He broke off, gazing at Hal, penetratingly once more.
"You're not even Dorsai," he said.
"No," said Hal. "My name's Hal Mayne."
"Honored," said the boy. "I'm sorry. Forgive me. I thought - I thought you were."
"It's all right," said Hal. For a moment, a sort of bitter curiosity moved in him. "Tell me what made you think so?"
"I - " the boy hesitated. "I don't know. You just do. Only something's different."
He looked embarrassed.
"I'm afraid I'm not too good an observer. After I get through my training - "
"It's not you," said Hal. "A couple of adult Dorsai have already had to look twice at me to see what I was. What I'm hoping is to get up in the hills myself and take a look at Foralie. Not for any particular purpose. I've just always wanted to see it."
"There's no one there now," said Alaef Tormai.
"Oh?" Hal said.
"I mean, all the Graemes are off-world right now. I don't think any of them are due back for a standard year or so."
"Is there any reason I can't go up and look around, anyway?"
"Oh, no!" said Alaef, uncomfortably. "But there'll be no one home…"
"I see." Hal thought carefully for a second about how to phrase his next question so as not to hurt the other's feelings. "Isn't there someone close to the Graemes I could talk to? Someone who might be able to show me around?"
"Oh, of course!" Alaef smiled. "You can go talk to Amanda. Amanda Morgan, I mean. She's their next door neighbor. Fal Morgan's her homestead - do you want me to show you how to get there?"
"Thanks," said Hal. "I'll have to rent a vehicle."
"I'm afraid there's nothing in town here you could rent," said Alaef, frowning. "But that's all right. I can slide you up there on our skimmer. Just a minute, I'll call Amanda and tell her we're coming."
He turned to a screen on one of the desks and punched out call numbers on its deck of keys. A line of printing flooded across the screen in capital letters. Hal could read it from where he stood.
"GONE TO BRING IN THE BRUMBIES."
"She's gone after wild horses?" Hal asked.
"Not wild." Alaef turned back to him from the screen and looked embarrassed again. "Just the stock she's had running loose for the summer in the high pastures. That's what we mean when we say brumbies, here. It's time to bring them in to shelter for the winter. It's all right. We can go ahead. She's got to be back before dark; and she'll probably be home by the time we get there."
He started out the gate to Hal's side of the counter.
"What about the office?" Hal asked.
"Oh, that's all right," Alaef said. "This late in the day, no one's likely to come by. I'll leave word with my aunt on the way out of town, though."
Hal followed him out, and five minutes later found himself a passenger in an antique-looking ducted-fan skimmer being piloted up one of the slopes enclosing the valley that held Foralie Town, headed toward the high country beyond.
The sun was reaching down toward the mountaintops and a time of sunset, when they came at last over a little rise and Hal saw before them a high, open spot surrounded in front and on both sides by wooded gullies like the one from which they had just emerged; and, beyond that, having a small open field that lifted at the far end to a treed slope, enclosed by the omnipresent mountainsides. In the center of the open area stood a large, square two-story building with walls of light gray stone, accompanied by what seemed to be a long stable, some outbuildings and a corral, all of log construction.
"I guess she isn't back yet, after all," said Alaef, as he brought the skimmer up close to the house. "She's left her kitchen door ajar, though, to let people know she'll be right back."
The skimmer's fans died and the vehicle settled to the grassy earth outside the partly open door with a sigh.
"Do you mind if I just leave you here, then?" said Alaef, looking at Hal a little anxiously. "It's hardly polite, I know, but I told my aunt I'd be home in time for dinner. Amanda's got to get those brumbies in corral before sundown, so she'll be along at any minute; but if I wait with you I'll be late. You can just go in and make yourself comfortable."
"Thanks," said Hal, standing up from his seat in the open skimmer and stepping down onto the earth. "I think I'd just as soon stand out here and watch the sunset. You get on back; and thanks for bringing me up here."
"Oh, that's just neighborliness. Honored to have made your acquaintance, Hal Mayne."
"Honored to have made yours, Alaef Tormai."
Alaef started up the fans, lifted the skimmer on them, spun it about, waved and slid off. Hal watched him until the vehicle and youngster dipped into a gully and were lost from sight. He turned back to look at the sun.
It was touching the tops of the mountain range with its lower edge and the light was red and full. For a moment the color of it brought back a memory of another sunset with the red light upon the water of the private lake of the estate on which he had been brought up; a sunset-time in which he had been racing the edge of moving sun-shadow across the water and Malachi and Walter had been standing on the terrace of the house…
He shivered, slightly. There was something stark and real about this Dorsai landscape that let the mind and the emotions run full out in any direction that beckoned them. He looked about once more at the edges of the tabletop of land on which he stood, alone with the Morgan house and outbuildings. If this Amanda was indeed sure to be in before dark, she would have to be putting in an appearance very shortly.
Barely a couple of seconds later, his ear caught a sound of distant whooping, followed by an increasing noise of hoofbeats and torn brush; and, as he watched, horses boiled up over the edge of one of the gullies, flanked by a blue-capped rider who passed them up and raced flat out before them toward Hal and the clump of buildings.
By this time, somewhere between a dozen and fifteen loose horses were up on the flat, being chivvied forward by two other riders, who looked to be no older than Alaef. Meanwhile, the one in advance had galloped to the corral and was unlatching and swinging open its gate, throwing one quick glance at Hal as she passed.
This, he thought, had to be the Amanda Morgan he was here to see, although she did not look much older than her two assistants. She was tall, with the breasts and body of a grown woman, in spite of her slimness; but an amazing litheness and an indefinable general impression of youthfulness made it hard for him to believe that she was much beyond her middle teens.
She swung the gate wide. The other two riders were already driving the loose horses toward the corral. These thundered past Hal at less than ten meters of distance. One gray horse with a white splash on its face balked at the gate, dodged and spun about, bolting toward Hal, the house and freedom beyond. Hal ran forward, waving his arms at full length on either side of him and shouting. The gray checked, reared, and dodged aside again only to find its way barred by one of the young riders, who turned it finally back into the corral.
They were all in, and the sun's upper edge disappeared as the gate was swung to and locked. Suddenly shadow and a breath of coolness flooded over all the level land. Amanda Morgan said something Hal could not quite catch to the two younger riders. They waved, swinging their mounts around, heading off at a canter in the direction from which they had come.
Hal, fascinated, watched them down into the gully and out of sight. He looked back, finally, to find Amanda dismounting in front of him. For the first time he got a good look at her. She was as square-shouldered as she was slim, dressed in tan riding pants, heavy black-and-white checkered shirt and leather jacket, with a blue, wide-billed cap pulled low over her eyes as if to still shade them against the direct sunset light that had now left them. Twilight filled the area below the surrounding mountains.