"Not fair of you to pull rank and monopolize that lovely creature, Deagan," his father said.

 

 

"I haven't. Fenn and Cordane dance with her, too."

 

 

The planetary manager gave a derisive snort. "Do we know her?"

 

 

"We will!"

 

 

"Oh?" The PM raised his eyebrows in surprise at so em-hatic a reply from his generally unimpressionable son.

 

 

Deagan left the hall as if on an urgent errand. He was - he wanted to program all gates on inner lock. The action ought not to discommode anyone for the short time he'd require. As he slipped out the main door, he caught a glimpse of shimmer entering the women's room. He also saw Fenn and Cordane striding out the garden doors.

 

 

From where he stood by the main gate in the shadows, Deagan could see the slope of the dome and the misty glow of her gown as she eased herself over the sill of the women's-room window. Jut as he had guessed. She moved quickly for the side gate in a half crouch, so he gave her full marks for caution. As she pulled vainly at the locked gate, he heard not only a frustrated moan but a concerned note in her low exclamation. He glanced at his wrist chrono - she'd precious little time to try other side gates: she'd have to chance that the main one remained open.

 

 

At one instant she was a swiftly moving mist, the next a slender, white-bodied nymph trailing notes of sparkling fire that wafted to the garden sand behind her. She stumbled with a cry of pain, then uttered a round space oath just as he emerged from the shadow of the bushes. Courteously keeping his eyes on hers, he flung the cloak he had brought with him about her body. She did not resist as he encircled her with his arms.

 

 

"My apologies. I computed the possible energy in your jewel generators and... here I am."

 

 

"Fair enough." Her body did not yield.

 

 

"Is it unfair to outthink a true adventurer?"

 

 

He had meant to tease her further but something in her proud look made him forbear. Without a veil, her face had character, and the fine features of a noble background. Nor had her manner lost its innate self-confidence. He liked her even more as her true self than as a mysterious mist. So he kissed her lips lightly. After the briefest hesitation, she responded and her body relaxed in his grip. He did not press his advantage but stepped back.

 

 

"Suppose we find another costume for you for the remainder of the evening, if you'll do us the honor, my lady...?"

 

 

"Dacia Cormel of Aldebaran IV" she said, filling in the blank.

 

 

"The soil-mechanics engineer?" His doubled surprise made her laugh. "But you weren't due to arrive for another week or more." Deagan had never thought to check anticipated visitors and couldn't express the ruefulness he felt at that oversight. But it was no wonder she could create such a costume. "Fardles, do you realize that it was Walteron who danced with you first.?"

 

 

"I do now, but he'll never connect that me with his precious specialist. Let's go. I've clothes outside the gate you locked on me." She bent suddenly, feeling with both hands about the dark garden sand. "But first, help me find my other slipper?"

 

 

Habit Is an Old Horse

 

 

As the Sussex cock summoned morning, the old gray horse woke. He lifted his muzzle from the ground and, blinking to clear his eyes, gazed about the twelve-acre field. The donkeys were, as usual, already grazing at the road end of the pasture. The two hunters were sprawled out flat, taking every advantage of their summer's rest. The yearlings were behind old Knock; he heard them stamping.

 

 

He shook his head. He must get up. He positioned his front legs, heaved his hindquarters under him. One more effort and he was standing. As he sauntered over to the water trough set between this field and the one that contained the broodmares and new foals, his off-hind leg dragged stiffly. He ignored the discomfort, knowing the stiffness would ease with exercise.

 

 

The yearlings suddenly acquired thirst, too, and frolicked about him as he made his stately way, ignoring their antics. The brown came a bit too near him and the old gray horse extended his neck, teeth bared, to put the brown in mind of his manners.

 

 

Knock blew across the surface of the trough, rippling away dust and leaves. He touched the water, cool on his lips, and then plunged his nose in to suck deeply. The first water of the day was best and he took his fill.

 

 

The younger stock, donkeys included, crowded in to the trough. The old horse backed carefully away and began to search, head down, sniffing out any sweet blades of grass that he might have missed in yesterday's grazing.

 

 

He had filled his stomach for the first time that morning before he heard any activity in the farmyard. As was his habit these past seasons, he wandered toward the house, to breast the fence that separated the fields from the gardens and the orchards about the neat bungalow. The fence, so neatly painted that spring, showed grimy patches where he leaned into it, opposite the window where she often appeared. The window was black, curtains drawn.

 

 

He gazed toward the barnyard now, to the figures carrying the morning feeds to the whickering horses in the stable row. He neighed softly, hopefully, but no one turned to wave at him. He looked back at the window: sometimes after he called, he could see movement - a hand or a white face as the edge of the curtain was pulled aside. Sometimes the blankness lifted completely and he could see the outline of her familiar figure. He hadn't seen her in some time; not since the hard weather eased into a wet spring. He snorted with disappointment and stamped the ground. He stamped again, tossing his head, and noticed long grass stems just on the other side of the fence. By a careful angling of his long head, he could just reach the grass. He contented himself with nibbling all along the fence by the house yard. She might just still come out to him with a carrot, or an apple, or even a slice of bread if he stayed by the fence long enough. The flurry of activity in the horse yard ended as the three men went back into the house, leaving the stabled horses to finish their feed.

 

 

Philosophically old Knock finished cropping the far side of the fence and then moved off. If she didn't visit him in the morning, she often came out with the others in the evening when all the field horses were checked.

 

 

He was half-asleep in the sun, the hip of the stiff leg cocked, when shouts and a scrabble of shod hooves on stone brought his head up and ears pricking toward the stableyard. A big bay mare was dancing about, eluding the rider who wished to mount her. The old horse wondered why she bothered: she only delayed the inevitable. He heaved a sigh.

 

 

It had been a long time since he'd felt a rider's weight. She hadn't ridden him, even gently about the fields, since last summer. No one else had backed him since that day. He looked again at her window and it was still blank.

 

 

The mare was still trying to have her way, rearing and prancing, the men shouting in the hard determined way he remembered. He heard the splat of crop on flesh: the mare hesitated and her rider vaulted into the saddle. Another splat brought an abrupt end to the contest. She had never had to use a stick on him, he remembered complacently. Always he had been ready to do as she asked, for she'd a light hand, a firm seat, and a kind voice. They'd gone like the wind together across field and through forest. Those had been the good days: when he'd breath and will to run, when his muscles moved easily, when he couldn't wait to see what the next field brought, ditch or fence or bank, the baying of the hounds ahead of them and most of the other, slower horses stretched out behind them. She'd been a light and gracious burden for him to carry, her hands along his neck encouraging him, her affectionate pulling of his ears (an indignity that he had permitted only from her), the slaps of approval on his neck when the day's hunting had ended. And the tidbits from her hand as she saw him safely bedded for the night inside a warm, deep-strawed box.

 

 

He'd had other riders from time to time: some he'd carried with no protest. There had been the odd one or two he hadn't wanted on his back. He had developed simple tricks, dropping his shoulder or going under a low branch at speed. Those times were few because, mostly, she rode him. He could take pride in the knowledge that he had never failed her, nor faltered no matter what she had asked him to jump or do.

 

 

The bay's rider had now guided the mare into the practice ring where the old gray horse had so often been worked with her on his back. The rider put the mare into the old remembered drill of walk, trot, canter, cross the arena, walk, trot, stop, back, job, canter, which was so familiar to the old horse that the skin across his withers twitched. He could almost feel the pressure of the saddle on his withers, the girth firm under his belly. He watched, head up and ears pricked, as the schooling continued. Then the rider turned the mare toward the jumps set in the training field.

 

 

As he watched the mare, the old horse could almost hear her voice in his ears, encouraging him, praising him as they careered about the field and over the obstacles. She'd steady him with her voice when the excitement of performance overcame his normal calm. She'd laugh when he'd buck out over the last fence, as if she knew how glad he was to have gone clear. He remembered, and the skin of his chest rippled, how he'd be jarred to his poll sometimes by the hardness of the ground as he landed after a big fence. But he was clever on his feet, and never once had he slipped on muddy ground whether they put studs in his shoes or not. Best of all, he had like the spreads, for then he had seemed to be suspended between ground and sky. That sensation he had liked above all, spurning the ground in those scant seconds as if he might one day leap with her to the sun itself had he the right ground for takeoff.

 

 

Best of all were the times he'd stood with other horses and permitted ribbons to be attached to his browband. He could sense her pride and joy along the reins to his bit. And he never spooked, as others might, when bands banged and hooted close by him.

 

 

The bruff-bruff high blowing of the mare brought him out of his dreaming. She'd been checked for the second spread: he could hear the rattling tattoo of her hooves as she pulled to be free, the silence following her takeoff and the grunt of her landing as she cantered on.

 

 

"Ross!" he heard someone shouting from the front of the house. He pricked his ears forward, straining as the call was repeated: it sounded like her voice, but it wasn't. He stamped, disappointed. She used to watch them jump other horses. He knew she was in the house, behind the blank window. Why didn't she come and see him?

 

 

The mare and her rider had turned, cantering back to the gate into the stableyard, where the other woman waited. The man jumped from the mare's back.

 

 

"Ross, she wouldn't even take her tea this morning. I've called the doctor, and he's coming right over."

 

 

The urgency, the ripple of fear in the woman's voice, so like the voice he longed to hear, made the old horse whicker hopefully. He whuffled again, when he saw them turn their heads in his direction. "Oh, Ross, how could old Knock know?"

 

 

"Don't be silly, Mairead. He couldn't know. He's always at the fence in the morning. Mam used to feed him when she was still able. it's just habit, that's all."

 

 

"It isn't as if we weren't expecting it, Ross, but somehow..."

 

 

"Just let me put the mare up."

 

 

Knock watched as the two parted, the man leading the bay mare back to her stable. As the woman slowly walked toward him, he nickered softly.

 

 

"Do you know, Knock? Mam always said you were smart for a horse." She extended her hand to his questing lips. "Do you know Mam's dying?"

 

 

Her hand was empty but she stroked his nose. He sensed her unhappiness and stood quietly as she leaned her forehead against his neck. She'd done that sometimes, standing with her head against him, hands quiescent on his nose and shoulder: sometimes, too, as this woman did now, she'd made funny sounds and left his shoulder wet.

 

 

"Oh, Knock, when I think of how she used to be... and then to see her now, in pain, so weak..."

 

 

Knock heard the man's footsteps but he didn't move.

 

 

"If Knock were in such pain, we could put him down so he needn't suffer..."

 

 

"Ross, how could you say such a thing..."

 

 

"It'd be kinder, wouldn't it?" The man sounded angry. "Wouldn't it, Mairead? D'you think I don't realize what Mam's going through? It's a dirty rotten trick to pull on a gallant old lady but at least she can die in her own bed with her own family about her and..."

 

 

"Knock waiting for her at the fence."

 

 

The woman whirled from Knock, crying with emotion the old horse could smell so acutely that he blew softly in reaction. The man had his arms about the woman, comforting her with small pats on her shoulders and soft words. As he stood that way, his eyes caught the old horse's, almost accusingly.

 

 

The horse heard the car first, lifting his head, seeing the bright flash of its blue paint through the trees that bordered the drive. The woman broke from the comforting arms and ran across the grass toward the front of the house to intercept the car.

 

 

"It would be kinder," the man said in a low voice, staring at the horse, "but we can't, can we? You'll miss her, too, won't you, old boy?" He slapped Knock affectionately on the neck before he walked quickly after the woman.

 

 

The first car heralded the arrival of many others; some discharging passengers and leaving, while others parked on the front lawn and the tarmacadam. Pleased by the unusual activity to entertain him, the old horse wondered what was to happen. So many cars generally meant a sale of animals or a show in the big jumping field. Today, however, no teams of people bustled about setting up jumps and roping off areas for rings. The uneasy aura about the house made him restless and he couldn't settle to grazing with the yearlings.

 

 

Obscurely troubled, the old horse stamped his off-fore. As if his action were some sort of cue, he heard the faint sounds of distressed cries, of loud weeping. The curtains now bounced with agitation and he thought for a brief moment that they would at last be pulled aside and he'd see her. The movement ceased but the noises, muffled though they were by the walls of the house, carried clearly to his ears. He didn't like the sounds and pawed the ground with nervousness. He wanted to leave the fence side but some unheard restraint compelled him to remain in vigil. Abruptly the compulsion ceased. Free to move, he did not. He waited by the fence.

 

 

Full of grass and bored of sportive play, the yearlings came over for a while midafternoon. They made a great show of fear and galloped off when a car came round the house to park on the tarmacadam in the rear. Knock maintained his dignified vigil.

 

 

"Mick, surely that's not Maeve's old Knock still alive?"

 

 

The sound of this woman's voice, slightly familiar to him, made the old horse turn his head, ears moving. He whuffled softly as she came over to him. She dug a sugar lump from one pocket and held out her hand flatly, so politely he extended his neck to accept her offering.

 

 

"You never supposed Maeve would sell this fella to the factory, did you?" asked the man with a lightly derisive laugh. He ran a practiced hand from Knock's shoulder to his neck and gave him an admiring slap. "Not after all the winnings she collected jumping him."

 

 

"But Mick, he's surely over thirty?"

 

 

"Suspect he is. In grand shape for all of that" The man's tone changed abruptly. "C'mon. We'd better go in. Get it over with."

 

 

"A minute, Mick. I've found another bit of sugar." She fumbled in her pocket and held the battered offering under Knock's nose. He gave a sniff but lipped it up willingly. She patted his cheek. "Poor old fella. No one's had time for you today, I'll bet." Her voice quavered and Knock tensed, catching the note of unfamiliar emotion.

 

 

"Now, Sally..."

 

 

"I know, Mick"-and the woman gave a convulsive sob-"it was just seeing old Knock waiting by her window and no way to tell him..."

 

 

No sooner had the two hurried around to the front of the house than another car arrived in the rear. Knock regarded the new arrivals with keen interest as they emerged from the car. There might be more sugar lumps.

 

 

"D'Gawd, he's there. Tol'ya he'd be," said a thickened voice, which Knock associated with the man who used to shoe his feet. "You and your notions that the one would die with the other!" He scoffed loudly and was ordered to hush by his companions. He glanced at the curtained window and hunched his shoulders up to his neck, feigning repentance. "B'Gawd, though, he'd fetch a fine price at Straffan, now wouldn't he, Joe?"

 

 

The men were close enough to Knock now for him to smell the sourness he distrusted. He had always associated that odor with trouble and a groom he'd hated. He blew out in distress and backed away from the fence.

 

 

"Jaysus, if the old horse didn't understand ya!" The other two men pulled the farrier along with them to the front of the house. "Mind your mush inside t'house, fer Gawd's sake."

 

 

Warily observing their progress away from him. Knock noticed that the windows of the big room overlooking the field were not blank. He could see the faces turned in his direction and, ears waggling at the muted sounds of voices, he watched the watchers until the next car came around. He stepped back to his position at the fence, head up, ears inquiringly forward. But the people were too occupied with conveying bowls, trays, and crates, though he caught the unmistakable odor of the food they carried briskly through the kitchen door.

 

 

The skies were darkening now and a chill wind blew raggedly up from the sea, an unusual direction at this time of year. The young horses joined Knock, pressing against his bulk to share his warmth. The hunters, aloof, chose a place along the fence nearer the stables.

 

 

There was a lot of bustle and calling and banging in the stableyard as volunteers coped with the arrangements of a strange barn as they fed the stabled horses.

 

 

"Hey, get a scoop for old Knock, too. He deserves a feed at this wake if anyone does!"

 

 

A man approached the old horse, a scoop held at waist level. The smell of nuts reassured Knock more than the man's soothing words. The scoop was only half-full but Knock was grateful. The yearlings, naturally, came to see what was happening. Laughing softly, the man gave them the odd few so they wouldn't steal from Knock's pile.

 

 

Sunset was obscured by a mizzling rain, following the rise of bluster in that sea-borne wind. Knock maintained his hopeful position at the fence, but no more cars came round to the rear, although there were enough coming and going down the drive to the main road. When the dampness soaked through to chill his back. Knock sought shelter with the others against the hedgerow where the trees lining the driveway gave some protection. The yearlings pressed around him for comfort and warmth.

 

 

Not only did the weather deteriorate but the headlights and noise of cars constantly up and down the drive kept rousing the horses from the little rest they could get. There had been a time when she would have brought him under cover on such a night as this.

 

 

Toward morning, the wind dropped and the rain eased off. The yearlings moved away, grazing to comfort their cold bellies, but Knock was too stiff to move. He longed for the sun to warm and ease his cold back and stiff hind leg. Knock was resentful as well as miserable and, acting from habit, he haltingly moved toward her window and, lifting his head, whinnied sharply. Abruptly the curtain was pulled back from the window. He blinked against the sudden sharp brightness. He whinnied again. The curtain dropped back into place, though a thin edge of light showed at one side. Then the kitchen door opened and three figures came out.

 

 

"Knock? Is that you, fella? How did you know, old boy? How did you know?"

 

 

Knock recognized the voice of the bay's rider and whickered again as the three men approached him. Then the window brought to his nostrils the sour smell he hated and, despite the kindness and sorrow in the blurred voice, he backed away.

 

 

"He was cold, that's all it is, Ross," said the thick-voiced farrier. He bent to climb through the fence rails. "I'll just catch him up and put him in the barn."

 

 

Knock threw up his head, whinnying both fear and warning. He wanted no part of someone smelling like that. He wheeled sharply on his hindquarters, though his stiff leg nearly buckled, as he ran from the smell and the men. When he felt safely out of their reach, he turned to see if they intended to follow him. They were silhouetted now, for someone had thrown back the curtains of her window. He called once more. The curtains fell back and then even the edge of light went out.

 

 

He tossed his head, blowing, whinnying sharp and high in his distress. She did not even come to the window. He didn't understand his abandonment. Disconsolately, he plodded off to join the yearlings. They were better than no company on this disturbing cold night when she no longer heard him.

 

 

Lady-in-Waiting

 

 

Mummie, Sally wants to play dress-up," said Frances, her pointed little face contorted with the obligation to accommodate her first guest in the new house.

 

 

"I do, too," said six-year-old Marjorie, pouting her plump cheeks in anticipation of refusal.

 

 

Sally Merrion just stood in the loose semicircle about Amy Landon's kitchen table, her dubious but polite expression challenging her hostess.

 

 

"Dressing up seems a very good idea for such a drizzling day," Amy replied calmly. To give herself a moment to think what she could possibly find for them to play in, she finished pouring the steaming bramble jelly into the jar.

 

 

Fran caught her breath as a gobbet on the lip of the saucepan splashed and instantly dissolved, coloring pink the hot water in which the jars were steeped.

 

 

"What had you planned to dress up as?"

 

 

"Ladies-in-waiting," said Sally, recovering from the initial surprise of agreement but still determined to put her hostesses to the blush.

 

 

There was such an appeal in Fran's soft eyes that Amy was rather certain that the notion of this particular costume was all Sally's.

 

 

"Wadies-in-waiting," Marjorie said, frowning and pouting as if to force her mother to accept.

 

 

"We'd be very careful," Fran said in her solemn way.

 

 

"I know you would, pet," Amy replied, smiling gentle reassurance.

 

 

Not for the first time, Amy wondered how long it would take the sensitive Frances to recover from the shock of her father's death: his brutal murder, Amy amended in the deepest part of her mind. Peter had been a victim of a bomb thrown without warning into a London pub.

 

 

She disciplined her thoughts sternly back to the tasks at hand: pouring the bramble jelly and figuring out how to comply with her daughters' needs.

 

 

"Werry careful," Marjorie said, bobbing her head up and down while Sally Merrion waited to be surprised.

 

 

"Of course you would, love," Amy assured the child, knowing that Fran could be depended upon to make certain that her younger sister was careful.

 

 

"Frances is a real dote," Amy's mother often said with pride, since the child resembled her in feature and coloring, "and more help then the twins, I'm sure, despite their being older. The poor wee fatherless lambkins," she'd recently taken to adding in a tone that stiffened Amy's resolve to make the move that had indirectly caused Peter's death.

 

 

During the first days of her bereavement, the hideous irony of his dying had given her a passionate dislike for Tower Cottage. The only reason Peter had been in that pub at that critical moment was to phone her the good news that he'd signed the mortgage contract for a house that would take them away from the increasingly dangerous city streets: a house in the gray-stoned hills of Dorset, with its own orchard and gardens, and a paddock for a pony; the kind of rural, self-sufficient life that Amy and he had known as children.

 

 

Her parents, and his, had urged her to repudiate the contract, to stay close to them so they could give her the comfort, protection, and aid that a young widow with four growing children would undeniably need.

 

 

Stubbornly and contrary to her prejudice toward Tower Cottage, Amy Landon had honored that agreement, citing to her parents that the life-insurance policy required by the mortgage company now gave her the house free and clear.

 

 

"You could say that Peter died to secure Tower Cottage," Amy had told the parental conclave. "It is far away from London and I want to get far away from London. I want to abide by the plans my Peter and I made. I'm well able for the life. It isn't as if I weren't country-bred.... Just because you wanted to retire to the city..."

 

 

"But, all alone... so far from a village... and neighbors," her father and Peter's had argued.

 

 

"I'm hardly alone with four children. Young Peter's as tall as I and much stronger. We're scarcely far from a village when there're shops, a post office, and a pub a half mile down the lane. As for neighbors... I'll have too much to do to worry about neighbors."

 

 

And the fewer the better, she'd amended to herself. She abhorred the pity, even the compassion, accorded her for her loss. She was weary of publicity, of people staring blur-eyed at herself and her children. They'd all be spoiled if this social sympathy continued much longer: spoiled into thinking that the world owed them something because politics... or was it madness?... had deprived them of their father.

 

 

"My mother keeps a special box," Sally Merrion was saying to draw Amy's thought back to the present, to the low-beam kitchen redolent of bubbling bramble berries, sealing wax, and the casserole baking in the old Aga cooker. "It's got clothes my grandma and great-gran wore."

 

 

Amy wondered if she'd ever use those maxiskirts again. "I've some things in the blanket chest..." She hesitated. She couldn't leave the jelly half-poured and she resisted the notion, once again, that there was something about the box room that made her loathe to enter it.

 

 

"Don't worry, Mother. I wouldn't touch anything good," Fran said, patently relieved that her mother had risen to the need. "And you daren't leave the jelly."

 

 

"Wadies-in-waiting?" asked Marjorie in a quavering voice.

 

 

"Yes, yes, love. Go along then, girls. I really must finish the jelly. Fran, you can use those long skirts of mine. And there're old sheets in the blanket chest...." Why on earth be afraid of a blanket chest? But a frisson caught her between her shoulders. 'They'd make lovely flowing robes...."

 

 

From the scornful expression on Sally's face, Amy wondered what on earth the child was permitted to use in her own home. Cheeky girl.

 

 

Amy concentrated on the jelly, finishing the first pan of jars and getting the next ready before her maternal instinct flared. Back in the kitchen, separated from the main section of the cottage by the pantry, and thick walls, she could hear nothing. She'd better check. She pushed open the pantry door and the high happy voices of the girls, affecting adult accents, carried quite audibly down the stairwell. They were obviously playing there on the landing in front of the box room. Satisfied, Amy returned to her jelly.

 

 

She found unexpected satisfaction, she mused, in these homely preparations against the winter. Atavistic, Peter would have called her. The summer had not been kind to the land and its bounty was reduced, or so the villagers said, but Amy Landon had no fault to find. The apple and pear trees of Tower Cottage were well laden when you considered that there'd been no one to prune, spray, or fertilize them: and how there came to be beetroot, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, and swedes in the kitchen garden, Amy didn't know. The villagers had rolled their eyes and each suggested someone else as the Good Samaritan. Her circumstances were known in the village, so she concluded that some kindhearted soul did not wish her to feel under obligation. Nonetheless, the abundance of the garden meant that she could manage better on the Spartan budget she allowed herself. (She would make no unnecessary inroads on savings that were earmarked to see young Peter through secondary school and college. And she refused to think in terms of compensation money.) With the cost of all commodities rising, she must grow or raise as much as possible on her property.

 

 

Mr. Suttle, who ran the tiny shop at the crossroads, had told her that old Mrs. Mallett had kept chickens: she had owned Tower Cottage before the Alderdyces bought it. (The Alderdyces, now, they hadn't lived there very long: come into money sudden like, and bought a grand house nearer London only they didn't get to live in their new house because they died of a motor accident before ever they reached it.) While Mr. Suttle hadn't heard of chickens living wild like that for two years or more, then returning to their own run, there was no other explanation for the flock that now pecked contentedly around the barn behind Tower Cottage, and obediently laid their eggs for Patricia to find.

 

 

To her father's amusement, and young Peter's delight, Amy had purchased a Guernsey cow, for what was the sense of having a four-acre meadow and a barn unexpectedly full of hay if one didn't use them. Mr. Suttle had knowledgeably inspected the same stable and hay, pronounced the one fit to house cattle and the other well enough saved to be eaten by the cow, and applauded little Mrs. Landon's sense.

 

 

Old Mrs. Mallett, who'd been spry to the day of her peaceful death, had kept chickens, cow, and pig (Mr. Suttle thought he might be able to find Mrs. Landon a piglet to fatten for Christmas) and lived quite well off her land, and kept warm and comfortable in Tower Cottage.

 

 

Amy assured Mr. Suttle that this was also her intention, and she thanked him for his advice, but she rather felt the piglet could wait until she was accustomed to managing cow, chickens, and children.

 

 

Actually, it was young Peter who managed the cow, after instructions from the farmer who'd sold them the beast. And Patricia, Peter's twin, cared for the chickens. The two vied with each other to prove their charges in that curiously intense competition reserved to twins.

 

 

Amy sealed the bramble jelly and began to stick on the labels that Fran had laboriously printed for her. All of them had picked the berries the day before, a warm, sunny Sunday, and made a game of the work, arriving home in the early September dusk, berry-full and berry-stained, with buckets of the rich dark fruit. The only deterrent to complete happiness for Amy had been the absence of her husband: this was what he had wanted for his family and he wasn't alive to share it. In poignant moments like this, her longing for him became a physical illness.

 

 

She must continue to force such negative thoughts from her mind: the children had had enough gloom, enough insecurity. She must find contentment in the fact that they were indeed living as Peter had so earnestly desired.

 

 

Young Peter came in with the milk pail, the contents frothy and warm. Patricia was just behind him with eggs from her hens.

 

 

"I think Molly likes me," Peter announced as he usually did when the Guernsey had let down her milk for him with no fuss.

 

 

"Another dozen eggs, Mummie," said Patricia, taking her basket into the larder and carefully arranging the freshest in the front of the molded cardboard. Peter heaved the bucket up to the counter and got out the big kettle, whereupon he began to measure the milk before heating it. He was keeping a record of Molly's output as against her intake, so that they would have accurate figures on how much their milk and butter were costing them. He was all for trying to make soft cheese, too, since there were herbs along the garden path for seasoning.

 

 

High on the wall by the pantry door, the old bell tinkled in its desultory fashion, announcing a caller at the front door.

 

 

Wondering who that could be since the few people with whom she was acquainted would know that she'd be in the kitchen this time of day, Amy half ran to the front hall, wiping her hands as she went and pulling fussily at her jumper, aware that it was jelly-sticky. She gave the door the hefty yank it required and discovered Sally's mother about to use the huge clumsy knocker.

 

 

"Good heavens, Mrs. Landon..."

 

 

"I'm terribly sorry to keep you standing on the stoop, Mrs. Merrion...."

 

 

"I can't thank you enough for minding Sally...."

 

 

"No bother. Such a nasty day, the girls have been playing dress-up."

 

 

In mutual accord, the two women crossed the square front hall to the stairs. Above them some charade was in progress: they could hear Sally announcing dire news in a loud and affected voice.

 

 

"Sally dear, it's Mummie come to collect you."

 

 

"Oh, Mummie, did you have to come just now?"

 

 

Amy and Mrs. Merrion exchanged amused glances at the distressed wail of protest. As they looked up. Sally was leaning over the upper balustrade, her face framed by a gauzy blue, the folds of heavy blue sleeves falling to cover her hands on the railing.

 

 

"I'm just denouncing the traitor in our midst who was de... dee... what did you say he was doing to us, Fran?" Sally turned her head and nearly lost the heavy headdress.

 

 

"Sally love" - Mrs. Merrion's voice was patient and level - "I've got to pick up the meat for tea and your father from the station. There's only just time to get to Mr. Suttle's before..."

 

 

"Oh, Mummie..." Sally's tone was piteous, and undoubtedly tears were being repressed.

 

 

Amy heard Fran's soothing voice, to which she added her own assurance that Sally could return very soon and continue the game.

 

 

"It just won't be the same...." Sally's voice ended on a petulant high note.

 

 

The women saw a swish of royal blue shirts, which told them that Sally was submitting to the inevitable.

 

 

"Fran love, would you put the things away for Sally since she has to leave now?"

 

 

"Yes, Mummie. Come on now, Marjorie, you can help...."

 

 

Marjorie blubbered a protest, evoking her privilege as the youngest in the family.

 

 

"If you're big enough to be a lady-in-waiting, you're big enough to help," Fran said in such an imitation of an adult that Amy and Mrs. Merrion grinned at each other.

 

 

Sally's stiff-legged descent of the stairs reminded them of that young lady's disgruntlement well before they could see her scowling face. Amy gathered up Sally's school mac and book bag, quickly deciding that the dirtier of the two school scarves was not Fran's, and prepared to speed the parting guest.

 

 

Sally allowed herself to be helped into her coat, but her seething resentment dissipated as she babbled to her mother that Mrs. Landon had smashing things to play dress-up in, Mummie, and when could she come again please, and thank you Mrs. Landon for the tea and Mummie didn't you have to go to the dentist again soon?

 

 

Mrs. Merrion, amused by her daughter's effusiveness, smiled and said all the properly courteous things as she hurried Sally across the square hall and out the door. As Amy waited politely on the steps while the Merrions' green shooting brake was bucking down the pebbled drive, she began to wonder at Sally's unexpected enthusiasm. What on earth had the girls managed to find in the "smashing" category in that blanket chest? What else was in it? Suits of Peter's that she'd put by for his son, the odd blanket or two, a few drapes, some outgrown things of Patricia's, party dresses of hers that she would be unlikely to wear in Dorset, several lengths of fabric. Nothing royal blue in the lot! And she'd never had any occasion to use gauze. Nor headdresses. As far as she could remember, there'd been nothing left behind in the box room by the previous owners, the unfortunate Alderdyces.

 

 

"Mum, the milk!" Peter shouted through the pantry door. "Do put everything back, Fran, won't you?" Amy paused long enough in the stairwell to hear her daughter's assurance before she returned to the kitchen and an urgent affair of pasteurization.

 

 

At supper that night, when Marjorie was safely in bed, Amy remembered the royal blue puzzle. "Fran, pet, how did you get on as ladies-in-waiting?" "Oh, Mummie," and Fran's face glowed unexpectedly, "we had a super time. Marjorie was in the red wool though we had to pull the skirt up over the belt so she wouldn't trip. She was the junior lady-in-waiting and carried Sally's train. Sally was queen because she was guest, so she had the blue because blue is a royal color. Isn't it?" Peter had guffawed so Fran turned wide serious eyes on her brother. "Sally said it was...." ("To be sure, it is, Fran pet," Amy reassured her, glaring at Peter.) "... So that left the green for me. But I think the green was for a man... because it only came to my knees. Marjorie's and Sally's dresses dragged on the floor...."

 

 

"Red? Green? What green?" Amy was mystified.

 

 

"Green... sort of velvet stuff, I think, and it went from here to here"-Fran measured the length on her small body-"and there was fur along the collar and no buttons so I used another belt...."

 

 

"I don't recall putting away any belts...."

 

 

"The fancy dress ones, Mummie, with the belt buckles and sparkly stones..."

 

 

Fran's pleasure was fading fast in the face of possible maternal disapproval, and her voice wavered as her eyes sought her mother's.

 

 

"Oh, those!" Amy said as if her memory had been at fault. "Those old things. I'd forgotten about them."

 

 

"I don't remember you and Father going to costume do's," Peter said, gathering his brows just the way his father had.

 

 

"You could scarcely remember everything your father and I did, Peter," Amy said placidly. Peter tended to act the expert. "There's more Horlicks." She reached for Peter's glass, smiling to clear the anxiety from her daughter's face. "Molly's making more and we have to keep up with her production. Peter, time for you to check her while we girls do the supper dishes. Then all of you, off to bed...."

 

 

She made the school lunches and checked the doors before she could no longer defer the mystery of the fancy clothes. Resolutely she climbed the stairs, looking down into the square hall, as she came to the first landing. The oldest part of the house, the estate agent had said, probably was an old Norman keep, though the stonework was in astonishingly good condition for a structure so old. Doubtless that was why the fifteenth-century architects had incorporated the keep when the cottage was built. Certainly, thought Amy, the house was a continuous production: all periods, rather than one, now combined into a hodgepodgery that had appealed to Peter's sense of the ridiculous.

 

 

The heterogeneity had also fascinated the engineer who had examined the house for Peter and Amy prior to the contract signing. On the way down to Dorset, the man had been frankly suspicious at the asking price and warned Peter and Amy to be forearmed for disappointment in its state of repair. Surprisingly, the engineer had discovered very few problems, most of which could be put right with a judicious slap of mortar, plaster, or paint, and the odd dab of putty or sealer. The cellar was dry, the thick sound walls oozed no damp, the floors were remarkably level, the chimneys, of which there were nine in all, drew, the drains were recent and in good order, the slate roof was undamaged by the storms of the previous winter. And not a sign of woodworm or dry rot. The engineer reluctantly concluded that the Tower Cottage had been so reasonably priced because, as advertised, it was genuinely to be sold quickly to settle the Alderdyce estate.

 

 

Still, there was a palpable aura in the square hall, which Peter had chalked up to antiquity. And something almost expectant in the atmosphere in the box room immediately above the hall, those two rooms comprising what was left of the old Norman keep. Amy was not a fanciful person, certainly not superstitious, or she would never had moved into Tower Cottage at all after Peter's death. Yet she avoided the box room, sending the children either to retrieve objects stored there or consign others to its capacious shelving or the huge, heavy wooden chest that dominated the front wall under the two slit windows. "Flemish work," the engineer had called the chest, with the modem addition of a thin veneer of cedarwood on the inside to make its purpose clear. He had wondered if the chest had been built in situ, for he could not see how it would otherwise have got through the doorway. Peter had sat on the chest that day, Amy recalled: he'd thumped the wood, laughing at the hollow echo of the empty chest, remarking that it would be a good place to hide the body... several bodies by the size of it. Amy had felt the frisson then, running up her spine to seize her head and jerk it on the neck with an involuntary force that had astonished her. The engineer noticed and solicitously remarked that un-lived-in houses always chilled him.

 

 

Since they'd moved in, she'd made one concession to the distressing atmosphere of the box room: she'd put the brightest possible bulb on the landing and had Peter put an equally strong one in the box room's single socket. (Oddly enough, the children loved playing in the box room.) Tonight she turned on both lights and stood for a moment on the threshold, staring at the dark bulk of the carved wooden chest.

 

 

It did not move. The carvings did not writhe or gesture. A faint odor of lavender and cinnamon was detectable, mingling with old leather, wool, and camphor: homey smells, compatible with the room's use. Not a shadow stirred.

 

 

With swift steps, Amy crossed the room and tugged up the lid of the chest. Just as she'd thought. The two torn sheets, rough-dried, were neatly folded on top, her maxi- skirts just below. But one was a check and the other black. Where was royal blue, or red, or green with a fur-trimmed collar? She sat on the edge of the chest and lifted one stack of garments, Patricia's outgrown jumpers and skirts, Peter's shirts and underclothes, socks. She turned in the other direction and sorted through business suits, vests, more jumpers, her crepe and wool party dresses. At the bottom were two pairs of old drapes and some glass curtains, white. Nothing gauzy blue. No ornate headdresses. No costume belts. She delved to the wood of the chest's floor and found only the mundane things she expected.

 

 

Fran was a literal child: if she'd said she'd dressed in green with no buttons and a fur collar, she had. Puzzled, Amy ran her eyes over the contents of the shelves; nothing there surely but Christmas ornaments, boxed games, lampshades, empty jars, young Peter's tenting and backpack frame, oddments of china set aside for a jumble. On the other side of the door, the tea chest containing Peter's business papers, books, the family's suitcases as neatly stacked as they'd been since the day after removal from London.

 

 

Yet Sally Merrion had been dressed in royal blue... a queen's color... and gauzes!

 

 

A flash of color caught her eye and she turned toward the chest, blinking. She could have sworn that the topmost sheet had been, however fleetingly, a brilliant blue. To reassure herself, she smoothed the sheet, but her fingers told her that it wasn't velvet, just worn linen. She stood up, closing the lid of the chest, almost dropping it the final few inches as the full weight of the wood tore the lid from her fingers' inadequate grasp.

 

 

She'd ask Fran in the morning where she'd found those dress-up clothes. Possibly she'd misunderstood.

 

 

The frisson caught her by the back of the neck before she'd reached the safety of the door. It was like a hand on the scruff of her neck, pulling her back to the scent of some childhood crime: an injunction against a cowardly retreat.

 

 

In spite of herself, Amy turned back into the room and stared around her. The scent of lavender and cinnamon was cut by a sharper smell, vinegarish. Then a sweetish odor, familiar but unnameable, assailed her, an odor as sharp as the previous intangible command to stay. Stiffly, Amy walked back to the chest, set her hand on the lid, imagining, as Sally might have, wondrous costumes in which to be medieval ladies-in-waiting... and a queen.

 

 

No torn sheets, no dull woolen jumpers now lay exposed, but royal blue velvet, a deep red wool dress, a green surcoat fur-trimmed, and belts, encrusted with rough-cut bright stones set in the dull gleam of gold links.

 

 

She let the lid drop and the compressed air smelled of sweat, human and horse, of stale food and spilled, soured wine, heavy perfumed musk mixed with camphor. Weakly, Amy sank to the cold stone floor, impervious to that chill.

 

 

"The Alderdyces came into money...." Mr. Suttle's words came to mind. ,

 

 

Had some Alderdyce child, or adult, dreamed of hidden treasure in the old keep? And found it in the chest?

 

 

Amy shook her head, fighting to think rationally. Did the chest grant wishes, then? Pray God it was only one wish and Fran had had the chest's quota for them all, and that was the end of the matter.

 

 

She thought of gold and jewels, rich fabrics. Oriental silks, and gauzes, of ornate Arabian leather slippers. And opened the chest. Her heart pounded as she dropped the lid on those same imagined riches.

 

 

Mrs. Mallett? She'd lived in Tower Cottage for years, spry till the day of her death. Hadn't Mr. Suttle said so? Wanting for nothing, the house and grounds supplying her requirements.

 

 

Amy laughed, a single sound, hard and strained, like her credulity. What had the widowed Mrs. Mallett lifted the lid to find? A body? As Peter had whimsically suggested.

 

 

The sweetish odor, familiar but unidentifiable, pervaded the box room.

 

 

Amy screamed, a soft tortured cry, her hands stifling it to a whisper, lest Peter or Patricia hear her. That same sweetish odor had filled her nostrils as she'd knelt before Peter's coffin in the church. How could the house have killed her Peter in that bombed-out public house. It couldn't have.... Illusions! Her longing for him that day!

 

 

"NO!" The single negative was as low as it was firm. She spread her hands, fingers flat on the lid of the chest, denying what could be if she so desired. "No!"

 

 

She spread her arms across the chest in repression, in supplication, in prayer. This was just a chest with old clothes in it, two torn sheets and some dresses waiting for parties, for children to grow up to fill. This was just an ancient tower, used as part of an old house, a house where children could grow up in healthy country air, on fresh vegetable and milk, and where they could pick apples and pears in an orchard and bramble berries from hedges. Just an old house that had served many families in the same way.

 

 

The nauseating sweetness dispersed: lavender and cinnamon returned, and the smell of night and rain.

 

 

Slowly Amy pulled her arms together, rose to her knees before the chest. She placed the heels of her hands under the lid and, swallowing against the dryness of her throat, pushed upward. Her body blocked some of the light from the overbright bulb, but she saw the comforting white of old cotton sheeting, caught a whiff of her favorite cologne, impregnated in the dresses stored in the chest, a hint of the cedarwood. It was as she'd wished. She let the lid down gently and leaned her forehead weakly against the edge.

 

 

It took her a few moments to gather enough strength to rise. Really, she told herself as she walked toward the door, she ought not to attempt to do so much in one day, though they'd enough bramble jelly to last years, even with the amount Peter slathered on his toast.

 

 

She switched off the light and closed the box room door behind her. Her fingers hovered briefly over the key. No, she could not lock out what had apparently happened or lock in whatever it was. That would be superstitious as well as downright useless.

 

 

Nonetheless, when she flicked off the hall light, she said "good night" just as if there were someone waiting to hear.

 

 

The Bones Do Lie

 

 

They have pierced the wall of Time

 

 

And let the flood of centuries pour

 

 

Down in torrents of abused past

 

 

And future follies. Nor

 

 

Can the wit of man dam up

 

 

This foul stream, polluted

 

 

With History's excrement,

 

 

Channeled now in convoluted

 

 

Ways, cross-currented with tide,

 

 

Ebb and neap, with storm

 

 

From which only few can hide.

 

 

Vale was standing on Elric's shoulders, reaching for clumps of deep red cherries on the upper boughs when he thought he saw a wavering in the air. He went rigid with fear.

 

 

"Danger?" The Viking might speak bad English but he knew body language well.

 

 

"I thought I saw something!" Something like a shift ripple"

 

 

"Shift?" The Viking's fingers clenched Vale's knee so hard that he yipped in protest. "Elric turn?"

 

 

"No. Just hold still."

 

 

Vale parted the branches obscuring his view of the valley. It was so peaceful, with no suggestion of the ripple, like a flood of water on a glass pane, that preceded a shift. And Chloe was watching. Chloe was always on watch. She wouldn't let anything happen to her people. That was the one constant for Vale since he had got caught in a time shift.

 

 

He had so hoped that there wouldn't be a shift for a long, long time. That they'd have the summer in the valley and he'd be able to leave the cellar all day long, to explore a region so familiar in contour, so differently habited in this kind shift by wood and meadow. He seemed to spend so much time gathering stuff to be synthesized. The Fooder was great but, after a while, everything you put in it tasted the same when it came out. To have fresh water whenever you wanted it would be great. It'd be good to clear his lungs of the fetid cellar air, which stank of damp stone, fear, and too many people. If he ever got back to his Born-time, he wouldn't complain about a Dorm again! There'd always been light and windows, and warmth and space. Space - that was the other chore that always faced them. He wished that the power cutters had lasted longer. It'd be so much easier, almost fun, to slice stone like fish - so hard to have to chip- chop it out sliver by sliver. But Chloe wouldn't let them go back out in that time. She'd said it was one of the most dangerous in spite of all the marvelous things they'd been able to plunder. She'd know. She'd watched the time stream for centuries and centuries. Chloe was old. As old as Time itself.

 

 

"See?" Elric asked, patient, but there was a hint of concern in the deep bass rumble.

 

 

"No. I don't see anything now," Vale said grudgingly. The ripple had looked just like a shift. Vale narrowed his eyes and stared down the valley again, half-scared, half hoping the wavering would manifest itself.

 

 

Where the city sometimes was, or the little town, or the great sheet of glazed stone or, once, the orderly urban complex of his Born-time, there was only the convergence of the two rivers, peacefully flowing down to the sea. (Vale had been to the ocean once, on a Dorm trip.)

 

 

He couldn't be mistaken this time. The landscape leaked and swam. Maybe Chloe wasn't at the window slot. Maybe she'd fallen asleep. She'd been watching constantly since this shift had settled.

 

 

"My basket's full, Elric. Down please." He tried to keep his voice calm, though he wanted to shriek out an alarm. If he scared everyone like the last time he thought he saw a shift starting, and it was only heat refractions, he'd get beaten by Steven when Chloe wasn't nearby.

 

 

"Mein alzo." Elric grinned down at him, looking like something from a disturbed night, with his lip half sheared off from an old sword blow. Vale dutifully inspected the enormous can that the Viking had filled, his scoop-sized hands red-stained with bruised fruit-bloodlike juices dribbling down his beard.

 

 

"You're not supposed to eat half you pick, Elric," Vale told him. "We need all we can get for the Fooder. You eat more'n any of us and you get dam' uncongenial when you're hungry in a long shift."

 

 

Elric understood the scolding tone and he looked away, just like a Dorm-mate avoiding the Mother's interrogation. Vale thrust that thought away. "C'mon, Elric. Let's get these back to the cellar." He set as fast a pace as he could, swinging the heavy basket from one hip to the other. It was an awkward burden to lug up the steep slope, and he had to take care not to spill any. Elric, his big can balanced with negligent ease on one broad shoulder, strolled leisurely up the incline.

 

 

Vale glanced back over his shoulder, anxiously spotting the others. Would they have time to make it safely in if it really was a shift? Steve was working at the pool below the falls with Fateri, the breed. Teo-somoli, the squaw, was gutting twice as many fish as Jean. (Well, she was city-bred, from a time like his own.) Peter, Grace, and Samuel ranged the stream banks for herbs and cress. Down the valley, more figures were bobbing up and down, picking dandelion greens. They tasted bitter but Chloe made everyone eat them. Except Elric, who only grinned at anything besides meat, or Fooder slabs when he couldn't stand the hunger pains any longer.

 

 

Chloe had sent a crew into the woods, too, to trap and forage. She certainly wouldn't have done that if there'd been any sign of a shift. And she knew. She knew in her bones. Vale wondered what it felt like to have your bones know something....

 

 

It was a shift! And it was something you felt, like the most horrible, wrenching, vomit-causing, bone-moving, earth-shuddering, mind-grabbing terror!

 

 

Elric let out a roar and began charging up the slope, cherries pelting down on Vale. Mindlessly clutching his basket, Vale staggered and clambered on, keeping his eyes on the one thing not rotating, the threshold of the cellar. He heard the keen of the time-winds but if they buffeted him, he was too fear-ridden to notice in the total cataclysm. One minute it seemed he and Elric walked the sky, with the earth threatening to slam them on the head; the next, the grassy slope had turned to solid ice and they grabbed at burning-cold sheaves of dead grass, or lost their grip in mounds of snow-fluff. Chloe was in the threshold now, calling to them, her eyes wide, like blue beacons, her arms outstretched as if she could somehow stave off the fearsome currents that could lock them away for all eternity into that time stream.

 

 

As long as Vale could hear her, as long as he could see her tall figure, an orange wraith by the black basalt safety of the cellar, he was all right. As long as she remained there, they had not slipped into another current of time. They had not shifted.

 

 

Elric's can was knocked from his shoulders as he plunged through the doorway. Chloe grabbed the giant Viking as if he were no more than Vale himself. The sight of her making the blubbering warrior scoop up the now doubly precious fruit gave Vale the steadying he needed. He found his second wind, tightened the hold on his basket, and forged on. It got harder, for the slope had altered, a rocky face forming where the upland meadow had been.

 

 

"Chloe!" Vale screamed, tortured with the knowledge that she might not help him: that she rarely moved from the cellar and he desperately wished that she would. For him. She loved him best - she always said she did. He was her boy, son of her heart. "Chloe!"

 

 

"Throw the basket in," someone yelled in his ear above the shrieking wind. He was seized and thrown, arms flailing in terror that the breathless wind of time might blast him into another stream. Then Chloe's fingers caught his and dragged him, wailing, across the grooved basalt threshold. Someone else yanked him to his feet, propelling him down the corridor until he fetched up hard against the far wall and lay, sobbing, scarcely aware of being kicked, of a heavy foot grinding his fingers into the stone floor. He only knew he was safe, that Chloe had pulled him through the door. The yelling and screaming, the cries and angry shouts, even Elric's roar of outrage and the splat of fist against flesh failed to penetrate his hysterical relief as Vale pressed his cheek against the cold damp stone. It was a bad shift but he was safe, safe, safe!

 

 

Suddenly the awful caterwauling of the shift lessened as the iron-banded, studded door thudded into position.

 

 

"Boy saw. Boy saw!" Elric was shouting.

 

 

"If Vale saw something," Steve's voice cut through Elric's chant, "then, by God, you must have, Chloe. You must have! Who's missing? Who did you jettison this time, you witch? Who did you dump?"

 

 

"Burleigh and Travers aren't here," Jean cried, "nor the three new ones....".

 

 

"Burleigh and Travers?" Steve's echo hung, a scorn-laden accusation in the supercharged atmosphere.

 

 

Muffling his sobs of terror, Vale struggled to a sitting position, trying to focus through tears on the tense knot of dimly seen figures.

 

 

"What's bothering you now, Chloe?" Steve demanded in a harsh, bitter voice. "Your magic slipping? Don't your spells work on Nuclear Age minds? Or is it that you can't run philters through a food synthesizer?"

 

 

"Thee had best leave off nattering, Steven, and get this fruit to the machine. Happen thee brought any of the fish?"

 

 

The icy fear in Vale's chest was dispelled by the calm unruffled tone of Chloe's voice. Why was Steve so angry with her? Even if Vale had cried alarm the moment he saw the first ripple, there would not have been enough time to save Burleigh and his work party. Sudden shifts had happened before. Why didn't Jean stop crying?

 

 

"Is food all you can think of, you... you black witch?"

 

 

"Shifts can be frightening times for us all. I am not without compassion and true understanding, Steven...."

 

 

"Don't try that crap on me anymore, Chloe!"

 

 

Vale gasped, for he could see that Steve had Chloe by the arm. Elric, who had slumped to his knees after getting the heavy door closed, stood up, growling. He had been uncongenial to Steve ever since Chloe had taken Steve into the front room.

 

 

"Unhand me, Steve!" For all she had neither changed tone or volume, Chloe was to be obeyed. "Vale sweeting, compose thyself. Bring us light. We must salvage the fruit. Ah, Teo-somoli, we shall thank thee for the fish before this shift is over. 'Twill be a long one, I fear."

 

 

As much to be out of the tension as to do Chloe's bidding, Vale ducked past Steve, into the front room. The shelf where the power beams were kept was to the right of the door. His hand unerringly closed on the smooth rectangles of plastic. He fumbled slightly for the notched edge of the switch. Light blinded him momentarily. He adjusted the strength down. You so often saw much more in less light. And learned more in total darkness.

 

 

Vale shivered. He didn't want to think about that now. He spotted a twig of three cherries and picked it up. There was bruised fruit all over the floor. Teo-somoli was waddling to- ward the Fooder room, her buckskin skirt gathered before her, showing her knock knees. Fascinated and hopeful, Vale stared until she turned the corner. He wondered what Chloe's...

 

 

"Yes, let's save the fruit and give thanks for the fish," Steve was saying now. Of those in the chamber only he and Chloe did neither. "We're one big happy family again, aren't we? Who else was with Burleigh and Travers? Did Grace make it back? She was farthest down the stream."

 

 

"No, she stumbled and got pulled back," Peter's choked voice said from the dark.

 

 

"We tried, but she was too soon pulled beyond our reach," Samuel added.

 

 

"Neatly done, Chloe. Neatly done," Steve said. "All the dissidents have been sloughed. Well, nearly all." Steve strode after Teo-somoli, his boot heels clacking on the stones.

 

 

It was a bad shift, a deep one, and Vale tried hard, very hard, not to listen to himself. Deep shifts were always preceded by many flickerings and waverings. Chloe had told him that time and time again, after she realized that he actually could see what only her eyes had been able to discern before. It was such a bad shift that even the cellar rocked under the impact of time distortions.

 

 

Elric chanted constantly, but that was better than the girls' hysteria. Couldn't they try to be congenial? Chloe finally dosed them. Vale half hoped that she'd offer him some of the cup, but he was relieved when she didn't.

 

 

She sat by him instead, which was infinitely preferable. And when he had to put his hands to his ears against the high whines of time, she pulled his head to her bosom. He wondered fleetingly why Burleigh had called her a "cold bitch." She was so warm and there was always a lingering spicy smell about her, so different from a Mother's astringent purity.

 

 

The shift went on and on, with dead still periods that were worse than the roaring currents. Reassured by Chloe's soothing nearness, Vale tried to sleep during the calms. But everyone talked then, trying to break that horrible quiet with the sounds of humanness. Everyone, except Steve and Jean, who had pointedly moved into the unfinished back room: another fact that others tried to ignore. Vale thought it was awfully brave of them, and very uncongenial. Chloe was angry with them. He could feel her body go hard though her hands remained gentle as she stroked his head.

 

 

In such times, you ought to be congenial, even if you didn't feel like it. Vale thought. It was your duty to the Dorm in which you lived. And this cellar, with mixed sexes and ages, was still a Dorm situation.

 

 

If only he'd been congenial that day, centuries back and across time, he'd be a Guidance Aide by now. That is, if he had turned fourteen. Subjective time was impossible to measure but his body was manifesting certain changes that marked the onset of puberty. At that point of his Born-time, you could be a G.A. and have access to the File Banks. He might even get lucky and have a chance to find out who his dam and sire were from the Dorm Files. Traffer had. Or said he had.

 

 

Then Vale, Dorm 143, M-82, had to pull an antisocial and get caught up in a time Shift - without even knowing such a thing existed until it swooped him away from everything familiar and known. But here, Chloe called him "her" boy, son of her heart, and she'd find the perfect time for him, the shift that gave him the best possible chance of making something of himself, instead of being pounded and chipped into a congenial mold. A time shift. Vale hoped wistfully, when he could have a family, a mother and a sister... Though he only thought such blasphemy. Vale shivered with delight. He might even have grandparents, whatever they were. But could they compare - ever - to a Chloe? Grace had said she had had grandparents, and aunts and uncles and cousins.

 

 

Well, all those relatives hadn't made her quick and clever. She'd been sobby and clumsy, silly nonconforming behavior. And that's why she'd got caught in the shift, not because Chloe hadn't warned...

 

 

The banshee wail of the time-winds rose to make even thought impossible.

 

 

They couldn't go out when the shift was completed. Not even to get water. Chloe removed the tiny plug set in the door and hastily bunged it up.

 

 

"Inferno," she said in her calm voice and sat down, her hands folded in her lap, as she composed herself to wait again. Vale had kept close to her when he felt that the shift was ending, just to be sure his hunch was accurate. He'd said nothing, of course, and hadn't looked at anyone, trying to keep his face expressionless, but pleasant, the way Chloe did, so no one would guess what he was thinking. And he'd known the shift ended badly. Even before Chloe announced it.

 

 

These were the times Vale hated most of all: the wait between shifts, with the water getting foul, the air fouler, and the Fooder slabs thinner and thinner... as well as people's tempers. This time, though, Chloe, didn't insist that they work on enlarging the back chamber. They didn't need it now. Vale reflected, not with so many gone. He fell to wondering what time stream had swirled away Burleigh and Travers and Grace and the others. A natural one, or a warring one? It was amazing how Chloe could tell from just looking into the valley. Maybe she'd meant to leave Burleigh and Travers, even Grace, in that lovely era, with cherries in the trees and fish in the stream, rabbits jumping about in the woods and singing birds.

 

 

Burleigh had been in the cellar when Vale arrived. He'd been in the front room with Chloe for a long time... until Steve had come, if Vale remembered rightly.

 

 

But Burleigh had been from a high-tech time. He hadn't been much good with his hands, being used to servo-mechs, until Chloe made Fateri teach him how to trap small game. Everyone had to help in the cellar. Particularly when they got to a good time with cherries and rabbits.

 

 

Some times there wasn't even any fish, just grass and trees, or rock, glazed and dead.

 

 

Why had Steve accused Chloe of ditching them? She never told anyone when she was going to leave them. She'd question everyone thoroughly when they first arrived. It was exciting to get a newcomer and listen to the weird tales they told about their times. Vale had often wondered if they were really telling the truth of just suffering from desynchronization. Some of the eras hadn't seemed too bad to Vale. Like Steve's. And some of the times they'd like to live in sounded far worse - to Vale - than what they'd come from. Maybe that's why Elric had stayed with them so long: he wanted a time of much battling and sailing, brawling and drinking. There wasn't any such asocial behavior in Vale's time, with what drone sea-miners and a congenial society of nations. Still, Chloe said that, in the cellar, they crisscrossed the time sea, like a suspended weight, hitting different arcs of its circle as it swung back and forth, around and around.

 

 

Vale wondered what time Chloe had come from. She'd never say, only smile. And when would he make the final shift in to his proper time?

 

 

The second one did not seem to be as long a shift, fortunately, for Steve had turned very uncongenial, and Jean kept crying and wouldn't drink the sleep inducer that Chloe offered everyone.

 

 

And it was winter, cruel, cold, with snow clogging the cellar entrance. There was a settlement at the river, a good-sized one with buildings spread out in concentric circles. No vehicles were visible, no smoke. In fact, no activity at all could be seen in the field glasses and Steve turned them up to their highest power.

 

 

"There is life," Chloe said. "And we must have water and provender. We shall wait upon the darkness and then thee shall forage in the settlement, Steven."

 

 

"Oh?"

 

 

At such an impudent rejoinder, Chloe gave Steve a sharp and penetrating look. Her large blue eyes were steady, with that inner fieriness that scared Vale more than her most icy voice.

 

 

"Thee will go, Steven, and, because thee does not trust me, thee may take Vale with thee. Bring the boy back safely! If harm befalls him..."

 

 

All Vale could understand was that he was going to be allowed to go on a search party, and he could barely contain his jubilation. He'd begged and begged to be able to go but Chloe had never permitted him beyond the range of her naked eye.

 

 

"We'd better use protective suits, Chloe," Steve was saying. "The layout down there, the buildings themselves suggest a high-level technology. Converted heat... which we could do with."

 

 

"Our requirements are not technological, Steven," Chloe interrupted sharply, her eyes locking with Steve's. "Thee will remember that. We become far too dependent on the gimcracks and novelties of passing ages."

 

 

"The food synthesizer? The air purifiers? The clothes we stand up in?" Steve mocked her.

 

 

"Aye, all of them," she answered him in her steady voice, and she turned abruptly and reentered the cellar.

 

 

"I can really come, Steve?" Vale demanded.

 

 

"Oh, Steve, don't go!" On his other side, Jean was pulling urgently at his arm.

 

 

Steve laughed and hugged her. Vale wondered that he was so permissive with such a weepy girl. "I'm in no danger as long as their heir apparent is with me."

 

 

Jean stared at Vale so hard, so coldly, the oddest expression on her face, that Vale backed away. All the joy of the raiding was replaced by a distasteful confusion he couldn't understand.

 

 

"Yes, very apparent since this last change."

 

 

Then Chloe returned to say that there was time before dark to trap, if they could, or gather evergreen limbs for a good sustaining meal before dark. Teo-somoli was sent to the pool. She chopped a hole in the ice and stolidly settled down to fish. Elric, using one of the big cans like a shovel, began to fill the cisterns with water.

 

 

"If you'd just let us get a pump, Chloe," Peter argued again, "we could always tap the stream." "Thee knows full well that only water kept safely in the cellar is free of the contaminations of time," Chloe answered and in such a way that Peter did not persist.

 

 

But he could grumble as they plowed and slithered down the slope to the edge of the forest.

 

 

"What makes her the authority?"

 

 

"Her witch's bones," Steve replied, his eyes gleaming.

 

 

"She is not a witch," Vale said. "The concept of a witch is the product of a superstitious, untutored society, ignorant of scientific lore, too primitive to relate cause and effect...."

 

 

"Out of the mouths of babes," Steve laughed back at Vale, and tousled his hair in the teasing way the boy both resented and sought.

 

 

"He's a babe no longer," Samuel said maliciously, "for look you, there were many changes these past shifts."

 

 

Vale shot Samuel a resentful look. The man had no right to be uncongenial just because he'd come upon Vale in the jakes when he was... Vale squirmed around to hide his fiery face.

 

 

"It happens to all of us, Vale," Steve said, and, although his voice was kind, his eyes were very thoughtful. "Chloe's not a witch. She does have some knowledge or skill denied us which enables her to perceive shifts. However, I defer to the rationale of your Born-time. There are no witches. But... Chloe..."

 

 

"I can see shifts." Vale glared at Samuel and Jean.

 

 

Steve gave him another long deep look. "Yes, you do. If..."

 

 

"If, if, if." Peter muttered bitterly.

 

 

"If Vale really can," Jean said, gasping the words out as she trudged through the snow, "we could all get out in a good time."

 

 

"What is your good time, Jean of the City?" Steve asked, extending a helping hand to her. His whole face had changed. Vale noticed, when he looked at Jean.

 

 

"My own time," Jean said with such uncharacteristic firmness that they all stopped and stared at her. She glared back. "And I know how good it was. Now!"

 

 

"By m'bones, the gel's a realist," Samuel said. "But, could we trust the lad to be captain of our fate, fellow voyagers? Vale, since you are rehearsed in one mystery, have you become versed enough in the others Chloe practices to recognize a truly congenial time?"

 

 

"Congenial time?" Vale repeated the phrase in astonishment. Samuel wasn't the least bit congenial.

 

 

"Young Vale... vale, that's Latin for farewell... and farewell we ought to say to that bitch of time's hell, or is it hell's time? And we ought to take the lad with us when we run to save him his virginity. Otherwise he'll soon miss it. She hungers for a mate as she fishes in the sea of time, with chance her bait and arrant flattery her line."

 

 

"Shut up, Samuel. Let's get this chore done!" Steve said, for they'd reached the forest now.

 

 

Samuel leaned against the nearest tree, panting from the double exertion of talk and walk. Samuel rarely said so much.

 

 

"Why fool with these?" he demanded, "when there's a fine good town, with solid rib-clinging victuals..."

 

 

"We don't know that," Steve interrupted him. "We'd better be sure of some food first."

 

 

"But if we're going to raid the town at dark," Peter said, grumbling as he stripped off boughs, "I don't see why we have to fool with vegetation. The synthesizer's still half-full. I checked it myself."

 

 

Steve turned and frowned at Peter. "Good point, boy. Good point." He went right back to cutting but he didn't say anything, even after they got back to the cellar with their harvest. He said nothing until they were getting ready for the raid, when Chloe told them which buildings to investigate.

 

 

"Been shifted here before, Chloe?" he asked then, staring at her with hard eyes.

 

 

"I could not say," Chloe replied without hesitation. "The type of structure and the form of the settlement are familiar. But then all times begin to have similarities to one who has circled the present for centuries."

 

 

"How long have you been here, Chloe? Who ensorcelled you?"

 

 

Chloe met Steve's hard glare.

 

 

"I chose my fate."

 

 

"So you prefer us to think."

 

 

"The shift may not hold long. Be sharp-eyed. Vale. Warn the others the instant thee sees a ripple. I'd not risk it but we must have more protein. I like not the patterns of these past few shifts. Try either the first or second building to the left of the center..."

 

 

"Shouldn't I remember to check for breaker boxes or eye circuits?" Steve asked mockingly.

 

 

Chloe gave him a long studied look. "Thee knows well how to approach a strange place, Steven, else thee would not have returned so often."

 

 

Samuel chuckled.

 

 

"Will I return from this one, Chloe?"

 

 

She gave him a longer stare. "In the fullness of time."

 

 

Then she stepped aside to let them pass. When Vale surreptitiously touched a fold of her dress for good luck, she caught his hand.

 

 

"Stay close to Elric and Fateri, Vale," she whispered, and made as if to kiss his cheek. Then, as both realized their eyes were level, she drew in her breath with a hiss, and stepped back. All the long trek down to the rivers, Fateri and Steve took turns checking on the settlement through the binoculars.

 

 

"How long ago was the snow, Fateri?" Steve asked once.

 

 

The breed jammed his fist through the crust, fingered the snow. "Three-four days."

 

 

"Any sign of people?"

 

 

Fateri shook his head slowly. Steve peered at the settlement for another long moment and then gestured the party on. ';••

 

 

Full dark had fallen by the time they reached it, and Vale was tired. They huddled together, chafing cold faces and frost-clogged nostrils as Fateri crept around the outskirts. Vale wished they'd have time enough for Fateri to teach him how to move so easily through snow, and creep around noiseless and unseen.

 

 

When the breed returned, shaking his head, Steve motioned to Peter and Samuel. They walked right up to the nearest building, then cautiously inspected it. Peter tossed twigs toward it but nothing happened. Finally Peter walked right up to one. Peered around its corner, disappeared behind it, and then reappeared on the other side. Just then lights began to appear on all the buildings like an advancing wave. Instinctively they all ducked down, to be roused by Peter's shout.

 

 

"It's automatic. C'mon, cowards."

 

 

Cautious still, Steve rose, motioned the others toward Peter and Samuel.

 

 

"There's no one here. I tripped an automatic relay when I reached the front," Peter said, grinning.

 

 

"What kind of place is this, then?" Samuel asked, peering closely at the doorway.

 

 

"Could be some kind of unmanned power station," Steve said, but his tone was dubious. He stood squarely in front of the door now, examining the frame, the inset handle. He looked around at the other buildings in the same circle, their blank door-mouths indistinguishable from the one he faced.

 

 

He hunkered down, eyeing the doorframe until, with a grunt, he passed his hand over the threshold. Nothing happened. He rose and, using the handle of the power beam, touched the door handle. He gave another grunt and then, as if he expected no result, tried the door.

 

 

He dropped where he stood. So did Peter and Samuel. A huge hand grabbed Vale by the shoulder. He was pulled violently off his feet and propelled back the way they had come so fast that his head rocked on his neck. He had kaleidoscopic jumbled impression of Peter, Samuel, and Steve sprawled in the snow by the door, of the circle of lights, of the dark slopes beyond the settlement, of Elric's staring eyes and gaping mouth on one side of him, of Fateri, plunging and lurching through the snow on the other.

 

 

This confused him, for he distinctly remembered seeing Fateri, flat on the snow, and Elric staggering and shouting. Now the three of them were racing away from the others as fast as they could. By the time they reached the safety of the darkness beyond the ring of automatic lights, Elric was gasping and groaning. Here Fateri stopped them, pushing Elric and Vale flat into the snow while he crouched, his attitude one of intense concentration. Vale made himself look back, where Peter, Samuel, and Steve lay, plainly visible and just as plainly motionless.

 

 

"Are they dead?" Vale asked, trying to keep his voice a whisper, only it came out in a broken rasp.

 

 

Fateri gestured abruptly, listening. Suddenly he whirled, his eyes so wide they seemed all whites. He pointed urgently up the slope, pulled at Elric, who was heaving for breath, and taking Vale's arm in cruelly tight fingers, led the way up to the cellar.

 

 

"We can't just leave them," Vale protested, trying to pull free. "They may not be dead." "Bad sound," Fateri said, jabbing a finger to the southern sky.

 

 

"We can't leave them!" Vale struggled harder.

 

 

"No! Chloe say you come. You safe!" Elric said, capturing Vale's other hand and yanking him along.

 

 

"Go!" the half-breed urged. "Fast!"

 

 

There was no use resisting, so Vale tried to keep up with Elric's long stride and Fateri's jog trot. They did not relinquish their tight holds on him, though he reassured them he wouldn't be silly anymore. It was doubly humiliating: to be half helped along because his legs were shorter than Elric's and less powerful than Fateri's, and because they wouldn't trust him to walk... to run... alone.

 

 

They had reached a concealing slope when the bad sound Fateri had heard materialized into a stolplane. It circled the settlement twice at low altitude before squatting down, blocking from the watchers all sight of the fallen men, and of whoever emerged from the vehicle.

 

 

Fateri waited no longer but renewed his grasp on Vale's right hand and started to move. Elric did not, and Vale felt as if his other arm would come out of its socket. His cry of pain stopped Fateri, and both of them stood looking down at the fallen bulk of the Viking, his fingers seemingly welded to Vale's forearm. Fateri knelt down and began to slap the man's face.

 

 

"What's wrong?" Vale asked, his voice breaking again as he imagined himself forever locked to the giant.

 

 

Fateri grunted as he rose and began to pry the thick fingers loose.

 

 

"Is he dead?" Vale demanded, slapping at Fateri's hands.

 

 

"Not dead. Sleep. Not duck good."

 

 

"Asleep? We can't leave him. He'd die in the snow."

 

 

"He not die. They find. We go. Go fast."

 

 

Fateri got Elric's fingers loose but their viselike grip was nothing to Fateri's claw-hold, nor the supple strength of the breed as he dragged the reluctant Vale onward.

 

 

"We can't leave them all. We can't, Fateri. I'll help you with Elric. We can't leave him."

 

 

Fateri only grunted at his protests, jerking him roughly forward if he slowed so much as half a step behind. Suddenly Vale realized that Fateri was striking off to the lower end of the forest, where they had been garnering boughs scant hours before.

 

 

"That's not the way, Fateri. Where are you taking me?"

 

 

"They follow. No find track."

 

 

Fateri was jogging faster now, because the thick ever-greens had kept the ground remarkably clear of snow. Fateri came up against a huge trunk and stopped. He motioned for Vale to climb up into the tree and then roughly boosted the boy to the splintered end of the first limb.

 

 

"They'd find us here, Fateri," he protested. His buttocks were sharply prodded to make him climb higher.

 

 

"Stop." Fateri reached the same limb and then stepped around him. The breed took one of Vale's hands and fastened it around his wide leathern belt. Then guided the other to the limb directly below them. "Hold. Follow."

 

 

Scared, resentful. Vale did as he was told. At least Fateri moved cautiously, giving Vale time to find his own footing before moving on. Then suddenly, they were both in the air, a scream wrenched from Vale's mouth, to be cut off abruptly as he hit the ground. Or rather the thick myrtle bushes into which Fateri had launched them.

 

 

"Hurt?" Fateri asked with no sympathy in his voice.

 

 

"No!" Vale was too filled now with hate and anger to allow room for pain.

 

 

When he would have waded out of the thicket, Fateri directed him deeper into the growth, carefully moving the branches so as not to leave further evidence of their passage. Twice more, Fateri had them aloft and once, when they had to traverse a wide clearing, he pushed Vale on ahead, then brushed the snow with an evergreen branch to cover their footsteps.

 

 

Once Fateri was evidently satisfied that they had confused pursuers, he began to trot purposefully through the still dark forest. Shaken emotionally by the double desertion. Vale doggedly kept up.

 

 

Suddenly they emerged on a slope, the ridge that sheltered the cellar, black above them. Below, the settlement was still bathed in light. It was too far away for them to make out details such as bodies by an entryproof door, but the thud-whomp of the stolplane was audible on the thin cold night air. Fateri grunted, then pointed out the cluster of colored winkers that outlined the stol as it quartered the slope they had left.

 

 

"They'll find Elric!"

 

 

Fateri grunted and, taking Vale's hand, jerked him forward. Vale didn't take his eyes from the winking lights: red/ green/blue/white, the blue delineating a narrow PVA as the stol went into hover.

 

 

Was Steve inside that? And Peter and Samuel? Wasn't it better for Elric to be found than for him to freeze to death? Why had they all so easily assumed that the people of this time were unfriendly? Surely property must be protected from asocial activities but that did not mean general inhumanity. The thought of the cellar without Steve, even without Peter and Samuel - with Fateri the only other male - was suddenly unbearable.

 

 

As if Fateri sensed Vale's thoughts, his grip tightened and he gave him an admonitory yank.

 

 

"Fast!"

 

 

They were nearly to the cellar. He could see the narrow line of light. Would Chloe be watching? Had she seen? Had she known what would happen? The thought burned Vale's mind so fiercely that he gave a cry and stumbled.

 

 

"Vale! Thou'rt not hurt?"

 

 

Chloe's voice was clearly audible. Audible, too, in Vale's mind was Steve's mistaken assurance. "I'm in no danger as long as the heir apparent is along."

 

 

Stunned by the realization of what Steve had meant, Vale did not resist as Fateri pulled him up the final snow-slick rise to the cellar.

 

 

"Elric, too, Fateri?" Chloe asked as the breed dragged Vale the last few feet.

 

 

"You knew!" Vale found his voice. And found strength enough to free his arm. "You knew what would happen to Steve. And Peter and Samuel."

 

 

"Vale, sweeting." In Chloe's soothing voice was an oddly disturbing note. "Vale, come in, dear heart. Come, we've hot fish stew to give thee strength."

 

 

Chloe even took a step toward him... a step out of the cellar! She took another step and grabbed his hand, sweeping him into her arms and back into the cellar. As she pressed his cheek against hers, her hands were burning warm on his half-frozen flesh. They ran up and down his body before embracing him tightly again.

 

 

Chloe was glad he was home. She had hot food for him. She had actually stepped out of the cellar to greet him.

 

 

Then she held him from her and looked deeply into his eyes. Looked with an expression in their blue depths that made him very nervous somehow. And he was frightened. More frightened than he had been when the last shift started, or when Steve had fallen by the door, or Fateri had pushed him off the tree branch. Frightened to the very marrow of his bones. He had seen that look before, seen Chloe look at Steve that way, and Burleigh, and, once, even Elric. And each of them had been shifted, with no warning. Shifted into a time not their own.

 

 

Before either Chloe or Fateri could stop him, he ducked out of the cellar, his feet skidding on the trampled snow. Even as he stumbled and slipped, sobbing, his only thought was that in a society that protected its belongings, there would be order and congeniality. There would still be a Mother for him somewhere.

 

 

The End