The flicker sheened off Erannath’s plumage, turned his eyes to molten gold and his crest to a crown. In its skyey accent his speech did not sound pedantic: “Outsiders often do explore more widely than dwellers, Yeoman Vasiliev, and see more, too. People tend to take themselves for granted.”
“I dunno,” Samlo argued. “To you, don’t the big differences shadow out the little ones that matter to us? You have wings, we don’t; we have proper legs, you don’t. Doesn’t that make us seem pretty much alike to you? How can you say the Trains are all the same?”
“I did not say that, King,” Erannath replied. “I said I have observed deep-going common factors. Perhaps you are blinkered by what you call the little differences that matter. Perhaps they matter more to you than they should.”
Ivar laughed and tossed in: “Question is, whether we can’t see forest for trees, or can’t see trees for forest.”
Then Fraina was back, and he sprang up. She had changed to a shimmerlyn gown, ragged from years but cut so as to be hardly less revealing than her dancer’s costume. Upon her shoulder, alongside a blueblack cataract of hair, sat the luck of Jubilee, muffled in its mantle apart from the imp head.
“Coming?” she chirruped.
“N-n-n-need you ask?” Ivar gave the king a nord-style bow. “Will you excuse me, sir?”
Samlo nodded. A saturnine smile crossed his mouth.
As he straightened, Ivar grew aware of the intentness of Erannath. One did not have to be Ythrian to read hatred in erected quills and hunched stance. His gaze followed that of the golden orbs, and met the red triplet of the luck’s. The animal crouched, bristled, and chittered.
“What’s wrong, sweet?” Fraina reached to soothe her pet.
Ivar recalled how Erannath had declined the hospitality of any wagon and spent his whole time outdoors, even the bitterest nights, when he must slowly pump his wings while he slept to keep his metabolism high enough that he wouldn’t freeze to death. In sudden realization, the Firstling asked him, “Don’t you like lucks?”
“No,” said the Ythrian.
After a moment: “I have encountered them elsewhere. In Planha we call them liayalre. Slinkers.”
Fraina pouted. “Oh, foof! I took poor Tais along for a gulp of fresh air. C’mon, Rolf.”
She tucked her arm beneath Ivar’s. He forgot that he had never cared for lucks either.
Erannath stared after him till he was gone from sight.
Beyond the ring of vehicles, the meadow rolled wide, its dawn trava turf springy and sweet underfoot, silvergray beneath heaven. Trees stood roundabout, intricacies of pine, massivenesses of hammerbranch, cupolas of delphi. Both moons tinged their boughs white; and of the shadows, those cast by Creusa stirred as the half-disc sped eastward. Stars crowded velvet blackness. The Milky Way was an icefall.
Music faded behind him and her, until they were alone with a tadmouse’s trill. He was speechless, content to marvel at the fact that she existed.
She said at last, quietly, looking before her: “Rolf, there’s got to be High Ones. This much joy can’t just’ve happened.”
“High Ones? Or God? Well—” Non sequitur, my dear. To us this is beautiful because certain apes were adapted to same kind of weather, long ago on Terra. Though we may feel subtle enchantment in deserts, can we feel it as wholly as Erannath must? … But doesn’t that mean that Creator made every kind of beauty? It’s bleak, believin’ in nothin’ except accident.
“Never mind philosophy,” he said. Recklessly: “Waste of time I could spend by your side.”
She slipped an arm around his waist. He felt it like fire. I’m in love, he knew through the thunders. Never before like this. Tanya—
She sighed. “Aye-ah. How much’ve we left?”
“Forever?”
“No. You can’t stay in the Train. It’s never happened.”
“Why can’t it?”
“Because you sitters—wait, Rolf, I’m sorry, you’re too good for that word, you’re a strider—you people who have rooted homes, you’re—not weak—but you haven’t got our kind of toughness.”
Which centuries of deaths have bred.
“I’m afraid for you,” Fraina whispered.
“What? Me?” His pride surged in a wave of anger that he knew, far off at the back of his mind, was foolish. “Hoy, listen, I survived Dreary crossin’ as well as next man, didn’t I? I’m bigger and stronger than anybody else; maybe no so wiry, not so quick, but by chaos, if we struck dryout, starveout, gritstorm, whatever, I’d stay alive!”
She leaned closer. “And you’re smart, too, Rolf, full of book stories—what’s more, full of skills we’re always short on. Yet you’ll have to go. Maybe because you’re too much for us. What could we give you, for the rest of your life?”
You, his pulse replied. And freedom to be myself … Drop your damned duties, Ivar Frederiksen. You never asked to be born to them. Stop thinkin’ how those lights overhead are political points, and let them again be stars.
“I, I, I don’t think I could ever get tired of travelin’, if you were along,” he blurted. “And, uh, well, I can haul my load, maybe give Waybreak somethin’ really valuable—”
“Until you got swittled, or knifed. Rolf, darling, you’re innocent. You know in your bones that most people are honest and don’t get violent without reason. It’s not true. Not in the Trains, it isn’t. How can you change your skeleton, Rolf?”
“Could you help me?”
“Oh, if I could!” The shifty moonlight caught a glimmer of tears.
Abruptly Fraina tossed her head and stated, “Well, if nothing else, I can shield you from the first and worst, Rolf.”
“What do you mean?” By now used to mercurial changes of mood, he chiefly was conscious of her looks, touch, and fragrance. They were still walking. The luck on her shoulder, drawn into its mantle, had virtually seceded from visibility.
“You’ve a fair clutch of jingle along, haven’t you?”
He nodded. Actually the money was in bills, Imperial credits as well as Aenean libras, most of it given him in a wad by Sergeant Astaff before he left Windhome. ("Withdrew my savin’s, Firstlin’. No worry. You’ll pay me back if you live, and if you don’t live, what futterin’ difference’ll my account make?” How remote and unreal it seemed!) Tinerans had no particular concept of privacy. (I’ve learned to accept that, haven’t I? Privacy is in my brain. What matter if Dulcy casually goes through my pockets, if she and Mikkal and I casually dress and undress in their wagon, if they casually make love in bunk below mine?) Thus it was general knowledge that Rolf Mariner was well-heeled. No one stole from a fellow in the Train. The guilt would have been impossible to hide, and meant exile. After pickpocket practice, the spoils were returned. He had declined invitations to gamble, that being considered a lawful way of picking a companion clean.
“We’ll soon reach the river,” Fraina said. “We’ll move along it, from town to town, as far as our territory stretches. Carnival at every stop. Hectic—well, you’ve been to tineran pitches, you told me. The thing is, those times we’re on the grab. It’s us against—is ‘against’ the word?—zans. We don’t wish harm on the sitters, but we’re after everything we can hook. At a time like that, somebody might forget you’re not an ordinary sitter. We even fall out with our kind, too often.”
Why? passed across Ivar. Granted this society hasn’t same idea as mine of what constitutes property or contract. Still, if anything, shouldn’t nomads be more alert than usual when among aliens, more united and coordinated? But no, I remember from Brotherband visits to Windhome, excitement always affected them too, till they’d as likely riot among each other as with Landfolk.