Having another child was rather an attractive idea. The problem was, of course, that there hadn’t been anyone she had felt particularly drawn to. Not except Sam. No other than Sam. As though she had chosen Sam once and for all, as in some marriage culture. There were others who would become her lover in a moment, of course. Jebedo Quillow had been hinting around for at least two years, priming his sister Fearsome with self-touting little messages designed to be dropped into China’s ears. Jebedo did not move her. Nor did any other person in Settlement One, or in CM, or any of the other settlements. She didn’t want just anyone. She really didn’t. Sam was the only one she wanted. Even crazy the way he was getting to be. Even if he was out of his mind, wild, the way people said.
Even if that thing he had killed out there in the strange canyon was the missing person from Settlement Three everyone had been told to watch for. Jamel something. Who had run off rather than emigrate as he’d been ordered to do, and everybody thought he’d attacked Sam, because he was known to do things like that. Even though the skull and bones hadn’t looked human at all. The teeth were too long. It had claws. It was more like some monster.
Jep, who was observing her troubled expression from his hideaway in the kitchen, wondered at her concentration and thought she might be worrying about him and Saturday. Smugly, he thought she didn’t need to worry. Saturday had a very good head on her, and so did he.
• • •
• There was always routine business to take care of at CM, and—since the situation at Settlement One was not an emergency—it was over thirty days before the department heads and Zilia Makepeace made the trip Dern Blass had requested. None of the four had been content to leave matters in the hands, or to the interpretation, of the others, and scheduling a date when all four were free of conflicting appointments or responsibilities took time. During the journey, they went over the reports of hostilities in the settlement and agreed that was the priority item to be examined, immediately upon arrival.
When they reminded Samasnier they wanted to discuss the recent outbreak of incivility, however, Sam stared at them blankly and responded, “But that was all over long ago! Right after I got back from CM.”
They were initially doubtful, and Zilia was sneeringly incredulous. Sal made her logs available. Sam pulled out stacks of filed reports. The five Team Leaders, interviewed individually, said they’d had no trouble for twenty or thirty days now. Since there was no evidence of current difficulty, the visitors could only agree that whatever-it-had-been seemed to be over.
Horgy wide-beamed a gratified smile, even as he admitted to himself that he’d been more than a little worried. Though he dealt with hostilities in the settlements on a daily basis, dealing with hostility here in Settlement One was not something he had done before. He wasn’t sure which emotions to push, whose egos to stroke. He didn’t like situations that lay outside his experience, because then he had to rely upon improvisation. While he improvised quite well, supremely well when he was in a panic, originality was strenuous and anxious and never as comfortable as the experience-tested solutions to familiar problems. Familiar problems were like old friends. They were like a girl you’d made love to enough that she knew what you liked. They made one feel adept and serene and avuncular. Women liked men who were experienced and serene and … well, perhaps not avuncular.
“Do you have any idea what caused the hostility before?” Horgy asked Sal, turning up his radiance slightly. He had always fancied Sal, though until now there had been no opportunity to do anything about it. Besides, if anyone knew about Sam and his strange new hobby—if that’s what it was, and Dern was sceptical about that—wouldn’t it be Sal? “Even though the whole business is over, there were some problems, weren’t there?” Horgy liked gossiping about problems that either he or someone else had already solved: showing an interest, smiling sympathetically, nodding to show he understood. Women liked that, too.
Sal melted, as women almost always melted for Horgy, and described the trouble, which came out sounding like nothing much, really. “My personal opinion is that we were simply very upset because of that thing that happened when the God died.”
Zilia pressed her lips together, and there was an uncomfortable silence.
“Of course, now there’s this new thing,” said Sal, wanting to break the silence. “There’s the beast that attacked Sam!”
This not only broke the silence but also the complacence of everyone present who had been assured repeatedly there were no dangerous beasts on Hobbs Land. Sam’s story was solicited, and he gave it, briefly. Seeing the doubt in their faces, he asserted that Jebedo Quillow had found its bones.
The Central Management people looked at one another in wonder. Sam had said he’d had his knife out of his belt.
“Knife out of your belt?” asked Spiggy, who had heard about the sword belt.
“I always carry one,” said Sam, pointing to his replacement knife. He had gone back to the canyon to see if he could find his own knife—and because he wanted to see the bones—but without success. The replacement was an ordinary tool in a vlish-leather sheath.
“Jebedo did find the bones,” said Sal, firmly. “The skull and everything. Rather primatelike, we all thought, though it had monstrous teeth, and claws. And Sam had to have the bite in his arm sealed shut. The
