Cahann said hesitating, “I’m not sure—”
“—you should separate?” finished Harvey, smiling again. “Face it, Cahann, the two of you together with a roomful of us are no safer than you would be separated. Come along.”
Cahann paused again, then shrugged and said, “You’re right.” With a backward glance at the Marine, whose expressionless face was beginning to crack under an onslaught of frightened bewilderment, he followed Harvey out of the meeting hall.
Outside, Harvey gestured away to the right, deeper into the settlement. “This way,” he said.
Something in the man’s tone, or in his expression, or perhaps just in the posture of his body, made Cahann suddenly apprehensive. Just what was this he was walking into?
“You want to know, don’t you?” Harvey asked him, challenging him.
“Yes,” said Cahann. “Yes, I want to know.” He stepped out firmly in the direction the other man had indicated.
IV
Elan was alone now, and scared out of his wits. The girl who’d been called Harriet came up on the platform, smiling at him in a useless attempt at reassurance. “Please don’t be frightened, Elan,” she said. “We just want to get to know you, that’s all.”
He looked at them, too frightened at being alone to be able to read their expressions.
Harriet sat down beside him. “Don’t be upset, Elan. Just talk to us. Tell us about yourself.”
He mumbled, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell us about your life on the ship,” she suggested.
His mind filled with memories of the rigid military discipline of the ship, but he knew better than to give information to potential enemies and so said only, “Life on the ship is just ordinary. Like garrison duty anywhere. That’s all.”
Unexpectedly, that seemed to satisfy them, and the girl Harriet said, “Tell us about Earth, then. Tell us about your home on Earth.”
Earth. Home! Oh, but that was something else again. His home section, peaceful and beautiful.
Harriet said, surprise plain in her face and voice, “Is all of Earth like that?”
He stared at her, and felt a moment of complete panic. He hadn’t said anything!
She seemed to understand. She laughed, a bit shakily, and patted his hand. “Don’t go so goggle-eyed,” she told him. “The expression on your face told volumes. It’s clear you love your own home section, but what of the rest of Earth? Tell us about the big cities.”
He made as though to rise. “I… I have to go back—”
“No, no, they’ll come for you. They said it was all right for you to stay here.” She held his hand, gazing at him with an expression he couldn’t define. “Little rabbit,” she said soothingly. “Poor little rabbit No one will frighten you any more.”
Glorring had stripped down to loinpiece and was wrestling with Chief Astrogator Koll when Strull returned. Seeing the adjutant enter the ready room, Glorring quit fooling around. He kneed the astrogator, kidney, punched him and gave him an elbow in the eye. Koll staggered back across the ready room, while the other officers shouted appreciation. Glorring signaled the end of the match.
Immediately, his dressers came forward to towel him dry and put his golden uniform back on him.
Glorring gazed bleakly at Strull. “Took you long enough,” he snapped. “Report.”
“Yes, sir. We encountered the natives and—”
“Where’s Cahann?” Glorring interrupted.
“I left him there,” said Strull promptly. “He—”
“You what?”
“I left the enlisted man with him,” explained Strull. “There’s nothing to worry about, Excellency.”
“Oh, there isn’t, eh?” Glorring couldn’t stand a weakling, and Strull was by far the weakest boob on the ship. It was about time, Glorring decided, to make a man out of that wart. “You go right on, Captain Strull,” he said. “You go right on and tell me all about it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Strull briskly, and then seemed to falter. He looked completely confused for a second, and then said, “Well, uh, as I said, we encountered the natives. I spoke to a group of them in their meeting hall, telling them who we were and the purpose of our coming here. They claimed, by the way, that they weren’t Old Empire colonists after all, but colonists from an even earlier time than that. I forget the name of the government that sent them, but they claimed it was seven hundred years ago.”
Koll, somewhat recovered, chimed in, “So that’s why they weren’t on the charts.”
“It would seem so,” said Glorring. “Go on, Captain Strull. We haven’t come to the interesting part yet. The part where you left Cahann and the Marine and returned to the ship alone.”
“Yes, sir.” Strull gnawed a lower lip for a second, as though gathering his thoughts, and then went on in a rush. “Well, sir, after I spoke to these natives, I got suspicious. They’re as backward a bunch as you’ll ever see. Not a bit of mechanization around them at all. But they talk as though they don’t even consider us a threat. Apparently, they feel as though they have some sort of secret weapon or something. So I ordered Cahann to stay behind, because he’s particularly qualified for that sort of thing, and see what he could find out from the natives. And I ordered the Marine to stay and keep an eye on Cahann.”
“Brilliant,” said Glorring, with heavy sarcasm. “Absolutely brilliant, Captain Strull.”
“Of course,” said Strull hastily, “there was another reason, too. It was impossible in the short time I was there to get any idea of their system of government. And of course mine was just first contact, and I had no wish, your Excellency, to usurp your prerogative of direct negotiation with the local governmental leaders. So Cahann is to find out just who heads the local government and where he can be found, so you’ll be able to go directly to him when the time comes and not have to waste time asking directions of underlings.”
Glorring raised an eyebrow. That made sense, surprisingly. Of course, Strull was only currying favor by doing this, but nevertheless it was sensible for Glorring to be able to go directly to the local authority. “Very well,” he said. “You did better than I expected, Strull. Very good.”
Strull bowed, relief plain on his face. “Thank you, Excellency.”
“Very well,” said Glorring, to the room in general. “We will give Cahann an hour to find out all he can. In one hour, I shall leave the ship. We shall be escorted by one flight of Marines on foot, the other three flights to be at combat-ready stations. One hour.”
Cahann was in love. It had just happened.
It was calling to him, because it loved him, and he went to it, because he returned that love, because he loved it as much as it loved him, because to love it and to be loved by it was greater and more wonderful and more right than anything else in all of life.
They had left the meeting hall, he and Harvey. They had walked, almost aimlessly, among the scattered unordered buildings of the settlement and slowly it had grown upon him, this acquisition of love, this new understanding of the meaning and depth of love, this new completion which was possible only with the loved one, close to the loved one, blending with the loved one…
It was in this direction. Not far away now, closer and closer. They had walked aimlessly, almost as though Harvey were allowing Cahann to choose his own direction. Then Cahann had chosen his direction, and it was this way, this way toward love and toward fulfillment and toward completion, this way toward It which desired him above all things.