Because he had had to accuse her of something.
And now? Was it too late to forgive her for what she had never done?
In the Tree City of the Arbai two religious gentlemen sat in the mild breezes of evening, eating fruit which had been brought from the surrounding trees by foxen, one of whom had remained to join the feast.
“Like plums,” said Father James. He had arrived at the city by foxen back in midmorning. Father Sandoval had refused to come. Brother Mainoa had come to the city earlier, an exhausting trip from which he had not yet recovered. Now the Brother reclined against the breast of a foxen, like a child in a shadowy chair, while Father James tried to convince himself yet again that the foxen were real—not dreams, not amorphous visions, not abstractions or delusions. Conviction was difficult when he couldn’t really see them. He caught a glimpse of paw, or hand, a glimpse of eye, a shadowed fragment of leg or back. Trying to see the being entire was giving him eye strain and a headache. He turned aside, resolving not to bother. Soon everything would resolve itself, one way or another.
“Chameleons,” Brother Mainoa whispered. “Psychic chameleons. The Hippae can do it too, though not as well.”
Father James’ lips trembled. “Don’t you think the fruit is like plums?” he repeated, longing for something familiar. “Though perhaps the texture is more like a pear. Small, though.”
“Ripening this early, they’d likely be small,” Brother Mainoa offered in a breathy whisper. “The fruits of summer and fall are larger, even from these same trees.” He sounded contented, though very weak.
“They fruit more than once during the season, then?”
“Oh, yes,” Mainoa murmured. “They fruit continually until late fall.”
Along a bridge leading from the plaza Janetta bon Maukerden was dancing, humming to herself. Dimity bon Damfels watched from the plaza, mouth open around a thumb, eyes remotely curious. Stella was with Rillibee in a room facing the plaza. The older men could hear his voice.
“Take the fruit in your hand, Stella. That’s it. Now, have a bite. Good girl. Wipe your chin. Good girl. Have another bite….”
“He’s very patient,” whispered Brother Mainoa.
“He would have to be,” murmured Father James. “Three of them!”
“Poor unfortunates,” Father James said. “We’ll help him with them while we’re here. It’s the least we can do.” He thought a moment, then added, “If we’re here long enough.”
A group of shadow Arbai came toward them, checkered them with arms and legs and shoulders, battered them with sibilant conversation, then moved on past. A swoop of scarlet and brilliant blue swept below them, from one tree to another, a colorful almost-bird, quite different from the Terran species, yet enough resembling them that one would think “parrot” on seeing them. Out on the bridge where Janetta danced, one of the shadow figures grasped a railing with shadow hands and squatted over the edge. The Arbai had been casual about elimination.
“It will be your choice,” Brother Mainoa said in a weak whisper. “Your choice, Father. Whether to stay or go.”
The priest protested. “We’re not even sure we can live here! Food, for example. We’re not sure these fruits will sustain our lives.”
Brother Mainoa assured him, “The fruit plus grass seeds will be more than enough. Brother Laeroa has spent years determining the nutrient value of various grass seed combinations. After all, Father, on Terra many men lived on little else than wheat or rice or corn. They, too, are seeds of grass.”
“Harvesting grass seed would mean going out into the prairies,” Father James objected. “The Hippae wouldn’t allow that.”
“You could do it,” said the Brother. “You’d have protection….” He shut his eyes and seemed to drift off as he had been doing ever since they arrived.
“Though, come to think of it,” said Father James, suddenly remembering farms he had visited as a child, “here in the swamp one could have ducks, and geese.” He tried to summon a hearty chuckle, but what came out instead was a tremulous half sigh. The young priest had just remembered that the few humans on Grass might be all the humans there were. Whether one could have ducks or not, there might be nowhere else to go.
“Wipe your chin again,” said Rillibee Chime. “Oh, Stella, that’s such a good smart girl.”
Janetta spun and hummed, then stopped momentarily and said, quite clearly, “Potty!” She hitched up her smock, grasped the railing, and squatted where she was on the bridge, her bottom over the edge in the same pose the shadow Arbai had adopted moments before.
“She can talk,” said Father James unnecessarily, his face pink as he turned it away from Janetta’s bare buttocks.
“She can learn,” Brother Mainoa agreed, suddenly awake once more.
Father James sighed, his face turned resolutely away. “Let’s hope she can learn to be a bit more modest.”
Brother Mainoa smiled. “Or that we can learn to be—as, evidently, the Arbai were—less concerned with the flesh.”
Father James felt a wave of sadness, a wash of emotion so intensely painful that it seemed physical. He suddenly saw Brother Mainoa through some other being’s senses: a fragile friend, an evanescent kinsman who would not be concerned with the flesh at all for very much longer.
Someone was watching him. He looked up to see a pair of glowing, inhuman eyes, clearly fixed on his own. They were brimming with enormous, very human tears.
Shortly following the detention of the Yrariers, the Seraph in command of the Hierarchy troops took a few of his “saints” in battle dress—more to impress the populace than for any tactical reason—and made a sweep through the town and surrounding farms, searching, so the Seraph said, for someone named Brother Mainoa. Everyone had seen him at one unhelpful time or another. Several people knew where he slept. Others knew where he had been having supper hours before. No one knew where he
