"How often have you seen her, Sam?"
"I don't see how that matters. Or what are you after?"
"If I knew what you were after, I'd be satisfied. Why do you even care about that thing? Why is it so important in the face of everything else that's happened? Why can't you kill it?"
"Is that really what you want?"
"Is it so impossible?"
"She can feel, Meg."
"Do you care so much that I can?" she returned, and slammed the door as she left.
It was chill in the forest at this hour when the sun was just rising, before many people back at the house were even out of bed. Merritt trod carefully on damp leaves, aware how great a sound even that made in this stillness, a quiet not even the wind disturbed.
He had hoped that Sazhje would somehow be waiting for him where she had before, and that he would not have to draw the whole forest's attention to himself. But she was not, and he forced the sound from himself and called her name aloud.
The only thing it raised was a little scurrying in the leaves, something too small to see as it bounded away into the brush.
"Sazhje!" he called again,
He left the trail in the direction that she had tried to draw him that night of the fire, and called her name again and again, until he thought there must be nothing in the forest that was unaware of his presence.
Something rather larger was coming his way; and he drew his pistol and waited as the rustling of leaves and brush came closer to him.
"Sazhje?" he asked of the presence beyond the trees.
She was there, closer than he had thought She came round the trunk of a tree and stopped there, holding to it nervously.
"Ahhrht?" she asked him. "Sazhje ahhrht?
"Sazhje's all right. Come on."
She was hurt. He saw that when she came clear of the brush. A shallow wound lay across her thigh, not serious, but surely painful. Still there was no hostility in her manner. He put the gun away and she came to him and took his outstretched hands, letting him take her over to a place that they could sit down, on an old log.
He had thought to examine the injury to see what he could do for her, but when he tried to see it she flicked her ears back and hit at him, not to hurt, not even touching him.
"No, Ssam."
"Sazhje's all right?"
"Ah," she confirmed, and put her hand on his shoulder, smiled with fanged happiness. "Ssam—come Sazhje."
"You've got a good memory, haven't you?" He was amazed that she had retained the words they had so laboriously taught her. But then she was reaching at the lunch sack he had with him, interested in that, he suspected, as much as in his presence. Likely she had not been up to hunting, or whatever it was she did to support herself. He wondered where the others of her kind were, if they would help her, or if her affinity for humans had somehow made her an outcast.
"What does Sazhje want?"
"Ap-ph," she said, and tugged pleadingly at the sack.
He unwrapped everything and gave it to her; he had thought first of her passion for apples and had brought one. Sazhje bit into it with an expression of ecstasy, but before it had all disappeared she remembered her social graces and held out the remainder to him.
"Sazhje's apple," he said. She smiled at him and finished it with two bites.
Before she was done, she had picked the meat out of the sandwiches, eaten a cold potato with a great deal of grimacing and distaste, and sampled the bread. That she rejected.
"Thanks," he said gravely, and put the bread back into the sack for his own meal. Sazhje stretched, leaning against him in feline contenment.
"Ahhrht," she pronounced.
"I've got to go, now, you know. If I'm not at work ahead of the rest of them, they're going to be sure where I was, at least what I was up to. So—" He put himself on his feet, but Sazhje anticipated him with a twist of her body that put her in his way; her long arms extended to him, her ears back and her eyes wistful.
"No, Ssam."
"Hey," he said gently, and set his hands at her steely waist: impossible to forget that she was not of his kind, with the feel of hard muscle under his fingers, the invisible down that coated her golden skin. The face, strange as it was, had a kind of beauty about it, had its own expressions: one read emotion in the set of the brow, the tautness of the mouth, the turning of the ears—they had the smallest feather of fur at the tips, visible when the light caught it from behind—most of all in the wonderful eyes, gold-flecked brown, that could go from wide-pupilled black to limpid warmth, all iris. The long arms wrapped themselves about his neck, her face close to his, all happy, and she turned her head and rubbed her cheeks against his.
"Ssam," she said contentedly.
"Listen, Sazhje." He patted her shoulder and she tilted her face up to look at him. "Sazhje—no go Ssam, understand? No go."
"Ssam come Sazhje?"
"Yes," he promised. The worry on her face changed to a grin—she was at her most alien when she smiled. Long-fingered hands slid down his arms and let him go.
"Ssam come," she repeated as he was leaving.
"Sam's coming back," he affirmed, and turned toward the canyon.
Chapter 10
Celestine bumped into the dock, and Jim Selby hurled out one of the cables: Merritt was among those who caught it… most of the station was down at the dock and had been since the first blast of her whistle from around the bend.
The stern cable was secured, the gangplank run out, and the cargo began to be unloaded, to be carried up the winding steps to the security of the house, bushels of vegetables and sacks of grain, food to hold the work crews for several weeks more.
"Sam," Amos Selby greeted Merritt, took his offered hand as he came ashore. "Good to see you up and walking. How are things?"
"Busy. Very busy. Come on, let someone else see to the unloading. We've had most of the crew idle today anyway."
"No trouble, I hope."
"No, just preparing for some more blasting. We'll be hard at it as soon as the dust settles tomorrow."
Jim joined them; Merritt seized his hand and grinned at him, and Jim fell in behind them on the long climb, walked beside as they passed the gates into the yard. Meg and Hannah Burns were at the door of the house, and there was a great scurrying about inside when they entered, tables being readied and a meal arranged for them.
"Sit down, sit down," Hannah urged them. "Meg, get their coats, will you?"
The coats went to their places on the pegs by the door, tea was served, and Merritt and the Selbys settled down at the table by the fire. The rivermen looked exhausted, but nothing affected their appetite for the usual meal of stew and potatoes. One bowlful and then another disappeared.
"It's a sin," said Amos Selby, "when we got people doing without downriver to keep us supplied."
"It isn't that bad, I hope," said Merritt.
"No," Jim said. "We got some families settled together in the lowlands to raise some winter crops on wild land. It's warm enough there by New Hope to get a little food even in winter. They're farming in common, just like we work the dam, men standing guard on fields round the clock. They've seen the People skulking about, but so far no one's been caught by them."
"It's a good change," said Amos. "Long time since I seen those downriver men do anything but cuss the weather and the woods and the things that run it. People got the smell of better times. They're willing to go short a little now. They got hope it's some use to have kids and clear land. It's been some years since there was much joy to get married at all on Hestia, like it was wishing something terrible off on kids just to bring them into this world. It's been years since I saw a couple able to look on kids as a blessing. But we got caught in a regular old-fashioned wedding down at Williams' place."