Surprisingly, when Maire asked Africa Wilm if she would allow Saturday to go, Africa had already decided it was the only proper thing to do.
Bleakly, she said, “Saturday and Jep are lovers, or soon to be. They are the Ones Who.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I wonder if either can live without the other. Let my daughter go with you.” She was not willing to say this, but she said it, and the tears ran until she thought she had no more.
Later that night she went to China’s house and cried over hot tea in the kitchen. “I don’t know why I’m saying it,” she said. “I say it, and I know it’s right, but still I cry.”
“Perhaps because you know, somehow, it will be best for them both,” whispered China, wiping her own face. “But at the same time, it is terribly dangerous for them.”
“Terribly dangerous. And Sam, going with them, makes it no less so. He’s crazy, China!”
“No,” said China soberly. “He’s not.”
“He acts crazy!”
“Africa, if Sam were crazy, he wouldn’t be here anymore. All the really crazy people have gone, or killed themselves. But Sam is still here.”
Africa thought about this, shaking the tears from her eyes. It was true. Sam seemed solidly set in Settlement One. However. “You’re right about all the other crazy ones having left,” she whispered. “But maybe this is Sam’s way of leaving.”
China felt something lurch within her. She couldn’t live with him, but, oh, the thought of his going away. And yet, his going might bring Jep back. Could she trade one for the other? She gulped, swallowed the pain, tried to get it to go down from the place it was lodged, just behind her breastbone. “Trust,” she whispered. “It comes down to that. Do we trust it?”
“It?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Say it, China! Say it. Do I trust the God?”
“Well, do you?”
“Trust … what? What is it? It grew under the ground. We all know that. We don’t talk about it. We pretend not to notice it. Half the time we act as though it weren’t there at all. Sometimes we’ll go to the temple, to help clean it or something. Most times, we don’t. It doesn’t ask for worship, you know. It doesn’t need worship. It doesn’t ask for hymns or praise or sacrifice, except for a few ferfs, and that’s more in the nature of food. When we sing, we’re singing about something else. We’re singing about ourselves, not the God. Most of the time … we just take it for granted. It’s there.”
“You want it there, don’t you?”
“Of course I … Yes. Yes, I want it there. But it should have come out of a fiery cloud. It should have descended from heaven. It should have … It should have come through a fiery gate, like that prophetess of the Baidee! But it just grew in the dirt like a turnip, China. How can we feel this way about something so common. Something that just grew in the dirt?”
“Because it works. It doesn’t threaten us. It doesn’t damn us to hell as the Voorstoders do. It doesn’t require rituals as the Phansuri say their gods do. It just works.”
“Yes,” Africa whispered, eyes shut, squeezing tears. “Yes, I know. It works. And that’s why Saturday has to go. Even though she may never come back.”
• At CM, Zilia Makepeace and Dern Blass had become the Ones Who attended to the temple of Horgy Endure. Tandle Wobster helped out on occasion, as did Jamice, but Spiggy Fettle was still up on the escarpment, with the team from Thyker, unaware of the elevation of the God given the name of his former associate. Though information was consistently transmitted from escarpment to CM and back again, the new temple and the new God were simply taken for granted, and no one saw fit to mention them in the transmissions. Of course, no one on the escarpment had asked either.
Meantime the God Horgy sat upon its pedestal in the temple, a man-sized chunk of something or other which broadcast an almost palpable charm. Young women, particularly, enjoyed visiting the temple of Horgy Endure. Many men, on the other hand, found the temple at Settlement Two very much to their liking, while older women enjoyed the temple at Settlement Three where the God Elitsia was enthroned, or perhaps, said some, en-plinthed would be a better word. Not that there was any evidence of religious frenzy or even of extreme devotion. If one happened to be in the vicinity of a favorite temple, one dropped in sometimes, because it felt good to do so. There was considerably more intersettlement travel than there used to be, as people became aware that answers to certain problems might exist here, or there, at some distance. Otherwise, the usual work went on, productively and without interruption. People enjoyed life. There was an upsurge in arts and crafts and inventions, as well as what amounted to a renaissance in vocal and instrumental music.
On the escarpment, the Thykerites, augmented by the additional personnel, finished their personal survey of each and every ruin, took samples of several of the buried things, all of which turned out to be more or less of the same material, and decided to return home. Dr. Feriganeh had decided that Shan was physically healthy, though considerably fatigued. Shan was having bad dreams again, though he had been without them for several years. Neither the doctor nor Merthal had been able to find anything threatening on Hobbs Land. Shan was encouraged to take it easy.
“Your feelings and ideas are your own,” the doctor reminded him. “So say the High Baidee. I may not interfere. I may not explain that you are wrong or attempt to convince you of error. I may not fool with
