Chapter 9

Merritt paused a moment to catch his breath, within view of the dam area, and continued uphill. Andrews saw him first and hurried downhill to meet him, offered his hand to help him. Merritt shook him off and walked beside him up to his usual vantage point.

"It wasn't necessary, sir."

"You know it was," Merritt said shortly, and sat down on a log they had long since dragged up for that purpose. From where he was he had a view of much of the canyon, and of the facing wall in particular. Most of that rock beyond it on the upper slope was supposed to be gone. It was not.

"We have men over there now trying to find out what went wrong," Andrews said.

"It sure didn't do what it was supposed to do," said Merritt

"Maybe," said a voice from behind him, "it had something to do with the instructions we were given."

Merritt did not need to look around to know it was Tom Porter. The voice was unmistakable. He swung round slowly and carefully, and looked up at the man.

"That's one possibility among others," said Merritt. "I suppose it's a very good one."

Porter had tried for an argument with a witness present. Now he folded his arms and stared down at Merritt. "You think you can do something out here you couldn't do from the house, then? Or have you got any good ideas at the moment?"

Merritt gathered himself to his feet slowly, looked at Andrews. "Go see if there's any news from across the canyon," he said, and George Andrews wisely took himself off in a hurry. Merritt turned with dead calm and looked at Porter, eye to eye.

"Porter, I'm not in the mood to argue with you or anyone else right now. If you want things your way, I'll just walk back to the house and let you settle your own problems. But otherwise, stay out of my way."

"We've wasted a week already, and we look like we're going to lose more than that. I haven't insisted you be out here, knowing well enough you couldn't, but now that you are here—"

"Porter," said Merritt, with as much calm as he could muster, "you don't insist anything where I'm concerned. If you think you can finish this project, you go right ahead."

"All right, bad choice of words. But you've been out a week and nothing you've left me has worked. The blast didn't go as planned. Reynolds went down on the slide and near went over the edge; he was lucky to get off with a broken leg. We've had two of the oxen slaughtered last night on the farside and we can't expect to get replacements inside a week. The way you want to build that extension of the road out to the dike isn't working: it caved in and hurt a man. I haven't bothered you with such details. Do you want a further list?"

Merritt drew a long breath and wiped the cold sweat from his face. Not in a communicative mood, he turned from Porter and walked to the rim of the gorge.

"Answers?" Porter prodded him.

Merritt shook his head slowly. "I don't know. Looks as if I misjudged. Or—I don't know. If I'd been here, I'd have taken a last check; maybe someone didn't understand my charts. I'd better go over there and look it over."

"I've got a lot of men standing around idle while you're thinking."

"There's no need of that. Put them to work cutting timber. Do they need instruction for that? And for the other, I don't know yet. I don't know. Best too many not go prodding around until we do know. There could be a charge that didn't go. Could be a lot of things. I'll give you answers after I've had a chance to look around. Just stay clear of me."

Meg was standing in the door when the crew came in at evening, warned, no doubt, by the creaking of the outer gate. There was dinner waiting as it always was, Hannah Burns there to welcome them with hot meals, the other women and the children of the household under her direction.

Merritt lowered himself to table very carefully: the walk back had proven almost too much for him. He let his weight to his elbows, settled, gave Meg a tired smile.

"How did it go?" she asked, pausing in the serving. "We were terribly worried when we heard a second blast go off."

"It was planned. It went the way it should."

"You look terrible."

I'm all right."

"Surely you're not going back out there tomorrow."

"I fairly well have to. Besides, it's not so hard for most of the day. It's the walking that does for me."

The dinner was stew again: it frequently was, due to the large number of men who must eat at uncertain hours. Merritt looked at what Meg ladled into his bowl, stirred it about, swallowed what of it he could tolerate and then excused himself to go upstairs. One of the Burns lads offered to help him; he waved him off and walked up slowly, reached the safety of his room and shut the door. He would gladly have lain down clothed, but he made himself strip out of the clothing all the same, poured water, washed, eased gingerly into bed.

There was a concentrated misery in his back, between his shoulders, where there was a scarcely healed injury the length of his hand: nothing, for a starship's medical facilities; serious enough as Hestians practiced medicine. More than once since his injury he had thought of Adam Jones with longing. To be on Hestia under the best of circumstances was a trial of patience. To be hurt and depending on Hestian medicine, to be reduced to receiving messages by runner, to lie for hours on this sagging feather mattress—was another matter entirely.

He slept finally; he did not know how long, but the last of the wick had burned in the lamp and the room was dark. He recognized the lowing of cattle that had wakened him… ordinarily sooner than it had; and people were moving about downstairs.

Something was scratching at the window, insistently. He rose in the dark, his heart beating hard, and retrieved his gun from the table… padded to the window and listened, hardly breathing. When the sound did not repeat itself, he rapped the gun barrel on the window.

"Ssam," came a hiss from the other side.

He unbarred the inner shutter with his left hand, hurrying, for fear the sentries might spot her and fire. When he flung the shutters inward, there was Sazhje's anxious face the other side of the cloudy glass, a pallor in the dark and the moon.

He swore under his breath and opened the window so that she could slip in. She did so, peering anxiously about in the dark to be sure they were alone; and then with relief she patted him on the arms, chattering at him. He kept the gun to his side, out of sight, glanced anxiously at the open window, that let in a chill wind.

"Ssam," she said.

"Happy to see me, are you?" He took her by the arm to draw her out of the open. "You stay—stay there, Sazhje."

He wrapped a robe about himself and pocketed the gun, tied the sash, then looked at Sazhje, who, ignoring his advice, had perched on the foot of the bed in the moonlight. Outside, the uproar had reached the yard, angry men looking for the intruders.

"You hear that, Sazhje?" He gestured toward the window. "They're looking for you, Sazhje."

Curiously, she seemed to understand some of that. She glanced toward the window and then laid a long-fingered hand on her breast. "Sazhje ahhrht. Ahhrht"

"I'm glad you think you're all right. They'll shoot you, don't you understand that? Why did you come back?"

She frowned and wrinkled her flat nose. "Ah?" she asked, and then as if she determined that whatever he could answer was of no importance, she went to the window and looked out.

"No," he said sharply, and took her back from the window. The move frightened her. Her ears went back and her eyes went wide, but not in the attack pattern. It was simple alarm.

Steps ascended the stairs like thunder, and before there was time to think what to do, someone was pounding at the door.

"Merritt! Porter shouted, and flung open the door without any further warning.

With a shriek of alarm Sazhje compressed her fluid body and fairly flew out the open window, while Merritt stepped into Porter's line of fire. Porter came forward as if he had thought it accident, intent on firing after the intruder; and his florid face took on outrage when Merritt barred his way.

"You invited that in?" he asked, incredulous. Merritt was aware of others crowding the room, the balcony outside—of Meg, of Andrews, of a dozen others.

"It was Sazhje," he said. "I don't think she meant any harm."

"Listen," said Porter. "I ran up here thinking they'd forced an entry; we saw the window open from out back. I couldn't think anyone could be that thick-witted. What if others had followed her? What if they'd gotten into the house? We could have all had our throats cut. And who's to know she isn't one that was with them when the warehouse burned?"

"She wasn't."

"Are you in a position to know that?"

Merritt had felt that one close about him even before his own denial was out of his mouth. He glanced at Meg: she said nothing. Somewhere outside there was the report of a rifle.

Merritt turned to the window and looked out. He could see nothing.

"Worried for her?" asked Porter. "You might have shown a little of that same concern for us, in what you did."

Merritt looked about again. "I won't argue with you," he said. It seemed scarcely the moment for it. Even Andrews looked disgusted with him, but had the loyalty to move people out, to start sending them back to their rooms. Porter walked out; and finally there was only Meg left.

"Aren't you going to close the window?" she asked him in a thin, hard voice.

He turned and did so, and she was still standing there when he turned again.

"She came to the window," he said. "I knew who it was. I let her in because I was afraid someone would shoot her."

"If I see her again," said Meg, "I'll shoot her."

Her attitude caught him entirely off-balance. "I knew you'd be upset," he said, "but if that's the way you feel, you had your chance to say something to Porter, about Sazhje coming before."

"I'm not aiming at you. But, Sam, you'd better remember this: if you can't bring yourself to get rid of that thing you brought us—"

"There's no harm in her."

"Then believe what you want to believe, but I'm beginning to understand that you were right how different we two are. If you can't straighten out in your mind which species you prefer, I can. I suppose it means very little to you, but I've been stung before where you're concerned, and I think this time I'm cured. My father's dead, thanks to them; and for all I know, it was your Sazhje that led them over the wall. And if you have no more respect for our feelings or even our safety than to do something like this—I hope they got her, Sam. I hope they did."

"You can believe this: I won't stop til I find out."

"How often have you seen her, Sam?"

"I don't see how that matters. Or what are you after?"

"If I knew what you were after, I'd be satisfied. Why do you even care about that thing? Why is it so important in the face of everything else that's happened? Why can't you kill it?"

"Is that really what you want?"

"Is it so impossible?"

"She can feel, Meg."

"Do you care so much that I can?" she returned, and slammed the door as she left.

It was chill in the forest at this hour when the sun was just rising, before many people back at the house were even out of bed. Merritt trod carefully on damp leaves, aware how great a sound even that made in this stillness, a quiet not even the wind disturbed.

He had hoped that Sazhje would somehow be waiting for him where she had before, and that he would not have to draw the whole forest's attention to himself. But she was not, and he forced the sound from himself and called her name aloud.

The only thing it raised was a little scurrying in the leaves, something too small to see as it bounded away into the brush.

"Sazhje!" he called again,

He left the trail in the direction that she had tried to draw him that night of the fire, and called her name again and again, until he thought there must be nothing in the forest that was unaware of his presence.

Something rather larger was coming his way; and he drew his pistol and waited as the rustling of leaves and brush came closer to him.

"Sazhje?" he asked of the presence beyond the trees.

She was there, closer than he had thought She came round the trunk of a tree and stopped there, holding to it nervously.

"Ahhrht?" she asked him. "Sazhje ahhrht?

"Sazhje's all right. Come on."

She was hurt. He saw that when she came clear of the brush. A shallow wound lay across her thigh, not serious, but surely painful. Still there was no hostility in her manner. He put the gun away and she came to him and took his outstretched hands, letting him take her over to a place that they could sit down, on an old log.

He had thought to examine the injury to see what he could do for her, but when he tried to see it she flicked her ears back and hit at him, not to hurt, not even touching him.

"No, Ssam."

"Sazhje's all right?"

"Ah," she confirmed, and put her hand on his shoulder, smiled with fanged happiness. "Ssam—come Sazhje."

"You've got a good memory, haven't you?" He was amazed that she had retained the words they had so laboriously taught her. But then she was reaching at the lunch sack he had with him, interested in that, he suspected, as much as in his presence. Likely she had not been up to hunting, or whatever it was she did to support herself. He wondered where the others of her kind were, if they would help her, or if her affinity for humans had somehow made her an outcast.

"What does Sazhje want?"

"Ap-ph," she said, and tugged pleadingly at the sack.

He unwrapped everything and gave it to her; he had thought first of her passion for apples and had brought one. Sazhje bit into it with an expression of ecstasy, but before it had all disappeared she remembered her social graces and held out the remainder to him.

"Sazhje's apple," he said. She smiled at him and finished it with two bites.

Before she was done, she had picked the meat out of the sandwiches, eaten a cold potato with a great deal of grimacing and distaste, and sampled the bread. That she rejected.

"Thanks," he said gravely, and put the bread back into the sack for his own meal. Sazhje stretched, leaning against him in feline contenment.

"Ahhrht," she pronounced.

"I've got to go, now, you know. If I'm not at work ahead of the rest of them, they're going to be sure where I was, at least what I was up to. So—" He put himself on his feet, but Sazhje anticipated him with a twist of her body that put her in his way; her long arms extended to him, her ears back and her eyes wistful.

"No, Ssam."

"Hey," he said gently, and set his hands at her steely waist: impossible to forget that she was not of his kind, with the feel of hard muscle under his fingers, the invisible down that coated her golden skin. The face, strange as it was, had a kind of beauty about it, had its own expressions: one read emotion in the set of the brow, the tautness of the mouth, the turning of the ears—they had the smallest feather of fur at the tips, visible when the light caught it from behind—most of all in the wonderful eyes, gold-flecked brown, that could go from wide-pupilled black to limpid warmth, all iris. The long arms wrapped themselves about his neck, her face close to his, all happy, and she turned her head and rubbed her cheeks against his.

"Ssam," she said contentedly.

"Listen, Sazhje." He patted her shoulder and she tilted her face up to look at him. "Sazhje—no go Ssam, understand? No go."

"Ssam come Sazhje?"

"Yes," he promised. The worry on her face changed to a grin—she was at her most alien when she smiled. Long-fingered hands slid down his arms and let him go.

"Ssam come," she repeated as he was leaving.

"Sam's coming back," he affirmed, and turned toward the canyon.

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