“You want to go,” he said to her rather than to me. And his tone made the words an accusation.
“Of course. Kilda is going to make a recording – ”
“It isn’t your kind of place!” He was openly hostile. “Don’t let her come – ” He turned to me. And the strain on his small face was out of all proportion to the situation. He might have been despairingly watching all he had won of friendship and freedom being threatened by a power he could not hope to combat.
I could not stand against that plea. If it meant so much to Oomark, I would not insist. We could go to the Lugraan Valley by ourselves. I said as much, and he showed a flash of relief, which vanished when he glanced at his sister.
My eyes followed his. The shadow I saw in her expression awoke a twinge of the old uneasiness. Somehow Oomark braced himself, as if with my support he was going to defeat Bartare this time.
“Do you want to go alone, not with us?” Bartare asked. She spaced those words a little, giving them more weight than such a simple question needed.
Oomark flushed and then paled. But he stood his ground.
“Yes-yes-”
Bartare smiIed. “Let it be your choice then.”
Oomark gasped, turned, and ran out of the courtyard as if he were already late for school and must get there – or away from us – as quickly as possible. Bartare looked to me, still smiling.
“He’ll change his mind – you’ll see. And you ought to tell Gentlehomo Largrace that we’ll go.”
“No, not this time. If Oomark wants to be alone with the other boys, it’s better to let him.”
She shook her head. “He’ll want us – you’ll see. Just wait and see.”
Something about her certainty brought the first crack in the shell of comfortable acceptance that had encased me during the past few days. Memory stirred deep in me. There had been a mirror, and I had seen something in it –
Bartare’s smile vanished. She looked concerned as her eyes met mine.
“It is of no matter, none at all,” she said hurriedly. “Please, we were going to the Vorright to see the wind pictures – ”
And she did what she seldom did, slipped her hand into mine. Bartare had a dislike for being touched that I learned early in our association and that I carefully respected. For her to deliberately seek physical contact was very rare indeed.
We went to the Vorright display hall, and apparently Bartare was absorbed in what we saw. She was playing her little girl role. But my awakening was proceeding, and I was on guard as I had been before that night in the courtyard. Whatever Bartare might be – and I was beginning to wonder if we could discover that – she was not a normal child. And now, remembering her performance in the courtyard, I found it so disturbing that I longed to be able to pour out all my doubts, surmises, and suspicions to someone such as Lazk Volk, who knew much of the universe and would be open-minded.
The parapsychologist – how or rather why had I forgotten my desire to call him? Why had the commandant never moved on his suggestion to do so? Did Bartare have some unknown, heretofore undiscovered esper power to lull thinking in those she wanted to influence?
I reached one answer for myself. But I did not know how she could do it. And until I was able to find out, it would be far better to play her own game of masks, to be the uncaring companion she wanted.
Nor did I doubt now that if she wanted badly to go to the Lugraan Valley, Oomark could not stand against her. But I very much sympathized with his desire to keep as far from his sister as he could. Perhaps, until the circumstances here on Dylan had made it possible, he had never had freedom from her control.
Once freed from whatever restraint had been placed upon me, my own imagination went to work. I had to exercise control over it, tell myself firmly that I would remain alert but that I must not believe Bartare could do much – not until I had concrete proof.
The proof came in such a way as to arouse all my foreboding, to alert all my personal warning signals.
We had returned from town, discussing what we had seen. But Oomark had reached the house before us. His usually round small boy’s face appeared gaunt, just as his skin, lightly tanned by Dylan’s sun, had now a sickly pallor.
I hurried to where he leaned against the wall, both of his hands pressed to his middle, beads of perspiration distinct on his forehead and upper lip. His mouth worked as if to control nausea.
Before I could reach him, he stood away from the support of the wall to face his sister.
“Take it back-take back what She did to Griffy!” His voice held the shrill of approaching hysteria, that same wild note I had heard in his mother’s the two times the medico had tried to rouse her.
“I haven’t done anything,” Bartare returned.
“You don’t have to – She did! You make her stop! Griffy – Griffy’s good. He’s – ” Oomark’s eyelids squeezed together, and tears came from between them. “All right, all right! You can come – you can go – anywhere you please. I’m – I’m going to be sick!”
He moaned then, and I caught him up, carrying him as fast as I could to the fresher. Nor did it matter at that moment what Bartare might say or do in answer to his outburst.
4
I washed Oomark’s sweating face. He had been thoroughly I and miserably ill. Now he sat on the edge of his bed, hunched together, staring down at the floor. He allowed me to tend him, and when I would have gone to return the washcloth to the fresher, he caught at my overtunic. So I sat down beside him, put my arm around those small shoulders, and drew him close. He turned his face against me.
“Can you tell me about it?” I asked. It was plain he had had a shock. And if Bartare was responsible tor this – At that moment I was willing to be primitive enough to apply punishment with my own hands.
“She said I’d be sorry – ” His words were muffled. “And I am. But not Griffy! They didn’t have to do that to Griffy!” Again that hysterical note.
I was at a loss. Which would be better – to urge him to tell me just what had happened or to try to get him to forget it and ask the nurse for some sedation?
He decided for me, moving about so that he showed again his tear-streaked, pale face.
“Griffy – he lives with Randulf. He’s a poohka – a real, live poohka, not just a stuffed one like I had when I was little. He goes everywhere with Randulf, even to school. Only he wouldn’t ever come here ’cause he knew, you see – he knew!”
“Knew what?” A poohka was an alien life-form from off-world and created with its small, furry body the instant desire to cuddle – a perfect pet. But since they were fabulously expensive, I was surprised that any child this far from their planet of origin would have a poohka.
“He knew – ” Oomark was emphatic. “He knew about her.”
“Your sister?”
The boy shook his head. “Oh, maybe he knew about Bartare – ’cause She and Bartare – they are always together. But She’s the bad one! And She made Griffy be hurt! I know she did. He was hurt bad. And maybe even the medico can’t help him. She wanted to make me sorry ’cause I didn’t. I want to have Bartare go with us. But She didn’t have to hurt Griffy – he never did anybody any harm, and he’s the nicest fur person I ever, ever knew!” His small body began to shake, and I was frightened at the severity of this upset. I freed one arm and pressed the call for the servo. When that machine came trundling in, I taped a message for the nurse.
Together we got him soothed and to bed. Then I went in search of Bartare. I found her in the library, a tape reader going, listening with dutiful concentration to a history lesson. But I pushed the cutoff button and faced her.
“Oomark believes you have in some manner harmed his friend’s poohka.” I had come with the firm intention of asking searching questions, of demanding illuminating answers.
She looked at me blankly, as if completely surprised or startled. “How could I, Kilda? I have never even seen any poohka. And I have been with you all day.”