Altogether, the situation and the moment once more woke that same urge to poetry in him that had first come back to life with his first sight of Rukh. But it was not the urge to make poetic images that touched him now. It was the memory of poetry in his past.
It is long, the night of our waiting,
But we have a call to stay . . .
They were the first two lines of a poem he had written when he had been ten years old and drunk with the image of the great picture Walter the InTeacher had painted for him; a picture of the centuries-long search of the Exotics for an evolved form of humankind, a better race, grown beyond its present weaknesses and faults. Like most of the poems of extreme youth, what power it possessed had been all in the first couple of lines, and from there it had gone downhill into triteness. Since then, he had learned not to go so fast to the setting down of the first words that came to mind. It took restraint and experience to do deliberately what amateur poets tended to do only unconsciously - carry the poem around in the back of the mind until it was complete and ready to be born.
He lost himself now in just that process - not forcing his mind into any mold, but under the influence of the surrounding darkness and the firelight letting the powerful creative forces of the unconscious drift uncontrolled, forming images and memories, good and bad, recent and distant.
Making mental pictures in the city of the white-red embers glowing beneath the burning logs, he watched armies march and builders build; while Sost and Walter, Malachi and Tonina, mixed and mingled in his thoughts and the ghost of Obadiah stood around the fire, talking with the living bodies with whom Hal shared its warmth.
Now that he stood back and looked at himself, something in him had healed with the three years on Coby; but much else was still either unhealed or unfinished. Somewhere, there was waiting a purpose to his life; but he had let that fact be forgotten, until he had driven into the clearing this afternoon and seen Rukh, Child-of-God, and now these others. There must be a purpose because it was unthinkable that life could be otherwise…
So he continued, sitting, dreaming and thinking, occasionally interrupting himself to reply to an introduction or some brief word from other members of the command, until he was roused by a touch on his arm. He turned and saw Jason.
"Howard," said Jason. "I'm turning in. You can keep the fire going here as long as you want, even by yourself, but dawn comes early."
Hal nodded, suddenly aware that the gathering had shrunk to only a handful of people. Two pairs of individuals, and one group of three, were deep in private conversations. Otherwise, only he and Jason were left.
"No," he said. "Thanks, but you're right. I'll fold up too."
He got to his feet, and they went off into the dark. Away from the fire, the night at first seemed pitch-black, but gradually their eyes adjusted to show the moonlit woods. Even with this, however, the area held a different appearance at night; and they might have wandered indefinitely in search of their tent, if Jason had not produced and lit a pinhole torch. The beam of the torch picked up eye-level reflectors pinned onto trees to mark out the numbered routes throughout the camp. They followed the route that led back to the clearing; and there Jason picked out what was evidently the line of reflectors that would lead them to the tethering place of the donkeys, and their tent.
The tent itself was a welcome place to step into at last; and Hal recognized, as Jason turned out the glowtube and he pulled the hood of his own bedsack into place to keep the top of his head warm, that he was ready and overready for sleep. Exhaustion was like a warm bath relaxing all his limbs; and even while thinking this, he was asleep.
He awoke suddenly, holding somebody's throat in the darkness, so that whoever it was could not cry out or breathe. A twist of his thumbs would have broken the neck he held. But swiftly - though it seemed slowly - the odors of the tent, the smell of the camping gear and clothing, brought him back to a realization of where he was. It was Jason he was holding and strangling.
He let go. He got to his feet; and, reaching out in the darkness, found and turned on the glowtube. Yellow light showed Jason lying on the floor of the tent, breathing now, but otherwise not making a sound, staring up at him with wide-open eyes.
Chapter Eighteen
"Are you all right?" said Hal numbly. "What happened?"
Jason's lips worked without a sound. He lifted a hand and felt his throat. At last his voice came, huskily.
"I woke and heard you breathing," he said. "Then, suddenly, your breathing stopped. I called to you to wake you up, but you didn't answer. I crawled over to see if you were still there, and you were - but you weren't breathing at all. I tried to shake your shoulder to wake you…"
His voice ran down.
"And I woke up and grabbed your throat," said Hal.
Jason nodded, still staring up at him.
"I'm sorry," said Hal. "I don't know why I did that. I wasn't even awake. I'm sorry."
Jason got slowly to his feet. They looked at each other with their faces only a few hands-width's apart in the yellow light of the glowtube.
"You're dangerous, Howard," said Jason, in an expressionless voice.
"I know," said Hal, unhappily. "I'm sorry."
"No," said Jason, "it's good for this Command to have dangerousness like that on our side, against our enemies. But what made you attack me?"
"I don't know."
"It was because I woke you suddenly, wasn't it?"
"I suppose," said Hal. "But even then… I don't usually go around attacking anyone who wakes me suddenly."
"Were you dreaming?"
"I don't remember…" Hal made an effort to remember. "Yes."
"A bad dream?"
"In a way…" said Hal.
"A bad dream. It's not surprising," said Jason. "Many of us know what it's like to have that sort of dream. It's all right. As long as we're both awake now, let's have some coffee."
Hal shivered.
"Yes," he said. "That's a good idea."
Jason turned to a corner of the tent and came up with a temperature-sealed plastic container that looked as if it might hold about a liter of liquid.
"I filled it after dinner - I meant to tell you it was here," he said, almost shyly. He pressed the thumb-stop to jet a stream of dark liquid, steaming in the chill air of the nighttime tent, into a couple of plastic cups. He handed one filled cup to Hal and got back into the warmth of his own bedsack, sitting up with it around him.
Hal imitated him. They looked at each other across the width of the tent.
"Would you want to tell me what the dream was?" Jason said.
"I don't know if I can," said Hal. "It wasn't very clear…"
"Yes. I know that kind, too," said Jason. He nodded. "Don't try to talk about it, then. Drink the coffee and lie down again. The thread gets broken that way, and the same nightmare doesn't come back. Tomorrow's another day. Think about tomorrow while you're falling asleep."
"All right," said Hal.
Jason finished his cup quickly and lay down again, pulling the hood of his bedsack up close around his head.
"Leave the light on or turn it off, whichever you like," he said. "It won't bother me."