“Talking to yourself again, Brother?” said a reproving voice. Brother Mainoa started. The figure under the neighboring tree was half hidden in shadow. The voice was that of Elder Brother Noazee Fuasoi, deputy head of the office of Security and Acceptable Doctrine at the Friary, and what the blazing hell was he doing down here at the dig!
“Just muttering, Elder Brother,” Mainoa murmured as he rose and stood respectfully, wondering if the man had followed him, and if so, how long he’d been standing there. “Muttering about the dig, trying to figure it out.”
“Sounded like gardening to me, Brother.”
“Well, yes. That, too. Trying out effects in my head, so to speak.”
“Bad habit to get into, Brother Mainoa. Disruptive of the silence and demeanor of the order. Clinging to such bad habits is probably why you’re still assigned to digging up ruins rather than to the more dignified duties your age would warrant. If you’d behaved properly, you’d have been assigned to a desk job back at the Friary a long time ago.”
“Yes, Elder Brother,” said Brother Mainoa obediently while thinking something not at all obedient about those who were assigned to desk jobs at the Friary. “I’ll try to curb the habit.”
“See that you do. I wouldn’t want to call you up before Eldest Brother Jhamlees Zoe. Eldest Brother Jhamlees takes his Doctrine very seriously.”
At least that was the truth. Jhamlees Zoe was too recently arrived to have calmed down yet. Still trying to find something on Grass to convert. Mainoa sighed. “Yes, Elder Brother.”
“I came down here to tell you you’re assigned to escort duty. We have a recalcitrant acolyte coming in from Sanctity. Brother Shoethai and I brought a car down from the Friary for you to use when you pick him up tomorrow morning.”
Brother Mainoa bowed obediently and kept his mouth shut.
Elder Brother Fuasoi belched and rubbed his stomach reflectively. “Boy had less than a year to go and he went jerky. Lost his demeanor and had a fit in refectory, so I’m told. He traveled under his birth name. Rillibee Chime. Think up a Green Friar name for him.”
“Yes, Elder Brother.”
“The ship will be in early, so be ready. And no more talking to yourself.” Brother Fuasoi rubbed at his belly again before he started off.
Brother Mainoa bowed humbly at Fuasoi’s retreating back and hoped Fuasoi’s belly would kill him soon. Shithead, he thought. All the men from Acceptable Doctrine were shitheads. And so was Elder Brother Jhamlees Zoe, the mad proselytizer, cast away here on Grass with nobody to convert and going slowly crazy because of it. Nothing between their ears but excrement or they’d know what was really going on here on Grass. Anyone with any sense could see….
The purr was back above, this time full of quiet amusement.
“You’ll get me in big trouble,” muttered Brother Mainoa. “Then what will you have to purr about?”
The hundred-square-mile area which the aristocrats called Commoner Town was divided into two parts by a precipitous, convoluted knob of stone which was called, half in jest, Grass’s Only Mountain, or Gom. The mountain extended east and west in an uninterrupted wall, a sheer-faced outcropping that ran down on both sides to lose itself in the depths of the swamp forest, making an effective barricade between the permanent and transient. Craftsmen, farmers, merchants, and their families lived and worked north of the barrier in an area they called Commons, centered on the town. The area south of the wall, though largely sloping pastureland, contained the port and all its appurtenances.
Appurtenances included, adjacent to the port on the east, a district containing warehouses for the storage of goods being transhipped, hay barns for winter feed of Commons’ livestock, various respectable shops and amusements run by local citizens, the Port Hotel, and the hospital. This area, including the port itself, was called the Commercial District.
Also included was an area on the west side of the port, where buildings blazoned with tawdry glitter stood along Portside Road, where the sensees stayed open around the clock and where visitors routinely stepped over bodies without worrying much about it. Not many of the bodies were dead; few of them were seriously wounded; some of them were still busily engaged. The crowded buildings breathed an indefinable stink made up of drugs, dirt, and various biological exudates. This disreputable area took its name from its road and was called simply Portside.
In addition to the Commercial District and Portside, the southern area contained about forty square miles of common hay meadow and grazing land, sloping on the east, south, and west from the high plateau of the port down to the swamp forest.
Connecting the port areas and Commons through a notch cut through the wall of Gom was Grass Mountain Road, a well-traveled thoroughfare which ran along the east side of the peak past the order station and the tall, solid gates occasionally used to block all traffic. It was not unknown for freighter crews to emerge from Portside establishments in the waning hours of the night determined to seek the extraordinary pleasure that comes from disrupting the sleep of ordinary people. Under such conditions, the gates were shut. Usually, however, traffic moved along Grass Mountain Road between port and Commons with no hindrance.
The port was busy, far busier than the planetary population could have warranted on its own behalf. Grass lay at a topological crossroads, an accessible destination in qua-space that coincided with a planet in real-space, and this alone made it valuable. The aristocrats, isolated on their estancias and concerned with other matters, had never considered how advantageous Grass’s location was. They would have been amazed to learn that the wealth of Grass was not,
