life-Hai, Jikai!”
Maspero looked remarkably distressed.
She was remarkably beautiful. Her body was warm and firm in my arms. Her long silky brown hair with that enraging tint of auburn hung down like a smoky waterfall. I could plunge over that waterfall with great joy. Her brown eyes regarded me with gravity. Her lips were soft, yet firm and beautifully molded, and of such a scarlet as must, have existed only in the Garden of Eden. Of her nose I can only say that its pertness demanded from me the utmost exertion not to lean down and kiss it.
I could not dare to dream of kissing those red lips; for I knew that were I to do so I would drown and sink and succumb and I would not answer for what would happen then.
An airboat flew out from the city. It was a pure white, which surprised me, for all the airboats used to carry the animals back through the passes were brown or red or black. Savanti came from the flier and gently took the girl from me.
“Happy Swinging,” I said, unthinking.
She looked at me, obviously not understanding.
“Remberee, Jikai,” she said.
Remberee, I knew instantly, was Kregish for
I forced my smile and found to my amazement that to smile on her was easy-too easy.
“Am I not to know your name? I am Dray Prescot.”
The white clad Savanti were carrying her to the airboat. Her grave brown eyes regarded me. She hesitated.
“I am Delia-Delia of Delphond-Delia of the Blue Mountains.”
I made a leg, as, though I were in my admiral’s drawing room in Plymouth among his great ladies.
“I shall see you again, Delia of the Blue Mountains.”
The airboat was lifting.
“Yes,” she said “Yes, Dray Prescot. I think you will.”
The airboat soared away to the City of the Savanti.
Chapter Six
Much I was learning about the planet Kregen as it swung beneath its emerald and crimson suns, and this I feel would best be related when occasion arises, for I must speak of many wild and terrible things, and deeds for which to find a name is difficult. I would stand on the balcony of Maspero’s house when the twin suns had gone from the sky and stare upward. Kregen has seven moons, the largest almost twice the size of our own, the smallest a hurtling speck of light low over the landscape. Beneath the seven moons of Kregen I brooded long on the girl Delia of the Blue Mountains. Maspero was continuing to run his long series of tests on me. I had passed the first by successfully arriving at the city; and he still found amusement that. I had enjoyed that voyage down the River Aph. I gathered that many had failed to arrive; they had been defeated by the very conditions that had delighted me. He carried out what I now realize to be a comprehensive analysis of my brain wave patterns. I began to gather the impression that all was not well.
A great deal of my time was spent indulging in the sports of the Savanti. I have spoken of their uniformly powerful physique and their aptitude for all manner of sport. All I can say is that I did not disgrace myself. I could usually manage to find that extra inch, that last spurt, that final explosive thrust that would bring me victory. They were all hollow victories, of course; for until I was accepted as one of the Savanti, and there were other applicants as I well knew, my life would be incomplete.
When I questioned Maspero about Delia-as I now called her to myself without any self-consciousness-he was unusually evasive. I saw her occasionally, for she had been quartered on the other side of the city, and she still hobbled about on her twisted leg. She refused to tell me where she came from, whether by her own design or by express orders of the Savanti I did not know. There was no government that I could determine; a kind of benevolent anarchy prevailed demanding that when a task needed to be done there would always be willing volunteers. Myself I helped gather crops, work in the paper mills, sweep and clean. Whatever chained Delia’s confidences was a force I did not as yet know. And Maspero would shake his head when I questioned him. When I demanded to know why she had not been cured of her crippled leg, which the Savanti could so easily do, he replied to the effect that she was not one who had, like myself, been called.
“Do you mean because she has not taken the journey down the River Aph?”
“No, no, Dray.” He spread his hands helplessly. “She is not as far as we can tell one of the people we need to fulfill our destiny. She came here uninvited.”
“But you can cure her.”
“Maybe.”
He would say no more. A chill gripped me. Was this the canker in the bud that I had suspected and then put aside from me as an unworthy thought?
Strangely enough I had never mentioned the glorious scarlet and golden bird to Maspero. Just how the subject came up was trifling; but as soon as I told him that I had seen the raptor he turned with a quick motion to face me, his eyes fierce, his whole body tense. I was surprised.
“The Gdoinye!” He wiped his forehead. “Why you, Dray?”
He whispered the words. “My tests indicate that you are not what we expected. You do not scan aright, and my tests refute all that I know, of you and your ways.”
“The dove was from the city?”
“Yes. It was necessary.”
I was forcibly reminded how little I knew of the Savanti. Maspero went out, to confer with his associates, I had no doubt. When he returned his expression was graver than at any time I had known him.
“There may be a chance for you yet, Dray. We do not wish to lose you. If we are to fulfill our mission-and you do not yet understand what that is, despite what you have learned, we must have men of your stamp.”
We ate our evening meal in a heavy atmosphere as the moons of Kregen spun past overhead in all their different phases. There were five on view tonight. I munched palines and studied Maspero. He remained withdrawn. At last he raised his head.
“The Gdoinye comes from the Star Lords, the Everoinye. Do not ask me of them, Dray, for I cannot tell you.”
I did not ask.
I sensed the chill. I knew that in some way unknown to myself I had failed. I felt the first faint onset of regret.
“What will you do?” I asked.
He moved his hand. “No matter that the Star Lords have an interest in you. That has been known before. It is in your brain patterns. Dray-” He did not go on. At last he said: “Are you happy here, Dray?”
“More happy than I have ever been in my life-with perhaps the exception of when I was very young with my mother and father. But I do not think that applies in this situation.”
He shook his head. “I am doing all I can, Dray. I want you to become one of the Savanti, to belong to the city, to join us in what we must do, when you understand fully what that is. It is not easy.”
“Maspero,” I said. “This is Paradise for me.”
“Happy Swinging,” he said, and went toward his own apartments in his house.
“Maspero,” I called after him. “The girl. Delia of the Blue Mountains. Will you make her well?”
But he did not answer. He went out and the door closed softly.
On the following evening I saw the crippled girl at one of the parties that could be found all over the city. Always there were singing and laughing and dancing, formal entertainments, musical contests, poetic seminars, art displays, a whole gamut of real vivid life. Anything the heart desired could be found in the Swinging City. Perhaps
