Part 19 (1/2)

The old man nodded sadly. ”We understand each other so well,” he said. ”But it's impossible. My family, my neighbours...”

”Wouldn't allow it.”

The old man looked solemnly at him. ”There would be no violence, you understand,” he said. ”For the reasons stated. No, I imagine what would happen would be that the rest of them would break camp very quietly in the night and go away, and keep going faster than we could follow. I can walk quite briskly even now, but not fast enough to keep pace with the carts. They would keep going until they were quite sure we were no longer following. This is a very big country, and one place is very much like another. I'm terribly sorry,” he said. ”I wish it were otherwise.”

Gignomai smiled at him. ”My fault for asking,” he said. ”Might I ask why? As far as I know, there's no history of bad feeling between our people and yours.”

”Perfectly true,” the old man said. ”Apart from my own abduction-which I most certainly don't regret-there has been no bad feeling, because there has been no contact whatsoever. But please, answer me this. Why on earth would you wish to leave the company of civilised men and seek to live among savages?” He hesitated as the implications of the question struck him. An appalled look crossed his face, and he added, ”Please, if the question is indiscreet...”

Gignomai laughed. ”I haven't murdered anybody, or done anything like that,” he said. ”But things are happening here, and I'm not sure I want to be involved.”

”Even though you set them in motion?”

Gignomai blinked. ”How do you know?”

The old man smiled gently. ”My dear fellow,” he said. ”More than anything else, I have time to think. I have thought about little else since you first came. You wanted to build a factory on our land; you asked permission. I know from my time in the old country that factories are forbidden in charter colonies because of the monopoly. A man seeking to build an illegal factory, taking care to do so outside the jurisdiction, whatever his motives may be, is bound to cause a great deal of trouble, sooner or later. My guess is that your project nears completion, the prospect of the concomitant trouble oppresses you, and naturally enough you are contemplating flight, escape from your own creation. The fact that you have actually come here, rather than merely imagining yourself doing so, suggests to me that whatever you have in mind is rather more momentous than a mere violation of commercial and civil law.” He shook his head, a wide sweeping gesture that brought his jaw to his shoulder. ”I do wish I could help. But probably it's for the best that I can't. This great and n.o.ble work you have undertaken-”

”It's not like that,” Gignomai said quietly. ”It's more sort of personal. An indulgence, really.”

The old man looked at him, head slightly on one side. ”But for the good of the people, surely.”

”I want justice,” Gignomai said sharply. It wasn't what he'd been planning to say. ”Doesn't always do anybody any good,” he said. ”But it's what I want.”

”Are you sure of that?” The old man was peering at him, as if trying to see through a keyhole. ”Just now you wanted to run away. You wanted to come and live with the savages.”

Gignomai laughed abruptly. ”That'd be justice for me,” he said. ”I suppose I was being selfish. Tell me,” he went on, shaking himself, like a man coming in from the rain, ”what exactly do your people believe about there being different worlds? It sounds good, but when I try and think about it, I can't quite get a grip on it. How does it work?”

The old man smiled. ”A civilised man's question,” he said. ”I'm afraid we don't think like that. It doesn't have to work, that's just the way it is. We'd never met strangers before. We were born and grew up in a world with a finite number of human beings. By the time a man died, it was entirely possible for him to have met everybody everybody. We saw you, and we didn't recognise you. Therefore, you couldn't conceivably be human-not like us, at any rate. But you looked human, you acted more or less as humans do. We drew what seemed to be the only logical conclusion. You were humans in another phase of existence-dead, or not yet born. I told you this.”

Gignomai nodded. ”You did. But it set me thinking. You see, when I lived up on the hill, there were only a very few people: my family, the hired men, a few women servants. I came to realise there were more people down below, on the plain, in town. I wanted to meet them, but for some reason it wasn't allowed. That's when it all started to go wrong. And surely, that's more or less what happened to you, except I ran away and you were kidnapped. That's why, when you said about different worlds...”

”Ah.” The old man shrugged. ”The hill, the plain and beyond that, the savages. The further away from home, the more barbaric, the less human. But when I was furthest from home, I was among my own kind. It's here that I'm out of place. Put yourself in my position: I was s.n.a.t.c.hed up by the G.o.ds and taken to heaven. Then they brought me back to live a long life among strangers.” He thought for a moment, then said, ”If you feel uncomfortable here, why don't you wait for the spring s.h.i.+p and go Home? You could be yourself there. You could...” He paused, and licked his lips. ”You could take me with you, as your servant. I could clean your boots and wash your clothes and scrub the floors of your house, I have seen all these things done, I could do them. And I would be there, not there. It's all I could possibly want.”

Gignomai stared at him. Then he said, ”I can't go Home. You've convinced me. It's a different world. I'd be dead there or not yet born. Like my father is here. I read a bit of his history of our family once. We shouldn't be here at all. We never did anything wrong.”

”Neither did I,” the old man said calmly, ”and my punishment was to live in heaven.”

He said it in such a sad, serious voice that Gignomai wanted to laugh. He managed not to, and reached in his pocket. ”Here,” he said. ”I thought you might like this.”

The old man stared at the book as though it was the most wonderful thing. He reached for it, then hesitated, as though he was afraid it would burn his hand. ”Go on,” Gignomai said. ”Really.” He felt the book pulled from between his fingers, and for a split second was tempted to s.n.a.t.c.h it back. ”It's nothing special, I'm afraid,” he said. ”Just a selection of late Mannerist lyric poetry: Pacatian, Numerian, that sort of thing. From my father's library.”

Originally, at least. He'd stolen it years ago to give to Furio, and stolen it back the last time he stayed at the store. He'd examined it and found the two pages he'd gummed together near the end hadn't been separated, so clearly Furio hadn't liked it much either.

”For me?” the old man said. ”To keep?”

Gignomai nodded. ”But not a gift,” he said. ”A trade.”

”Of course. Anything.”

”Fine. I'll need food for three days to get me home.”

The old man jumped up and clapped his hands. Immediately, a woman stepped through the tent curtain. She looked straight through Gignomai as though he wasn't there. The old man barked a command at her, and she vanished.

”And I'll need a goat,” Gignomai said.

The old man gave him a bewildered look. ”Certainly, of course. A male or a female? What age?”

”About so big,” Gignomai replied, moving his hands apart. ”Oh, and one more thing. I'll need you to pa.s.s on a message.”

The old man frowned, but the call of the book was too strong. He opened it, glanced quickly down at the page, then shut it again. ”This is the most wonderful-”

”You're welcome,” Gignomai said abruptly. ”Well, I figured it'd make a change from reading about fis.h.i.+ng rods. Personally, I can't stick Numerian at any price, but then, I always liked the Literalists best. At least they rhyme.”

The woman reappeared with a sack, which she dropped on the floor before disappearing again. ”That's my food, presumably.”

”Quite so. Dried meat, cooked rice, dried fruit. Excellent for long journeys.”

Gignomai, who'd rather have eaten worms than cold cooked rice, dipped his head in grat.i.tude. ”Thank you for seeing me,” he said.

”My pleasure, my dear fellow. My very great pleasure.”

They left the tent, and the old man said something to somebody, and straight away a boy appeared leading a fine yearling she-goat on a bit of string. Gignomai looked round. There were at least thirty people watching, mostly women. He put his knapsack on the ground, loosened one strap and hauled out the snapping-hen in its cloth bundle. He looked back at the old man.

”Ever seen one of these?” he said, as he peeled back the cloth.

The old man was staring. ”Yes,” he said.

”Splendid.” He slipped his fingers round the grip, and used his left hand to move the hammer to full c.o.c.k, leant the frizzen forward to make sure the priming powder hadn't fallen out, then eased it back into battery. ”I'm sorry,” he whispered to the old man. Then he levelled the muzzle of the snapping-hen about six inches from the goat's forehead. At that range, even he couldn't miss.

The goat slumped, as though the bones had been magically extracted from its legs. It twitched a couple of times, but that was just the muscles relaxing. Gignomai looked at it through the clearing smoke, and beyond it to the circle of faces. The silence was so hard, so brittle he wasn't sure he'd be able to break it just by talking.

”Be so kind as to tell them,” he said (his voice came out thin and squeaky), ”that if they want the power of the dead and the not yet born, I'll be happy to give it to them. Any time. No charge.” He tried to put the snapping-hen back in his pack, but it slipped through his fingers and fell on the ground. He had to stoop and pick it up. Not very impressive, he thought.

The old man's eyes were very wide. ”My dear fellow,” he said.

”You promised,” Gignomai said. ”I'm sorry. But you do want the book, don't you? And you did promise.”

The old man closed his eyes for a moment; then he said something loud and clear, in a firm, carrying voice. ”Your exact words,” he said. ”I only wish-”

”Thanks,” Gignomai said. ”I can find my own way out.”

The rice was soapy and the dried fruit revolting. He threw the dried meat away, and watched a crow swoop down on it, peck at it a couple of times and fly off, croaking angrily. He tore strips off the cloth the snapping-hen was wrapped up in and tried to bind up his blistered heels, but couldn't get the strips to stay in place. He couldn't help feeling it served him right.

He bypa.s.sed the site and walked straight into town, arriving just before noon. That suited him. He knew Marzo always went through the books about that time. The side door wasn't locked. It never was; he'd stolen the key on his third visit, and n.o.body knew how to make a new one. He went in quietly and found Marzo in the back store room. He looked up as Gignomai entered, and scowled at him.

”If you want Furio...”

”No,” Gignomai said. ”I'd like a word with you, if you can spare me a minute.”

Marzo didn't look well. He'd lost weight, and his skin looked as though it had been handed down by an older brother. There was a quarter-empty bottle at his elbow.