"I've got someone to introduce you to," she said.
She preceded him through the crowd of rising and departing people, many of whom also interrupted his passage to clasp his hand as he went up the levels toward the back of the chamber. As they got toward the back, the crowd thinned, and he saw a man standing by one of the entrances looking in their direction. For a moment Hal's gaze sharpened; for it was almost as if he was seeing one of the Graeme twins alive again, as his Donal memory recalled them.
But when he got closer, he saw the differences. The man waiting for them was undeniably a Graeme - he had the straight, coarse black hair, the powerful frame and the dark eyes; but he was shorter than Ian or Kensie had been - shorter by several centimeters, in fact, than Hal himself. His shoulders sloped more than had Ian's or Kensie's and there was a more solid, less mobile, look about him. The impression he gave was of power and immovability, rather than of the rangy agility that had belonged to the twins, for all that this latter-day Graeme stood with all the balance and lightness of his lifetime's training. He was perhaps in his early thirties; and his eyes watched Hal with a controlled curiosity that Hal could understand, knowing how he, himself, must look to the other man.
But whatever his curiosity, the other was clearly too polite in Dorsai terms to ask direct questions of Hal when Amanda halted the two of them before him.
"Hal," said Amanda, "I want you to meet the driver of your courier ship. This is the current head of the Graeme household I told you about - Simon Khan Graeme. He just got in from New Earth, after all."
Simon and Hal clasped hands.
"I'm indebted to you for letting me be at Foralie," Hal said.
Simon smiled. He had a slow, but strongly warming smile.
"You did the old house honor by stopping there," he said, softly.
"No," Hal shook his head. "Foralie is something more than any single person can honor."
Simon's grip tightened briefly again before he released Hal's hand.
"I appreciate your saying that," he said. "So will the rest of the family."
"Maybe a time will come when I can meet the rest of the family," said Hal. "You'll be Ian's great-grandson, then?"
It was an incautious question, coming from someone who bore the family resemblance as plainly as Hal; and Hal saw a certainty wake and settle permanently in Simon's eyes.
"Yes," Simon answered. The words he did not speak - and your own relationship to Ian, is… ? hung on the air between them.
"I'm ready to go this moment if you want," Simon said. "There's nothing in particular for me to stop home for. Would you want to lift right away?"
"I'm afraid time is tight," said Hal. "I need to leave for Mara as soon as possible, now things are settled here. Now, about the costs involved in your services and this ship - "
"No, Hal," said Amanda, "any costs are part of Dorsai's obligations under the contract, now. Simon'll take you where you need to go and stay with you from now on. Any expenses concerned with him or the ship should be routed back through our Central Accounting."
"Why don't all three of us have lunch, then," said Hal, "and after that, you can take care of whatever last minute details there are with the ship? It'd give us a chance to talk, Simon."
"You did say you wanted to leave as soon as possible?" Simon asked.
"I'm afraid so."
"Then I think I'd better go directly to see about the vessel," said Simon. "I had a late breakfast in any case, and we'll have time to talk on our way, Hal Mayne. You two don't mind eating by yourselves, do you?"
Hal smiled.
"Of course not. Thank you," he said.
"Not at all," said Simon. "I'll see you at the ship, then. Excuse me."
He swung away. Hal felt Amanda's hand close on his, down between their bodies.
"He's thoughtful," said Hal. "I think he knew I wanted you to myself for a little longer."
"Of course," said Amanda. "Now, come along. I know where we'll eat."
The place she took him to was within the terminal itself; but except for the occasional, muted sound of a liftoff or landing and the sight of the spacepad beyond the one wall that was a window, the small room was as remote from the business of travelling as any restaurant they might have found in Omalu. It held only four tables; but whether because of arrangement by Amanda, or chance, the other tables were all empty.
The four tables sat next to a balcony on a sort of terrace which occupied most of the room; and looked down across a small reflecting pool at the window wall that showed the landing pad and space vehicles ready to lift. Among them, in the middle distance, Amanda pointed out the small silver shape of the courier ship assigned to Hal.
"I was found in a ship that size," said Hal, half to himself, "a much older model, of course."
He looked back to her from the field in time to see her draw her shoulders slightly into her body, as if she had felt a sudden chill.
"Will you ever have to do it again, do you think?" she asked.
Her voice was very nearly a whisper; and her eyes were focused not on him but past him. She gazed at some point in infinity.
"No," he answered, "I don't think so. This time I should go on being Hal Mayne until I die."
Her eyes were still fixed on that far, invisible point. He reached across the table and took her hand, that lay on the table's surface, into his own.
Her fingers tightened about his and her eyes came back to his, watching him strangely and longingly, like someone watching a loved one on a ship which is at last pulling out from shore.
"It's going to be all right," he said. "And even if it shouldn't, it wouldn't make a difference for us."
Her fingers tightened. They held together, as in the night just past, building a moment around themselves that made time once more seem to stand apart. And so they continued to sit, their fingers interlocked, with the clean air, the reflecting water and the field beyond the window's transparency enclosing them.
Again, as he had sensed it standing before the Grey Captains just a little while past, he felt the turning of the universe, the inexorable sweep of events forward into a future. That sweep was all about them now but it did not reach them. They stayed, as two people standing upon a floating hub might stay, unmoved by the spinning of the great wheel surrounding the place on which they were temporarily at rest.
Chapter Fifty-eight
In the sunlight of Procyon, Mara floated below the courier ship like a blue ball, laced with the swirling white of clouds. Its resemblance to Earth, and the thought of Earth, itself, touched off a loneliness and sadness in Hal, mingled with the secret and bitter knowledge of guilt. If it had not been for the lack of a moon there would be little to identify Mara as not being Earth, the two worlds were so close in appearance and Mara so slightly larger. Even knowing it was not Earth, Hal was tempted to imagine that he was watching the planet on which, only a handful of years back, he had grown to physical maturity; and it came to him for the first time how deep was the emotional bond that tied him to the Mother World.
They had been holding on station for some twenty minutes; now the vessel's speaker system woke with the voice of a surface traffic control unit.
"Dorsai JN Class Number 549371, you're cleared for self-controlled descent to referenced intersection, access code Cable Yellow/Cable Orange, private landing pad. Link for coordinates, please."
Simon Khan Graeme tapped the white access button of the vessel's navigation equipment to link it to the control unit's net; and under his hands, the small ship began to drop toward the surface far below. Hal had all but forgotten the advantage of a Dorsai ship and pilot that could take him to the very doorstep of his destination on any world, rather than hanging in orbit around a world and making him wait for shuttle service. He looked at the long, powerful fingers of Simon, resting their tips lightly upon the direct control keys, touching… pausing… touching again.