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Shebat?"
"Yes," the youth with velvet voice rushed on. "And
Cluny thought, I mean ... I thought. . . You see, if you could help me leam
about the Earth. . . . That's where we're going, you know, to Earth, when
Shebat's ready.
And that's what we're working on, to get ready learning
Earthish customs, getting some sense of Earthish reac-
tions to modern ways. Slate? It's just ever so fortuitous that you two came
up, right now. What you like about
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JANET MORRIS
Acheron, what you don't like, what reassures you and what scares you all of
these things I need to know! I'll be very grateful." His luminous brown eyes
met Thome's without fear, but with something: innuendo, promise?
"And helpful, however I may be, in exchange for any-
thing you can tell me. I know many things about
Acheron, I've been here since its opening. . . ."
"I imagine you do. I will tell you something: I am not
'scared,' as you put it." The Consulese Cluny and he had learned through
magical earmuffs was accented dif-
ferently than what his mother had taught him; he was careful at all times to
speak it as these folk spoke it. "Tell me something: how long has it been
since Acheron's opening?"
"More than a month we have been waiting here for
Shebat." A tinge of resentment was unmistakable, this time, in the boy's
speaking of the oracle's name.
"And where were you before that?"
"Space-end." Grim, taut words, full of unwanted wisdom.
"That's a prison, sir," interjected Cluny, eyes rivaling the effeminate
youth's in size. "He was banished but
Chaeron Kerrion saved him, got him paroled. He's told me all about the
horrors "
"That's enough, Cluny. Is that so, did the proconsul take a hand in your
case?"
"Not just me, sir, all the dream dancers that're here, are here because of his
munificence."
"His what?" demanded Pope.
"Generosity," Thorne snapped, in their own tongue, before Mistral could
answer. Then, in Consulese: "You hold him to be a good man?"
"The best. I am his valet." Pride puffed out a scanty chest.
"And is he kind to you?"
"Wonderfully kind, sir. When he's there."
"What do you do for him?" Thorne could not help it, and the youth knew exactly
what he had been asked. He blinked at the insult, coming unexpectedly, and
stepped back a pace. A silence stretched between them while
Cluny Pope looked from one to the other, uncomprehending.
EARTH DREAMS
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At last the youth murmured, "He needs someone. I
take care of him, see that he eats. He forgets, a lot. He's got terrible
problems here. The Orrefors, the old Stump dwellers, don't well, some hate him
for resettling them, and some hate him because he's not Orrefors (I know you
are, and you'll have to excuse me if I'm bold), and most who don't hate him,
don't like him. You see, it's "
"I see. I thank you for the information, and for provid-
ing Cluny with a friendly guide and access to your exper-
tise. Now, if you two have something to do ... ?"
When the boys had gone, Jesse Thome stood a long time at the cabin's window,
whose glass was unrippled, unflawed, looking out at Acheron, but seeing Earth,
all of which was once (if the boy Mistral could be trusted) an
Orrefors possession. He still had to find out what a dream dancer was, if it
meant something more than or-
acular talent, but the rest was clear to him. Also clear to him was the fact
that magic was as simple and accessible a skill as spear-point chipping or
horse-breaking, and that, although he had spent his life dodging the reality
of
.his Orrefors blood and expiating the sin of it whenever and wherever he
could, here there was no sin by blood and curse by magic, only tools, and men
with no com-
punction about using them. Too, he noted that some of those tools were human,
like the little spy Bitsy Mistral.
Spitting an oath, he sat down by the enchanted box with its lights of many
colors and did what he had been loath to do until then: studied it, and
studied with it, and studied what its capabilities might mean on a scale his
mind had never thought to measure before.
When the false dusk came to this facsimile of a land, he was still at it. Long
into the facade of night he stayed at it, so that he missed a meal, and hardly
noticed Cluny when he came staggering through bleary-eyed and crashed into the
bedroom. Soon there followed the sounds of a stomach giving up its contents.
This, too, Thome ignored.
When in a pale, premeditated dawn his stomach growled in protest, he put down
his head on the console, feebly pressed a button called "hold" which marked
his place in The Consortium: A Short History of Consular
Families and fell instantly to sleep, dreaming that he ate
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JANET MORRIS
a whole chicken turned for two hours on a spit, basted with honey and stuffed
with bread and rice and sage.
Shebat Kerrion paced the Marada's light-spangled helm, her fists balled, eyes
red and lips puffy. "We have got to find out if 'passing by unnoticed' works,
Marada. I
need to know."
For three days, the Marada's outboard had brooded within his hull, truculent,
discontent. It was not her bio-
logical problem (which Chaeron Kerrion had remedied, true to his promise)
which was distressing Shebat. There was no longer any sign of abnormality;
even the sanctity of her seals had been reestablished.
Nor was it his disclosure of that promise, given by the
proconsul to the cruiser in exchange for all data relevant to Shebat's journey
to Draconis and beyond, which was troubling her. When first she had boarded
him, accusa-
tory, betrayed, the Marada had explained that his over-
riding concern for her had prompted him to enlist the aid of her husband (who,
the Marada knew through the
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Danae, shared his determination that Shebafs equi-
librium be restored on every front). And since the pact between them had been
honored, its particulars fulfilled to the letter, Shebat restored to physical
normalcy and fast regaining her acuity, the Marada took pains to point out, it
could be safely assumed that the cruiser's ap-
prehension of the situation was unflawed: the proconsul
Chaeron Ptolemy Kerrion did indeed have Shebat's best interests at heart. As
he had proved repeatedly to be a friend to cruisers, so Shebat could rest
easily under his protection.
Upon hearing this rational assessment of her husband and their union, the
Marada's beloved outboard had bro-
ken down in tears.
Only an irritable whirring followed by two sharp clicks betrayed the cruiser's
exasperation: it was obviously not yet time to broach sensitive subjects
requiring delicate handling to the young woman who was weeping freely upon the
emerald-platinum tracer-bracelet which
Chaeron had given her as a betrothal gift and which had hung, abandoned, from
a toggle on one of the Marada's forward consoles since Shebat had entered
Earth space.
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EARTH DREAMS
For the next two days, she had moped about him, bracelet clasped to her waist,
her chemistries awry.
On the third day she had awaked, smiling grimly, and, without removing the
tracer, debarked.
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