When he hailed them, they said, “Ognorit? Why, it’s half a day’s swim due south!”
Half a day? The storm had done him favors, then! Even the fabled Scudder—growing old now—could have brought Nemora to this spot no quicker!
He was already preening when his porp rushed into a narrow bay between two rocky headlands, and an old, coarse-mantled figure padded into the shallows to shout at him.
“You’ll be the courier from Neesos that I asked for! It’s amazing that you’re here so soon—though I suppose you actually started from Bowock, didn’t you? Welcome, anyway! Come ashore! I’m Scholar Gveest, in case you need a name to tell me apart from all the animals!”
IV
The meaning of that cryptic statement was brought home to Tenthag as soon as he had set Flapper to browse—a duty he discharged meticulously despite Gveest’s obvious impatience.
Then, heading inland in the scholar’s pad-marks, he found himself assailed by hordes of wild creatures. Some leapt; some slithered; some sidled; some moved with sucking sounds as they adhered and freed themselves. Gveest was not afraid of them, and therefore Tenthag was not. But what could they possibly be?
Abruptly he caught on. He recognized them, or at any rate the majority; it was just that he had never seen more than one or two of them before in the same place. Whoever heard of six vulps in a group, or nine snaqs, or a good half-score of jenneqs, or such an uncountable gang of glepperts?
His tubules throbbed with astonishment. Whatever Gveest was doing, it had resulted in a most amazing change of these species’ usual habits!
And the house he was taken to, on a crest dominating the whole of the island, reflected the same luxuriance. There were trees and food-plants massed together in quantities that would not have shamed Bowock itself, or any rich city in the north. Suddenly reacting to hunger despite his intake of yelg and mustiqs, Tenthag could not help signaling the fact, and Gveest invited him to eat his fill.
“Be careful, though,” he warned. “Some of the funqi in particular may be rotten.”
Edible food, left to rot? It was incredible! Was Gveest here alone? No, that couldn’t be the explanation; here came two, three, five other people whose names he barely registered as he crammed his maw.
Belatedly he realized that his journey had made him sufficiently undernourished to exhibit bad manners, and he quit gobbling in embarrassment, but Gveest and his companions reacted with courteous tolerance.
“You got here with such speed,” the scholar said, “we can’t begrudge recuperation time. My colleague Dvish, the archaeologist, informed me that the courier who brought away his precious discoveries from Neesos also surprised his party. The efficiency of the Guild remains admirable.”
Though as soon as they learn to string nervograps from continent to continent, and convey images along them…
Tenthag clawed back the thought. It was bitter for him to admit that, in his amazement at the greater world, he had committed his life to what might shortly become an obsolescent relic of the past. But pretense was useless when dealing with a weather-sense as keen as Gveest’s; the scholar must be a match for Nemora, for he was going on, “And despite your worries, there will be need for courier-service for a long, long while. Regardless of the principle of maximizing trade in knowledge, some things are too fraught with implications to be turned loose … yet. That’s why you’re here.”
Confused, Tenthag said, “I expected to bear away news of some great discovery you’ve made!”
The party surrounding Gveest exchanged glances. At length one of them—a woman, whose name he faintly recalled as Pletrow—said, “It’s not what you’re to take away that matters right now. It’s what you brought!”
“But I brought nothing but myself!”
“Exactly.”
After a pause for reflection, Tenthag still found no sense in the remark. Moreover she, or someone, was exuding a hint of patronizingness, which in his still-fatigued condition was intolerable. He rose to full height.
“I am obliged to remind you,” he forced out, “that a courier is not obliged to wait around on anyone’s convenience. Unless you have data in urgent need of transmission—”