7

The weather on the journey north to Herrandown next morning was dull and overcast, although thankfully dry. There was little to see on the road, whose route had, after all, been planned to avoid the more exciting landscapes. Even so, part of the road had been washed away in one place by a rogue stream, and the little Recon vehicle had to make a brief and muddy detour that fortunately added little to the journey time.

As they rolled slowly along a marshy stretch with the pale sunlight trying to penetrate the drifting mists, a particularly protracted silence fell upon them. Merral looked at Isabella, feeling that her slight figure looked incongruous in the large passenger seat of the Recon.

“No regrets about our parents’ decision, Isabella?” he asked, catching her eye, wishing to hear her voice as much as to get an answer.

She paused, stretched her legs out and then smiled softly back at him. “No. Not really. Your tropics job is almost definite, and the more I hear of it the more I think I may be best off in Ynysmant. But also, yes. It would have been desirable, in many ways.” The smile grew slightly wistful. “Of course, I think that maybe things could still work out between us.”

She fell silent again and then she looked back at him. “And you, Forester D’Avanos?”

He thought for a moment. “The same. This is how things are. I could wish otherwise, but what would be the point?”

Ahead of them, a road repair machine sensed their approach, pivoted its body clear of the road on its four hind legs, and turned its head toward them. Merral raised a hand toward the machine and the silver head nodded slowly in acknowledgement.

“Just so,” Isabella said. “What would be the point?”

Just after ten-thirty the Recon rolled up to the top of a rise on the road and Herrandown came into view. Merral paused the vehicle and switched the power off. He stared down at the sleepy little cluster of houses and fields surrounded by trees in their tentative fresh green foliage. What do I expect to see? A dark cloud? A visible shadow? But there was nothing.

He started the power up again and they moved on down quietly to the houses, where he parked near the rotorcraft pad and switched everything off.

The dogs came running out and carefully encircled the machine. Poor old Spotback. I do wonder what happened to him. As he opened the hatch and got out on his side, the dogs edged warily nearer, yapping vigorously at him. Merral stopped, struck by their behavior. It was extraordinary how they seemed much more cautious than in the past. Perhaps, they know better than we do what is going on.

His thoughts were interrupted as he was suddenly compressed in an embrace by his aunt. “Oh, Merral! Thank you for coming. We are so grateful. . . . We don’t know what to think—”

She stiffened suddenly as Isabella appeared round from her side of the machine.

“Aunt,” said Merral, sensing the awkwardness, “I brought Isabella. She has more experience with young girls.”

A look of incomprehension, or even annoyance, passed over his aunt’s face, only to be replaced swiftly by a smile. “Oh. Yes. I see.” She grabbed Isabella in a firm and hasty hug.

“And thank you for coming too.” Zennia turned to Merral. “Elana is in her room. The other girls and Thomas are at school. Come on in and I’ll get you both a drink. Barrand is on his way down from the ridge. He wasn’t expecting you so soon. He’s making the most of the dry weather.”

Leaving Isabella to look at some recent paintings, Merral went into the kitchen. “Aunt, I want to apologize. I should have warned you that I was bringing Isabella.”

She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t matter. It’s just that—”

He waited for an answer and reluctantly she continued. “I was hoping, I suppose, that we could keep it within the family. If you know what I mean. Elana’s problem. It’s . . . well . . . a sensitive matter.”

“But, Aunt, if she has a problem, then it affects the community. And it may be that the problem isn’t with her.”

“But it particularly affects us. It will not look good.”

Puzzled, Merral replied, “Who cares?”

“We do, Merral, I’m afraid.”

Oh dear. We never used to worry about what others felt about us. What has happened here?

When they had passed on all the news and finished their coffee, Zennia took them up to the room they had moved Elana to. Pleading work, she left them there.

Elana was lying faceup on the bed reading a book projected onto the ceiling above her head. She switched it off abruptly after they entered, half got up, and then slumped back onto the bed. Her face was pale.

“Cousin Merral! I heard you might be coming.”

He kissed her. “I’ve brought Isabella to see you. She heard you weren’t well.”

Elana gave her a mischievous smile. “Some excuse! Hi, Isabella.”

After a few minutes of news and pleasantries, Isabella sat by the bed and said in a matter-of-fact voice, “You had a nasty time the other day I gather, Elana.”

“Hmm, yes.”

“Would you mind—if it doesn’t hurt too much—telling me and Merral about it? Slowly. You went for a walk, didn’t you?”

Gradually, bit by bit, the story unfolded. Merral, sitting to one side, watched both as they talked and was impressed by Isabella’s gentleness and the slow, steady way she worked at the questions. When, as frequently happened, Elana dried up, Isabella would quietly and softly try another angle. The story that emerged, however, was little more than an elaboration of what Merral had already heard. Elana had been on her own, climbing the path to the north-northwest of Herrandown, when she saw the beetle man in the bushes. He made no noise but just stared at her. When she screamed, he vanished.

After praising some paintings on a desk nearby, Isabella managed to get Elana to do a drawing. After some minutes, she had produced a result that, while being crude, was enough to give an impression of what she was trying to describe. The overall picture was of a vaguely manlike figure. It had a narrow face with two eyes and mouth on top of a body with a chest that appeared to be made of plates.

“Like a suit of war armor from the early Dark Times?” Merral asked, but the concept was unknown to her. Further questions revealed a firm and unshakable view that there had only been one pair of hands and legs and that the body casing was brown and shiny, like a beetle’s.

“Or like wood?” Merral asked, wondering whether the whole thing was a bizarre illusion based on a fallen log.

“Oh no,” she said in firm voice. “Not like wood. Not really. I suppose the surface, the shell, looked like polished wood—dark wood.” She gestured to the varnished planks on the wall opposite. “But you see, Merral, the bits moved together, like they do on an insect.”

Merral and Isabella shared a bemused glance.

After a few more questions that seemed to elicit nothing new, Elana began to be restless. “Please, Merral, Isabella . . . I’d rather not talk any more. It was horrid!”

Isabella looked at Merral, who reached over and patted Elana gently on her shoulder.

“Thanks, young lady. You’ll soon be better. The weather is improving no end. We’ll see you before we go.” With a few general comments they slipped out, closed the door, and went back downstairs. Halfway down Merral turned to Isabella, expecting her to say something. She merely shook her head.

“Go on,” he said.

Isabella shrugged her shoulders. “What do you think?”

“Me? I have no idea. If it wasn’t impossible, I would believe her. But it’s your opinion I value. What do you think?”

“A convincing vision,” Isabella remarked gravely. “It’s no game or joke. She is certain that what she saw is real.”

“Which is different from saying that what she saw was real.”

“Quite so. And that is out of my area.”

“And into mine. But well done anyway. You did better than I could do.”

“Thanks.”

They were talking with Zennia a few minutes later when Barrand came in from outside, his gray overalls heavily stained with reddish brown mud. He greeted them all with smiles. If Isabella’s arrival had been news to him, Merral thought that he did not show it. “Sorry, sorry. Business as usual here. Merral, here, give me a hug. I’m expecting your quarry team any day. Isabella, how lovely to see you. Let’s give you a hug too. Excuse the dirt. Thank you both for coming.” He sank into a chair heavily and breathed out loudly. “Ohh, I’m getting old. Not enough exercise this winter. How was your journey?”

“All right: a washout at about the thirty-five kilometer post.”

“Ah, there. A wild stream again. But a lot of mud?”

“Of course.”

There was a long silence that Merral felt obliged to break. “Uncle, we had a long chat with Elana.”

There was the faintest hint of a frown on his uncle’s face. “Ah yes. So how did you find my eldest daughter?” To Merral his tone sounded strangely lacking in compassion.

Merral looked at Isabella, who hesitated a moment before answering. “Well, Barrand Antalfer, I’m no specialist, but I would think she’ll be all right in a few days. She’s had a nasty shock.”

“I’m glad to hear what you think.” Barrand nodded impassively and then looked at Merral. “You are both staying for lunch, I take it?”

There was an awkward pause. Merral looked at Isabella and could see her staring at his uncle as if summoning up courage to say something. Eventually, though, it was Merral who found himself breaking the silence.

“Uncle, Elana said she saw it about this time of day. As the issue of the lighting is critical, can we go and see where it . . . where she had the incident? Could we go and have a look? Now?”

Barrand pursed his heavy lips. “To see the place. Well, yes. I don’t see why not.” There was a curious hesitation. “Both of you? Anyway, I suppose I’m already in outdoor clothes.”

He’s either acting or he doesn’t care, Merral decided. And either is bizarre. What is going on here?

Five minutes later, they were walking up the muddy track to the hill. It was still cold, but the clouds had thinned so that there was enough sunlight to cast faint shadows. Under the trees, however, the shadows remained deep. Some of the spring flowers were out. There was a fine display of little yellow daffodils in places, and along a rockier patch bright pink cyclamens glowed.

Barrand, still apparently cheerful, led the way. “It began to rain shortly afterward. It’s been a rotten spring. The worst I can remember. The children have been indoors a lot.”

“Elana said it had been one of the first good days.” Isabella’s voice was unobtrusive.

“Just so. Now, it was up here.”

They turned up a slippery path between stringy pines and old, brown, straggling brambles. The way narrowed and they fell into single file.

“Can I go ahead?” Merral asked. “Stop me when we get there.”

“Be my guest.”

They made poor progress, as every so often Merral would stop to look at the ground. There were few clear impressions. Once he felt he could see a child’s footprints, and in another place, boot marks that belonged to Barrand.

They kept on for another hundred meters. Here the trees had grown higher, and behind the shrubs and bushes flanking the path, a heavy darkness lay under the lower branches. Merral stopped, gestured for silence, and strained his ears as he listened. He soon heard the noise of scrabbling as a rabbit fled, far away a distant buzzard mewed, and somewhere nearby there was the faint hum of a power saw at another farm. Carefully, Merral breathed in, but he could only smell the new flowers, the clean aroma of the pines, and the faint odor of the new young garlic.

Nothing he heard or smelled was wrong or unfamiliar. Objectively, there was nothing alarming, nothing untoward. And yet, he had an inescapable feeling that something was not right.

They walked on, gradually climbing up above the hamlet. Despite being chilly, the day seemed oddly oppressive, and Merral felt keenly that he wanted the clouds to open and the sun’s rays to break through. He glanced around, noticing Isabella’s pinched and strained face, while Barrand bore an expression of unnatural unconcern.

The trees now were hanging over them and Merral looked up at them, feeling disoriented. These woods were somehow unfriendly. The idea puzzled him. It was, he knew, intellectually a nonsense concept. There were no unfriendly woods. They were bright woods and dark, even just possibly gloomy woods, but unfriendly was not an appropriate adjective. But yet, today, in defiance of all he knew, he felt that the word seemed appropriate.

Suddenly they turned a bend in the path and there was a gap in the trees to the right with a view overlooking Herrandown with all its patchwork of gray-roofed buildings buried to varying extents in the ground.

“Here,”—Barrand’s voice was flat and without emotion—“in those trees. She said she saw it there.”

Merral’s gaze followed his gesture. The bases of the trees were obscured by brambles, young grass, and some scrubby hawthorn bushes. He went up to the spot and looked carefully, feeling even more out of his depth. He could find nothing unusual. What am I looking for? Suddenly the whole expedition seemed stupid. After all, he thought, supposing there was another creature there, what would he say to it? “Oh, hello, do you realize you have frightened a girl?” And what language would he use? Communal, Farholmen, pre-Intervention English or French? He felt vaguely stupid staring at a clump of perfectly ordinary brambles. Genus Rubus, he told himself, as if finding taxonomy a safe retreat from this imponderable puzzle. And don’t ask me the species name; it’s probably another new form. We can travel to the stars, but one hundred and twenty centuries after Linnaeus first gave organisms such names, the humble bramble still mocks any attempt at a usable field classification.

“Well, any ideas?” There seemed a hint of impatience in his uncle’s voice.

“None worth stating, Uncle. Let me see if I can get into the woods behind this. You stay here so I know where I am.”

Merral walked back into the trees with Isabella following silently behind him. He picked up an old branch and used it to clear a way through the fringing scrubs. Once through the marginal growth, the undergrowth thinned out. Merral paused to let his eyes adjust to the gloom, which was broken locally by patches of brightness where the light entered through the fractured pine cover.

He sensed Isabella come close alongside. He whispered to her, “What do you think? You are very quiet.”

“You are asking the wrong person. Woods aren’t my thing and I’ve got plenty to think about.” She frowned, her eyes half closed. “But you think there’s something wrong, don’t you?”

Merral realized that he might have known she would have detected that. “Wrong, yes. But what sort of wrongness and where? I have no hard data. Let’s just listen.”

So, with pauses to listen, they moved quietly through the trees. Ahead something dark moved among the trees and Merral froze instantly, his hand swinging up to make Isabella pause. A moment later he relaxed and began breathing again as the squirrel saw him and ran up the trunk. Beckoning Isabella on, he made his way slowly round toward the strip of yellow light that marked the boundary of the path. Beyond the trees he could just make out Barrand in his dark gray jacket.

It must have been about here. There was a feeling of anticlimax. There was nothing to see, no sign of a track or trail. He looked around. The view to the path ahead was obstructed by the combination of the low branches and the brambles. She had imagined it all, she must have.

He called out, “So, Uncle, can you see me?”

“Not well. Go further right, though.” Merral moved obediently that way but could see nothing.

“About here?”

“Yes, I think so.”

For a moment, Merral was nonplussed, finding that here there seemed to be only undisturbed branches. Then he remembered Elana had called what she had seen a “little man.” He squatted down.

Suddenly, through a gap in the bushes, he had a clear view of Barrand’s ruddy face framed by vegetation.

“How interesting,” he muttered, his voice sounding as if it were from a distance. He turned to Isabella. “You have a look.”

Merral stood up and stretched his legs, trying to think clearly. He realized now that he had been assuming all along that Elana had imagined the whole thing. But the gap in the branches made that harder to believe.

He heard a sharp intake of breath from Isabella and then her voice, low and intense, drifted back up to him. “Oh. That adds a different dimension. I hadn’t realized . . .”

Alerted by her tone, Merral knelt beside the bush again. “What hadn’t you realized?”

“That you can see everything.”

As she slid out of his way, he looked beyond her. Barrand had walked away, and beyond the path, glinting in the weak sunlight, stretched the buildings of Herrandown. All of them.

He bit his lip. “Oh my. Oh my,” he said, almost under his breath.

The implications sank in one after another, like a succession of stones thrown into still, deep waters. There had been something here. Whatever had been here had been intelligent. It had also, it seemed, had a purpose—that of watching the hamlet. He swallowed, his throat somehow dry. An intelligent purposeful watcher: race or kind unknown.

“Isabella, say nothing to Barrand,” he hissed, pitching his voice as softly as he could. He didn’t want to alarm his uncle and aunt further.

He heard Isabella answer, “I won’t,” and recognized a quavering note in her voice.

Suddenly a minute color difference just in front of his face caught his eye. He focused on it. It was the yellow cut end of a tiny branch, thinner than a rose stem. But what had it been cut with? Merral looked around on the ground and found what he was searching for. Carefully, he picked up the other part of the thin branch and stepped back.

“What is it?”

“Whatever . . . whoever was here . . . no, that makes no sense.” He paused in desperation. “Anyway, there is a branch here which was cut in half. Somehow.”

He held the branch end under a shaft of sunlight and looked at it, noticing a strange, sharp, oblique cut. Aware that his hand was shaking, Merral imaged the cut as best he could on his diary.

Isabella watched him in silence. He saw that she had moved to stand with her back against a tree trunk as if it gave her protection.

Merral spoke to her, his voice little more than a whisper. “We’ll talk later. I’m confused.”

She nodded sharply. “And I . . . I feel strange here.”

He forced a smile, trying not to put his unease into words. I can understand that strangeness; I’ve been in these woods for years and I have never felt as I do today. I want to get out, and I want to be in the warmth and coziness of urban Ynysmant surrounded by people. Forcing those thoughts away, he carefully cut off the end few centimeters of the stem with his knife, put it in a sample bag, and sealed it.

If it came here, then there will be a path to and from this place. Having worked with some of the larger mammals like deer, Merral knew a little of tracking. As he looked into the depths of the woods, he felt he could make out a possible trail between bushes running down into a depression.

He called out to Barrand. “Uncle, we are just going for a walk into the woods. Ten minutes?”

The deep voice boomed back. “Yes, yes. If you need to. Fine. I’ll wait here.”

Slowly, Merral walked back into the woods, looking for any clue as to what had passed this way. Within a few paces he began to have doubts that there was a trail. Surely he was fooling himself into believing that these depressions were footprints? Might it not simply be the trail of a lynx, a fox, or even a deer?

Yet what he felt might be the trail went west in a fairly straight manner and started to drop down toward the Lannar River. A few dozen meters on, just as he was on the point of giving up, the trail suddenly became very obvious. He found crushed grass stalks and what might have been small and rather angular footprints. But of what creature he had not the slightest idea.

“How much farther, Merral?”

He looked at Isabella, aware from her face as well as her tone that she was unhappy.

“Just another minute or two!” he called out and was rewarded by a fixed, determined smile. She’s right though. We should be going back. Anyway, the going was becoming rougher, as the trail was now leading down into a steep-banked tributary that fed into the main river.

A large fallen larch trunk partly blocked the way and Merral stooped to get under it. The branches had been snapped off in falling so that the underside of the trunk was punctuated by a series of jagged, splintered protrusions.

“Be careful, Isabella, mind your head.”

Merral stopped, his attention grabbed by strands of brown hair hanging on a sharp broken branch. He peered at it carefully in the poor light, just able to make out that the fibers were long, coarse, and wiry. Isabella came and peered at it. Merral pushed her hand away as she reached out to touch it.

“No,” he told her, “You’ll contaminate it. I’ll take it for analysis. We’ll get the DNA out and it will tell us what we have.”

“Of course. Can you do it?”

“Not here, but I’ll get the main lab in Isterrane to do it. An old friend of mine, Anya Lewitz, will organize it.”

He imaged the hair on the diary, and then carefully wrapped a sample bag around it. As he did he bent over and put his nose to the mouth of the bag. There was a faint, pungent odor, a smell of something unpleasantly rancid, as if food had been left out in warm weather.

Isabella gestured. “Let me. . . .” Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “Ugh! That’s horrid! What creature was that from?”

“I really don’t know. There’s nothing I can think of here that it’s from. And look at the height above the ground. Whatever it was is probably as tall as you or me. Taller, if it was stooping.”

Isabella shuddered and looked round.

Merral rubbed his face, as if trying to see the situation more clearly. Not only did this fit nothing in his experience or training, it fit nothing that he had ever heard of.

“It makes no sense at all. It wasn’t from what Elana saw, but from something else.”

Could there be two unexplained creatures? That seemed hard to believe. He wondered whether two impossibilities were more or less probable than just one.

However a more pressing issue was the need to decide what to do next. Merral paused, weighing up all the options. Should he try and pursue the trail? Take a dog or two and follow it? There would be no problem for a dog following a creature with such a smell. But he was not equipped for a trail that could lead to a day’s walk or more, and he had to be back home today in order to be in Isterrane the day after tomorrow. Besides, something like that would raise the status of the whole affair and would inevitably make it a major crisis. And, if it was a false alarm, then harm might be done to his uncle’s family. He made his decision.

“Isabella, we will go back now. Anyway, we said ten minutes.”

“A good idea,” she answered, relief in her voice. “What are you going to do?”

“I will take advice in Isterrane. In the meantime, I think we are neutral about what we have seen. The data, after all, needs analysis.” Merral began to walk back toward where his uncle was.

“I suppose you are right.”

Barrand was sitting on a tree trunk whittling away at a piece of wood with a knife. “Ho! I was wondering where you had both gone to.”

“I found something that might have been a track and I picked up some samples for analysis.”

Barrand seemed almost uninterested. “Some faunal anomaly, I’ll bet. Well, we’d better get back for lunch.”

Lunch was an oddly subdued affair, especially by comparison with the other meals he’d had at Herrandown. Elana preferred to stay and eat in her bedroom. Barrand and Zennia were pleasant and affable, and the food was good and plentiful, but Merral felt a tension. Every so often Merral noticed glances between his uncle and aunt that hinted that all was not well between them.

After lunch Barrand and Zennia disappeared into the kitchen to make coffee, leaving Merral and Isabella alone in the small family room that he had sat in with his aunt and uncle just before Nativity. That reminded Merral that he really ought to try and raise the issue of the recording. It was not a prospect that appealed, and thinking of the best way to approach it began to occupy his mind. While Isabella sat looking at a portfolio of his aunt’s paintings, Merral got up and, trying to clarify his thoughts, opened the window and leaned out, enjoying the fresh spring air.

As he did he realized he could hear what his aunt and uncle were saying. The kitchen window must be open, he thought, and the breeze came from that direction. A second or two later he realized that the conversation was also very animated.

His uncle’s voice, loud and ill tempered, drifted past. “You shouldn’t have got me to bring him in. It’s something we can handle.”

It was such an extraordinary tone that for a moment Merral wondered if it really was his uncle.

Then his aunt replied and, to his distress, her manner was similar. “We handle it?” she seemed to snap. “We haven’t a clue—least of all you. There’s something wrong here, Barrand. I keep telling you.”

There was a snort, as if an animal were loose. “Don’t be a fool, woman. There’s nothing wrong here but hysterical women.”

“Hysterical? I like that!” His aunt’s voice seemed to vibrate with rage. “The real problem is a man—a man who is too proud and too stubborn to admit that there is something badly wrong here!”

Merral, suddenly ashamed both of eavesdropping and of what he was overhearing, abruptly closed the window. He stepped back into the room wondering if his face was burning. He was staggered, even shocked. The words he had heard made sense, but the tone was like nothing he had ever heard before. Things like it were alluded to in the old literature, but for it to happen between a husband and wife? It was hardly credible.

“What’s wrong?” Isabella asked.

“I have heard . . .” He paused, finding himself in agonized consternation. “No, I can’t say. . . .” He looked at her. “What’s wrong here, Isabella? I’m convinced everything is. Badly.”

Isabella opened her mouth to speak and closed it abruptly at the sound of approaching footsteps.

The subsequent coffee was a very quiet, even embarrassed affair in which almost nothing was said. After it Merral and Barrand left Zennia and Isabella and went over together to the office.

The big man closed the door, sat down awkwardly at his crowded desk, and stared over his papers at Merral.

“Tell me, Nephew,” he asked, “what will your verdict be?” Merral felt that there was a wary, defensive look on his uncle’s face.

Merral did not answer immediately, his mind instead running over a range of possible answers. Eventually he spoke. “Uncle, I need to take some advice. I am a forester. I am not convinced that the problem lies in my area. If it does, it goes beyond my knowledge. Frankly, I have no idea what is going on.”

Barrand nodded and leaned back in his chair. “So what are you going to do?”

“The day after tomorrow I will go to Isterrane and talk to some people there about your situation.”

A clear look of unease crossed his uncle’s face. “It’s going to go that far? I was hoping that it could be sorted out easily. Here. Or at worst, Ynysmant.”

“I had hoped so too, but I think not. I think I need specialist advice. You see, there is always the possibility that the wrong action may make matters worse.”

“I suppose so.” His uncle shifted his large frame heavily in his chair. “Well, to be honest, Merral, I’m rather regretting my call yesterday. Zennia pushed me into it. Elana had this thing, this vision. By taking it seriously, we have just made matters worse.”

“You don’t believe her?” Merral asked.

“Believe what?” There was a hard-edged incredulity in his voice. “That she saw a creature that doesn’t exist? I wouldn’t say it to her face, of course. No, let’s just say I’m frankly skeptical—very skeptical. Female hormones, I’d say.”

Feeling unsure what to say, Merral said nothing.

“See, Merral,” his uncle continued, leaning forward slightly, “I would rather that we kept the whole thing low-key. Not blow it up. This girl of yours, Isabella, now—very nice, don’t get me wrong—she may talk and we might have the colony here closed down. And we’ve worked hard.”

He gestured widely with his arms, got up with a lurch of the chair, walked to the window and peered out of it.

“It’s not easy here, you know. ‘The blessings of isolation,’ I think my wife said.” He made a strange, almost mocking noise. “Maybe, it has its curses, though. Fifty of us. All together, and such a lousy winter. I wonder if you people in Ynysmant really understand. . . .”

He swung round and shook his large head angrily as if trying to break free of something.

“Strange, Merral. I’ve never felt this way before. Very strange. Sorry to take it out on you, too. It must be the weather. It’s just . . . well . . . in a word, tough here.”

He paced the floor as if trying to find words to express his feelings. He paused at the Lymatov painting and stared hard at it. “We were talking about this last time, weren’t we?”

Merral nodded.

“Well it’s saying different things to me now. It asks a question. Is it worth it? Is the whole venture”—he threw his arms wide as if to encompass the colony—“the sacrifices, the blood, the suffering. Is it all worth doing?”

For some time Merral’s perplexity was so great he could say nothing. Eventually, feeling compelled to speak, his reply was hesitant.

“I have to say, Uncle, that this question has been debated, well, ever since the Intervention. The verdict has always been that it is. It is all worthwhile.”

“Well then,” his uncle said, in a tone that suggested he was unconvinced, “in the event of the entire Assembly of Worlds versus Barrand Imanos Antalfer I guess I must be wrong.” And he sat down so heavily in his chair that it protested. “Sorry,” he said, but his tone denied his words.

There was a heavy silence in the room. Merral, wishing he was elsewhere, plucked up his courage. “Uncle, before I go. There is one more thing. I hate to mention it. But I have a question about your concert at Nativity. The one with the Rechereg.”

Merral found it impossible to identify the emotion that his uncle’s face suddenly acquired.

“Oh yes. That. Did you like it?”

“Very much. But Miranda Cline . . . she seems to have sung at a higher pitch than she was able to in life.”

Very slowly, almost as if drugged, Barrand nodded his head. “Ah, that. That. I’m surprised you noticed.” He shrugged.

“My attention was drawn to it. But her range was altered?”

His uncle gave a long, low sigh. “In a way, yes. In a way, no. See, she would always have liked to sing higher. I’ve read her biography. That’s the thing. So I was acting—shall we say—in her best interests.”

“But we don’t know what she actually thought. Or what she thinks now. And the Technology Protocols say that—”

“Oh yes.” There was a clear note of irritation here. “Number six, isn’t it? But I think she would have agreed.”

In the hanging silence that ensued, Merral realized that he was becoming tempted to say that the affair didn’t matter. But he knew it did matter. He tried to think what to say next but was spared by his uncle. “Look, I was in a hurry and I didn’t think it would give offense. But I will destroy the file.”

“Probably the best thing.” But it was more than a matter of giving offense, Merral knew. It was wrong.

The silence returned, only to be broken again by his uncle’s voice, now quiet but vaguely truculent, as if he was trying to reassert himself. “But maybe, Merral, we need to remember something.”

“What?”

“That the Technology Protocols were made by men, not God. They’re not Scripture.”

Merral suddenly realized that they were now in very serious and very deep waters. He knew that he had to get out of the conversation without giving in.

“No, they aren’t. True. But they are part of the fabric of the covenant of the Assembly of Worlds, and there has been no serious discussion of the removal of any part of them for over ten thousand years.”

Merral decided that he really couldn’t get into an argument. He had to talk to Vero about this.

“Anyway, Uncle. I’ve had a long day. We can discuss it all at some other time.”

“Oh, perhaps so. Anyway, you’d best be going.”

Barrand got to his feet, his bulk seeming to dominate the office.

“Look, I’m sorry about the business with Miranda Cline. It was stupid. It’s just been a long winter.” He sighed heavily. “You’d best go. I suspect it will all blow over here. A proper spring is nearly here and summer won’t be far away. And I’ll feel better when I get the quarry started. But thanks for coming.”

Merral chose his words carefully. “Uncle, be assured of this. I support you, and I’m available whenever you need me.”

They walked slowly back to the house where they were greeted by Thomas, now released from school, who leapt on Merral with a boundless energy and demanded to clamber over him. Merral put up with it for a few minutes and then deposited the child on the ground. Not only had Thomas become heavy today, his heart was not in it. Instead, he hugged him and let him go. As he looked at him, he realized how much he wanted to have children of his own someday.

“So, Thomas, how are things?”

“Not good, Cousin. Not good at all.” He gestured with a stubby and rather dirty hand to the surrounding woods. “There’s something bad out there. Real bad. You’re gonna fix it, aren’t you? You are, for sure. Do you promise?” His round face was troubled.

“Well, Thomas, promises are made to be kept. So it’s a serious business to make them. I won’t promise to do what I may not be able to. But what I will promise, Thomas, is this. . . .” He paused, thinking of the binding significance of his words. “I am going to do everything to find out what’s bad in the forest. I promise.”

“Thanks. Thanks. Find out what’s in there.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then he whispered something to Merral in a voice that was so quiet that no one else heard it.

And what Thomas said so appalled and disgusted Merral that when he went over everything that he had seen and heard that day, it was Thomas’s comment that alarmed him most of all. And when, the day after, he journeyed to Isterrane, it was still a preoccupation.

Again and again, the words that Thomas had whispered to him came back to him. Endlessly, he saw the little lips move and heard the voice whisper to him.

“Find it, Cousin Merral, find it. And when you find it . . . kill it.”