V
The countryside rolled in gentle hills, intensely green, starred with wildflowers. Trees stood alone or in small, widely strewn groves, oak, beech, elm. A breeze tossed light and shadow through their crowns. Looking out, Laurinda Ashcroft could almost feel warmth and wind, hear birdsong, breathe odors of growth.
But the view was electronic, for her house and its few neighbors lay underground. Nor was the nature above them ancient. A century ago this had been a plantation, broken here and there by the ruins of an ugly industrial town. Not until the useful genetically engineered monstrosities became obsolete was everything razed and a preserve created.
Yet above a ridge to the east rose a steeple, as it had for more than a thousand years.
All this beauty can die again, she thought, crushed beneath ice, sickened and seared by radiation, or-who knows? Someday, somehow, by some or other cosmic chance, it must. The knowledge saddened. Unless, before then, Terra Central decides it’s outlived its value.
She recoiled from that idea, the sense of helplessness. Never mind! Right now we only have to cope with the universe. Which means first coping with man.
Will and strength rallied. She turned back to her visitor. He stood waiting for her to find words after his cautious greeting. The trace of a smile on his lips was like a flag of truce.
Not that Omar Hamid would recognize a symbol so archaic. Laurinda drew breath, formed a full smile herself, and bowed her head briefly over bridged fingers. He responded likewise. The modern gesture calmed her. The foreboding that his entry had roused died away as quickly as it had risen. It had been unreasonable. After all, he had called ahead, days in advance, and he was here simply to talk. She was surprised that meeting him could affect her so much.
”Yes, you’re welcome, Omar,” she said. “Always.”
His shyness, if that was what it had been, hardened into a certain wariness. “In spite of my errand?” His Inglay was more accented than formerly. Perhaps he hadn’t had many occasions to use it.
Laurinda shook her head. “In spite of its having been so long,” she answered low.
”I’m sorry.” It sounded genuine. “I thought you would rather not . . . see me again.”
”True. For a while.”
”And then?” The tone was half anxious.
”It stopped hurting. I remembered what was good. Otherwise- we made a mistake, you and I. An honest mistake, and we were very young.”
The look he gave her was briefly, uncannily familiar. It was as if the wrinkles and the short white beard were a mask, gone transparent for a glimpse of the face she once knew.
”Sometimes I even wished you would call,” she added.
”I hardly dared,” he said.
”Me too. Although I think what we both feared most was pride, wounded youthful pride, each other’s and our own.”
”It would probably have been another mistake to try again.”
”The same one, with the same result. Or still more bitter. But I did begin thinking, now and then, how nice it would be to hear from you.”
”Likewise for me. Of course, I kept hearing of you, oftener and oftener. I hoped-I hope you’ve been happy.”
”Why should I not have been?”
”Your life became so different.”
Their gazes met and held steady, but somehow hers went through him, beyond this room and this moment. “ ‘A sea change,’ “ she murmured, “ ‘into something rich and strange.’ “
The living planet and the souls upon it. The knowledge, vision, wisdom, and presence of Terra Central. The minds at other stars, the stars themselves, the marvel and mystery that is the cosmos. And I amidst all these.
Omar’s question drew her back out of reverie. “What do you mean;
”Oh, that,” she said, carefully careless. “Only a quotation.”
”Your style of talking has certainly changed. Scholarly, is that the word? I suppose working with Terra Central did it.”
”Not really. I read a great deal.” Laurinda formed a new smile. “Anachronistic habit, agreed.”
But necessary, she had found-for her, at any rate, if not for everyone who served as an interface between human and machine. Those wonders were too great, those thoughts too high. She had been in danger of losing her own humanness to them. The works and songs of the past redeemed it. Sometimes that past, even its fictions-Hamlet, Anne Elliott, Wilkins Micawber, Vidal Benzaguen-felt closer to her than the world she lived in.