existed. Hitherto, they had only revealed themselves, at rare
intervals, to one or a few backwoodsmen at a time. An ability to
generate hallucinations would help them in that. They would stay
clear of any large, perhaps unmanageable expedition which might pass
through their territory. But two people, braving all prohibitions,
shouldn’t look too formidable to approach. And . . . this would be the
first human team which not only worked on the assumption that the
Outlings were real but possessed the resources of modern, off-planet
police technology.
Nothing happened at that camp. Sherrinford said he hadn’t expected it
would. The Old Folk seemed cautious this near to any settlement. In
their own lands they must be bolder.
And by the following “night,” the vehicle had gone well into yonder
country. When Sherrinford stopped the engine in a meadow and the
car settled down, silence rolled in like a wave.
They stepped out. She cooked a meal on the glower while he gathered
wood, that they might later cheer themselves with a campfire.
Frequently he glanced at his wrist. It bore no watchinstead, a radio-
controlled dial, to tell what the instruments in the bus might register.
Who needed a watch here? Slow constellations wheeled beyond
glimmering aurora. The moon Alde stood above a snowpeak, turning
it argent, though this place lay at a goodly height. The rest of the
mountains were hidden by the forest that crowded around. Its trees
were mostly shiverleaf and feathery white plumablanca,
ghostly amidst their shadows. A few firethorns glowed, clustered dim
lanterns, and the underbrush was heavy and smelled sweet. You could see
surprisingly far through the blue dusk. Somewhere nearby, a brook sang
and a bird fluted.
“Lovely here,” Sherrinford said. They had risen from their supper and
not yet sat down again or kindled their fire.
“But strange,” Barbro answered as low. “I wonder if it’s really meant for
us. If we can really hope to possess it.”
His pipestem gestured at the stars. “Man’s gone to stranger places than
this.”
“Has he? I . . . oh, I suppose it’s just something left over from my outway
childhood, but do you know, when I’m under them I can’t think of the.
stars as balls of gas, whose energies have been measured, whose planets
have been walked on by prosaic feet. No, they’re small and cold and
magical; our lives are bound to them; after we die, they whisper to us in
our graves.” Barbro glanced downward. “I realize that’s nonsense.”
She could see in the twilight how his face grew tight. “Not at all,” he
said.
“Emotionally, physics may be a worse nonsense. And in the end, you
know, after a sufficient number of generations, thought follows feeling.
Man is not at heart rational. He could stop believing the stories of science
if those no longer felt right.”
He paused. “That ballad which didn’t get finished in the house,” he said,
not looking at her. “Why did it affect you so?”
“I couldn’t stand hearing them, well, praised. Or that’s how it seemed.
Sorry for the fuss.”
“I gather the ballad is typical of a large class.”
“Well, I never thought to add them up. Cultural anthropology is
something we don’t have time for on Roland, or more likely it hasn’t
occurred to us, with everything else there is to do. Butnow you mention
it, yes, I’m surprised at how many songs and stories have the Arvid motif
in them.”
“Could you bear to recite it?”
She mustered the will to laugh. “Why, I can do better than that if you
want. Let me get my multilyre and I’ll perform.”
She omitted the hypnotic chorus line, though, when the notes rang out,
except at the end. He watched her where she stood . against moon and
aurora.
`-the Queen of Air and Darkness cried softly under sky:
“‘Light down, you ranger Arvid, and join the Outling folk. You need no
more be human, which is a heavy yoke.’
“lie dared to give her answer: I may do naught but run. A maiden waits
me, dreaming in lands beneath the sun.
“‘And likewise wait me comrades and tasks I would not shirk, for what is