‘I wasn’t thinking supernatural,’ Jamieson objected, the everlasting rebel. ‘Laughter isn’t supernatural!’
‘It is if a crystal mountain does it,’ Tasmin said with finality, aware of the dichotomy between what he said and what he felt. What he said was doctrine, yes, but was it truth? He didn’t know and he doubted if any of those promulgating the position knew for sure. Still, one didn’t keep a well-paid position in the academic hierarchy by allowing unacceptable notions to be bandied about in front of first-timers, or by speculating openly about them oneself, particularly when the BDL manual laid out the official position in plain language. It was in BDL’s interest that the Presences be considered merely … mineral. What was in BDL’s interest was in Tasmin’s interest. He contented himself with a fierce look in Jamieson’s direction that was countered with one of bland incomprehension. The trouble was that he and Jamieson understood one another far too well.
He gave Clarin a shake and a pat, then watched with approval as she sat up on the mule and wiped her face. She was very pale but composed. Her hair made a dark shadow on her skull, and the skin over her high, beautifully modeled cheekbones was softly flushed. She had made a quick recovery.
‘Ooh, that makes me seethe,’ she grated. ‘I’d like to …’
‘To demolish a few Presences, right? I know the feeling. Look at them, though, Clarin! Look down there!’
He pointed down the long slope in front of them where the False Eagers stood. She followed his gaze. Light scintillated from the Eagers in ringed rainbows, corruscating and glittering, a rhapsodic symphony of color, the flocks of gyre-birds twisting around them, a swirling garment of changeable smoke.
‘Would you want to destroy that?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I really wouldn’t.’
‘To say nothing of PEC orders to the contrary,’ Jamieson remarked drily. ‘The Planetary Exploitation Council strictures do prohibit demolition of anything except deepsoil encroachment.’
‘Little ones,’ she sighed. ‘ ’Lets or ’lings. Nothing like that.’
‘Nothing like that,’ Tasmin agreed. ‘Now, I’d like you to pay some attention to the aspect of the Watchers from this direction.’ He dropped into his dry, lecture-time voice, trying to turn their attention to something besides the possibility of totally arbitrary annihilation. ‘The score is different coming from the west, of course, and it’s an uphill climb, which means a longer reach, musically. It’s called the “trouble side,” though the westside score is actually simpler, both vocally and in orchestral effects. I’d suggest we get a move on. We have the False Eagers, the Startles, and Riddance Ridge to pass yet today before we go down the deepsoil pass to Harmony.’
The first-timers took turns on the winding road beside the Eagers, a repetitive canon on one simple theme. James started well enough, but he got worse as the trip progressed. Refnic sang them through the Startles with practiced ease. As Jamieson had predicted, James froze in mid PJ on Riddance Ridge during an a capella series of phrases without any orchestral effects to cover the quiet. There was a moment of hideous silence. The ground began to tremble beneath them, but just as Tasmin opened his mouth to pick up the vocal Jamieson began singing, missing hardly a syllable, his voice soaring effortlessly. The ground beneath them quieted. When they had come across, Tasmin stopped them and passed his field glasses around, pointing out the wreckage of wagons that lay in a weathered tumble at the foot of the ridge.
It was hard to make a point in a whisper, but Tasmin could not let it wait. ‘James, that’s the result of too little knowledge, too many assumptions, bad preparations, or Tripsingers who freeze. There’s nothing wrong with being a good backup man. The orchestral effects are just as important as the vocals. If you can’t depend on yourself for the vocals, for Erickson’s sake, don’t risk your life and those of other people.’ James was white with shame and frustration. He had been badly frightened by the explosion at the foot of the Watchers, but so had they all. Jamieson’s face was bland. He was too bright even to hint at I-told-you-so.
After the trip, Harmony was blessedly dull, a small deepsoil pocket, entirely agricultural. Still, the food and beds were good, and Tasmin took half an hour to pay a condolence call on his mother’s sister Betuny, a woman not close enough to ever have been called ‘aunt.’ Her husband had died only recently, and Tasmin brought a letter from his mother. After this duty call, he returned to the Trip House to find Renna Clarin on the porch waiting for him. She had wrapped a bright scarf around her head and wore a matching robe, vividly striped. For the first time he noticed how lovely she was, a thought that caught him with its oddness. He was not accustomed to thinking of the neophytes as lovely.
‘I wanted to thank you, sir.’
‘For what, Clarin? You did a good job out there.’
‘For … for not jumping all over me when I got scared.’
She was standing slightly above him on the porch, a tall girl with a calm and perceptive manner. Without the Tripsinger’s robe she looked thinner, more graceful, and he remembered the feel of her body against his when he had hugged her. One always hugged students at times of peril, but he realized with a flush that she was the first female student he had ever precepted. ‘So you were scared?’ he asked softly. ‘Really scared?’
‘Really scared.’ She laughed a little, embarrassed at the admission.
‘So was I. I often am.
