A foxen touched her mind with incorporeal hands. She heard a comforting voice saying, “Hush, dear, hush.” She leaned her forehead on a vast shoulder which was nowhere near. The foxen danced in her mind, and she with them.
Abruptly the shoulder was withdrawn. She looked up. The foxen had gone.
In a moment she understood why. She heard human voices ringing over the susurrus of Arbai speech. It was too soon for Tony to be back. They were not voices she recognized.
“Listen,” she said, turning to locate the sound. Not far off in the trees someone saw her and young voices yodeled a paean of anticipation.
There was something threatening in that shout. Marjorie and the two old men retreated across the plaza, watching apprehensively as the three forms flung themselves through the trees, dropping upon the platform like apes.
“Brother Flumzee,” said Brother Mainoa in a calm, weary voice. “I hadn’t expected to see you here.”
Brother Flumzee posed on the railing, one knee up, his arms folded loosely about it. “Call me Highbones,” he chirruped. “Meet my friends. Steeplehands. Long Bridge. There were two more of us, but Little Bridge and Ropeknots got eaten by Hippae out there.” He waved, indicating somewhere else. “Along with Elder Brother Fuasoi and his little friend Shoethai. Not that we’re sure of that. We heard a lot of howling, but maybe they escaped.”
“Why were you out there at all?” Brother Mainoa asked.
“They sent me for you, Brother.” Highbones smiled. “They said you are no longer one of us. You are to be dispensed with.”
“But you said Fuasoi was with you! And Shoethai!”
“We didn’t expect them to come along. They were kind of, what would you say, last-minute additions. They were going to drop us off and then go somewhere else.”
A shadow figure moved among the three climbers. Highbones beat at it, as though it were a swarm of gnats. “What the hell are these things?”
“Only pictures,” said Marjorie. “Pictures of the people who once lived here.”
Highbones turned his head, surveying the city. “Nice,” he said. “A climber’s place. Is there enough to eat so somebody could live here?”
“In summer,” said Brother Mainoa. “Probably. Fruit. And nuts. There may be edible animals, too.”
“Not in winter, hmm? Well, in winter we could go into town, couldn’t we. Probably want to go there anyhow. Pick up some women. Bring them back here.”
“You mean stay here?” Long Bridge asked. “After we do the thing, you mean stay here?”
“Why not?” Highbones asked. “You think of any better place for climbers than this?”
“I don’t like these things.” Long Bridge batted at the shadow forms moving before him. “I don’t like these monsters all over me.”
The two men had been listening and watching, noticing the tense muscles in the climbers’ arms and legs, the strained lines of their necks and jaws. Brother Mainoa thought that all this talk meant nothing. The talk was only to make a space of time, to allow them to size up their opposition. And what was their opposition? An old man, a soft man, and a woman.
Brother Mainoa reached out toward the foxen. Nothing. No pictures. No words.
“Are you hungry?” Marjorie asked. “We have some food we can share with you.”
“Oh, yes, we’re hungry,” leered Highbones. “Not for food, though. We brought enough food of our own.” He ran his tongue along his lips, staring at her, letting his eyes dwell lasciviously on her. She shivered. “You look young and healthy,” Highbones went on. “There was talk back there at the Friary about plague. You don’t have plague, do you, pretty thing?”
“I could have,” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm. “I suppose. There was plague on Terra when we left.”
The two followers turned to Highbones, questions on their lips, but he silenced them with a gesture. “It’s naughty to tell lies. If you got it there, you’d be dead by now. That’s what everybody says.”
“Sometimes it takes years to manifest itself,” said Father James, “but the person still has it.”
“What’re you?” Highbones said with a laugh. “Dressed up like that? Some kind of servant? Mind your manners, servant. Nobody was talking to you.”