“They’d go there?”
“They’d wreck whatever slim chance there may be. No, whatever we do, it must be covert, quiet, without drawing any notice. According to the computers, we’ve got five to seven years in which to act. After that, the plague may have gone so far that—Well. The Grassians have said they’ll accept an ambassador.”
“I see.” And he had seen. The Grassians would consent to a delaying action. Enough to make Sanctity eschew any ideas of using force, but not enough to seriously inconvenience anyone on Grass.
“You say they ride?” Rigo had asked Sender O’Neil, trying to change the pictures of doom and destruction which had swarmed into his mind. “You say they ride? Did they take horses, hounds, and foxes with them when they settled there?”
“No. They found indigenous variants upon the theme.” O’Neil had licked his pursy lips, liking this phrase and repeating it. “Indigenous variants.”
Indigenous variants,Rigo thought now as he sat in a balloon-car poised above a copse of great trees on Grass and saw the thing called fox climb into view. He could not see it clearly. He did not glance at his family, though he felt the strain of their silence. He stared down, unconscious for the moment of the need to hide his feelings, and repeated O’Neil’s phrase. “Indigenous variants.” He said it aloud, not realizing he had spoken. When Eric bon Haunser looked at him inquiringly he blurted, without meaning to, “I’m afraid it is utterly unlike our foxes at home.”
The huge, amorphous creature was pulled struggling from the crown of the copse while bon Haunser described what was probably taking place below the trees. He spoke openly, almost offhandedly, carefully ignoring their reaction to the sight of the thing.
When they had returned partway to Klive, Rigo recovered himself sufficiently to say, “You seem very objective about all this. Forgive me, but your brother seemed … how can I describe it? Embarrassed? Defensive?”
“I don’t ride any longer.” said Eric, flushing. “My legs. A hunting accident. Those of us who don’t ride—some of us at least—we become less enthusiastic.” He said this diffidently, as though he were not quite sure of it, and he did not offer to explain what it was about the Hunt that made the current riders unwilling to talk about it. Each of the Yrariers had his or her own ideas about the matter, ideas which they incubated as they sailed silently over the prairies, in time each achieving an imperiled calm.
They arrived back at Klive before the riders did and were met, though scarcely welcomed, by Rowena. She escorted them to a large reception room overlooking the first surface, where she introduced them to the gaggle of pregnant women and children and older men who were eating, drinking, and playing games at scattered tables. She encouraged the Yrariers to tell the servants what they wanted to drink and serve themselves from the laden buffet, then she drifted away. Eric bon Haunser joined them. Very shortly thereafter a horn blew outside the western gate and the riders began to trickle in. Most went immediately to bathe and change their clothing, but a few came into the room, obviously famished.
Eric murmured, ‘They have drunk nothing for twelve hours before the Hunt except the palliative offered before the Hounds come in. Once the Hunt has begun, there is no opportunity to relieve oneself.”
“Most uncomfortable,” Marjorie mused, lost in recollection of the sharp implacable spines on the necks of the mounts. “Is it really worth it?”
He shook his head. “I am no philosopher, Lady Westriding. If you were to ask my brother, he would say yes. If you ask me, I may say yes or no. But then, he rides and I don’t.”
“I ride,” said a voice from behind them. “But I say no.”
Marjorie turned to confront the owner of the voice, tall, broad-shouldered, not greatly younger than herself, dressed in stained trousers and red coat, his hunting cap under his arm and a full glass held to his lips. She saw that those lips trembled, though so slightly she doubted anyone but herself would have noticed.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I’m excessively thirsty.” His lips tightened upon the rim of the glass, making it quiver. Something held him in the grip of emotion, slurring his words.