[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Mrs. Hoskins nodded. Under her breath she said, "He's small, but he looks so strong."
"He's never tried to hurt anyone," Miss Fellowes said, conveniently allowing herself to overlook the
frantic battles of the long-ago first night. "He's extremely gentle. Extremely. You've got to believe that,
Mrs. Hoskins." To Timmie she said, "Take Mrs. Hoskins into your room. Show her your toys and your
books. And your clothes closet." Make her see that you're a real little boy, Timmie. Make her look past
your brow ridges and your chinless chin.
Timmie held out his hand. Mrs. Hoskins, after only a moment of hesitation, took it. For the first time
since she had entered the Stasis bubble something like a genuine smile appeared on her face.
She and Timmie went into Timmie's room. The door closed behind them.
"I think it's going to work," Hoskins said in a low voice to Miss Fellowes, the moment his wife was
gone. "He's winning her over." "Of course he is."
"She's not an unreasonable woman. Trust me on that. Or an irrational one. But Jerry's very precious
to her."
"Naturally so."
"Our only child. We'd been married for several years, and there were fertility problems in the
beginning, and then we managed--we were finally able--"
"Yes," Miss Fellowes said. "I understand." She wasn't enormously interested in hearing about the
fertility problems of Dr. and Mrs. Hoskins. Or how they had finally been able to overcome them.
"So you see--even though I've been over this thoroughly with her, even though she understands the
problems that Mannheim and his crowd has been making for me and the importance of ending Timmie's
isolation, she's still somewhat hesitant about exposing Jerry to the risk that--"
"There is no risk, Dr. Hoskins."
"I know that. You know that. But until Annette knows that, too--"
The door of Timmie's playroom opened. Mrs. Hoskins emerged. Miss Fellowes saw Timmie hanging
back, peering out in that wary way he sometimes adopted. Her breath stopped. Something must have
gone wrong in there, she thought.
But no. Annette Hoskins was smiling.
"It's a very cute little room," she said. "He can fold his own clothes. He showed me. I wish Jerry
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
could do it half as well. And he keeps his toys so neatly--"
Miss Fellowes let her breath out.
"So we can give it a try?" Hoskins asked his wife.
"Yes. I think we can give it a try."
INTERCHAPTER SIX - Stalemate
SMOKE WAS RISING above the camp of the Other Ones by the bank of the smallest river, off to
the west of the Goddess-shrine. When Silver Cloud looked the other way he saw the white smoke of his
own people's fire rising from their campfire, back against the gently sloping hill that they had descended
when they emerged out of the mountains of the east. There was no one in front of the shrine itself. During
this interminable time of stalemate a tacit agreement had sprung up between the two tribes: the shrine was
neutral territory. Nobody from either party could go close to it. Each side kept sentries posted day and
night at the edge of the shrine area to make sure there were no transgressions.
Silver Cloud stood by himself, leaning on his spear. Darkness was falling already, though it seemed to
him that the day had only just begun. The year was gliding quickly along. Night came sooner and sooner
all the time. Morning arrived later and later. The daylight hours were being squeezed from both sides.
Soon it would be the season of the long snows, when only a fool would go outside: time to hunker down
in some sheltered place, living on the autumn's stored food and waiting for spring.
But we still have not made our peace with the Goddess and received Her guidance, thought Silver
Cloud disconsolately. And how can we, when the Other Ones hover constantly near the shrine, keeping
us away from it?
"Silver Cloud! Is it going to snow again?"
The voice of She Who Knows came drifting to him on the wind. She was standing across the way,
near the riverbank, with Goddess Woman and Keeps The Past. The three women had been talking for a
long while. Silver Cloud frowned. They were nothing but trouble, those three. Three powerful women,
full of Goddess-strength. They made him uneasy. And yet he knew how important they were, each in her
own way, to the life of the tribe.
"Will it snow, Silver Cloud? Tell us!"
He shrugged. Then he tapped his knee and nodded.
The old wound in his leg was aching fiercely. It always did, when a snowy time was coming on. But
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
now it was throbbing worse than ever.
Yesterday snow had fallen for nearly an hour, and there had been snow the day before yesterday
also, for just a little while. Now it would do it again. That was bad, when the snow started to come every
day. Much of yesterday's snow was still on the ground. The wind--it was blowing from the north, the
demon-wind--scooped it up and whipped it around, throwing it in Silver Cloud's face.
We should leave here, he thought. We should be finding our winter camp.
She Who Knows had turned away from Keeps The Past now, and was coming over to talk with
him. That meant trouble, most likely. Since her bold exploit before the shrine, She Who Knows had
moved with such self-assurance and majesty that it almost seemed as though she were chieftain in his
place. No one dared jeer at her, no one dared so much as look at her the wrong way, since that
remarkable day when she had covered her body with war-paint and gone forth to defy the entire group
of Other Ones warriors. She had always been strange; she had always been fierce; but now she had
moved on into some new kind of ferocious strangeness that made her seem to walk in realms of her own.
She said, "This goes on and on, Silver Cloud, and nothing ever changes. And the snowy time is
coming."
"I know that."
"We should attack and be done with it."
"They are too many for us," Silver Cloud told her. "You know that." This was not the first time that
they had had this discussion.
"Not that many. We could handle them. But instead we simply sit here. They're afraid of us and we're
afraid of them and nobody budges. How much longer will you keep us here?"
"Until we've gone before the Goddess at Her shrine and learned Her will."
"Then we have to attack," She Who Knows said.
Silver Cloud stared steadily at her. Her eyes were frightening, not a woman's eyes at all, not even a
warrior's eyes. They were like eyes of polished stone.
"You were down there with the men," Silver Cloud said. "You saw that the men would not attack.
Do you want to fight the Other Ones all alone, She Who Knows?"
"You're the chieftain. Order them to fight. I'll fight alongside them."
"Everyone will die."
"And if we stay here and wait for winter? Everyone will die in that case too, Silver Cloud."
He nodded gloomily. True enough: they couldn't stay here much longer. He realized dial as well as
she did.
It was probably a mistake to have come here at all,
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Silver Cloud knew. But that was something he could never admit to anyone else.
He said, "We can't go, She Who Knows. Not until we've been to the shrine."
"We can't go and we can't stay. And we can't get to the shrine. This is very bad trouble, Silver
Cloud."
"Perhaps."
"I said that we should never come here. Right at the beginning, when you announced that the Summer
Festival was going to be canceled, I told you that."
"I remember that, She Who Knows. But we are here. And here we stay, until we perform the rite [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]