Orick looked behind him and suddenly a glowing white form appeared, like a mist streaming through the jungle, then Gallen strode into view, his face rigid and worn. The gate could not be seen from this side.
Orick waited, hoping that his bear friend Grits would come through, but the female had stayed behind. Orick gave a little bawl, and weaved his head back and forth as he tried to catch a scent of her.
“I’m sorry, Orick,” Maggie said softly, coming to his side. She knelt by him, touched his brow. “She seemed so nice. And you’ve been looking for love so long. I had hoped she would come.”
“That’s all right,” Orick grumbled. Maggie seemed so distraught that he wanted to calm her. “I couldn’t hope for any better from a she-bear. I left her alone with those sheriffs. How could I have hoped she would be more true to me?”
“She wanted to come, Orick,” Gallen said. “But she was afraid. Don’t blame yourself.”
Maggie scratched behind his ears, and Orick licked her hand in gratitude.
Thomas stared about at the skyline. His lute case was strung over his shoulders, and he held to the strap with both hands, a gesture that showed his insecurity. Tall creepers climbed some of the trees, and a few orange birds began chattering loudly as they fed on berries.
Gallen knelt on a clump of grass, pulled out his map of worlds-a thin piece of film that showed a three-dimensional representation of Fale with tiny red gates displayed at various points. “We’re not far from a gate to Tremonthin,” he said, a tone of relief in his voice. “It’s about two thousand kilometers. We’ll need to go into town, hire a vehicle.”
“What is a kilometer?” Thomas asked.
“Just a stupid way to measure things,” Orick grumbled.
“It’s a little less than half a mile,” Gallen said.
“Do you think it’s safe to go into town?” Maggie asked. She had put down her pack-for they’d just walked with them for an hour-and she was looking to Gallen.
Gallen shrugged. “I’ll not lie. It has been only a week in this time-line since you and I defeated the Lord of the Swarm. The dronon should have abandoned their military installations here or Fale, but that doesn’t mean that we’re safe.”
“Well, now, you’re the optimist today,” Orick said.
Gallen hung his head, downcast. Maggie knelt next to him, touched his knee. Orick looked into Gallen’s pale blue eyes, and for a moment he felt as if he were looking into the eyes of a stranger, there was so much pain behind them.
“See here, lad-” Orick told Gallen, “just because you’ve got kicked off your own home world, you don’t have to wilt. Things can’t be worse than last time we were here.”
Gallen smiled up at him. “Aye, you’re right, Orick. But we must take care. We have enemies here-men who were evil before the dronon ever set hand to corrupt them. Lord Karthenor and men of his ilk may hold power, for all we know.”
“Och, well, if he does,” Orick said, “I’ll bite his butt so hard he’ll never want to sit on a toilet again!”
Yet Orick’s playful threats could not brighten the mood. Karthenor had been a powerful servant to the dronon rulers, perhaps powerful enough to wrest control even after the dronon retreated.
“So, Gallen, you’ve taken my money and led me astray, have you?” Thomas said. “I thought you said this was a decent sort of place, where folks live forever?”
“I also said there were great dangers here,” Gallen reminded him. “Some folks here do live a mighty long time, but you still have to take care.…”
“Ah, don’t listen to him,” Orick said. “It’s good enough for the likes of us. You’ll never taste better food, and they pass it out free to strangers as a courtesy. Why, it’s so easy to grow here, that they esteem food as nothing. That’s why they give it away.”
“Really?” Thomas asked, his face showing that he doubted Orick’s every word. Now, some bears have a reputation for stretching the truth, but Orick had never been that kind of bear, so Thomas’s raised brows got Orick riled.
“It is indeed the truth!” Orick said. “And I’ll you something else: there’s wonders here that a pudding-head like you couldn’t imagine-”
“Tell me about them as we walk, then.” Thomas laughed, and with that laugh, Orick looked up. It seemed to him that Thomas was somehow a younger man, less weathered and worn than he had been just hours before, and Orick began to tell Thomas of the things he’d seen on his last trip here.
Maggie donned her own mantle and the cinnamon-colored robes of a technician. In moments they were off, striding through the forest. Gray lizards skittered from their feet, and as they marched, Orick used his keen nose to follow the trail they’d blazed on their journey here two weeks earlier.
Orick told Thomas of the wonders he would behold here of Fale-of starships and men who wore wings, of teaching machines and ancient merchants who lived for ten thousand years, of machines that let one speak with the dead or breathe underwater, and of horrifying weapons that could burn worlds to ashes. He described the armies of insect-like dronon that had infested the place and boasted of the heroic efforts of common people who sought to end their tyranny. He told how Gallen had defeated the dronon Lords of the Swarm in single combat, when even the brilliant Lord Protector Veriasse had failed the challenge, and Orick minimized his own part in all these affairs. For a long while he described the Tharrin woman Everynne, who now reigned as Maggie’s regent, as far as the dronon were concerned, over the ten thousand worlds.
From time to time, Orick would pause along the path to eat a slug or a large wood snail. In two hours he had just begun to fill in the details of what Thomas should know when the group reached a small cliff that looked out over Toohkansay, a sprawling purplish-green city grown from a coral-like plant. It stretched like beach foam across the hills, spanning a wide river. They climbed down the cliff and walked to the city along a ruby road, past rich farms. Hovercars and magcars sped past them, much to the wonder and dismay of Thomas.
And when they reached the outskirts of the city, little had changed. They could still smell the sweet fragrance of foods from a roadside cantina, music swelled from the city walls, and within the shadows under the city gates they could discern human-looking inhabitants from various stock (the impish Woodari with their large eyes, tall bald men out of Bonab who wore nothing but tattoos), along with gold serving droids that still reminded Orick of men in armor.
Several Lords of Fale sat together at one table in the shade of the cupola outside the inn. They wore the multicolored robes of merchants, with masks of palest lavender.
Thomas stopped and surveyed the scene, his mouth gaping in wonder, as if he’d just reached the gates of heaven and feared that Saint Peter would come out and wrestle him for the right to enter.
And as the group approached the archway that led into the cantina, one woman looked up from her table and gasped, “Gallen? Maggie? Orick?”
Orick had never seen the woman before, of that he was certain, but immediately the diners at all the tables turned to stare. Here and there among the crowd, people shouted, “It’s them!”
“They’ve returned!”
“Welcome!”
And suddenly a human tide surged from the inn, people shouting, hugging them, giving thanks. A Lord of Ethics, wearing her purple robes of office, rushed to Maggie and fell at her knees, kissing them and then kissing Orick’s paw, thanking them all for their part in ending the long siege by the dronon.
As the cry went up, a clamor issued from the city, and soon there were hundreds upon hundreds of people shouting the good news, their voices swelling and blending together in a roar.
When Gallen had first defeated the dronon’s Golden Queen and her escort, he’d received accolades from the ambassadors of ten dozen worlds, but Orick had never witnessed anything like this, not this overwhelming, spontaneous outpouring of gratitude.