Alternate Realities (74 page)

He slept a time, cradled in Sbi’s safe arms, and, on the edge of sleep, knew that people walked soft-footed up to be sure that he was all right. Those with him hushed them and sent them away.

But finally there was a thunder in the heavens, and cries filled the streets. Herrin waked and looked up. “Something’s landed,” Carl Gytha said. “Master Law, we have to get you out of here.”

“No,” he said after thinking about it. “No. They can come if they like.” He laid his head down again against Sbi, and shut his eyes.

And in time the visitors came, blue-clad, walking with rifles down the center of Main. People began to come there, anxiously, betraying him by trying to protect him. He was aware of it all, still resting but with eyes open.

“Come
on
,” Leona Pace pleaded with him. “Please. They’ll hold them.”

“No. I have no anonymity anymore. They’ll have been to the Residency. They’ll talk to citizens. They’ll hunt the city for me, and that’s no good.” He stood up, brushed off their protesting hands, even Sbi’s, whose advice he valued, and walked down the steps and onto the street, parting the crowd to walk out to the Outsiders.

The colonel was one, resplendent with black plastic and weapons, like the rest of them. They had lifted the weapons when he came forward, lifted them again, because his companions had insisted on following him, and standing with him, and the crowd gathered uncertainly behind.

“Master Law,” the colonel said, seeming doubtful. They had met only once, and perhaps he was much changed.

“Colonel. What do you want here?”

The colonel lifted a hand, pointed back toward the Residency. “I don’t make sense of the First Citizen, Master Law. He’s alone. He refused to see us. Only he said something about
your
controlling things. That this was your doing.”

Herrin regarded him sadly. “So you come to me for answers?”

“Do you have control in this city?”

“We’re restoring order. Ask me, if you will ask things. I have the responsibility.”

“We deal with you?”

“For convenience’s sake, I think you might. I can deal with you.”

The colonel frowned. “I’m not here to play logical games. I want order.”

“No. Go back to the port. This is Kierkegaard. We invite you to come back this evening. I’ll talk with you. There are so many things I want to learn, colonel.”

The colonel looked uneasily beyond his shoulder, where Sbi stood.

“I am also,” said Sbi, “curious. I shall be with Master Law.”

“This evening,” Herrin said.

The colonel hesitated, and then nodded, started to offer his hand and Herrin held up his, refusing the gesture with his bandages. The colonel stopped in consternation and looked confused for the moment. “Sir,” the colonel said. “Where shall I find you this evening?”

“The University. Come there. You need no guns, colonel. There’s no need.”

“Sir,” said the colonel, and, motioning to his companions, turned and walked back the way they had come.

A murmuring broke out around them. Herrin turned, saw the street jammed with people shoulder to shoulder, as far as he could see to the dome and all along the fronts of buildings. He was dazed by the sight and the relative silence with which they had come, lifted a hand to tell them it was all right.

They simply stood, not offering to disperse.

“Please,” he said, “go on. Go tend things that need doing.”

There was no panic rush this time. Some did as he said; some moved necessarily in his direction, but gave him a great deal of room, watching him the while. A few put out hands in his direction as if they would like to touch, or as if the gesture itself meant something.

He went to the University that night, and Sbi went, and another of the ahnit. There was Pace and Phelps, but Gytha stayed outside in view of the crowd. He had put on blue robes himself, as many did, and stood on the steps to keep matters calm.

“Come and go as you like,” Herrin told the colonel. “Enter University. We honor all agreements that benefit us both, but we won’t have weapons in the streets.”

“What about the First Citizen?”

“He doesn’t want to come out,” Herrin said quietly. He had tried; himself, he had tried, but Waden stayed to his own refuge. “Someday, perhaps.” They had buried Keye, with the rest of the dead that day, all in one sad grave. “We welcome visitors, colonel. But while you may have your port compound, once across that line, you’re on our soil and in our State, and while we’ll be hospitable, we’ll issue the invitations. We take responsibility for ourselves, and for those who come here.”

The colonel said nothing for a moment. Perhaps he remembered walking through that vast, quiet crowd outside.

“So,” said Sbi, “do we—issue the invitations.”

“That puts the matter,” the colonel said, “in a special category. If there’s native government.”

“Oh,” said Sbi, “there is.”

The colonel did not stay long, even on the world itself. Outsiders came and went, silently building their station and dealing in trade.

There was a time that Herrin found it possible to walk the streets again unescorted. “Master Law,” they would hail him there, and touch his sleeve very gently, with great reverence. He talked to them in the streets, and sometimes sat down on a step where half a hundred would gather to listen to him reason with them. Sometimes Sbi gathered crowds mixed of ahnit and human, or they reasoned together. Perhaps they did not all understand, but Herrin tried, at least, to use the simplest of things.

There was a path worn to the statue in the hills, and there were always humans and ahnit thereabouts; it was the tradition to walk, even when it became possible to use transport.

His parents came on the bus from Camus, and came sorrowfully and begged his pardon. He forgave them, even understanding that they came because he was visible again, and people asked them about him, and they could no longer pretend him away. Sbi and Leona Pace, Gytha and Phelps and John Ree ... they knew him much better, and loved him, and so it was only a little painful to regret that his parents did not.

Harfeld died; Herrin was sorry: he would have gone to Camus to be with the old man, who had evidently wanted that, but it was too late when he heard the man was gone.

And finally Waden Jenks came, from his dark refuge in the Residency, thin and blinking in the sun, and brought by ahnit, who had finally persuaded him out. “Waden,” Herrin said, and offered him an embrace, which Waden accepted, and looked in his eyes.

“It’s not so bad, your reality,” Waden confessed. “I’ve seen it ... from the windows. I thought I would come out today.”

“Good,” Herrin said, laid a hand on his shoulder—the hands healed, but never quite straight—and walked with him along the street, with Sbi and the other ahnit who had brought him out. He let Waden choose the way he would walk, but knew where Waden would go, ultimately.

And Waden stood in the dome, tears running down his face while he looked at the hero-image the morning sun made of him. There were others there, surprised by sudden visitors, but the silence was very deep.

“There are years to come,” Herrin said. “There’s need of you, Waden.”

Waden looked at him, nodded slowly.

Herrin left him there, walked away with Sbi and the others, trusting that Waden would follow, in his own time.

DOWNBELOW STATION

 

THE PRIDE OF CHANUR

CHANUR’S VENTURE

THE KIF STRIKE BACK

CHANUR’S HOMECOMING

CHANUR’S LEGACY

 

ANGEL WITH THE SWORD

 

BROTHERS OF EARTH

HUNTER OF WORLDS

SERPENT’S REACH

FORTY THOUSAND IN GEHENNA

MERCHANTER’S LUCK

 

THE FADED SUN TRILOGY OMNIBUS

 

CUCKOO’S EGG

VOYAGER IN NIGHT

PORT ETERNITY

 

 

 

 

THE MORGAINE CYCLE
THE MORGAINE SAGA
EXILE’S GATE

 

EALDWOOD
THE DREAMING TREE

 

FOREIGNER

INVADER

INHERITOR

PRECURSOR

DEFENDER
¹

EXPLORER
¹