Amid turned to Hal. "And since the subject of your area's come up," he said, "I ought to admit to you, Hal, that we've got a selfish motive for having you with us, particularly since Amanda can't stay. The Occupation Forces would wipe us out in a moment if they suspected we were here. We avoid their finding out as much as possible by having contact with only three people from Porphyry, who come up this way every so often on the excuse of gathering fruits or berries from the wild plants. But there's always a danger that something might cause the local garrison to investigate this area. It'll be a relief to us to have someone with some military training on hand, even though the chance of their hearing about us up here is remote. We'll sleep a little easier until you leave." "I'm afraid," said Hal, in a colder tone than he had intended, "you're under a misapprehension. Maybe Amanda could be some real help to you, but I'm no Dorsai."
He avoided Amanda's eyes directly as he said these last words but he was aware her gaze was on him. She said nothing. "Oh, you aren't, we all know that," said Amid swiftly, "but I understand you had a Dorsai as one of your tutors and you're a good deal closer to one than anyone else on the ledge here - except Amanda, of course. But if the soldiers find us and it comes to an actual conflict-" "Oh, that-" Hal shrugged. "Certainly, anything an individual can do, since I'm your guest. Of course."
He smiled a little, not happily. "It's a good thing you didn't ask me that a couple of years ago," he said. "At that time my answer would have been that I'd become a little like the rest of you, in that philosophically I'd moved away from the area of violence. But now I'm free to be useful to you up here in any way I can." "Ah," said Amid gently, "of course, you're entitled to live by your beliefs, just as much as the rest of us. If it'd be imposing on those-" "No!" said Hal, and was surprised by the sharpness of his own voice. More gently, he added, "it's perfectly all right. I'm at your disposal, body and mind." "We appreciate it," Amid answered.
Amanda still said nothing, and Hal thought he was aware of an aura of disapproval emanating from her silence. "Tell me more about Jathed," he said, to change the subject "Give Amid a chance to eat, Hal," Amanda spoke finally, "then you can ask all the questions you want." "No, no. That's quite all right. I eat very little," said Amid. "About Jathed - what specifically do you want to know about him?" "If you don't mind, Guildmaster," said Artur, "I've been sitting here just eating and listening, and I've pretty well finished. Why don't I answer while you eat? If there's anything important, you can always speak up. But you should eat." "I'll eat, I'll eat!" said Amid. "You'd think I was a prize goat the way they're always trying to stuff more food down me!"
"I'm sorry, Guildmaster. We do overdo it, of course-" "Never mind. I'll eat. You talk," said Amid. "But if there's anything I want to say, I'm not going to let a piece of fried root keep me from it. All right. I'm sorry. You're right. Talk. I'll eat. "
He began taking pieces of food from the various serving bowls and putting them on his plate. "If Jathed didn't believe in teaching, what did he do?" asked Hal. "Did he walk in the circle, himself?" "Not in the memory of anyone who became a disciple of his," said Artur. "Apparently he had for years, all those years he was alone in the jungle living like a hermit, because, as I may have mentioned, there was a rut - in fact, you might even want to call it a ditch - worn outside the hut he'd built for himself by the time he began to admit disciples. In fact, it was already so deep that they'd shortly have worn it down until they were walking around out of sight below ground level, if some of them hadn't started to fill it in surreptitiously when he wasn't around. He came and caught them at it once, but didn't object. So they filled it back up to ground level, and kept it that way. You could never tell, apparently, what he was going to approve of or object to." "But he, himself, had stopped walking by the time anyone began to live with him?" Hal asked. "He said he didn't need to, any longer. That the Law was in his mind all the time now - it had worn a rut there as well as in the ground. That was one of the questions he answered from someone, once, instead of simply shouting 'Stupid!' and chasing whoever it was off with his staff." "But what did he do, if he didn't teach and he didn't walk?" "In his later days," said Artur, "after he had acquired disciples, there were lots of times when he talked to them. I don't want to give the impression he was unreasonable all the time. In fact, most of the time he was pleasant, even witty, and perfectly willing to discuss things. The only problem was that if you made a mistake you got chased away for good." "Someone he ran off couldn't come back later?" Amanda asked.
Artur shook his head. "There weren't any warning shots, any second chances," he said. "Evidently if you asked the wrong question you were showing you didn't belong there, and out you went. Some of the people he chased away tried to form their own groups, but none of them got anywhere." "Jathed could be, and was," interrupted Amid suddenly, "not only informative but charming. It didn't take a question to get him talking. A bird, a falling leaf, anything or nothing at all, might bring a comment from him and he'd go from that into a sort of informal lecture. Theoretically, as Artur just told you, asking the wrong question got you thrown out, but his disciples noticed that during one of these informal lectures of his, questions were a lot safer to ask. Then, he seemed more willing to explain than at other times. Some of these 'lectures' were recorded by those there at the time - Jathed didn't seem to object to that, either, under those conditions... Artur, where's that control pad? I thought I had it on the table, right here, unless I knocked it off... "