‘They might. Unless they’re smarter than some people are, yes.’ He tried for a rueful laugh. ‘I just invented the trick, Explorer. It made me feel I was doing something. I deceive myself probably. It’s either do something or fret. Fretting makes my stomach ache. Maybe they won’t realize how inventive we are.’
She acknowledged this with a slight, barely ironic smile. ‘It could work. I don’t recall anyone talking much about doing tracking on Jubal. What is there to track? On Heron’s World, of course, they do. Lots of hunting on Heron’s World.’
‘You’ve been to Heron’s World?’
‘Of course not, Tripsinger. I was born here. My mother got a bonus for me, as a matter of fact. I was her third.’
‘It saves shipping when you can manufacture locally,’ he responded.
‘Many thanks, Tripsinger.’
‘No strain intended, Don. I was just wondering how you knew so much about Heron’s World.’
‘Library stuff. Adventure stories.’
‘Adventure stories?’ he laughed. ‘After being an Explorer on Jubal?’
‘You know it’s not always that exciting,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it’s anything but.’
‘As when?’ he asked.
She had stories, her own stories, others’ stories, tales of defeat and pain. They were not the stories Explorers told one another, and she didn’t know why she told Tasmin except that they were stories needing telling and she might not have another chance. During the trip, she had learned all about him and Celcy. Now she wanted to talk about her and Link.
‘Some things you bury,’ she said. ‘I believe in burying many things. Not denying they happened, you understand, but just getting rid of them. Putting them away somewhere where you don’t stumble over them every day. But with Link … there’s no way I can bury that. I used to delight in the Presences. Since one of them almost killed Link … since then I don’t like them as much.’
He considered this, wondering why it didn’t apply to him. Celcy had died on the Enigma, and yet he, Tasmin, still felt as he always had about the Presences. Perhaps women were different. His mother had always told him that they were. ‘And you’ve been alone since then?’ he asked her.
‘Not exactly alone. I have good friends. And there was a talented services man in Northwest City. I took advantage of his good nature from time to time. Zimmy. Of course, Zimmy was spying on me, as I should have known he would. I saw his face the last time I returned to Northwest. You’d have to know Zimmy for it to make sense, but he didn’t expect me to be back.’
When she explained how she knew, Tasmin commented, ‘Not a lot to go on. Just the expression on a man’s face,’
‘I said you’d have to know Zimmy. Believe me, he expected never to see me again.’
Tasmin’s eyes narrowed and his mouth stretched in a silent grimace. ‘Who’s the one who gave the orders, Don? Who hired him?’ The man who hired Zimmy had hired the assassin. The man who hired the assassin was the man who had driven Don Furz underground, causing her to conspire with Lim. And that man was ultimately responsible for Lim’s and Celcy’s death.
‘The top of BDL, most likely. Harward Justin is an evil man. I know that about him for sure.’
‘I’ve never met Harward Justin.’ But that’s where the ultimate responsibility probably lay. Tasmin nodded to himself over this. If there was fault, that’s where it lay.
She shivered. ‘I met him once. Luckily, I’d just come back from a trip and I looked like a wet viggy.’
‘Why luckily?’
‘I’ve been told I’m attractive. And I’ve been told that Justin has an appetite for attractive women. And he doesn’t let them tell him no.’
For a moment he thought she was going to say something more about this, but she fell into an abstracted and painful silence that it would have seemed impertinent to interrupt.
By late afternoon, they had begun to climb once more, and well before dark they had reached a crest of hills lined with tiny amber ’lets, no higher than their knees. Far to the east stood the golden Presence from which these small crystals had come.
‘An old streambed,’ Donatella explained. ‘It washed the seed crystals down here in almost a straight line. I believe that’s how a lot of the straight ramparts formed originally. A million years ago, there was nothing there but a river. Now there’s a mountain range.’
‘We’re moving onto high country,’ he agreed. ‘I want to get a view behind us if I can.’
He dismounted and lay among the crowded ’lets, peering through his glasses back along their trail. At last he spotted them, moving figures well inside the limit of vision. ‘They’re there. Still coming, and they’re past the side trail where Clarin and Jamieson turned off.’
‘How many?’
‘All six. None of them have gone after the youngsters. I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry.’
‘They’re closer than when Jamieson saw them, aren’t they? Only two or three hours behind.’
‘My guess would be yes.’
‘If we only had a moon, we could keep going late tonight, walk and lead the mules.’
‘They may keep coming anyhow,’ he said, staring through the glasses back the way they had come. There was something implacable about the lead rider, something relentless in the angle of his body. He exclaimed, ‘Damn!’
She peered through her own glasses. Now for the first time, they saw, trailing the group, a mule hostler with a string of unburdened animals.
‘They have fresh mounts,’ Don whispered. ‘No wonder they’re moving so fast. If they catch us before we reach the south end of the valley….’
‘We can’t outrun them,’ Tasmin said. ‘We’ll have to think of something else.’
He thought as they rode, stopping twice to pick over bunches of green settler’s brush, which he whittled at on the way.
‘What in hell are you doing?’ Donatella asked.
‘Being inventive again, Donatella. I’ll let
