A World Divided (8 page)

They were in one such lull in the game when the curtained panels closing off the room swirled back and Valdir Alton came in, followed by another man—a tall Darkovan, with copper hair sweeping back from a high stern forehead marked with two wings of white hair. He wore an embroidered cloak of a curious cut. The boys broke off in their game, and Kennard, with a start of surprise, made the stranger a deep and formal bow. The newcomer glanced sharply at Larry, and, not wishing to seem rude, Larry repeated the gesture.

The man spoke some offhand phrase of polite acknowledgment, nodding pleasantly to both boys; but as his gray gaze crossed Larry’s, he started, narrowed his brows, then, turning his head to Valdir, said, “Terran?”

Valdir did not speak, but they looked at one another for a moment. The stranger nodded, crossed the room and stood in front of Larry. Slowly, as if compelled, Larry looked up at him, unable to draw his eyes away from his intense and compelling stare. He felt as if he were being weighed in the balance, sorted out, drawn out; as if the old man’s searching look went down beneath his borrowed clothes, down to the alien bones under his flesh, down to his deepest thoughts and memories. It was like being hypnotized. He found himself suddenly shivering, and then, suddenly, he could look away again, and the man was smiling down at him, and the strange gray eyes were kind.

He said to Valdir, speaking past the boys, “So this is why you brought me here, Valdir? Don’t worry; I have sons of my own. Introduce me to your friend, Kennard.”

Kennard said “The lord Lorill Hastur, one of the Elders of the Council.”

Larry had heard the name from his father, spoken with exasperation but a certain degree of respect. He thought,
I hope my being here doesn’t mean trouble, after all,
and for a brief instant almost regretted coming, then let it pass. The tension in the room slackened indefinably. Valdir picked up one of the books Larry had brought Kennard, turning the pages with interest; Lorill Hastur came and looked over his shoulder, then turned away and began examining the darts. He drew back his arm and tossed one accurately into the target. Valdir put the book down and looked up at Larry.

“I was sure that you would be able to come today.”

“I wanted to. But I may not be able to come again,” Larry said.

Valdir’s eyes were narrowed, curious: “Too dangerous?”

“No,” said Larry, “that doesn’t bother me. It’s that my father would rather I didn’t.” He stopped; he didn’t want to discuss his father, or seem to complain about his father’s unreasonableness. That was something between his father and himself, not to be shared with outsiders. The conflict touched him again with sadness. He liked Kennard so much better than any of the friends he had made in Quarters, and yet this friendship must be given up almost before it had a chance to be explored. He took up one of the darts and turned it, end for end, in his hand; then flung it at the target board, missing his aim. Lorill Hastur turned and faced him again.

“How is it that you were willing to risk trouble and even punishment to come today, Larry?”

It did not occur to Larry to wonder—not until much later—how the Elder had known his name, or the inner conflict that had forced a choice on him. Just then it seemed natural that this old man with the searching eyes knew everything about him. But he still wasn’t ready to sound disloyal.

“I didn’t have a chance to make him understand. He would have realized why I had to come.”

“And breaking your word would have been an insult,” Lorill Hastur said gravely. “It is part of the code of a man to make his own choices.”

He smiled at the boys, and turned, without formal leavetaking. Valdir took a step to follow him, turned back to Larry.

“You are welcome here at any time.”

“Thank you, sir. But I’m afraid I won’t be able to come again. Not that I wouldn’t like to.”

Valdir smiled. “I respect your choice. But I have a feeling we’ll meet again.” He followed Lorill Hastur out of the room.

Alone with Kennard, Larry found room for wonder. “How did he know so much about me?”

“The Hastur-Lord? He’s a telepath, of course. What else?” Kennard said, matter-of-factly, his face buried in a book of views taken in deep space. “What sort of camera do they use for this? I never have been able to understand how a camera works?”

And Larry, explaining the principle of sensitized film to Kennard, felt an amused, ironic surprise.
Telepath, of course!
And to Kennard this was the commonplace and something like a camera was exotic and strange. It was all in the point of view.

Far too soon, the declining sun told him it was time to go. He refused Kennard’s urgings to stay longer. He did not want his father to be frightened at his absence. Also, at the back of his mind, was a memory like a threat—if he was missing, might his father set the machinery of the Terran Empire into motion to locate him, bring down trouble on his friends? Kennard went a little way with him, and at the corner of the street paused, looking at him rather sadly.

“I don’t like to say goodbye, Larry,” he said. “I like you. I wish—”

Larry nodded, a little embarrassed, but sharing the emotion. “Maybe we’ll see each other again,” he said, and held out his hand. Kennard hesitated, long enough for Larry to feel first offended, then worried for fear he had committed some breach of Darkovan manners; then, deliberately, the Darkovan boy reached both hands and took Larry’s between them. Larry did not know for years how rare a gesture this was in the Darkovan caste to which the Altons belonged. Kennard said softly, “I won’t say good-bye. Just—good luck.”

He turned swiftly and walked away without looking back.

Larry turned his steps toward home, in the lowering mist. As he moved between the dark canyons of the streets, his feet steadying themselves automatically on the uneven stones, he felt a flat undefined sorrow, as if he were seeing all this with the poignancy of a farewell. It was as if life had opened a bright door, and then slammed it again, leaving the world duller by contrast.

Suddenly, his feeling of sadness thinned out and vanished. This was only a temporary thing. He wouldn’t be a kid forever. The time would come when he’d be free and on his own, free to explore all the worlds of his own choosing—and Darkover was only one of many. He had tasted a man’s freedom today—and some day it would be his for all time.

His head went up and he crossed the square toward the spaceport, steadily. He’d had his fun, and he could take whatever happened. It had been worth it.

 

He had the curious sense that he was re-living something that had happened before, as he entered their apartment in the Quarters building. His father was waiting for him, his face drawn, unreadable.

“Where have you been?”

“In the city. At the home of Kennard Alton.”

Montray’s face contracted with anger, but his voice was level and stern.

“You do remember that I forbade you to leave the Terran Zone? You’re not going to tell me that you forgot?”

“I didn’t forget.”

“In other words, you deliberately disobeyed.”

Larry said quietly, “Yes.”

Montray was evidently holding his anger in check with some effort. “Precisely why, when I did forbid it?”

Larry paused a moment before answering. Was he simply making excuses about having done what he wanted to do? Then he was sure, again, of the rightness of his position.

“Because, Dad, I’d made a promise and I didn’t feel it was right to break it, without a better reason than just that you’d forbidden it. This was something
I
had to do, and you were treating me like a kid. I tried to make sure that you wouldn’t be involved, or the Terran Empire, if anything had happened to me.”

His father said, at last, “And you felt you should make the decision for yourself. Very well, Larry, I admire your honesty. Just the same, I refuse to concede that you have a right to ignore my orders on principle. You know I don’t like punishing you. However, for the present you will consider yourself under house arrest—not to leave our quarters except to go to school, under any pretext.” He paused and a bleak smile touched his lips. “Will you obey me, or shall I inform the guards not to let you pass without reporting it?”

Larry flinched at the severity of the punishment, but it was just. From his father’s point of view, it was the only thing he could do. He nodded, not looking up.

“Anything you say, Dad. You’ve got my word.”

Montray said, without sarcasm, “You have shown me that it means something to you. I’ll trust you. House arrest until I decide you can be trusted with your freedom again.”

The next days dragged slowly by, no day distinguishing itself from the last. The bruises on his face and hands healed, and his Darkovan adventure began to seem dim and pallid, as if it had happened a long time ago. Nevertheless, even in the dullness of his punishment, which deprived him even of things he had previously not valued—freedom to go about the spaceport and the Terran city, to visit friends and shops—he never doubted that he had done the right thing. He chafed under the restriction, but did not really regret having earned it.

Ten days had gone by, and he was beginning to wonder a little when his father would see fit to lift the sentence, when the order came from the Commandant.

His father had just come in, one evening, when the intercom buzzed, and when Montray put the phone down, he looked angry and apprehensive.

“Your idiotic prank is probably coming home to roost,” he said angrily. “That was the Legate’s office in Administration. You and I have both been ordered to report there this evening—and it was a priority summons.”

“Dad, if it means trouble for you, I’m sorry. You’ll have to tell them you forbade me to go—and if you don’t, I will. I’ll take all the blame myself.” For the first time, Larry felt that the consequences might really go beyond himself.
But that’s not my fault—it’s because the administration is unreasonable. Why should Dad be blamed for what I did?

He had never been in the administration building before, and as he approached the great white skyscraper that loomed over the whole spaceport complex, he was intrigued to the point of forgetting that he was here for a reproof. The immense building, glimmering with white metal and glass, the wide halls, and the panoramic view from each corridor window of the Darkovan city below and the mountains beyond, almost took his breath away. The Legate’s office was high up, bright and filled with lowering red sunshine; for a moment, as he stepped into the brilliant glassed-in room, a curious thought flashed through Larry’s mind;
He sees more of this world than he wants anyone to know about.

The Legate was a stocky man, dark and grizzled, with thoughtful eyes and a permanent frown. Nevertheless he had dignity, and something which made Larry think quickly of Lorill Hastur.
What is it? Is it that they’re used to power, or to making decisions that other people have to live with?

“Commander Reade—my son Larry.”

“Sit down.” It was a peremptory command, not an invitation. “So you’ve been roaming around in the city? Tell me about it—tell me everything you’ve done there.”

His face was unreadable; without anger, but without friendliness. Reserving judgment. Neither kind nor unkind. But there was immense authority in it, as if he expected Larry to jump at once to obey him; and after ten days of sulking in Quarters, Larry wasn’t feeling especially humble.

“I didn’t know it was against any rules, sir. And I didn’t hurt anyone, and nothing happened to me.”

Reade made a noncommittal sound. “Suppose you let me decide about that. Just tell me about it.”

Larry told the whole story: his wanderings in the city day after day, his meeting with the gang of toughs, and the intervention of Kennard Alton. Finally he told of his last visit to the Alton house, making it clear that he had gone without his father’s knowledge and consent. “So don’t blame Dad, sir.
He
didn’t break any laws, at least.”

Montray said quickly, “Just the same, Reade, I’ll take the responsibility. He’s my son, and I’ll be responsible for his not doing it again.”

Reade gestured him to silence. “That’s not the problem. “We’ve heard from the Council—on behalf of the Altons. It seems that they are deeply and gravely offended.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you have refused your son permission to pursue this friendship—they say you have insulted them, as if they were unfit to associate with your son.”

Montray put his hands to his temples, wearily. He said, “Oh, my God.”

“Exactly,” Reade said in a soft voice. “The Altons are important people on Darkover—aristocrats, members of the Council. A snub or slight from a Terran can create trouble.”

Suddenly his voice exploded in wrath. “Confound the boy anyhow! We aren’t ready for this sort of episode. We should have thought of it ourselves and made preparations for it, and now when it hits us, we can hardly make good use of it! How old is the boy?”

Montray gestured at Larry to answer for himself, and Reade grunted. “Sixteen, huh? Here, they’re men at that age—and we ought to realize it! What about it, young Larry? Are you intending—have you ever considered going into the Empire service?”

Puzzled by the question, Larry said, “I’ve always intended that, Commander.”

“Well, here’s your chance.” He tossed a small squarish slip of paper across the table. It was thick and bordered, and had Darkovan writing on it, the straight squarish script of the city language. He said, “I understand you can read some of this stuff. God knows why you bothered, but it makes it handy for us. Figure it out later when you get the chance; as it happens, I can read it too, though most people in Administration
don’t
bother. It’s an invitation from the Altons—coming through Administration as a slap in the face: they don’t like the way Terrans tend to go through channels on every little thing—for you, Larry, to spend the next season at their country estate, with Kennard.”