There would have been a command, originating with Bleys, himself, and filtering down through the hierarchy of political and military authorities the Others controlled. It would have started the military and paramilitary forces on the two Exotic worlds searching for any group or people who could give shelter or assistance to someone like Hal. The important thing to Bleys would be not so much to find Hal as to find what it was that could have brought him out from behind the shelter of the phase-shield. Whatever Hal was after, by definition it would be something which Bleys would prefer he did not have. So the order would have gone out.
And the military in Porphyry, like such organizations everywhere, would have begun by first searching what was easy to find and close at hand, going farther and farther afield as they found nothing, until their inquisitions brought them, finally, once more to this part of the valley, and possibly to the very foot of these cliffs.
Hal did not think they would find the hidden entrance to the ledge. They would pass by, and retire at last, empty-handed, to their garrison again. But meanwhile, anyone like Cee would definitely be in danger. What he must do now was find some evidence of how far out they had gotten in their searching and their planning to search...
As he had been thinking these thoughts, he had been carrying on a casual conversation with Onete, and now they had come at last to the soft, vine-covered hummock of decayed wood which served as Onete's chair during the time she sat and waited for Cee, who was possibly watching them at this very moment. Hal closed his eyes briefly and tried to feel if there were eyes watching Onete and himself at the present moment. But he felt nothing and opened his eyes again quickly enough so that Onete did not remark on his having closed them. "Well," said Onete. "You'll be on your way, I suppose. I'll settle down here the way I always do. If you come back this way, you might be quiet and cautious approaching this spot, just in case Cee is being unusually daring or extending herself in some new way. We don't want to frighten her off."
"I'll be careful," said Hal.
So they parted and Hal took off through the forest, still in the direction of Porphyry, but now alone. As soon as he was well out of sight of Onete, he took off his sandals and hung them on a handy bush, leaving himself barefoot. Earlier, he had accommodated his pace to that of the foragers and Onete while he was with them, but now he would need to cover ground if he hoped to see as much of the local territory as he had planned, this day. He broke into an easy lope.
Like most of the other Guild members, he had fallen into the habit of walking the circle barefoot, and the soles of his feet were hardened to travel without footwear. Just as the weeks of work and walking up on the ledge had put him back into shape, physically. The best of the gym equipment for exercise seemed never to give the results that actual walking, running and hard hand-labor did.
He smiled to himself as he loped along, feeling the enjoyment of stretching his legs after... how long? He had done his running at the Encyclopedia on a hidden treadmill, with the illusion of a countryside unreeling about him at the pace he was traveling. It had been almost, but not quite the same thing. For one instance, his feet had come to know the artificial irregularities and bumps of the illusory path beneath them. Here, they were continuously new and real.
Privately, he would have liked to go down to the valley below to do distance running, but it was plain the Guild members avoided leaving traces of their presence below as much as possible, and although he was sure Amid would have given him permission to go, he did not want special consideration. The members of the Guild had gotten used to seeing him at his various exercises about the ledge, and, being Exotics, would never have dreamed of anything but accepting whatever was his personal choice of a way of life. He smiled again, thinking of the Guild members. With them, during these few weeks, he had come closer to understanding Exotics than at any other time in his lives. Like so many individuals of the other Splinter Cultures, and like nearly all of the people on Old Earth, itself, he had taken the Exotics' nature and their philosophical search for an evolved human pretty much for granted.
He had not realized what that search had meant to them in terms of an active pursuit, or how much it had altered them as a people. For the first time he saw their culture for what it was and realized the real change it had made in them. There was no doubt in him now that it was equivalent to the changes the Dorsai had made in becoming what they were, and the Friendlies in becoming what they had become.
That change was not just a matter of surface manners, politeness and consideration. These people actually saw life from the standpoint of their philosophical search for an improved human race, and strove to find the materials for that improvement in themselves. Thinking back now, he realized his first actual acceptance of that fact had been in what he had seen in those around him on the road to and in the town of Porphyry. They had been subjected, but not changed. Even oppressed, all but a very few of them had remained the Exotics they had been before the soldiers from off-world had come.
It had been a great discovery. He felt now, for the first time, that there was something to learn, something that - although it might be that in following it up he was going away from his problem - might in the long run end by bringing him back to it by a better route. The Exotics wanted an evolution in humankind, per se. What he, himself, wanted was specifically a moral, an ethical, evolution in humanity. Surely the two desires were close, if not united in purpose?
But it was his survey of the land down here he should be thinking of now. He began by swinging to his left in an arc that brought him back to a path. It was not really a path, here, but a trail which could be followed by woods-wise eyes, the trail that he had taken with Amanda when she had first led him to the ledge. He followed this barely perceptible trail backward toward Porphyry, accordingly, still at a lope, and it was not long before it grew into what was a visibly used path.
In this early stage it could even be a path worn by larger animals, who, like humans, took the easiest route on their first time through unknown territory and then tended to repeat their steps on subsequent trips. Of course, there were no such wild animals on this world. He had been thinking too much as Hal, who had seen such game trails on Old Earth. Younger World troops would not think of anything but human feet having made such a trail, when they came across it.
After a while the trail gave way, in small stages, to a regularly maintained road, even though narrow and unsurfaced.
So far he had seen no evidence of recent passage this way by soldiers, or by any group of people, organized or unorganized. There was no possible way soldiers, particularly the poorly trained troops of the Occupation, could have gone up the unsurfaced trail without leaving sign of their passage in the way of bootprints and damaged vegetation, on either side of it. No leaving sign of their passage, to Hal's eyes at any rate, in its soft surface. The early part of it he traveled, accordingly, must also be territory to which they had not penetrated for some time. It was not far down the road, however, before he rounded a curve, descended a small slope and came upon not merely sign, but a deliberate announcement of their recent visit this far from Porphyry.
He had reached the home of the madman who spent his days stripping blossoms from the rapidly growing plants he cultivated in pots around the pool before his house and in the space behind it.