She returned to the dormitory complex just in time to get into bed before the others woke. Perhaps the watchers on Dinadh knew she had been away, but none of the Shadowland people did. Certainly Snark did not tell them.
The shadows had been given the knowledge they needed to act as their roles required, and for some of them this had been the equivalent of an advanced education in biotechnology. Though the information had been imposed, they could use it, fumblingly at first and with more assurance as time went by. They had not been given a course in morals and ethics. No one had thought to prevent their stealing. What was there to steal on Perdur Alas?
Snark stole food and blankets to start with. Over the next dozen nights she equipped her refuge. She stole food enough for a lengthy stay. She made her bracken bed, a blanketful cut each night on her way to the cliff, a new blanket carried there each night until the entire floor of the cave was cushioned and comfortable. Though she remembered animal skins from the time before, the blankets were as warm and they smelled better. She brought two lengths of line with weights at one end, keeping one in her pocket and one in the niche next to the opening—just in case she lost the one she was carrying.
She did nothing that significantly changed the original dream until she had fulfilled it meticulously. Only then did she add other supplies, things the adult Snark thought might be useful: night glasses for spying, an emergency beacon, a box of vegetable and fruit seeds from the agricultural lab. Suppose, she told herself, suppose I get left here all by myself! Suppose the Ularians get all the others, but I’m hiding and they can’t find me. Suppose they don’t get me! I’d need the beacon so humans could come rescue me. I’d need to grow food. I’d need to stay alive!
The words, the very tone was familiar. Someone had said the same to her once, long ago. Fleetingly she realized the idea of rescue was ridiculous. Why would they come to rescue a totally dispensable shadow? A shadow who had been put here as bait in the first place? Does the worm on the hook expect to be rescued simply because the fish have eaten all the other worms?
Perhaps, she told herself. Perhaps, if the worm had information about the fish. Perhaps then. Suppose she saw the fish, the Ularians. Then there’d be reason to pick her up. The monitor would sense what she sensed, but he couldn’t read her mind. The monitor might think she’d found out something important! Whether she did or not, she could say she had. If she said it out loud, the monitor would hear what she said.
So, she would try to see them, if they came, and whether she did or not, she would say loudly that she had found out something. Dangerous, that. How did one find anything out except through one’s senses. If she merely deduced, it would have to be from evidence. From things seen and heard. Could one pretend to see? Pretend to hear?
Such questions preoccupied her. Rarely she thought about men. Susso had come with the other shadows. Maybe she ought to tell Susso about her cave. Invite him to come along.
The idea was transient, the motivation unconvincing. Sex was pleasurable, sure, but survival was sweeter still. Susso wouldn’t keep his mouth shut. Then the others would get involved. They’d interfere. They’d stop Snark leaving. Stop her coming here. Better not say anything to Susso. Who needed men anyhow?
“Inventory’s almost done,” said Kane, when they had been on the planet thirty or forty days. “Tomorrow we’ll start the ag-study.”
“I’m missing supplies in ag-lab,” one of the women said plaintively. “One whole carton of vegetable seeds is missing.”
“They probably miscounted,” said Kane carelessly. “They probably did.”
They were the predecessors, the other team, the real team, acknowledged but unconsidered. They had been here. They had gone. Now we were here. No one ever said, “When we’re finished and gone.” No one ever said, “When the job’s done.” They had been conditioned against such expectations. The job was interminable. The task was lifelong. And though lifelong might be short indeed, they were conditioned against anxiety.
“You got enough seeds left to do the job?” Kane asked. “That’s all that matters.”
She had enough for the job. No one paid any attention to her earlier comment. They went to their daily tasks with perfect gravity and understanding, though it was all accomplished in dreamlike slow motion. Even eating was slow. Every movement, every task was set for them. Go from 1 to 2; 2 leads to 3; 3 leads to 4. Nothing was done because they wanted to or thought of it themselves. They didn’t worry; they didn’t fight. They scarcely spoke. Sometimes two of them would couple in the night with spurious urgency, but even such brief convulsions were muted and soon forgotten.
Very occasionally Snark remembered the simul booth back in Shadowland, but she couldn’t bring herself to want it much. She sometimes remembered raging, remembered shouting, remembered fighting—or trying to. It was all another dream, not unlike this dream of being on Perdur Alas. Each day took care of itself. And now that Snark had found her own place, which was real and remote from dreaming, each night took care of itself as well.
Deprived of his shadows, the Procurator had not yet grown accustomed to pouring his own tea. Often more liquid slopped onto the table than stayed in the cup, on this occasion giving him reason to swear gustily as an underling entered, one Mikeraw.
“Sorry, sir,” the underling murmured.
“You didn’t do it,” grouched the Procurator. “I did. I am clumsy and incapable! We had grown
