“Look out there, Micah. That’s our universe. We belong here. Forget your damned science for a while. Reach out and take the Galaxy in your handsl”
“A big Galaxy,” he murmured.
“D’you think the Nomads don’t know bow big it is?” she cried. “You think we haven’t spent our lives out here, seeing worlds beyond worlds and always now suns beyond those? The stars don’t know we exist, and when we’re dead theyll go on as they always did, as if we’d never been. But still we belong, Micah! We’re one atorn in the u@verse, but at least we’re that much!”
She stopped, and a slow flush crept up her cheekbones’ “I’m really mouthy today,” she said. “Blame it on ‘Lo. That way of talk she has is catching.”
He smiled, wordlessly.
“But I would not say such things,” whispered Tlaloa. “Your belongin,-iiess is not mine. Micth feels himself part of a pattern, a not-real, something like a thought in his head.
And you of the ship think of fire and metal and that hollowness out there; to you life is just a stirr’mg in dead matter. Oh, Do!” She buried her face against Sean Is shoulder,
“And what do you think, then?” asked Trevelyan. “What
is most real to you?”
She looked up again. “Life,” she said. “Life that is in all space and time, the forees-no, the is and beco es that shapes itself. It-” She stomped helplessly. “You have riot the words. You try to understand life, as if you could be outside it. But you cannot. It is not to be understood but to be known. Felt, and you not locked in a house of bore but part of it-like a river, and you are a wave which rises and will sink back again, but the, river flows on. 11
Sean stroked her hair. “You spy some funny tl-iiyip,,s, sweetheart,” he murmured. His lips brushed the smooth pale cheek.
“Bergson,” said Trevelyan.
“Hm?” Ncki raised her brows.
“A philoso her of Earth, ‘way back when, He had ideas
which sound uch like Ilalo-.‘s. But I doubt if he c rried
them out the way she could. Someday,’ he added thoughtfully, “I’d like to ask you about your people, 11@tioa. l@ve been so busy studying the ship that I’ve neglected you, but I think you could teach me something.”
“I will try.” Her voice was almost inaudible.
“Micab, .” began Nicki slowly, “are we Nomads so very
different fror.,i your Union?”
He nodded. “More than you imagine.”
“I mean-ob. we live differently, yes, but we’re still hur-nlin beings, from Sol to G’alaxy’s edge. And do we really think so otherwise?”
“Of course. We’re all flesh and blood. What are you getting at?”
“The way you talked before, I thought you thought we’d become some kind of poison-breathing rr-.onsters. I was wondering, though, how you and I-otir people, that iscould ever get along.”
“Strife isn’t necessary,” he answered dully. “Brit as long as the two cultures exist, there can’t be any real union. We live for things that are too different. just remember what happened to some of those you adopted, or to Nomads who tried to settle down in a colony.”
” I thought that was what you’d say.” Slowly, Nicki withdr,–,v her band from his. He didn’t move.
Scan stirred clumsily. “I think I’ll stroll around the park,” he said. “Come along with me, ‘Lo, will you?”
They bad risen, be and the Loriiiyan girl, when they felt a treiior pulse briefly through them, a sudden nauseating twist.
“N’,,‘bat the hell-@” N;cki sprang to her feet.
“The c it
xavi v-f.:eld venerators-” began Sean.
Another surge came, shaking them. Their eyes blurred, and a huge windy sigb went through the leaves overhead. Vo;ces lifted -n shouts. Someone cursed.
X!” gaspe@ Sean. “They’re attacking us!”
T.-evelyan was erect now, standing behind Nicki and
grii)PiDgher arms. “No,” he swered. “A ship in hyperdrive
can’t be assaulted. It-2’
Ilaloa screamed.
Looking in her direction, Trevelyan siw the stars waver in the viewsereen. There was a sheet of fire and the screen went dead. Smoke curled acridly from it.
Another wave and another, tossin-them to the floor. Metal groaned. Trevelyan saw an oak branch snapped off and burled across the shivering room. He scrambled back to a swaying stance. N-@‘cki stumbled against him and his arms closed around her.