Merritt shook his head slowly. "I don't know. Looks as if I misjudged. Or—I don't know. If I'd been here, I'd have taken a last check; maybe someone didn't understand my charts. I'd better go over there and look it over."
"I've got a lot of men standing around idle while you're thinking."
"There's no need of that. Put them to work cutting timber. Do they need instruction for that? And for the other, I don't know yet. I don't know. Best too many not go prodding around until we do know. There could be a charge that didn't go. Could be a lot of things. I'll give you answers after I've had a chance to look around. Just stay clear of me."
Meg was standing in the door when the crew came in at evening, warned, no doubt, by the creaking of the outer gate. There was dinner waiting as it always was, Hannah Burns there to welcome them with hot meals, the other women and the children of the household under her direction.
Merritt lowered himself to table very carefully: the walk back had proven almost too much for him. He let his weight to his elbows, settled, gave Meg a tired smile.
"How did it go?" she asked, pausing in the serving. "We were terribly worried when we heard a second blast go off."
"It was planned. It went the way it should."
"You look terrible."
I'm all right."
"Surely you're not going back out there tomorrow."
"I fairly well have to. Besides, it's not so hard for most of the day. It's the walking that does for me."
The dinner was stew again: it frequently was, due to the large number of men who must eat at uncertain hours. Merritt looked at what Meg ladled into his bowl, stirred it about, swallowed what of it he could tolerate and then excused himself to go upstairs. One of the Burns lads offered to help him; he waved him off and walked up slowly, reached the safety of his room and shut the door. He would gladly have lain down clothed, but he made himself strip out of the clothing all the same, poured water, washed, eased gingerly into bed.
There was a concentrated misery in his back, between his shoulders, where there was a scarcely healed injury the length of his hand: nothing, for a starship's medical facilities; serious enough as Hestians practiced medicine. More than once since his injury he had thought of Adam Jones with longing. To be on Hestia under the best of circumstances was a trial of patience. To be hurt and depending on Hestian medicine, to be reduced to receiving messages by runner, to lie for hours on this sagging feather mattress—was another matter entirely.
He slept finally; he did not know how long, but the last of the wick had burned in the lamp and the room was dark. He recognized the lowing of cattle that had wakened him… ordinarily sooner than it had; and people were moving about downstairs.
Something was scratching at the window, insistently. He rose in the dark, his heart beating hard, and retrieved his gun from the table… padded to the window and listened, hardly breathing. When the sound did not repeat itself, he rapped the gun barrel on the window.
"Ssam," came a hiss from the other side.
He unbarred the inner shutter with his left hand, hurrying, for fear the sentries might spot her and fire. When he flung the shutters inward, there was Sazhje's anxious face the other side of the cloudy glass, a pallor in the dark and the moon.
He swore under his breath and opened the window so that she could slip in. She did so, peering anxiously about in the dark to be sure they were alone; and then with relief she patted him on the arms, chattering at him. He kept the gun to his side, out of sight, glanced anxiously at the open window, that let in a chill wind.
"Ssam," she said.
"Happy to see me, are you?" He took her by the arm to draw her out of the open. "You stay—stay there, Sazhje."
He wrapped a robe about himself and pocketed the gun, tied the sash, then looked at Sazhje, who, ignoring his advice, had perched on the foot of the bed in the moonlight. Outside, the uproar had reached the yard, angry men looking for the intruders.
"You hear that, Sazhje?" He gestured toward the window. "They're looking for you, Sazhje."
Curiously, she seemed to understand some of that. She glanced toward the window and then laid a long-fingered hand on her breast. "Sazhje ahhrht. Ahhrht"
"I'm glad you think you're all right. They'll shoot you, don't you understand that? Why did you come back?"
She frowned and wrinkled her flat nose. "Ah?" she asked, and then as if she determined that whatever he could answer was of no importance, she went to the window and looked out.
"No," he said sharply, and took her back from the window. The move frightened her. Her ears went back and her eyes went wide, but not in the attack pattern. It was simple alarm.
Steps ascended the stairs like thunder, and before there was time to think what to do, someone was pounding at the door.
"Merritt! Porter shouted, and flung open the door without any further warning.
With a shriek of alarm Sazhje compressed her fluid body and fairly flew out the open window, while Merritt stepped into Porter's line of fire. Porter came forward as if he had thought it accident, intent on firing after the intruder; and his florid face took on outrage when Merritt barred his way.
"You invited that in?" he asked, incredulous. Merritt was aware of others crowding the room, the balcony outside—of Meg, of Andrews, of a dozen others.
"It was Sazhje," he said. "I don't think she meant any harm."
"Listen," said Porter. "I ran up here thinking they'd forced an entry; we saw the window open from out back. I couldn't think anyone could be that thick-witted. What if others had followed her? What if they'd gotten into the house? We could have all had our throats cut. And who's to know she isn't one that was with them when the warehouse burned?"
"She wasn't."
"Are you in a position to know that?"
Merritt had felt that one close about him even before his own denial was out of his mouth. He glanced at Meg: she said nothing. Somewhere outside there was the report of a rifle.
Merritt turned to the window and looked out. He could see nothing.
"Worried for her?" asked Porter. "You might have shown a little of that same concern for us, in what you did."
Merritt looked about again. "I won't argue with you," he said. It seemed scarcely the moment for it. Even Andrews looked disgusted with him, but had the loyalty to move people out, to start sending them back to their rooms. Porter walked out; and finally there was only Meg left.
"Aren't you going to close the window?" she asked him in a thin, hard voice.
He turned and did so, and she was still standing there when he turned again.
"She came to the window," he said. "I knew who it was. I let her in because I was afraid someone would shoot her."
"If I see her again," said Meg, "I'll shoot her."
Her attitude caught him entirely off-balance. "I knew you'd be upset," he said, "but if that's the way you feel, you had your chance to say something to Porter, about Sazhje coming before."
"I'm not aiming at you. But, Sam, you'd better remember this: if you can't bring yourself to get rid of that thing you brought us—"
"There's no harm in her."
"Then believe what you want to believe, but I'm beginning to understand that you were right how different we two are. If you can't straighten out in your mind which species you prefer, I can. I suppose it means very little to you, but I've been stung before where you're concerned, and I think this time I'm cured. My father's dead, thanks to them; and for all I know, it was your Sazhje that led them over the wall. And if you have no more respect for our feelings or even our safety than to do something like this—I hope they got her, Sam. I hope they did."
"You can believe this: I won't stop til I find out."