“By the rules and the covenants, Zasper, you’re infuriating! What if she’s injured? What if she’s sick? What if we wait and wait and don’t get there in time. We can all play at what if!”
Zasper nodded slowly. He had to admit, Danivon was right. “The flier’s big enough for two,” he said. “I’m going with you.”
Curvis waited, thinking Danivon would say no, Curvis would go. Curvis didn’t want to go, but he didn’t want Danivon to go off with Zasper, either. Danivon merely nodded at Zasper, however, one short jerk of his head, and stalked off to rummage among the baggage he’d assembled at the rail, looking for something he’d just thought of, or, perhaps, merely doing so to put an end to conversation. Curvis, left behind, found himself angry at being ignored.
“Can’t contain himself, can he,” said Jory. “Fool kid.”
“Scarcely that,” admonished Zasper. “He’s over thirty.”
“I’m over several thousand, and he’s a kid.”
“We were all kids once,” he said, peering into her eyes. He wanted to talk with her about Fringe. About herself. He wanted to know her, and there might not be time…. This might be the only occasion possible….
The question he asked, however, surprised even him, for it was drawn out of him by some ageless glimmer in her eyes.
“What were you like as a girl, Jory?”
“Oh, I was a dutiful girl, Zasper Ertigon. I obeyed all the rules. I bought into subordination and humility.”
“You couldn’t have! You didn’t!”
“Oh, yes, I did. I was a very lovely handmaiden.”
“I believe that.”
“I find it hard to believe, sometimes. Actually, I was like a lot of those women in Thrasis, trying to be contented in my bower and a seething mass of rebellion inside. In my country in my time they didn’t go in for surgical chopping on women, though the custom still prevailed some places on Earth, but psychological chopping was quite common. I was taught to believe things no intelligent person could have believed. And eventually I rebelled against believing—perhaps in preparation for what I became.”
“Which was?”
“A prophetess, would you believe? Me, a prophetess?”
“I can believe that. You have that air about you.”
“Do I? It seems unlikely—looking back.”
He shook his head slowly. “Perhaps not unlikely. Fringe told me you picked her out, lady.”
“True.”
“Since … since we may not have an opportunity to talk again, will you tell me about that?”
“What do you want to know?” she asked, her head cocked to one side, giving her a sparrowlike look.
“I suppose … I suppose I want to know why? Why would a prophetess pick Fringe out. And for what?”
She laughed. It was a quick, uncomfortable little laugh. “Will it comfort you to know?”
He shook his head slowly. “Only you would know that.”
She looked at him doubtfully. “Well, perhaps it would. A parable must suffice, however. Will you settle for that?”
“If I must.”
“Well then.”
“Was a farm woman, once, found a miraculous beast eating the flowers in her garden, and they became friends. Trouble was, getting to know the beast unsuited the woman for less marvelous friendships, if you understand me?”
“Other relationships seemed trivial, perhaps?” he asked, after a moment’s thought.
“Not that so much as—irrelevant. Because, knowing the beast well as she did, she became something a great deal more than merely a farm woman with a garden. What she became was not of her own making, you understand, and she wasn’t always sure of its significance, though her innermost self reassured her it was worthy.”
He nodded. “I see. I think I do.”
“But an important thing is, what she became she could not have become if she hadn’t been suited for it in the first place.” “Aahh,” said Zasper.
Jory smiled. “Well, we all get old, and so did she, and the time came she knew she hadn’t much longer, so she looked about for someone to inherit what she had to leave behind. And, of course, what she looked for in her successor could not be what she had become—which was unique, through no virtue of her own—but what had been in her in the first place. The capability.”
“And what was that?”
“God knows.” She laughed. “I’ve often wondered.”
“Stubbornness?” he suggested.
“Perseverance,” she agreed.
“Contentiousness.” He smiled. “Rebelliousness.”
“Indomitability.” She smiled back.
“Dissatisfaction,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “A lot of that. A certain prickliness, perhaps. Unwillingness to settle for what’s there and obvious when it’s obviously wrong! A mystical sense of purpose. A sense of high duty to perform, without knowing what it may be! A longing for heaven, without knowing what that is, either.”
“Altogether, an uncomfortable person.”
She grinned at him. “So I’m told.”
“So you picked Fringe.” He shook his head sadly. “And now she’s gone.”
“Yes,” whispered Jory. “She’s the best I’ve found, and now she’s gone. And the prophetess is no longer sure of her prophecy, because it was all such a long time ago.”
“If no longer a prophetess, what are you now?”
“You’re full of good questions.” She made a face at him. “Perhaps I am merely a handmaiden again. Perhaps a witch or a ghost, up to no good. When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”
“When I bring Fringe back to you, I’ll remember you promised.” He looked toward the railing where Danivon was still fussing with the supplies and dropped his voice. “He’s not right for her, you know. I know her well enough to know that.”
She shrugged elaborately, not meeting his eyes, then looked up full of sudden intent. “I’m bound to tell you I don’t think this rescue attempt is well thought out,” she said.
“Danivon’s nose says he won’t die.”
“Does Danivon’s nose tell you whether he’ll maybe wish he had?” she asked gently.
Zasper saw something much like pity in her eyes, though he couldn’t say why, for Danivon’s nose had been silent upon that matter.
When the next summons came from the golden faces, Nela and Bertran could not rise. They made
