The Shadow and Night (21 page)

It was such an extraordinary tone that for a moment Merral wondered if it really was his uncle.

Then his aunt replied and, to his distress, her manner was similar. “
We
handle it?” she seemed to snap. “
We
haven't a clue—least of all you. There's something wrong here, Barrand. I keep telling you.”

There was a snort, as if an animal were loose. “Don't be a fool, woman. There's nothing wrong here but hysterical women.”

“Hysterical? I like that!” His aunt's voice seemed to vibrate with rage. “The real problem is a man—a man who is too proud and too stubborn to admit that there is something badly wrong here!”

Merral, suddenly ashamed both of eavesdropping and of what he was overhearing, abruptly closed the window. He stepped back into the room wondering if his face was burning. He was staggered, even shocked. The words he had heard made sense, but the tone was like nothing he had ever heard before. Things like it were alluded to in the old literature, but for it to happen between a husband and wife? It was hardly credible.

“What's wrong?” Isabella asked.

“I have heard . . .” He paused, finding himself in agonized consternation. “No, I can't say. . . .” He looked at her. “What's wrong here, Isabella? I'm convinced everything is. Badly.”

Isabella opened her mouth to speak and closed it abruptly at the sound of approaching footsteps.

The subsequent coffee was a very quiet, even embarrassed affair in which almost nothing was said. After it Merral and Barrand left Zennia and Isabella and went over together to the office.

The big man closed the door, sat down awkwardly at his crowded desk, and stared over his papers at Merral.

“Tell me, Nephew,” he asked, “what will your verdict be?” Merral felt that there was a wary, defensive look on his uncle's face.

Merral did not answer immediately, his mind instead running over a range of possible answers. Eventually he spoke. “Uncle, I need to take some advice. I am a forester. I am not convinced that the problem lies in my area. If it does, it goes beyond my knowledge. Frankly, I have no idea what is going on.”

Barrand nodded and leaned back in his chair. “So what are you going to do?”

“The day after tomorrow I will go to Isterrane and talk to some people there about your situation.”

A clear look of unease crossed his uncle's face. “It's going to go
that
far? I was hoping that it could be sorted out easily. Here. Or at worst, Ynysmant.”

“I had hoped so too, but I think not. I think I need specialist advice. You see, there is always the possibility that the wrong action may make matters worse.”

“I suppose so.” His uncle shifted his large frame heavily in his chair. “Well, to be honest, Merral, I'm rather regretting my call yesterday. Zennia pushed me into it. Elana had this thing, this vision. By taking it seriously, we have just made matters worse.”

“You don't believe her?” Merral asked.

“Believe what?” There was a hard-edged incredulity in his voice. “That she saw a creature that doesn't exist? I wouldn't say it to her face, of course. No, let's just say I'm frankly skeptical—very skeptical. Female hormones, I'd say.”

Feeling unsure what to say, Merral said nothing.

“See, Merral,” his uncle continued, leaning forward slightly, “I would rather that we kept the whole thing low-key. Not blow it up. This girl of yours, Isabella, now—very nice, don't get me wrong—she may talk and we might have the colony here closed down. And we've worked hard.”

He gestured widely with his arms, got up with a lurch of the chair, walked to the window and peered out of it.

“It's not easy here, you know. ‘The blessings of isolation,' I think my wife said.” He made a strange, almost mocking noise. “Maybe, it has its curses, though. Fifty of us. All together, and such a lousy winter. I wonder if you people in Ynysmant really understand. . . .”

He swung round and shook his large head angrily as if trying to break free of something.

“Strange, Merral. I've never felt this way before. Very strange. Sorry to take it out on you, too. It must be the weather. It's just . . . well . . . in a word,
tough
here.”

He paced the floor as if trying to find words to express his feelings. He paused at the Lymatov painting and stared hard at it. “We were talking about this last time, weren't we?”

Merral nodded.

“Well it's saying different things to me now. It asks a question. Is it worth it? Is the whole venture”—he threw his arms wide as if to encompass the colony—“the sacrifices, the blood, the suffering. Is it all worth doing?”

For some time Merral's perplexity was so great he could say nothing. Eventually, feeling compelled to speak, his reply was hesitant.

“I have to say, Uncle, that this question has been debated, well, ever since the Intervention. The verdict has always been that it is. It
is
all worthwhile.”

“Well then,” his uncle said, in a tone that suggested he was unconvinced, “in the event of the entire Assembly of Worlds versus Barrand Imanos Antalfer I guess I must be wrong.” And he sat down so heavily in his chair that it protested. “Sorry,” he said, but his tone denied his words.

There was a heavy silence in the room. Merral, wishing he was elsewhere, plucked up his courage. “Uncle, before I go. There is one more thing. I hate to mention it. But I have a question about your concert at Nativity. The one with the Rechereg.”

Merral found it impossible to identify the emotion that his uncle's face suddenly acquired.

“Oh yes.
That.
Did you like it?”

“Very much. But Miranda Cline . . . she seems to have sung at a higher pitch than she was able to in life.”

Very slowly, almost as if drugged, Barrand nodded his head. “Ah, that.
That.
I'm surprised you noticed.” He shrugged.

“My attention was drawn to it. But her range
was
altered?”

His uncle gave a long, low sigh. “In a way, yes. In a way, no. See, she would always have liked to sing higher. I've read her biography. That's the thing. So I was acting—shall we say—in her best interests.”

“But we don't know what she actually thought. Or what she thinks now. And the Technology Protocols say that—”

“Oh yes.” There was a clear note of irritation here. “Number six, isn't it? But I think she would have agreed.”

In the hanging silence that ensued, Merral realized that he was becoming tempted to say that the affair didn't matter. But he knew it
did
matter. He tried to think what to say next but was spared by his uncle. “Look, I was in a hurry and I didn't think it would give offense. But I will destroy the file.”

“Probably the best thing.” But it was more than a matter of giving offense, Merral knew. It was wrong.

The silence returned, only to be broken again by his uncle's voice, now quiet but vaguely truculent, as if he was trying to reassert himself. “But maybe, Merral, we need to remember something.”

“What?”

“That the Technology Protocols were made by men, not God. They're not Scripture.”

Merral suddenly realized that they were now in very serious and very deep waters. He knew that he had to get out of the conversation without giving in.

“No, they aren't. True. But they are part of the fabric of the covenant of the Assembly of Worlds, and there has been no serious discussion of the removal of any part of them for over ten thousand years.”

Merral decided that he really couldn't get into an argument. He had to talk to Vero about this.

“Anyway, Uncle. I've had a long day. We can discuss it all at some other time.”

“Oh, perhaps so. Anyway, you'd best be going.”

Barrand got to his feet, his bulk seeming to dominate the office.

“Look, I'm sorry about the business with Miranda Cline. It was stupid. It's just been a long winter.” He sighed heavily. “You'd best go. I suspect it will all blow over here. A proper spring is nearly here and summer won't be far away. And I'll feel better when I get the quarry started. But thanks for coming.”

Merral chose his words carefully. “Uncle, be assured of this. I support you, and I'm available whenever you need me.”

They walked slowly back to the house where they were greeted by Thomas, now released from school, who leapt on Merral with a boundless energy and demanded to clamber over him. Merral put up with it for a few minutes and then deposited the child on the ground. Not only had Thomas become heavy today, his heart was not in it. Instead, he hugged him and let him go. As he looked at him, he realized how much he wanted to have children of his own someday.

“So, Thomas, how are things?”

“Not good, Cousin. Not good at all.” He gestured with a stubby and rather dirty hand to the surrounding woods. “There's something bad out there. Real bad. You're gonna fix it, aren't you? You are, for sure. Do you promise?” His round face was troubled.

“Well, Thomas, promises are made to be kept. So it's a serious business to make them. I won't promise to do what I may not be able to. But what I will promise, Thomas, is this. . . .” He paused, thinking of the binding significance of his words. “I am going to do everything to find out what's bad in the forest. I promise.”

“Thanks. Thanks. Find out what's in there.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then he whispered something to Merral in a voice that was so quiet that no one else heard it.

And what Thomas said so appalled and disgusted Merral that when he went over everything that he had seen and heard that day, it was Thomas's comment that alarmed him most of all. And when, the day after, he journeyed to Isterrane, it was still a preoccupation.

Again and again, the words that Thomas had whispered to him came back to him. Endlessly, he saw the little lips move and heard the voice whisper to him.

“Find it, Cousin Merral, find it. And when you find it . . .
kill it.
”

8

A
s the short-haul passenger flier made its unhurried descent through thick but patchy clouds into Isterrane Airport, Merral peered out through the window. As it was fully loaded, the pilot chose not to land vertically, but instead to come in on a gentle curving descent northward over Hassanet's Sea. Although slower, this approach to the landing strip was Merral's favorite as it offered him better views, and today he was not disappointed.

As they dipped below the clouds, his first sight was of the warm blue waters of Isterrane Bay with the high gray cliffs and green woods of the western headland rising beyond. Moments later as they swung round, the sloping red-tiled roofs of Isterrane could be seen, broken up into segments by the green of the fields and parks which ran into the very heart of the city. As the flier came in low and straight for touchdown, the gleaming pale gray wall of the hundred-meter-high anti-tsunami barrier that guarded the seaward margin of Isterrane suddenly seemed to loom up above the town's skyline.