“I promise, honest to Dr. Dolittle,” she replied, as grave as the child who had learned it from him.
He nodded. “I trust you. The ones who make their own way through life, paying their freight as they go, they’re who you can rely on.
“All right. I know your mother’s mentioned to you that she wasn’t born to the Stambaughs, she was adopted. What she’s never known is that I am her father.”
Dagny’s eyes widened, her lips parted, she kept silence.
“So I can be simpatico with you in your bind,” Guthrie continued. “Of course, things were quite different for me. This was way back when Carla and I were in high school in Port Angeles. Carla Rezek— Never mind. It was wild and beautiful and hopeless.”
“And it hurts yet, doesn’t it?” Dagny murmured.
His grin flickered. “Mainly I cherish certain memories. Carla went on to marry and move elsewhere; I’ve lost track and she hasn’t tried to get back in touch, being the good people she is. Her folks were less tolerant than yours; they got her well and thoroughly away from me, but on religious grounds they didn’t countenance abortion. When the baby was born, it was adopted out. Neither Carla nor I were told where. Back then, that sort of incident was no great rarity, no enormous deal. Besides, I soon went off to college, and on to foreign parts.”
“Till at last—”
“Yeah. I came back, not to stay but to revisit the old scenes, well-heeled and … wondering.”
The girl flushed. “Auntie?”
“Oh, Juliana knew, and in fact urged me to try and find out. I might have a responsibility, she said. A detective followed up some easy clues and located the Stambaughs in Aberdeen. It wasn’t hard to scrape up an acquaintance. I never meant to intrude, you realize, just be a friend, so I kept mum and swear you to the same. Wouldn’t have told you, either, if I could’ve avoided it. Among other things, the secret will be a burden on you, because I can’t very well show you any favoritism if you elect a Fireball career. Space is too unforgiving. This day, however, well, you have a pretty clear need to know. For your heart’s sake, anyhow.”
Dagny blinked hard. “Uncans—”
Guthrie cut back to years agone. “Helen was growing up a charming little lady. Shortly after, she married. We’re a headlong breed in that regard, it seems. You—Me, in my fifties, you’re about to make a great-grandfather of me!” Brief laughter boomed.
“And—and you’ll make of me—”
“Nothing, sweetheart. All we offer is a chance for you to make of yourself whatever you will and can.”
They talked onward, until the cold drove them to walk farther. The sun had gone low. It was still no more than a brightening behind the cloud deck, but a few rays struck through to kindle the waters.
He who sometimes called himself Venator was also known, to those who had a need to know, as an officer in the secret service of the World Federation Peace Authority. In truth—for the ultimate truths about a human are in the spirit—he was a huntsman.
In late mornwatch of a certain day on the Moon, he finished his business with one Aiant and left the Lunarian’s dwelling. After the twilight, birdsong, white blooms, and vaulted ceiling of the roota where they had spoken, the passage outside glared at him. Yet it too was a place of subtle curves, along which colors flowed and intertwined, ocher, mauve, rose, amber, smoke. At intervals stood planters where aloes, under this gravity, lifted their stalks out of spiky clusters as high as his head, to flower like fireworks six meters aloft. The breeze had a smell as of fresh-cut grass, with a tinge of something sharper, purely chemical. He could barely hear the music in it, fluting on a scale unknown to Earth, but his blood responded to a subsonic drumbeat.
Few others were afoot. This being a wealthy section, some went sumptuous of tunic and hose or sweeping gown, while the rest were retainers of this or that household, in livery not much less fine. One led a Siamese-marked cat on a leash—metamorphic, its genes transformed through generations to make it of tiger size. All moved with the same grace and aloofness as the animal. A pair who were talking in their melodious language did so very softly.