Late in the evening Rillibee came in from the swamp forest, waking the Yrariers. Marjorie came out of her room yawning, wrapped in a light robe, to find Rigo sitting up in his bed with Rillibee perched on the foot of it.
“I’ve come to get Father James,” he said. “And the other Father, if he’ll come back.”
“What’s going on, Rillibee?”
“I wish I knew exactly. The foxen are trying to figure something out. It’s because of something you did, Marjorie. You talked to the foxen, didn’t you?”
“During the … the episode out there. Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Rigo said, almost angrily.
“It wasn’t anything very real to me at the time,” she said calmly. “I would have a hard time quoting the conversation. Mostly I was thinking words, but the foxen seemed to understand the threat I intended.”
“It wasn’t anything to do with a threat, I don’t think. No. It was something else. Brother Mainoa is tearing what little hair he has left trying to figure it out. Whatever you did, it was the key to some change in their attitude. There are hundreds and hundreds of foxen in the forest, you know. All talking at one another, growling, yowling, thinking, sitting and looking at each other with their claws tap-tapping. It’s like having shadow beasts projected all over you. You can’t see them. You walk around them without knowing why. You hear them, and your mind tries to make wind noises out of it. After a while, you lie down and put your hands over your head, wishing they’d all go away….
“Anyhow, they’re having some major discussion. Something’s going to happen. A foxen wants you, Marjorie, but I told him I didn’t know if you could come. He’ll settle for Father James.”
Marjorie shook her head, longingly. “I mustn’t leave here. If I were to vanish, the Hierarch could get very suspicious. He’s got a thousand armed men, and he might not hesitate to destroy the swamp forest or the town or anything else he felt like. Father James will probably go with you, if he feels up to the trip.”
“I’d like to take Stella, too,” Rillibee said, looking at his feet. Marjorie sighed and turned away. Stella was still at the temporary hospital, though no longer encased in a Heal-all. “Have you seen her, Rillibee?”
“I stopped there first.”
“She’s not … she’s not like herself.”
“She’s like a child,” Rillibee agreed. “A nice child.”
“What use do you have for a nice child?” Rigo asked, his mouth in a grim line.
Rillibee drew himself up, a slight, wiry figure, somehow dignified in this circumstance by his very lack of stature and bulk. “I’m not interested in molesting her, if that’s what you’re imagining. She’s in danger here. You all are. But you can choose what you’ll do and she can’t. I’d like to take Dimity, too. And Janetta. For the same reason. If the Hippae ruined them, maybe the foxen can help to heal them.”
“Why not?” Marjorie said. “If Rowena and Geraldria are willing to have you take their daughters, why not? You’ll have to ask them, but as far as I’m concerned, yes, take Stella.”
“Marjorie!” Rigo was outraged.
“Oh, stop roaring at me, Rigo,” she snapped in a voice he had never heard. “Think! You’re doing it again, all these automatic responses of pride and masculinity.”
“She’s my daughter!”
“She’s mine, too, and there’s nothing in her head at all. She doesn’t know me. She plays with a ball, bouncing it off a wall. What are you going to do with her? Take her back to Terra and hire a keeper for her?”
‘This … this …” he pointed at Rillibee.
“What?”
“This young man,” she said, “who has been ill used by Sanctity, as we all have. This young man, who has certain talents and skills. What about him?”
“You trust him not to—“
“I trust him not to do anything to her nearly as bad as the Hippae have already done,” she cried, “because you let them. I trust him to care for her better than we did, Rigo! Better than her father or her mother. I trust him to look after her.”