She did love him. Or. she wanted to love him. Wanted to love him and wanted to love Stella with a desire that poured out hurtfully until she was exhausted from the flow of it. At home, she had known about Eugenie, and the one before Eugenie, but they had not been nearby. At home, Stella had had distractions and friends. Here, both Stella and Eugenie beat at her like huge trapped birds, pecking at her. Their frustrations hammered at her. She had not expected to feel weak, to be sleepless, to feel the threat of death always at her back. Each day on Grass had taken a little more of her strength, a little more of her purpose. Lately she had felt no hope, she who had always lived from disappointment to disappointment on a childlike, hopeful optimism which she could now barely remember.
She rode past the little arena where the horses were exercised, a place that lay just outside the grass gardens of Opal Hill, though it seemed remote because of the topography. Now, for the first time, Marjorie was leaving the close confines of that area which those who defined such things considered to be the estancia. The gardens were behind her. The prospects that the gardens overlooked were behind her. She was entering upon the wild grasses, the surface of the planet, the part into which men and their works and their creatures were not allowed to intrude. She rode, eyes forward, not thinking about anything very much except that she was unhappy enough that if the Hippae were to be found, out here in the grass, perhaps she would learn something useful about them or they would kill her, and she did not at that moment much care which.
The howl, when it came, made Don Quixote tremble, ears up, stopping dead still. Marjorie sat, scarcely breathing, aware that the howl had come from behind her. In that instant she remembered Janetta bon Maukerden and realized that the Hippae, if they found her, might do less—or more—than kill her. She had considered that they might kill her and had accepted that. She had not considered the range of alternatives which might result from her behavior, and she was abruptly both shamed and terrified.
They had been following a kind of trail, a winding path of short grasses among the taller ones. She urged Don Quixote off this easy way and into the taller grass, dismounting to tug stems into line to hide the way she had come.
“They’ll smell you,” she told herself, trying to quell her alarm by moving slowly and deliberately. The wind was blowing toward her from the direction the howl had come. That one would not smell her. Some other one might. It would be wise to return. Overwhelmed with the stupidity of what she had been doing, she told herself that returning would be the best possible thing to do.
She opened the trip recorder, watching it as she guided the stallion in a shallow turn which ended with him headed back toward the embassy, still hidden in tall grass, now traveling toward whatever it was she had heard. He went only a little way, then stopped. Something howled again, quite close, between them and the embassy.
The horse turned and walked quietly on his own trail. When Marjorie attempted to guide him, he ignored her. After one brief spasm of panic, she sat quietly, letting him alone. So. So, he knew something she didn’t. Smelled something she couldn’t. Felt something she couldn’t. She sat still, not bothering him, trying to say an act of contrition, unable to remember phrases she had known since childhood. The words didn’t fit, anyhow. How could she be heartily sorry for having offended God when, for all she knew, she was doing exactly what God intended!
The stallion moved up and down hills, along the sides of ridges, always walking, not hurrying, ears alert, as though someone were whispering his name. When he slowed at last, it seemed to be in response to other sounds, ahead of them. When he stopped, he went down on his side all at once, without the signal. She drew her leg from beneath his upcurved body and stood up, staring at him. He flattened himself, ears still alert, watching her.