The Shadow and Night Read online

  “I heard you were here,” she said. “I gather you’ve been riding around up north. Going all right?”

  “Fine, but no room to relax. The winters could be warmer, the summers cooler. But what brings you here?”

  “Ah.” She smiled brightly. “You don’t know? Of course, you’ve been out of touch and it’s not been posted yet. I’ve been asked to work here. Forestry Assistant and so on. So I decided to come and look round on my Nativity break.”

  “Oh, but I thought I’d heard that you were going south. That you’d got the rainforest assignment they have been wanting to fill. I was wrong?”

  She shook her head in an amused way and grinned at him mischievously. “Oh, we talked it through. The board thinks this is more suitable. I’m inclined to agree, although this—”she gestured to the farm complex—“will be a bit of a backwater when the enlarged Herrandown village is up and running and the new Northern Forest extension is the front line. No, I think the tropics job requires more than I have got. There’s a better candidate.”

  “I’d be surprised; tropical systems are tough. But I’m sure you’ll get on fine here. I like it up north myself.”

  She gave him the grin again, only this time he felt laughter was just below the surface. “Not too much, I hope.”

  “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, Merral, you haven’t changed. Not a bit! You are the last person to recognize your gifting. You are the one they want for the tropical assignment.”

  In his astonishment, Merral struggled for words, aware that a man in rust-red overalls was waving at him from the side of the freighter.

  “Me? This is all news to me. I’ve always seen it as your job.”

  “No. You are outgrowing here. Ask anybody.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Anyway, take it with my blessing, Merral. Do a really great job. Look, that’s your driver, you’d better go. Swing by sometime. Love. . . .”

  Then Ingrida was gone and the hatch door on the freighter was opening.

  The six-wheeler took four hours to cover the one hundred and eighty kilometers to Ynysmant, slowed down by patches of ice on some of the ridges, a track washout, and a herd of golden deer that refused to move. Merral spent most of the time in conversation with the driver, Arent, who was an enthusiast for this particular Mark Nine Groundfreighter, which he’d driven for thirty years. Merral liked enthusiasts of any sort, even if wheeled, winged, or finned engines of transport were not a personal interest.

  Yet, in a strange way, Merral was glad of being forced to concentrate on Arent’s lengthy discourse on the advantages of the Mark Nine over the old Mark Eight. There was too much crowding into his tired brain now and he was glad of a relatively simple distraction. The prospect of the tropical forestry posting was staggering. When, a few months ago, he had originally heard about it, he had expressed regret that it hadn’t come up two years later when he felt he might have been ready for it. Tropical forestry was held up as the great challenge in his profession, and only those who had proved themselves in temperate or cold realms were asked to serve in it. The saying was that cold or temperate forest work was like juggling with three balls; but with tropical, it was eight. The many more species gave a multitude of interactions, and everything happened so fast. He wondered whether Ingrida had made a mistake. In the meantime, he forced himself to follow Arent’s explanation of why it would take at least another twenty years of careful design before it was worthwhile producing the Mark Ten Light Groundfreighter.

  They were winding through the beech woods on what Merral knew was the last ridge before Ynysmere Lake when Arent looked upward through the transparent roof panel. “Tell you what, the clouds have cleared and we are ahead of schedule. Let me put her on nonvisual waveband sensing and slow the speed.”

  The rapid flickering of the tree trunks in the headlights eased. “Now we cut the lights. We should get a great view of the stars and the town.”

  Merral had seen it done before, but found it as impressive as ever. For a moment everything outside was total darkness and then gradually his adapting eyes made out the stars, high, sharp, and diamond brilliant above the rushing black smear of branches, and ahead over the ridge, the golden beacons of the Gate and the sharp, clear pinpoint that was the gas giant planet Fenniran were clearly visible.

  Arent looked upward and spoke in hushed, reverent tones. “Nativity’s Eve, Merral. I always feel somehow that high heaven is that bit nearer tonight. But I suppose that’d be the sort of thing you learned folk would smile at?”

  “Oh, ‘learned folk’ indeed, Arent!” Merral laughed. “This night of all reminds us of the folly of that idea. I recollect that it was to shepherds in the fields the angels appeared, not to the wise in Jerusalem. Anyway, I’m not as learned as you are on your F-28.”

  “True enough.”

  “And you may well be right, I suppose, Arent. High heaven may be nearer to us tonight—but we have no instruments to measure its proximity.” Then, without thinking, he added, “Or that of hell either.”

  He sensed Arent’s face, looking curiously at him in the darkness. “Sorry, Merral. Did you say something?”

  “Sort of. . . .” He paused, puzzled at where the words had come from. “But I didn’t mean to.”

  There was a long silence as the road flattened, and then they crested the hill. Ahead and below them in a sea of blackness appeared a cone of tiny twinkling points of silver light, as if some sort of faint human echo of the glory above.

  And as he looked carefully at the town of Ynysmant perched on its steep island in the lake, Merral could see how the reflection of the lights shimmered as the lake’s dark waters stirred in the wind.

  Home, he thought, and the word had a peculiar taste of welcome to it that he felt it had never had before.

  Merral left the freighter at the island end of the causeway, thanked Arent, and half walked and half ran up the winding steps into the town. With it being Nativity’s Eve there were many groups on their way to parties and concerts, and Merral picked up a sense of excitement in the air.

  The lights were on at his house, a narrow three-story unit in the middle of a sinuous terrace with overhanging eaves. Merral pushed open the door, vaguely surprised to find the hall and kitchen empty. There was ample evidence of recent cooking with a tray of small jam cakes on the side table, and the smell made him realize suddenly how hungry he was. Putting his bag down, he took off his jacket and slung it on a chair. He was suddenly aware of feeling tired and sweaty. It had, he decided, been a long day. Eventually the smell of the cakes was too much for him and he helped himself to one, putting it whole in his mouth and finding it as delicious as he had expected. As he stood there, he heard talking in the general room beyond and, swallowing the last cake fragments, pushed the door open.

  His mother, dressed in a skirt and blouse patterned with flowers, rose from her chair suddenly at his entry. She gave a little cry of “Merral,” came over, and kissed him warmly. As they broke free from each other, he saw behind her a thinly built, dark-skinned man of medium height wearing a neat blue formal suit rising from a chair.

  His mother took his arm and stretched it out.

  “I’m so glad you’re back. Merral, let me introduce you to—I think I have the name right—Mr. Verofaza Laertes Enand.”

  The young man smiled gravely and gave a slight bow. “Indeed,” he said. “Verofaza Laertes Enand, sentinel. A pleasure.”

  Merral stared at him, hurriedly trying to wipe crumbs off his lips with his left hand. The name made no sense. There was only one sentinel on Farholme, an old man, and this was not him. Besides which the man’s accent was out of the ordinary, but somehow familiar. Merral felt he had always known it.

  “Merral Stefan D’Avanos,” he said, awkwardly swallowing the last fragments of cake as he shook hands. Then he looked at the guest. “Sentinel? Here?” he asked. “But have you replaced old Brenito? He’s not . . .?”

  The man stood back, his smile slightly awkward, even shy
. He’s young, Merral thought, probably my age—midtwenties.

  “No, he is alive and well. I have traveled farther than your capital.”

  Merral realized that he had answered in Communal, not the Farholmen dialect. He was suddenly aware of his mother tugging his arm and speaking to him in a quiet intensity of excitement. But even as she spoke he knew what she was going to say, for he had understood why the accent was familiar and why he had known it since childhood.

  “Merral,” she said in an awed voice, “he’s come from Ancient Earth.”

  4

  Merral stared at the stranger. At college, he had once been in a meeting that had been addressed by someone from Ancient Earth, and he had met pilots and others who had trained there. But he personally had never as much as shaken hands with anybody from there. Indeed now, as he scrutinized the visitor, he felt there was something unusual about him. The suit had a strangely severe line, the black curly hair was cut in a peculiar way, and the rich dark brown skin was darker than any he had seen on Farholme. On their own, these things were merely oddities; taken together they said that the visitor was not from his world.

  Merral realized that he was staring too much. “I’m sorry, Verofaza. You have taken me by surprise. . . .”

  The other man smiled wryly. “It’s Vero. Everyone calls me that. I gather you’ve been traveling all day. That makes us both travelers.”

  A kind comment, and one that makes me feel more at ease. He found himself warming to the stranger. “I find it generous that you can put my miserable two hundred or so kilometers in the same category as your three hundred and fifty-odd light-years.”

  “Nearly four hundred in total. I kept careful count.” He gave a little shudder. “The only place they could find was on a long route combination.”

  “It is a mere twenty million million times my journey.”

  Vero grimaced vividly. Merral decided he had a very mobile face and that he could make a great clown or mime actor.

  “I try not to think of the distances like that, Merral. A light-year is somehow manageable; ten trillion kilometers isn’t. Please, why don’t we sit down?”

  “I’m sorry,” Merral said. “I should have asked you.”

  “It’s not a difficulty. And you don’t mind me using Communal? I seem to understand your dialect easily enough, but I wouldn’t dare try and speak it.”

  Merral felt that the visitor’s warm, deep brown eyes were watching him keenly. “There is no problem. Yes, Farholmen dialect has not yet seriously diverged from Communal. Although there are trends. As a sentinel, I expected you to wear your badge.”

  “The Tower against the Sky?” He smiled. “Oh, I should do, but I find it a bit of a nuisance. Everybody points you out: ‘Look, Mum, there’s a sentinel.’ It’s a tradition—not a rule—to wear it. And I choose not to. But I will wear it tomorrow.”

  Merral turned to his mother, who was still standing nearby. “Mother, will you not sit with us?”

  She shook her head, letting her braided, silver-flecked brown hair bob on her shoulders. “No, no thank you, Merral. I’d love to, really. Your father has been delayed at the depot and I really must get the rooms ready. And really, I have to finish off some things for supper and the meal tomorrow. And would you like something to drink? Perhaps another cake?” She gave him a knowing nod.

  Merral, suddenly feeling rather sheepish, wiped his mouth again. “Er, yes. Both please, Mother. I’ve been traveling since dawn.”

  She turned to their guest. “Perhaps Vero, a drink of something for you?”

  He nodded formally. “Thank you. Just a glass of your excellent water please, Lena.”

  She bowed slightly, patted Merral on the shoulder tenderly, and left the room.

  “Are you fasting?” Merral asked.

  The stranger’s face acquired a slightly pained look. “Not really. Over the past two weeks I have been through five Gates. And I have found out that I do not like them. I think that my stomach is still several light-years behind in Below-Space and trying to catch up. In fact, I wonder if I will ever be reunited with it.”

  “You found it unpleasant? People vary, I gather.”

  “Yes. Very disorienting. Have you ever been though a Gate?”

  “I’ve never even been in Farholme orbit.”

  “Lucky you.” Vero stretched himself back in his chair and flexed his long, smooth brown fingers against each other as if concerned that they were all present and working. “Five Gates in thirteen days, Merral. There was a lot of turbulence between the Nelat Four Gate and Rustiran. You could feel the whole Normal-Space tunnel being buffeted. A weird feeling. And weightlessness wasn’t much better. Or takeoffs.” He wriggled his face in an almost childlike look of disgust.

  Merral found himself enjoying his visitor. “I have lots of questions, you know,” he said.

  Vero closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, as if trying to fight off a headache. “Ah, that I can imagine. But I’m here—well, in Ynysmant—for three days, and I promise I’ll try and answer some at least. In time. Actually, I’m here to ask questions myself.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes.”

  Merral waited in vain for any further clarification then asked, “What sort?”

  Vero flexed his fingers again, stared at them, and then smiled with wide eyes at Merral. “Ah, that is the problem. But my first question is, what sort of journey did you have?”

  Merral was just on the point of answering when his mother came back bearing a small wooden tray with two glasses of water and a plate of small cakes. She put them on the low table between the chairs and gave a glass to Vero, who bowed his head in acknowledgement.

  “Thank you indeed.” Then he took the glass carefully, held it up toward her as if making a toast, and sipped it delicately.

  Merral’s mother smiled at him. “And it’s our honor to have you. But, not wishing to interrupt your conversation, I’d better remind you, Vero, that it’s not long before you’re expected at the house of Former Warden Prendal. There is a party, with a meal and dancing.”

  “You are right, Lena.” Vero glanced at his watch. “And the evening is going. I’d better get ready. Is it far?”

  Merral put down his glass. “Ten minutes’ walk, a bit more. I’ll take you. In say, fifteen minutes?”

  “Done.”

  Somehow, Merral made time in those few minutes for a shower and a change of clothes. He also managed to wonder why there was a sentinel visiting Farholme, why he had arrived here in Ynysmant, and what exactly sentinels did. Then he grabbed his winter jacket and met up with Vero, who was standing self-consciously by the door in a long, thick brown coat that went down to his ankles. Vero caught Merral’s glance.

  “Ah yes. The coat. Well, I was near the Congo Position when the Sentinel Council suddenly asked me to go. It was all a last-minute rush. So I was actually on the way to the launch site when I realized I’d be arriving here in winter. The only winter coat I could get was one from a very tall Nord-European. It is far too long, isn’t it?” He glanced down at it again in an embarrassed way and then looked up at Merral. Suddenly, they both found themselves laughing.

  Merral shook his head in mirth. “What a mess, eh, Vero? They send you four hundred light-years to the end of the Assembly through Below-Space five times and with expenditure of enormous amounts of energy, and all with the wrong-sized coat! Oh, I love it!” he chortled.

  Vero shook with laughter. “Do you suppose . . . ?” he spluttered, pausing for breath between stifled snorts of laughter. “Do you suppose . . . ? No. . . . It’s too funny.” Here he suddenly seemed to control himself. He turned to Merral with a perfectly solemn face and, in an intensely serious voice said, “My friend, do you think that perhaps I ought to go back and get one that fits?”

  Then the facade of seriousness cracked and he broke out with a croaking laugh. Merral, unable to control himself, burst out into renewed peals of laughter. Eventually he clapped Vero on the back and ushered h
im out the door. Guffawing with mirth together, they set off up the hill.

  By the end of the street they had quieted down enough for Vero to begin asking Merral various questions about Ynysmant, such as how big it was and how long he had lived in it. Apparently satisfied, he then said with a quiet intensity, “Now tell me, Merral, are people happy here?”

  At first, Merral wondered whether he had heard the question correctly, then he considered whether it was a joke, and then finally he asked for clarification. “Is that an Ancient Earth question? I mean—excuse me for saying it—it barely makes sense.”

  Vero stopped in his tracks, obviously thinking hard. “Yes, I know what you mean. But look, are they contented? Do they long for, well . . . what they cannot have?”

  Merral heard himself laughing again. “Want what they cannot have? Vero, this may be Worlds’ End, but we aren’t stupid. I mean, what would a man or woman want with something that was not theirs to have? You’d drive yourself crazy. It’d be like . . . well . . . I don’t know—a lake wishing to be a mountain or a bird wanting to be a fish.”

  For long moments the only sound was their feet on the cobbles and muffled singing from an adjacent house. Then Vero spoke, but this time it was in a puzzled, reflective tone. “See, I don’t even know enough to know where to begin. This whole thing is . . .” He sighed. “Very difficult.”

  They walked on without speaking between the high painted walls of the houses and in and out of pools of light and shadow. Barely audible celebratory music and laughter seemed to seep through windows and doors.

  “Vero, why did you come here, to this town, to us?”

  “Because it seemed right. My task was to visit here and to write a report. It’s my first task as an accredited sentinel.”

  A cold gust of wind whistled down an alleyway, and Merral was aware of his friend shivering.

  “What sort of report?”