Now, sipping his wine and stroking the soft bindings, Sam reflected that he had never answered Sal’s “why.” Why was simply that he needed to hold the past in this way, to preserve the tales, to make sure he didn’t lose them as he would if they were left in the Archives, lose them as he had lost his dad, lost his whip when he came to Hobbs Land. People vanished, and their stories died with them or were left behind to be buried under a thousand other things. It wasn’t enough that they were in the Archives. Things could stay buried in the Archives forever, like geological strata, layer on layer, never to be raised up again. Here on his shelves, the ancient stories were like bones dug up and made live again, fleshed out, peopled, creatured, whole. He couldn’t make them for his own son (which rankled), but he could for Sal’s sons. When they were old enough to come live with him here in the brotherhouse, then they would read the books together. He had never mentioned that to Sal.
He had mentioned it to Theseus, when he met with him out at the old temple during the night watches. After Bondru Dharm had died, Sam hadn’t seen the hero for quite a long time, but then he showed up again, out north of the settlement, even stronger and more sure than he had been before. Theseus had understood about the books, about tales, about epics and how important they were. He had told Sam to look in his books for tales of monsters, for undoubtedly there were some Sam could fight here on Hobbs Land, to get in shape for his eventual quest.
Sam doubted there were monsters, but he could not doubt the large number of very heavy boulders Theseus found for him to turn over. Sometimes Sam woke at dawn, far from the town, sore and exhausted from the night’s effort.
“Patience,” Theseus always told him, laughing. “The time will come.”
Sam, drinking his wine and stroking the covers of his books with his uninjured hand, leafing through them in search of pictures of monsters and heroes, forgot the minor annoyance of the Phansuri engineers and hoped the time of his own destiny would come while he still had the strength to meet it.
• In Settlement One, the favorite game of the children of the middle school (lifeyears ten through fourteen) had for some time been “Exploring Ninfadel.” Ninfadel was the larger of the Ahabarian moons, home of the Porsa, one of System’s three indigenous intelligent races. What the Porsa were, and how they were, was sufficient explanation for the fact that, except for a guard post, Ninfadel was left strictly alone. It was also sufficient reason for all adults to consider playing at Porsa utterly disgusting, which was probably the reason the children enjoyed it so.
Recently, however, there had been a new game. The children didn’t call it anything except “Going out to Play,” which children had been using for millenia as an excuse for being elsewhere. This particular play was the discovery of the cousins, Saturday and Jeopardy Wilm, who were friends, possible sweethearts (though at around fourteen lifeyears they weren’t ready to admit that to themselves), but constant companions in any case. After afternoon classes, when Saturday wasn’t scheduled for a voice lesson and Jeopardy wasn’t at sports practice, they often went exploring beyond the northern edge of the settlement. In every other direction, cultivated fields stretched for mile after endless mile, but north was the creek with its groves of ribbon willows, north were the ruined temples on their gentle prominence, north was a wide stretch of rising, rocky, undisturbed semi-wilderness reaching all the way to the escarpment.
Though Saturday was slim and dark and Jeopardy was light and sturdy, there was a certain likeness in the expression of the eyes and the curve of the mouths and the tenderness with which their hands found one another’s sometimes, quite by accident. They had discovered the new amusement on a certain afternoon shortly before Saturday’s lifeyear celebration.
“I want to find some glaffis,” Saturday had announced. “I want it to flavor my birthday cakes.” She had tossed her head back, making her dark hair ripple.
“You want glaffis-flavored birthday cakes!” Jep had exclaimed. “Yech.”
“It’s almost like new-cinnamon,” she had argued.
“And we’re out of new-cinnamon.”
“It’s nothing like new-cinnamon. It’s more like … like famug.”
“Honestly, Jep, your taste buds are all on your ears. When did you ever taste famug? Huh? Your mom and my mom talk about famug, but CM hasn’t brought in any famug since our moms were little girls because the blight on Thyker wiped out all the famug plantations, and they ran out of what was left in storage, so when did you ever taste it, huh?”
“Mom told me what it tastes like,” he said, trying to remember if she had.
“That’s what I meant. Your taste buds are in your ears.”
“Well, I know what glaffis tastes like, and I still say, yech. Don’t expect me to eat any.”
“Wait until you’re invited.”
“I’ll be glad to.”
They had left the edge of the settlement behind them and were crossing a brookside line of ribbon-willows, beyond which the ruins of two old temples sprawled in the amber sun of afternoon.
“If you really want the stuff, I saw some growing inside one of these temples,” Jeopardy offered.
Saturday made a face. She’d been into the old temples now and then, along with others, when they were exploring or playing last man, but she didn’t really like being there. Something about the arches or the way
