Trevelyan met several of the Alori often. He used to walk into the forest, alone or with Nicki. When he felt like talking to one of the-natives-it wasn’t usually long before somebody showed up. Esperero seemed to be his special
mentor.
“What plans do you have for usF’ asked the Coordinator.
Esperero @led. “I have said we Will not coerce youdirectly. But you are a restless folk. Most of you will soon begin longing for open space again.”
” so-? “
“So I anticipate spasmodic activity among you. Handicrafts will resume, for one thing. The forest offers many possibilities to the creative mind, and our people will give advice when needed. That will help break down the unfriendliness toward us.”
“Some of those projects you may not like,” said Nicki.
‘I know. For example, men will begin to think of hunting. They will make bows and other weapons. But they they will find that the animal life has disappeared. In Eke manner, their other unsuitable ambitions will be frustrated.”
“Ai-id if they turn against you?” asked Trevelyan.
“They will know better than to try organizing a war party against a whole planet. But Nomad culture, like any other, is the product of an environment and its necessities. Here the physical environment, open space, is gone. The planet will absorb them.
“They won’t become Alori. This generation, and even the next and the next, will not be fully absorbed. But, one by one, as they are ready, they will go spaceward again-for us.” Esperero nodded wisely. “It has been thus with our other spacefaring guests.”
Theirs was a long-range plan, Trevelyan knew, but the Alori had patience to spare. And what was the form of their restraining influences? Every culture must have some. Modern Solarian society tried to inculcate a pattern of habits and reactions in the individuals morality and a worldview. Technically, his was a guilt culture. The Nomads, with their emphasis on personal honor and prestige, wealth, and conspicuous consumption, had a shame culture. And the Alori?
The realization grew in him that Alori culture was a planet-wide symbiosis. Belonginess within an organic whole was their fundamental niotivation-a modified fear culture.
Esperero’s prophecy was good. Handicrafts were, being practiced again among the marooned Nomads. The loom and anvil and potter’s wheel began to appear.
Trevelyan -met him one day, and the’ Alorian asked if he would like to attend a festival.
“Certai-.ily,” said the Coordinator. “Men?”
Esperero shrugged. “When everyone has come. Shall we go?”
It was as simple. as that. Trevelyan, however, di-,cl-ed back to invite Nicki and Sean. The man refused bitterly, but Nicld
came gladly enough.
Thev traveled south, the humans and a few Alori, moving leisurely over hills and valleys. It rained most of one day, but nobody cared. Toward the end of the second day
they came to the place of festival.
It was in a small cup-shaped dale, and the trees about the central meadow were of kinds Trevelyan had not seen before. A hundred or so Alori were already gathered. They moved softly about, friend greeting friend with grave ceremony; everything was part of one harmonious ritual. Trevelyan was made welcome, and found opportunities to exercise big knowledge of the language. Nicki, with no particular linmastic ability, remained still; but she smilecl. She had grown strangely serene in the past month.
Both moons would be full tonight. As t@ie blue dusk deepened, the man and the woman joined the seated Alori around the meadow. For a while there was silence.
A single note lifted an bung on the air. Trevelyan started, looking about for the source. The note rose, swelling triumphantly, and others joined it, weaving in and out on a scale, unknown to him but strangely pleasing. He knew with surprise, and then with calmness, that it was the forest which sang.
Night closed over the turning planet. The pale bridge of the Milky Way arched across a vault of clear darkness. The moons climbed swiftly, turning the ground into a silver-
and-shadow dream, and the first dew caught their light in tiny glitters like fallen planets.
Music rose higher. It was the voice of the forest, windy roar of branches, crystal pouring of water, bird song, beast cry, underneath it a great steady pulse like a living heart. Now the dancers came, wbirling out of shadow into the unreal moonlight, soaring as if they had wings. In and out, back and forth, and the glowing fireballs were with them, birds with luminous feathers darted between their flying white forms, and the music sang of springtime.