, and added virtuously: 'but I did not run.”
'Very wise! Did you hear voices?”
Lydia squirmed in the chair. “Myron says that the voices are not really there.”
'Myron is right, as he always seems to be.”
Lydia returned to her porridge. Wayness took occasion to survey the room. Where could she reasonably hope to find information pertaining to Adrian Moncurio, supposing that it existed? Much would depend upon Irena's attitude toward such information. If she deemed it of no great value, it might be almost anywhere — even in the drawers of the sideboard yonder, where Irena kept miscellaneous household papers.
Clara went out to the utility porch Wayness jumped up, ran to the sideboard, opened drawers looked here and there, hoping that the name 'Moncurio,' or 'Professor Solomon’ might catch her eye.
Nothing.
Lydia and Myron watched with neither surprise nor concern. Clara returned to the kitchen; Wayness resumed her seat. Lydia asked: 'Why did you do that?”
Wayness said in a half-whisper “I was looking for something I will tell you later, when Clara cannot hear.'
Lydia nodded, finding the remark eminently reasonable. She lowered her own voice: “You should ask Myron. He can find anything, because he can detect where things are.'
A quiver of excitement played along Wayness' skin. She looked toward Myron; could it possibly be? The idea strained credibility. She asked in a tentative voice: “Myron, can you find things?'
Myron’s nose twitched, as if in deprecation of the purported skill. Lydia said: “Myron knows everything, or almost everything. I think it is time he was starting to talk, so that you could hear what he has to say.”
Myron paid no heed and pushed away what remained of his porridge.
Lydia studied him soberly, then told Wayness: “I think I think that he will talk when there is something he wants to say.”
'Or when he is helping us find something,' said Wayness.
Movements from the kitchen suggested that Clara’s attention had been attracted by the conversation.”
''Well, then,' said Wayness heavily. ”'What shall we do today? The weather is dreary but it's not too cold, and we can go out into the yard.' Where, thought Wayness grimly, they could talk without fear of Clara listening.”
However, rain had started to fall, so that the three remained in the sitting room, looking at the terrestrial atlas.
Wayness explained the Mercator projection. 'So on this flat paper you have the entire surface of Old Earth. These blue areas are oceans and these others are continents. Do either of you know where we are now?'
