Under that light there was a northern look to what he could see outside the windows of the bus, that had not been there on his earlier visit. Now, in the nakedness of spring, it was clear that the land had just emerged from an icy winter and was hurrying to adapt to the march of seasons. In the earth and the growing things he read a race to survive under the sword of time. The few homesteads they passed were as neat as those he had seen before; but fields that had obviously been under cultivation the previous year had not been prepared this spring for sowing. Flower beds before the houses they passed were bare and empty.
Even in the wild fields the light green of the grass stems laid over toward the ground under the breeze, showing the brown tint of the earth through their own color. Against the dark branches and twigs of the trees, the young leaves were a darker green than the grass; but tiny and stiff, as if they huddled on the stems that held them. Above, the upper wind sent scattered clouds scudding forward visibly, harrying them toward the close, jagged horizon of the mountains surrounding. The little creeks that the bus occasionally crossed were gray-blue of surface and sharp-edged where their brown banks met the blue water, the earth not yet with new vegetation to soften the sharp line where their earth ended at streamside.
At the Transportation Center in Omalu, he arranged for a jitney and Amanda parted from him. He wanted to remind her of her promise to see him after her business here was done, but he was half-ashamed to make such a point of it. The jitney he had hired lifted him high above the surface of the world, into the blue-black of near space, and dropped him down again in the front yard of Graemehouse.
He let himself in, as the jitney took off again into the upper skies. Within, the house was as ready for habitation as ever; but the stillness of the air there shut out the strange winteriness he had seen everywhere on the way here and wrapped him with a feeling of suspended time. He reached, without looking, brushed aside jacket and put his hand on the plate of the lock-memory, his fingers coding it to remember his thumbprint. He walked through the house, dropped his luggage case on the white coverlet of the bed that had been Donal's and left it there, coming back to the living room.
He opened the door that led from the living room to the library and stepped into the opening. His head brushed the top bar of the frame, his shoulders brushed against the uprights on both sides of him. Amanda had been right - he had come into his full size. He was conscious of what was himself, small, silent, and alone, inside the big body.
"An odd boy…"
He went into the kitchen, opened the storage units there and made himself a meal of bread, goat cheese and barleylike soup, which he ate seated at the kitchen table and looking out on the same steep hillside that was visible from the window of Donal's bedroom. Afterwards, he cleaned up the debris of his eating and went back to browse through the bookshelves of the library. They were old, familiar books, and he lost himself in reading.
He woke from the pages before him to see that the sun was low on the mountains and afternoon had grown long shadows. Loneliness stirred in him; and to put it away from him he got up, returned his book to its place, and went out through the front door of the house.
It would be sunset shortly and Amanda had not come. He turned away from the house and wandered toward the outbuildings. As he came close, a horse neighed from the stable. He went in and found two of them in the stalls there. Their long noses and brown eyes looked around at him as he came up behind them.
One was Barney, the gray Amanda had been riding when he had first seen her, and during their rides together afterwards during his first visit. The other was a tall bay gelding, large enough to carry someone of his size and weight comfortably. Saddles, bridles and blankets were hung on the wall of an adjacent stall.
He smiled. Both horses whickered and moved impatiently, watching him over their shoulders for some sign that he would take one of them out for a ride. But he turned away and went back out again.
He moved about the grounds, stepping into each of the outbuildings in turn, standing and listening to the walled quiet inside them. As the sun was setting he went back to the house. It was time for the end-of-day news on any technologized world; and he sat watching that news on the communications screen in the living room. For the first few minutes, as on any unfamiliar world, what he saw and heard of people and their actions made little sense. Then, gradually, the forces behind what he watched became more apparent. The Dorsai world was mobilizing - it was as he had expected when he had decided it was time to come here once more.
He became engrossed in what he watched and followed, as the sunset moved on around the planet and the source of the broadcast moved with it. There was a uniqueness, an attention compelling magic in the interior life of a people - any people. Waking at last from this, he suddenly realized it was almost ten p.m. and Amanda had neither come nor called. Outside, it had been dark for several hours.
He sat, recalled once more to the emptiness and silence of the house about him. He stood up and stretched. A fatigue he had not noticed until this moment sat between his shoulder blades. He dimmed the light in the living room to a nightglow and went to the room where his travel case waited.
Lying in bed, he thought at first that in spite of the fatigue he would not sleep. But he put disappointment from him and slumber came. It was at some unknown time later that he was roused by the faintest whisper of movement and opened his eyes on the darkened space around him.
He had swung wide the windows and left the drapes drawn back so that outside breeze could come freely through. In that moving air, the bottom ends of the glass curtains now flowed inward, moving between the dark pillars of the pulled drapes. In the time he had been asleep the moon had risen and moved into position to shine strongly into the middle part of the room, away from his bed. The air was cool - he could feel it on face and hands, only, the rest of him warm under the thick coverlet; and in the center of the room stood Amanda, half-turned from him, undressing.
He lay, watching her. She would be too good at moving silently not to have deliberately made the slight sound that she knew would waken him. But she went on now with what she was doing as if unaware his eyes were on her. He lay watching; and the last piece of clothing dropped to her ankles and lay still. She straightened, and stood for a second like some warm and living sculpture of ivory, bathed in moonlight, drowned in moonlight. The light turned the curve of hip and buttock, outlining them against the further darkness of the room and her breasts shone full in the moonbeams. Her hair was like a cloud with its own interior illumination, haloing her head. Beneath its light, her calm face was like the profile on some old coin; and from shoulder to feet the length of her body reflected the moonlight. Balanced there like a wild thing that was just raised its head from drinking at something heard far off, she turned and he saw the flare of her hips widen below the narrow waist as she came toward him. Lifting the coverlet, she slid beneath it, turning to face him.
A harsh, ragged sigh of relief tore itself past the gates of his throat and his arms went around her, one hand closing about the soft turn of hip, one sliding beneath her to cradle her upper body, his forearm beneath her shoulder and his fingers in the softness of her hair. With one simple effort, he lifted her to him.
"You came…" he said, just before their lips met, and their bodies pressed strongly together.
He returned, after a while, to the rest of the universe - he came back gradually, drifting back. They were lying side by side now on the bed, with no cover over them; and the moon had moved some distance in the sky, so that its light had abandoned the center of the room, and now shone full upon them.