“No matter how many have come-and we don’t know yet how many there are,” Jemmy said, “this ‘taking over’ isn’t the way of the People. Things must grow. You only graft in extreme cases. And destroy practically never. But let’s not get involved in all that again now. Valancy-“
Valancy slanted down, the stars behind her, from above the ship. “Jemmy.” Their hands brushed as her feet reached the ground. There it was again. That wordless flame of joy, that completeness as they met, after a long ten minutes’ separation. That made me impatient, too. I never felt that kind of oneness with anyone.
I heard Valancy’s little laugh. “Oh, Bram,” she said, “do you have to have your whole dinner in one gulp? Can’t you be content to wait for anything?”
“It might be a good idea for you to do a little concentrated thinking,” Jemmy said. “They won’t be coming out until morning. You stay here on guard tonight-“
“On guard against what?” I asked.
“Against impatience,” Jemmy said, his voice taking on the Old One tone that expected obedience without having to demand it. Amusement had crept back into his voice before his next sentence. “For the good of your soul, Bram, and the contemplation of your sins, keep watch this whole night. I have a couple of blankets in the pickup.” He gestured, and the blankets drifted through the scrub oak. “There, that’ll hold you. till morning.”
I watched the two of them meet with the pickup truck above the thin trickle of the creek. Valancy called back, “Thinking might help, Bram. You should try it.”
A startled night bird flapped dismally ahead of them for a while, and then the darkness took them all.
I spread the blankets on the sand by the ship, leaning against the smooth coolness of its outer skin, marveling anew at its seamlessness, the unbroken flow along its full length. Somewhere there had to be an exit, but right now the evening light ran uninterrupted from glowing end to glowing end.
Who was in there? How many were in there? A ship of this size could carry hundreds. Their communicator and ours had spoken briefly together, ours stumbling a little with words we remembered of the Home tongue that seemed to have changed or fallen out of use, but no mention of numbers was made before the final thought: “We are tired. It’s a long journey. Thanks be to the Power, the Presence and the Name that we have found you. We will rest until morning.”
The drone of a high-flying turbo-jet above the Canyon caught my ear. I glanced quickly up; Our unlight still humped itself up over the betraying shine of the ship. I relaxed on the blankets, wondering-wondering ….
It was so long ago-back in my grandparents’ day-that it all happened. The Home, smashed to a handful of glittering confetti-the People scattered to every compass point, looking for refuge. It was all in my memory, the stream of remembrance that ties the People so strongly together. If I let myself I could suffer the loss, the wandering, the tedium and terror of the search for a new world. I could live again the shrieking incandescent entry into Earth’s atmosphere, the heat, the vibration, the wrenching and shattering. And I could share the bereavement, the tears, the blinding maiming agony of some of the survivors who made it to Earth. And I could hide and dodge and run and die with all who suffered the settlement period-trying to find the best way to fit in unnoticed among the people of Earth and yet not lose our identity as the People.
But this was all the past-though sometimes I wonder if anything is ever past. It is the future I’m impatient for. Why, look at the area of international relations alone. Valancy could sit at she table at the next summit conference and read the truth behind all the closed wary sparring faces-truth naked and blinding as the glint of the moon on the edge of a metal door-opening- opening ….
I snatched myself to awareness. Someone was leaving the ship. I lifted a couple of inches off the sand and slid along quietly in the shadow. The figure came out, carefully, fearfully. The door swung shut and the figure straightened. Cautious step followed cautious step; then, in a sudden flurry of movement, the figure was running down the creek bed-fast! Fast! For about a hundred feet, and then it collapsed, face down into the sand.
I streaked over and hovered. “Hi!” I said.
Convulsively the figure turned over and I was looking down into her face. I caught her name-Salla.
“Are you hurt?” I asked audibly.
“No,” she thought. “No,” she articulated with an effort. “I’m not used to-” she groped, “running.” She sounded apologetic, not for being unused to running but for running. She sat up and I sat down. We acquainted each other with our faces, and I liked very much what I saw. It was a sort of restatement of Valancy’s luminously pale skin and dark eyes and warm lovely mouth. She turned away and I caught the faint glimmer of her personal shield.
“You don’t need it,” I said. “It’s warm and pleasant tonight.”
“But-” Again I caught the embarrassed apology.
“Oh, surely not always!” I protested. “What a grim deal. Shields are only for emergencies!”
She hesitated a moment and then the glimmer died. I caught the faint fragrance of her and thought ruefully that if I had a-fragrance?-it was probably compounded of barnyard, lumber mill and supper hamburgers.
She drew a deep cautious breath. “Oh! Growing things! Life everywhere! We’ve been so long on the way. Smell it!”
Obligingly I did, but was conscious only of a crushed manzanita smell from beneath the ship.
This is a kind of an aside, because I can’t stop in my story at every turn and try to explain. Outsiders, I suppose, have no parallel for the way Salla and I got acquainted. Under all the talk, under all the activity and busy- ness in the times that followed, was a deep underflow of communication between us. I had felt this same type of awareness before when our in-gathering brought new members of the Group to the Canyon, but never quite so strongly as with Salla. It must have been more noticeable because we lacked many of the common experiences that are shared by those who have occupied the same earth together since birth. That must have been it.
“I remember,” Salla said as she sifted sand through slender unused-looking hands, “when I was very small I went out in the rain.” She paused, as though for a reaction. “Without my shield,” she amplified. Again the pause. “I got wet!” she cried, determined, apparently, to shock me.
“Last week,” I said, “I walked in the rain and got so wet that my shoes squelched at every step and the clean taste of rain was in my mouth. It’s one of my favorite pastimes. There’s something so quiet about rain. Even when there’s wind and thunder there’s a stillness about it. I like it.”
Then, shaken by hearing myself say such things aloud, I sifted sand, too, a little violently at first.
