At noplace, the sailors unloaded crates and sacks and the baggage of the passengers. The dragon shapes beneath the trees had vanished. People gathered, murmuring to Asner and Jory.
Curvis, standing at the rail, stared rudely at the place the dragons had gone, for once almost speechless.
Cafferty brought on deck the girl child, still pale and inclined to starts and trembles, but no longer terrified.
“This is Alouez,” Cafferty introduced her. “I have told her that now, for a time, she will be our foster daughter.”
Latibor murmured his name, took Alouez by the hand, reassured her with a smile, a nod. Curvis kept his eyes on the shore, refusing to take part in this ritual of comfort. The girl belonged back there, in Derbeck, not here, being greeted and accepted as though she were part of a family. Only when the others had gone ashore did he follow, approaching Jory to jab a finger in the direction of the vanished dragon forms.
“These are not kin to your beast, are they!” It wasn’t a question, for he already knew the answer. Jory’s beast had something of the mythical about it, something of the ultimately strange. The dragon shapes that had departed were real beings. Not human at all, but flesh and blood nonetheless. Scales and fangs too, no doubt, but simple flesh for all that.
“No, Curvis, they are not kin to Great Dragon,” she said, looking up at him from brimming eyes.
“These are no doubt what we were sent to investigate,” he said firmly, ignoring her grief. From what he had overheard, the old woman thought something had happened to Fringe. So long as it had not happened to Danivon, Curvis would not allow himself to be upset.
“No doubt,” she said, drying her eyes.
“And you’ve always known who, or what, they are?”
“Always since I came to Elsewhere, yes.” She paused, exchanging a look with Asner. “If you are wise, Curvis, you’ll stop staring after them, stop pointing in their direction, stop behaving like a child at a zoo.”
“I suppose you’ll tell me why I should,” he snarled.
“Because it is not good manners, and the Arbai put a very high value upon good manners.”
He didn’t think he’d heard her correctly. He tried several different words in his mind, other words she might have said, finally muttering, “The Arbai?”
“The Arbai. All who are left of them.”
“What are they doing here?” he blurted, unable to keep his eyes from wandering to the place he had seen them last. “What in hell…. How did they get here?”
“Through an Arbai Door,” said Asner. “When the Brannigans first explored the shores of Panubi, they found an Arbai Door. They took it. It’s now at Tolerance, so I’m told.”
“There is one at Tolerance, yes, the one the twins came through,” agreed Curvis distractedly. “I don’t recall that it was originally found on Panubi.”
“There’s no particular reason you should have known,” Jory said. “At any rate, there was an Arbai Door here, and the Arbai came through it, running from the plague. They shut the Door behind them, or thought they did, though they must have left it open to some linkages because Asner and I came through it. We found the Arbai remnant here on Panubi. They were few, a fragment, believing they were still in danger from the plague, terrified of us for fear we’d brought it with us….”
“We were able to reassure them about that,” said Asner. “The plague was long over by then.”
“As a thank-you gesture, they invited us to stay if we liked. Later, when the first scout ships of the Brannigans were sighted, the Arbai moved into the center of the continent and built the wall to mark their own enclave, theirs by right of prior settlement.”
“But they didn’t take the Door with them?” demanded Curvis.
“They didn’t intend to use it again, so they left it where it was.”
“And you didn’t intend to use it, either?”
They didn’t answer.
“And the people?” Curvis nodded toward the people standing here and there on the hillside, among the buildings. “The humans?”
“Our people. People Asner and I have recruited to help us.”
“Help you do what?”
“Help us find out what was going on out there in Elsewhere. We ourselves were not always … available to travel about, asking questions. We’d become very worried about the people on Elsewhere, and no one else seemed to know what was happening, or care.”
“And you live here, you and the old man?”
“Just over that hill. Asner and I have a house there, and a garden.”
“And a meadow full of horses, and a porch with a rocking chair and a cat,” said Asner in a sarcastic tone. “All of which, though long coveted, are little used.”
“Where did the people come from?” Curvis demanded angrily.
“Either they or their parents were recruited from Elsewhere.”
“Like Cafferty and Latibor.” He gestured toward the two, standing beside them.
“We recruited them, yes. As children. Brought them here, and reared them.”
“For which we have always been thankful …” said Latibor.
“Interfering in the affairs of a province!” interrupted Curvis in a peremptory tone.
Jory shook her head at him. “Oh, Curvis, stop sounding outraged. Cafferty and Latibor were babies left for dead, so it didn’t make much difference if we took them or not. I fished them out of the Fohm, if you must know! They got their webs removed later. We’ve only recruited children or young people who really wouldn’t be missed very much. People like Fringe.”
“Zasper would have missed Fringe!” Curvis’s words defended Zasper’s affections, though his tone said he thought it a foolishness to miss anyone.
“He would have, yes. We found that out. That’s why we left her in Enarae instead of bringing her here.”
Curvis much desired to be angry. He much desired to have something to be angry about. “If you’re so busy saving
