Gar looked up, startled. The girl looked skeptical; but, after a moment, she turned back to her bandaging.
Dirk decided it was time to distract her. “What’s your name, beautiful?”
The girl’s head snapped up, fury flaring in her eyes. “I’m Madelon—not that it’ll do you any good, churl! Scrub your mind, if you want my help!”
Dirk stared at her. He could almost feel his eyes bugging out. That wasn’t his only physiological reaction, but it was the only one he cared to think about at the moment.
He needed a distraction, himself. He turned back to Gar—and frowned, seeing the big man’s total absorption in the domestic scene below. “May I ask what the hell you find so unusual?”
“Nothing—and that’s just it,” Gar muttered. Dirk grimaced impatiently. “What’s the matter? Never seen a churl family before?”
“Oh, yes,” Gar said softly, “and that’s just the problem.” He gestured at the people below. “Every time I’ve seen one of your families, I’ve seen exactly the same thing—exactly. They perform exactly the same tasks.”
Dirk smiled sourly. “What’s strange about that? If people are hungry, you make dinner.”
“Yes.” Gar’s eyes burned into his. “But do you use exactly the same movements? Down to the slightest, tiniest mannerism? Sprinkle the salt in just so, reach for a pot at exactly the same time and with precisely the same tilt of body and bend of elbow?”
Dirk gazed at him for a long moment.
Then he smiled, almost gently. “Why wouldn’t that be, Gar? What determines behavior?”
“Why, environment and heredity, of course; but—” Gar broke off, eyes glazing as he understood.
“Yes.” Dirk nodded. “When the inbreeding gets this bad, everyone’s got the same genes. And, when the Lords make you live in the same kinds of houses—almost identical, in fact—and give you identical cloth for your clothes, and identical utensils …” He shrugged. “Sure, the home environments start out different from one another; but, as the centuries pass, the people become more and more alike, homogenized; so the homes start becoming alike, too. Environmental differences tend to be ironed out. By this time, they’ve disappeared. Everyone of any given type is raised in exactly the same type of home. Exactly.” He shrugged. “Okay, so we’re low on individualism. We didn’t want it that way, I assure you.”
“But,” Gar said thickly, “if everyone of a given type is raised in exactly the same type of home, and has exactly the same genes—”
“You get identical behavior. Down to the slightest mannerism.”
Gar seemed almost angry. “How deep does the identity go?”
Dirk frowned. “If you mean, do we think alike? The answer is yes … Except men like me, of course.” He turned away, looking down at the family. “I was raised in a different environment, after I was ten. Makes for some differences. Oh, not the basic ones—but enough. If you ask me what those boys are thinking right now, I can give you a good guess—but I don’t know…”
His voice trailed off as the feeling of alienation, isolation enfolded him.
Dirk looked up slowly, saw Gar’s eyes, saw the pity in them, and shook himself with a growl. He looked back at Madelon, who was gazing at Gar; Dirk saw the watchful, calculating look in her eyes.
And something else—less than fascination, more than interest—and felt his heart sink.
There was a sudden commotion in the street, the Squire’s voice bawling orders in a sort of seasick groan, then more groans and the clanking of armor, a few oaths. Then the sound of hooves, fading.
“They’ve gone.” Madelon gave Dirk’s bandage a last tug and dropped down beside him. “Now begins the waiting. Think of something, anything—a peasant girl, naked. Make it lascivious, so it holds all your attention; anything to keep your mind off where you come from or the kinds of thoughts men have there.” She folded her arms, pillowed her head on them, and became completely still.
Gar looked up at Dirk, in a silent question. Dirk nodded and pushed himself back from the edge of the platform. Gar followed suit, and they both lay down, curled up on their sides, and made an excellent try at becoming inanimate.
A feather seemed to touch Dirk’s brain, a shadow of foreboding, then lifted away, gone as quickly as it had come; but apprehension remained.
He rose to his knees. “I think we’d better go.”
“Be still!” Madelon hissed. “We’ve yet half of an hour before the search is away from the village.”
Dirk shook his head doggedly. “I may have a touch of psi myself; I don’t know. One way or another, when something tells me to get gone, I move. And so far it has always paid off.” He started down the ladder.
“You’ll have us all killed! Do ye want the torture?”
“No.” Dirk touched ground. “That’s why I’m going.” He looked up. “Coming, Gar?”
The big man looked from Madelon to Dirk, frowning dubiously. Then he started down the ladder.
“Go to your dooms, then! I’ve done all I can, and I’m well rid of you!” But there was a despairing note in her voice.
Dirk paused in the doorway to nod to the Housewife. “I thank you for your hospitality, madam. May all go well with you.”
She nodded, nervously, then turned back to her baking.
Gar closed the door behind him. “Where to now?”
Dirk pointed down along the village street. “Down there—into the forest.” He followed his own hand, striding long and quickly; Gar lounged along beside him.
As they came into the shadows of the leaves, Gar mused, “We owe them. You know that.” Dirk nodded curtly and kept walking.
But Gar stopped. “If your hunch means anything, the Sniffer’s already onto us. He’ll know we stopped at that house.”
Dirk whirled about. “We can’t help that. We’ve got to get out of here!”
Gar smiled sourly. “Why? They won’t start the revolution without us?”
Dirk snarled and turned away. Gar waited.
“Look,” Dirk growled, “I’ve got to manage liaison between the rebels and the spacers. Without that, the rebellion might fail.”
“What will the Lords do to that family?”
“A lot of peasants will die in this rebellion!” Dirk snapped. “They all think it’s worth their lives—and so does that family!”
Gar leaned on his staff, waiting.
With a despairing snarl, Dirk turned back to join him.
They found a thicket, insinuated themselves, and lay down on their bellies, peering through the screen of leaves, watching the village street.
A bee buzzed by, looking for nectar. He took one sniff and hurried away.
“If the local Lord has a Sniffer, he must have had one with that search party last night,” Gar murmured. “Why didn’t he spot us?”
“For myself, I was carefully thinking of the lewdest pornography I knew.” Dirk turned to him. “But as far as you go—it is a good question, isn’t it?”
Gar said nothing; he gazed through the leaves, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
Dirk’s eyes narrowed.
Gar stiffened. “There they are!”
Dirk snapped back to the village street. A party of Soldiers walked their horses between the houses toward them, the Squire at their head. In front of him wandered a skinny, slack jawed churl with a matted thatch of hair and a shambling walk.
He stopped in front of the house they’d hidden in, pointing vaguely. From their post fifty yards away, Dirk could hear the Squire’s shout, saw him wave his arm at the troopers, just barely heard the mutter that ran through the ranks as four Soldiers dismounted and stalked up to the cottage door. One of them pounded on the door with a fist; without waiting, another put his shoulder to the door and slammed it open. The whole search party dove in.