“There are other teams!”
“Yes. Two middle-sized teams will go east and north, the eastern one to see whether the desolations there have shrunk any and the northern one to explore the limits of the ice. Those, too, will search for botanical or zoological specimens of interest. One quite sizable group will go westward by boat and then down the shore to see whether there is any sign of useful life. All will be strenuous trips, not something you would much enjoy, Myra.”
“I would simply enjoy getting out of the house and away from babies for a while!”
Morgot shook her head and remained silent. Myra had chosen to have three children, Marcus first, then baby Barten when Marcus was five, now this one. All suggestions that she might take the babies to the crèche for a few hours a day in order to focus on her education met with tears and stubborn incomprehension. “They’re all boys! I’ll only have them for a little while, Morgot! I want to spend all the time with them I can!” Only to exclaim in the next moment that she would lose her mind if she didn’t get away from children! Motherhood had not changed Myra appreciably. Well, the second boy would be going to his warrior father within the month.
“Have you decided whether you will accept the nomination?” Morgot asked Stavia. “You’ve been very dilatory about making a decision.”
Stavia, who had already planned to go, who was considering breaking the ordinances once more but putting it off as long as possible, tried to avoid making a commitment just yet. “Thinking, Morgot. You said the trip might take as much as six months. That’s a chunk out of my life right now.”
“It has compensations. My mother went on one, thirty years ago it would be. Her art was poetry, and she wrote some very good things afterward.”
“My art is drama, Morgot. What do you expect me to do? Do mimes about it?”
“No, I thought more about your science and your craft, quite frankly. They’re short of medical attention at the sheep camp. And you have more information about botanical things than most of our candidates. Collecting plant specimens isn’t exactly a mindless activity.”
Stavia fell silent, embarrassed. She hadn’t even thought about it. “Hasn’t a systematic collection been done?”
“No, only sporadic bits and pieces. A new grain crop or root crop could more than pay for your time. Or some new herb with therapeutic properties. Even some new garden flower would be welcome.”
“Well”—she fell silent, thinking—thinking, as it happened, about a good deal more than the periodic journey of exploration—“since you recommend it so highly, Morgot. If they will assign me to the southern exploration, I’ll go. After four years in close quarters in Abbyville, I’d rather not join any of the larger groups.”
“IT’S AS I SAID in my letter,” Chernon muttered through the hole in the wall. If she only knew what it had cost him to get that letter secretly delivered! “I’ve looked it up in the ordinances. There’s nothing there about taking a leave of absence.”
“I know that’s what you said in your letter,” said Stavia, patiently. “But there’s nothing that says you can.” She shut her eyes, listening to his voice, summoning up the Chernon of ten, eleven years ago. He sounded different, looked different, but that boy was still there, inside somewhere.
“There’s nothing that says I can’t,” he persisted, unable to tell her about Michael’s assurances. “If I just go, when I return I’ll tell them I thought it was permitted. They’ll yell at me. They might even discipline me, but they won’t execute me for cowardice or anything because I’m not yet twenty-five. In a few months, I will be twenty-five; then it will be too late.”
Stavia shrugged, unobserved, torn between argument and good sense. She had read his eloquent letter over a dozen times with different responses each time, responses varying from anger to pain, from laughter to longing. He had begged her to go away with him, just for a time. Begged her for something to remember in later years, something to make his life seem worthwhile. “Why do you want to do this, Chernon? You chose to stay with the warriors. If you’re not contented, you could still come back through the Women’s Gate. Why this!”
“Because going off on a trip with you this way isn’t dishonorable,” he said, half angrily. “They may call it foolish or wrongheaded or even childish, but they won’t call it dishonorable.”
“It matters that much to you what they call it?”
He chose not to answer the question. “Stavia, you owe me this.” Another of Michael’s ploys, perhaps it would work.
“I?”
“If you hadn’t given me books, you wouldn’t have started my mind boiling about things. I’m not satisfied with the only choice I had. I want to know more about life than that. You got me started on this, and it’s up to you to let me satisfy it honorably!”
She mumbled something he could not hear.
“What did you say?”
“I said, what makes you think this will satisfy it?”
“You have my word.”
She did not really believe his word. “Why drag me into it?”
Stung, Chernon said something that was almost the truth. He had seen Stavia on the wall with Beneda. She had been a pretty little girl when he had seen her last. Now she was a stunningly beautiful woman, and the thought of having her to himself stirred him in ways he had not known were possible. “Because I can’t give you up. Because I can’t forget you. Because I love you,” he cried. “The whole point is to be with you, Stavia. Isn’t it? Isn’t that what we both want?” In the instant he
