“Where are the trees?” Brother Lourai wanted to know.
“In the swamp forest, boy. And in copses, here and there. I’ll show you a little copse not half a mile from here.”
“Trees,” breathed Brother Lourai.
“There’s thousands of pictures of the Arbai themselves on these walls, doing one thing and another,” Brother Mainoa went on. “Happy things on the fronts of the houses, ritual things on the doors. We think. At least, on the housefronts they seem to be smiling and on the doors they’re not.”
“That’s a smile?” Brother Lourai said doubtfully, staring at a representation of one toothy face.
“Well, given the kind of fangs they’ve got, we think so. What the researchers did was, they searched the archives for pictures of all kinds of animals in situations where one could postulate contentment or joy. Then they compared facial expressions. The high mucky-mucks say those are smiles. But the expressions carved on the doors aren’t. Those carved on doors are serious creatures doing serious things.” Brother Lourai examined an uninjured portion of door. The faces did seem very solemn. Even he could see that. The carving was of a procession of Arbai, bordered as always by the stylized vines. “But there aren’t any labels. No words.”
“Lots of words in the books, we think, but none that we’ve ever found connected to a carving, no.”
Brother Lourai sighed. It would have been pleasant to study the language of these Arbai, see what they had to think about things, see if it was the same as humans thought about things. There was a noise in the sky, away to the southwest, and his head came up—sniffing as though to smell out the sound the way Joshua always did when he heard something in the woods, like a bear, like a deer—peering into the clouds. “I hear an aircar.”
“Them from Opal Hill, I guess,” said Brother Mainoa. “I wonder what they wanted to see this place for.”
Marjorie, aloft in the car, was wondering the same thing. It was Rigo who had wanted to meet the Green Brothers, Rigo who had felt they might have useful information. Now, however, Rigo had no time to follow up any such idea. These days Rigo had time for nothing but riding.
Marjorie had volunteered to find out if the Brothers knew anything useful, but it was the invaluable Persun Pollut who suggested that if she wanted information she should stay away from the Friary.
“They’ve got a kind of committee there,” he had said, “an office. Acceptable Doctrine, it’s called. Everyone on the committee is mostly concerned about what people believe. They’re running things, too; don’t let them tell you they aren’t. Truth doesn’t enter in. If they’ve decided something is doctrine, they’ll ignore all evidence to the contrary and lie to your face. You don’t want to run afoul of those types, do you? Not if you have questions to ask. No. Better for you to meet some of the more sensible ones. I’ve met Brother Mainoa, now, when he’s come into the port for one thing and another. He’s just as down-to-earth as any one of us commons. If there’s any health problems among the Brothers, he’ll tell you.”
“How do I meet Brother Mainoa without involving the—the committee?” Marjorie asked.
“You might just ask to tour the Arbai ruin,” Persun suggested. “He’s usually there, and nine chances out of ten they’d send Brother Mainoa to guide you in any case. Mostly because the rest of them don’t want to be bothered.”
“I might ask to see the ruins at that,” she admitted, deciding after a moment’s consideration that it made good sense to do so, as well as offering a chance at amusement. There had been little amusement for any of them thus far on Grass.
Hungry for some family affection and fun, she packed an enormous lunch and asked the children if they would like to see the ruins. Tony said yes. Stella said no, she was tired, though what she had to be tired of, Marjorie couldn’t imagine. Though she believed she was aware of every emotion the girl felt, Marjorie had no notion that Stella spent each night riding endlessly across the simulated prairies of Grass, creeping down the stairs to ride the Hippae machine every night while the rest of the family was asleep, retreating to her bedroom only when dawn came. Stella had told no less than the truth when she said she was tired. Only the resilience of youth helped her give the appearance of normalcy.