Moon of Three Rings

'None save they came this way. But who they are, or why they do this—' I shook my head.

'Your powers,' he commented, 'appear to have their limits.'

'As all do. You have mind-send. But do you also teleport or the like?'

'No. There are those who can, but I have yet to meet one. Only I had thought that the Thassa—'

'Could perform stranger acts than that? Sometimes, but the siteand the time must fit the pattern. Given both I might beam-read and get a half view of the future, or rathera future.'

'Whya future? Do futures change?'

'They do, because they depend upon decisions, and does a man remain always subject to the same thoughts, hour after hour, day after day? What seems right and meaningful at this moment may not be so later. Therefore the future in the broad sense, yes, that can be read. But our relation to the future changes through our need to face this crisis or that. I could tell you the fate of a nation, but not of the individual men of that nation.'

'But you might tell the fate of the Valley?'

'Perhaps, given the right time, which I am not. For that is beyond my grasping.'

'And soon we may learn for ourselves,' he said. 'When I first met you in that dell—how long ago was it? I have since lost all numbering of days.'

I shook my head. 'Days bearing numbers are not the concern of the Thassa. Long ago we ceased to deal with such. We remember what has chanced, but not this day or that.'

Had he been man at that moment, I think he might have laughed.

'You are so right, Freesha! Enough has happened to me on Yiktor that days have certainly ceased to count in number. But when I came to your camp fresh from Osokun's fort, I thought I was caught up in some vivid and unpleasant dream. And to that belief I am inclined to return now and then. It would explain what has happened so much more easily than to think that waking I have lived—am living— this.'

'I have heard that off-world there are methods of inducing such dreams. Perhaps you have tried such and so are ready for such a belief. But if you have been dreaming, Krip Vorlund, I am awake! Unless I am a part of your dream—'

He ate from my fingers the meat cake I crumbled, then drank from his water bowl. The child stirred and moaned.

'You put her to sleep.' That was more statement than question.

'Thus she could not remember, or fear.'

I took her up in my arms now and put to her lips a small cup wherein I had mixed water and the juice of healing herbs. In her sleep she drank, and then her head turned on my shoulder and she passed into deeper slumber.

'Maelen, are you wed? Do you have a child?'

I thought suddenly, in all this strange adventure we were sharing neither of us had asked such a question of the other, nor had we cared what had passed before.

'No. I am a Singer. While I sing, I have no life companion. What of you, Krip Vorlund? I had heard that the Traders have families. Is it with you as it is with the Singers, that you can be but one thing at a time?'

'In a manner.' He told me of the life of his people, wedded to many stars and not one alone. They had life companions, but only when they had reached a certain rank within their companies. Some times a planet woman might accept Trader life for the sake of a man; but that a Trader abandon his ship for any world because of a woman was unthinkable.

'You are like unto the Thassa,' I said. 'For you, to be firmly rooted in one place is to die. We sweep across the earth of Yiktor and her seas at our will. We have certain places such as your space cities where we gather when there is need. But for the rest—'

'Gypsies.'

'What?' I asked.

'A very ancient word. It means a people who live ever traveling. I think there was a nation of such once, very long ago, and worlds away.'

'So the Thassa have their like across the void. I spoke once of a ship and my little people, and the visiting of other worlds.'

'Such might still be done. But it would cost more tokens than lie even within the temple treasury of Yrjar. And such a ship must be built on another world after much study and experimentation. A dream indeed, Maelen, for no one would have such treasure as to bring it to life.'

'What is treasure, Krip Vorlund?Does it not take different forms from world to world?'

'It is what is rare and valuable on each particular planet. Rarity plus beauty in some cases, rarity plus usefulness in others. On Zacon it is knowledge, for the Zacathans look upon learning as their treasure. Bring to them an unknown artifact, a legend, something which hints at a new sentence in the history of the galaxy, and you have brought them treasure.

'Oh Sargol it is a small green herb, once common on forgotten Terra, utterly irresistible to the Salarki, who would willingly exchange gems for it. And those same stones on another planet—one no longer than the nail of your smallest finger, Maelen—will allow a man to live as a lord of Yiktor for five years or more. On Hasku it is feathers, sprokjan feathers. I can recite you the list of treasures for a quarter of the galaxy, as they pass through our warehouses.'

'So, to each world a treasure, and it varies so that what seems a fortune on one planet will on another be worth nothing—or perhaps more?'