It was one of those blue-ceilinged days that were growing increasingly frequent with the coming of winter. The trees were either bare now, or held the last few leaves, stark skeletons of white among the blue-green shadow of conifers, and the land had gone all brown and yellow, the woods thickly blanketed with leaves that rustled dustily dry.
Notebook in hand, Merritt took the lower trail down to the river's edge around the bending of the promontory. The river was now far lower than it had been at his arrival. Rocks once submerged now stood well above the waterline, and there was a safe ledge to use in skirting the water. It would be possible to get a line across to the other side, with Celestine's help and a little effort on the part of the men; and from that line a footbridge could be begun, to span the gorge. It was going to be necessary to do a great deal of traveling from one side of the site to the other.
He descended to the very edge of the water, walking carefully because of the slickness of the rocks, where white froth curled up to the soles of his boots. And in his mind, gazing at the narrows, he saw the structure that was going to take shape across the throat of that chasm; and the vast lake it was going to make behind it: spillways to let the overflow go, water for fields in season, safety for downriver, the river tamed to the service of man.
Once the river kept its banks, once there was dry and dependable land, Hestia could start to grow. Boats could move at will on the lower course, and even ply the lake in safety; crops would come up in abundance, rail and river transport could move them, making fall use of the steam engine that was Hestia's chief source of power now. Electricity would follow, water-given and solar, and humans live in light and warmth. And beyond that, the world would make itself a respectable colony, a mote of an oasis in the course of starships: all if they could make this one beginning.
All if they had time.
A rustling disturbed the leaves farther up the trail. Nails clicked on stone. Merritt whipped his pistol out and turned, heart pounding, until he saw only brown Lady, tail wagging merrily, come panting up to him. He put the gun away and caressed the dog's silky head.
"Well," he said to the dog, "where's your mistress, eh?"
And a moment more brought Meg Burns down the trail, following Lady.
"Hello," said Meg, dropping down to the ledge on which he stood.
"Don't make up to me," he said. "Didn't I tell you I don't like your coming out to this place alone? You used to have good sense."
She grinned and came into his arms, a pleasant bundle of soft leather and furs and homespun, for the air was cold. He kissed her on the lips and set her back again.
"That dog isn't much protection to you, you know," he told her. "She's not very fierce."
"You don't have anyone at all out here with you. And you stay out so late, all alone."
"I'm armed; you're not."
"That's all right. I don't like guns, and Lady's my ears. —What have you decided out here all by yourself? Why did you send the men back?"
"Because there was nothing more for them to do here today, and I'm trying to make up my mind what to do next."
"What is that, then?"
He sat down on a rounded rock and made room for her close beside him, put his arm about her. "Well," he said, "you know what Porter's sentiments are. He wants that dam built by this spring. And I'm not so sure. I have some thoughts we could do a makeshift job this year, yes, but it's going to rush us. A little more planning, a little more certainty—but you see, if we don't get started right now, there's a good chance we won't beat the spring rains. Porter's been breathing down my neck these last two weeks— had one of his men on the site today that was driving me to the bitter edge. The fellow won't understand what I tell him. He sees it's possible; I see it's dangerous. What do you think, Meg? Do we take the gamble or can we wait?"
"Why ask me? What can I know?"
"Where it concerns Hestia, a lot more than I do. Can the valley survive another year? All I know is what the river's likely to do, nothing more. Is Porter right and am I wrong in wanting to wait, in wanting to catch it at summer low and wait a few months?"
She looked down into the water, unwilling to speak for a moment. "Sam," she said, "it's really chancy, isn't it?"
"It's chancy. And if they want me to gamble everything, lives, property, all the supplies hoarded for this project over years of waiting—it's not like I'm delaying for my own advantage. They've promised me I can be free of my contract whenever I get a dam finished."
There was a sudden tension in her; he felt it. She looked up at him, brown eyes hurt.
"Meg, I don't want to do things that way. I have a few interests here. Personal interests." He drew a smile from her with that, and her arms went about him.
It was quiet there with the river murmuring below them, drowning even forest sounds; and very lonely, only old Lady lying there watching them. He gathered Meg closer and she snuggled against him, warm and soft and content, leaving him to think thoughts that he had put off time and again.
"Neither of us," he said finally, "has any good sense being out here."
"There's no being alone up at the house. Since those men started arriving, there's always someone underfoot."
"Haven't you been told better than to stay too close to offworlders?"
"Yes," she said, a warm breath against his neck, "but you're not leaving, Sam. You'd better not."
"In that case, we'd better both think of the consequences." He thought one way and then the other, and finally sighed and took her arms, put her back from him and looked into her eyes. "You're not one of the starship people; you're Hestian right to your moral little heart, and you know it. And back-country Hestian at that. You don't go down to meet the ships. It's not your way, Meg."
"I don't want to lose you." Her voice came very faint, a scant moving of her lips. "You won't be leaving when you're done, will you? Sam, you never talked about leaving."
"Forget that. No. But forget the rest of it too, until we've settled other things. Until the dam is standing. My future on Hestia isn't all that certain until then. And to be honest, Meg, you just don't know me that well."
"I think I do."
"What do you know? That I'm from the other side of the sun and that's attractive to your romantical ideas? That I'm different and that makes me special?"
"And you think I'm a little girl from nowhere, who's going to get herself involved with you to keep you, and you're trying to keep me from making a mistake because I don't know any better. You're a kind man, Sam. Sometimes you're too kind."
Meg could cry charmingly, just a single tear slipping down her cheek. Merritt shook his head in despair, wiped it away and drew her tight against him until she stopped shivering.
"Well," he told her softly, "you're not far wrong, but I don't think you give yourself enough credit, Meg, not near enough. See, you think of me, and I have to think of you, and I'm not going to talk you into something you could regret. I'm not so sure you might not change your mind about a lot of things if I should have to leave Hestia, or if something goes wrong. Don't argue with me. Come on, right now. I'm taking you home."
"I don't care what people think."
"I care what they think about you." He set her on her feet and put his arm about her again, starting upslope toward the trail. "You don't make my nights any the more peaceful. I think about—staying. If the dam works, if—if this world will have me, if… so many things. I could be persuaded to stay, if a lot of things work together. But not at your expense. Not—tied here in an uncertain future. Not if I fail in this project. I don't know what my future may be. I'm afraid some of your neighbors don't understand reason, and I don't want anyone attached to me, anyone who could complicate matters."
They wouldn't be like that, Sam."
"I hope you're right, but I'm not going to let you involve yourself. After this first spring I may be able to think about things like that, about staying, maybe. And with you it would have to be staying, wouldn't it? There's nothing less permanent here."
He watched a flush come to Meg's cheeks. "If," she said, her lips trembling, "if I have to, I'll live with it, Sam. I—" She lost the thread and looked aside, and Merritt laughed gently and hugged her tight to his side, sorry that he had to laugh at her, because she began to cry.
"Meg, Meg, you're just not taught that way, are you? You couldn't; and I couldn't leave you in the mess I'd make for you with your neighbors. Come on, be sensible."
"I'd go with you, Sam, wherever you went."
"You're Hestian," he objected, and realized the tone of it after he had said it, that he had meant it less for her sake than for his: be pictured Meg Burns on a starship, or anywhere but on Hestia, and knew he would have to love her more than he felt capable of loving anything—to spend his life tied to her.
Meg caught his eyes and her own looked deeply hurt; he knew then she understood far more than he had said. She had been willing to take that step across to him, forever; and he had not been, and it was too late now to save her pride or pretend otherwise. She backed out of his embrace and drew a deep breath, pressed her lips together: no hysterics, and he admired her for that.
"You're honest," she said quietly.
"So have you been," he said, and did not know what more to say. Another woman might have walked away from him; Meg simply stood there, civilized, hands folded, trying not to cry.
"I feel too much for you," he said, "to let you be hurt worse than this. Don't hate me, Meg. Don't hate me."
She shook her head slowly. "It's all right," she said, and let go her breath. "It's all right."
"Come on," he said then, and offered her his hand. "Let's go back to the house."
She took his hand, slipped hers again within his arm as they walked as if there were nothing amiss, though she furtively wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, nineteen and with her dream in shambles. He had long leisure to think, of Lilith Courtenay, of himself at twenty-one and now at star-traveled twenty-eight; thought of trying to tell Meg of Lilith and Adam Jones, and could not think how to do that without making it seem Meg Burns was beneath that. Love was not something he could say and mean with Meg's simplicity; he realized that in the moment and he had never felt so crushed by anyone, the uncovering of a deficiency in himself he had never known. He had come to congratulate himself on his being on Hestia, on his seven years' gift, on his meticulous devotion to farmers who must look up to him, on his dreams for a world, and their gratitude.
And Meg Burns showed him himself.
They came in silence back to the station, and into the gates and within the yard now crowded by a new and makeshift barracks.
And suddenly, halfway to the steps of the house itself, Meg stiffened and turned back to look, her face stricken with alarm.
"Lady. Where's Lady? "
Merritt looked. The dog was nowhere in sight; and he could not remember when or where she had left them.
"She may have gone off across the hill or still be hunting," he said. "Don't worry about her."
"Oh, but she never strays. It's nearly sundown, and she's always back for dinner. She'd never wander off hunting when it's dinnertime."
He hesitated, looking at the shadowing sky and at her. "I know how you love that dog," he said, unable to see her further distressed. "I'll go back and look. Maybe I can find her."
Meg caught his arm as he started to go. "No. No. You know better than to do that. She'll come home on her own, she will. Please don't try."
She was saying it only to stop him; he knew it; and knew it was sense she was trying to prevent him, the most basic of rules of her life. He stopped, gave up the gesture. "I'm sorry," he said abjectly. "Meg, I'm sorry."
"She's not lost," Meg said, and assumed a cheerful confidence like putting on new clothes. "Come on, come on; she'll make it home without our help. Let's get out of the cold."
I'll tell you how it's going to happen." Porter's fist slammed down on the table between them so that the dishes rattled. "You're going to get started this week, Mr. Merritt. We've got men sitting idle out there. You're not putting us off til next summer or next winter."
"I'm not satisfied—"
"Well, I am. And so are the people downriver. Just how many of us are you prepared to argue with? My men came out there today ready to work, and they'll be there again tomorrow, and we expect to start, Mr. Engineer."
"Whatever we do up here, those families downriver had better get to high ground by spring, and that's the plain and hard truth. We've started cutting timber; we can start the diversion flume so we can work there, but I'm not ready yet to commit all our supplies and that number of lives on the site without more study on the far side of the river. You say we're running out of time. I'm telling you it's going to be a slower process all along than you think. I'm not satisfied we have time enough this season. If you insist on going ahead against my advice, I won't be responsible."
"You're going to be responsible, Mr. Merritt," said Porter, "because if those plans are faulty, you've been wasting our time. And you'd better hope you're some good, because if you're not, people downriver are going to get killed; and if people get killed, I very much doubt you're going to pick up your baggage and just walk away. Don't count on it."
I'm not going to be pushed."
"You'll take your chances in the valley same as us. If we go under, so do you, so think again, Mr. Merritt."
"Tom," said Frank Burns, "I don't think this is accomplishing anything. —Mr. Merritt, I promise you we're not trying to be unreasonable, but we're trying to make you see we'd rather take the chance. We're on the brink of starvation on some farms—not all, not all; and we aren't feeling the pinch yet, but we will if there's another disaster like last spring. We're remembering that: starving men can't work; and we're not willing to see another fifteen families go down the river while we sit waiting. Now, if you can show there's danger, well, we'll advise people to go to high ground right now, in the case we fail. The one thing you can't ask of us is to sit and do nothing."
"If we waste our supplies in a false effort—"
"Everything on Hestia is limited; our land is limited. Tom's right: we haven't got the time for you to be sure as you'd like."
Merritt cast a glance at Amos Selby, questioning; and the riverman gave a slight lift of the brows and shrugged and looked at the table.
"Amos," Merritt insisted.
"Well," said Amos, "I tell you this: I got faith in your good sense, Sam, but I also know what's going to wash down on us come spring, and I couldn't choose."
"We got the people," said Porter, "and we know what we choose to do. You haven't got any choice, Merritt. None."
Merritt pushed back from the table and looked at them and down the length of it, at all the silent faces, and at the women and children who stood silent in the room. Then he turned and started for the stairs.
"Merritt!" Porter shouted at him; and when he failed to turn in that selfsame instant, a man left the end of the table to block the stairway.
Merritt turned about then and looked at Porter, unhurriedly.
"If you have some idea about destroying the plans," said Porter, "you'd better think again. —Vance, you get upstairs and see what you can find in his papers."
"Wait a minute now," said Amos, leaving his chair. "I don't think that's called for."
"Not in my house, no," said Burns. "I think Mr. Merritt appreciates the desperate feeling our people have—isn't it so, Mr. Merritt? I can't think you'd be so reckless."
Merritt let go his breath slowly. "You'll remember later it's against my advice we're going ahead. I'll tell you about it."
"We're content with that," said Porter, "so long as we get started. I've waited too long for Earthmen to make up their minds. You people never settle on an answer you like, no, not for fifty years, while people and their stock are drowning. You people are used to sitting where it's safe and making theories because you got leisure for it. Well, I've had enough waiting. So has everyone else on Hestia; and I suggest those plans had better work, Mr. Merritt."
"If they don't," said Merritt, "you can get together and draw up some of your own. —Move your man, Porter. I'm going upstairs."
Porter said nothing, but Burns gave him a hard look and Porter finally gave a jerk of his hand that removed his kinsman from the stairway.
One of the cattle lowed, a sound out of place in the middle of the night; and Merritt turned over in bed, restless with the upset in the house. The sound worried at him; he kept an ear attuned for several dim minutes after, somewhere between sleep and waking, not sure he had heard it or how worth an alarm it was: his credit was low enough in the house.
Then there was a general stirring in the pens, sure sign that something was amiss in the yard. Merritt hurled himself clear of the covers and started dressing. One of the dogs barked furiously, then yelped into silence.
"Wake up!" Merritt yelled down the hall, and slipped his other foot into his boot and started running, himself and one of Porter's men at the head of the stairs before the alarm was even sounded. Folk were stirring out from all sides; and by now the barracks outside must be alerted: there was shouting from outside.
And other sounds: the splintering of wood, heavy bodies moving as some of the cattle broke free, bawling in panic. Lights flared inside: torches and lanterns lit from the hearth. Children huddled in stifled panic at their mothers' sides.
"Watch that door," Burns ordered. "Sam Merritt—you got that outsider gun of yours?"
"Here," Merritt called back, pushing his way to the fore. "I'll take the yard if I've got some help."
Three men volunteered and pushed after him; and others slipped the bar on the front door and let them out into the bare-earth yard, within the walls.
Lights were on in the slit-windowed barracks: no one there was opening doors. The heavy-bodied shapes of several cattle huddled in a corner of the wall, then with the unpredictability of herd beasts, darted in wild panic to open space, dodging in confusion about them, a rush of hooves in the dark. Merritt stepped out when it was over, scanned the shadows and the rim of the wall for intruders, and saw nothing.
"Come on," he said to his companions, and led the way around the corner to the back of the house, where the cattle pens were.
Sheep were loose too, cornered and climbing over one another as if they hoped to scale the wall in that corner of the irregular yard; and there were dead ones and dead cattle on the ground, and the black dog too, like a puddle of shadow on the dirt.
"Throats were cut," said one of the men who had knelt to inspect a dead sheep.
Voices broke forth behind them, doors open from the main house and the barracks, men coming out armed, bringing torches and lanterns.
And the light fell on a dark shape head-high in the center of the vacated sheepfold: a black thing on a pole, upright in the earth. Merritt seized a lantern from a man near him and advanced to inspect the object, then with an oath struck the pole down. Lady's head rolled free of the stake, staring sightlessly into the darkness.
"It's one of the dogs," someone said. "How"d they do that so quiet?"
There was a rising note of panic in the voice. Merritt rounded on it. "She was missing this evening," he said quickly. "Keep it down. Keep your eyes open. We don't know we're not being watched right now."
"But why the dog—like this? Why go to all that trouble?"
"I'd guess," said someone else, a deeper voice, that carried, "that it was a warning that don't need much translation. The dog's a human animal. It's the dogs they hate most."
"Get a shovel," said Merritt. "No need for the kids to see this. We'll salvage the sheep and the cattle—drag the carcasses out of the way so we can get the others back into the pens."
The doors to the main house were letting out a flood of others now: the voices of women were among them. Merritt left the men at work for a moment and went back to head them off; Meg was there with her father, and most of all he did not want that.
"How many did we lose?" Burns asked.
"About half a dozen," Merritt said, and took Meg's arm in a hard grip. "Get the kids back inside, will you? It's a mess out here."
"I heard a dog bark once. Did Lady—?
He hesitated on a lie, thought of Meg waiting and waiting for the animal. "She's dead, Meg. Both the dogs, I'm afraid. I'm sorry."
She made one sudden start of tears that she quickly gulped under control; but she did not try to go to see. He was glad of that.
"Get inside," he asked of her, and when she was gone he looked at Burns, and at Porter, who had joined them.
"They've never passed the gate before," said Burns.
"Whatever they are," said Merritt, and his own hands were shaking, "it was a bladed weapon that did that damage; and they're men enough to use tools and symbols."
"We knew they'd come when men started gathering here in numbers," said Porter, "and when trees started falling. I'm afraid it's the start, not the final blow. You wanted a convincing reason why we can't wait, Merritt. I don't think I need to explain this one."