Seldom visiting, Venator was not intimate with the territory. From tim&to time he took out a hand-held reader to screen a map and a text listing landmarks; he used his informant to check his exact position and bearing. That was his entire contact with the outer world. He wandered untroubled, drawing serenity from magnificence.
His course was northward. Around him as he climbed, scattered dwarf juniper, birch, rhododendron gave way to silvery tussocks between which wildflowers bloomed tiny and rivulets trilled glistening. Sunlight spilled out of blue unboundedness; shadows reached sharp from lichenous boulders. Sometimes for a while he spied an eagle-vulture on high, sometimes a marmot whistled, once a cock pheasant took off like an exploding jewel. Ahead of him rose the Great Himalaya, from left horizon to right horizon, glaciers agleam over distance-dusky rock, the heights radiant white. A wind sent snow astream off one of those tremendous peaks, as if whetting it.
Venator’s muscles strained and rejoiced. His breath went deep, his sight afar. From the might of the mountains he drew strength; trouble burned out of him; he was alone with infinity and eternity.
But those were within him. The highland had only evoked them. Among the stars, it was a ripple in the skin of a single small planet lost in the marches of a single galaxy. Life was already old on Earth when India rammed into Asia and thrust the wreckage heavenward. Life would abide after wind and water had brought the last range low—would embrace the universe, and abide after the last stars guttered out— would in the end frethe universe, the whole of reality.
For intelligence was the ultimate evolution of life.
He knew it, had known it from before the day he was enrolled in the Brain Garden, not merely as words but as a part of himself like heart or nerves and as the meaning of his existence. Yet often the hours and the cares of service, the countless pettinesses of being human, blurred it in him, and he went about his tasks for their own sakes, in a cosmos gone narrow. Then he must seek renewal. Even so—he thought with a trace of sardonicism—does the believer in God make retreat for meditation and prayer.
Now he could again reason integrally and objectively. When he stopped for a meager lunch, on the rim of a gorge that plunged down to a sworoVblade glacial river, he called up for fresh consideration the memories he had brought with him from Vancouver Island, halfway around the globe.
Rain blew off the sea, dashed against the house, blinded the antique windowpanes. A wood fire crack3 led on the hearth. Its flames were the sole brightness in the high, crepuscular room. Their light ghosted over the man in the carven armchair.
“Yes,” Matthias rumbled, “lan Kenmuir was here last week. And spent the night. Why do you ask, when obviously you know?”
Seated opposite him, Venator gave a shrug and a smile. “Rhetorical question,” he admitted. “A courtesy, if you will.”
Eyes peered steadily from the craggy visage. “What’s your interest in the matter, Pragmatic?”
Equally obviously, it was considerable. Venatos was present in person and had declared his rank in order to impress that on the Rydberg. Nevertheless he kept his tone soft. “My service would like to find out what his errand was.”
“Nothing criminal.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“Ask him.”
“I wish I could. He’s disappeared.”
Brows lifted. The big body stirred. “Do you suspect foul play?”
This might be a chance to make use of the loyalties that bound the Fireball Trothdom together. “It’s possible,” Venator said. “Any clue that you can give us will be much appreciated.”
Matthias brooded for a minute, while the rain whispered, before he snapped, “A man can drop out of sight for many different reasons. We’re not required by-law to report our whereabouts every hour. Not yet.”
Did he dread a stifling ftiture? “Not ever, sir,” Venator replied. He was sincere. Why should the cybercosm give itself thtf trouble? “Police protection is a service, not an obligation. It does, though, need the cooperation of the people.”
“Police. Hm.” Matthias rubbed his chin. He scorned cosmetic tech, Venator saw; the veins stood out upon his hand, under the brown spots. “If one individual may have come to grief, it concerns the civil police, not the Peace Authority.” Had he been fully informed, he would doubtless have added: Most especially not a synnoiont agent of it. “You’re being less than candid, seflor.”