Spliid's voice sounded worried. "I hate this, Cliff. Your talents can
be valuable to the Corps. We deal in cubic parsecs of space and aeons
of time. It takes more than ordinary reasoning power to cope with it."
"I believe you mean it," Rowley said.
"I do. So what's Hume? One world in millions."
Rowley's switched him off. He bit his lip. It was Galethsurv's
purpose to make single, cohesive sense out of the patch-work, and
tatterdemalion shreds of human culture that had been systematically
turned up in the galaxy. Where did the culture of Hume fit into that
overall pattern?
Galethsurv believed that the distribution of mankind among the stars
had not been accident. Where, then, had Man originated? It was
important to know. Remembrance of yesterday points the way toward a
more highly educated guess about tomorrow. Someday, Man would find out
if--or _why_--he had been deliberately seeded among the stars. And
then...?
* * * * *
"_Sintaha_ Rowley, are you not also Keepers of the Trees on your own
world?"
Tsu was so earnest with the question, Rowley was surprised. He made a
wry grimace, half humorous.
"Of course, we grow trees for fruit, for shade and beauty, to cut down
and make lumber for houses...."
She drew away from him, rigid, trembling.
"_You cut down trees!_"
He hadn't meant to make that slip. He knew her feeling for trees. Her
look accused him.
"I don't understand your attitude," he said lamely.
"Nor do I understand yours." She brooded silently. "It is different, I
suppose, on other worlds. The trees are different."
They sat in the lush grass, on the hillside below his tent. The toy
village lay at their feet, a cardboard set in miniature.
"Your people puzzle us, Tsu. You are too different from us...."
"We have tried to make it easy for you," she murmured.
Easy? Too easy, he thought. It was all too plain, too easy to
understand. That's why he couldn't understand a bit of it.
"We hope," he went on, "that by studying your world and others like it,
we may some day better understand the whole universe...."
"Or reach a better understanding of your own thoughts?"
She smiled. Her long eyes lidded heavily with amusement.
"Wherever we go," he continued doggedly, "we find people like
ourselves. Human beings. They are born; they grow up; they die. Human
culture is built around the processes of living and dying. Our beliefs
and actions stem from those facts--that we live and that we die. We are
emotionally affected by them. Sometimes, we know great happiness. Then
we remember that we die, and we suffer sorrow. I have seen no sadness
in your village. Everybody is happy. It ... it isn't natural. I wonder
how you would act if one of you were to die...."
She stirred restlessly, movement restricted by her clinging sarong.
"One of us will die for you," she said simply, "if you wish to study
it."
Sudden shock hammered at his brain. What a thing to say! What did she
mean? Was she really as simple as her language seemed to indicate? He
felt embarrassed.
"Tsu, you know I didn't mean...."
His eye caught a flicker of movement among the brown trunks of the
trees. A slim figure left their shadow, picked its way uphill through
the grasses, toward them. Rowley recognized Smarin, Tsu's father.
Smarin's slim ascetic face was expressionless, his long eyes hooded.
"Torl fell from the tree," he said. "Torl is dead. Come, Tsu."
Rowley felt hair prickle at the back of his neck. It seemed that Smarin
had come out, strictly on cue. Then he realized that Smarin had meant
it. The shock of a moment before intensified, expanded, pressurized
itself into every cell of his brain.
"Oh, no!" he said.
Tsu got lithely up. She looked down at him, lips drawn, eyes lidded
with slumbering sorrow.
"It was your wish, _sintaha_ Rowley. Come with us. Study and learn...."
* * * * *
"It could have been an accident," Rowley reported over the comm, "but I
have a feeling it was staged."
"You saw the dead woman?"
"She was dead, all right. They let me see that she was dead, then they
buried her--at the foot of the tree. No ceremony. Shallow grave--not
over a foot and a half deep."
"Then what?"
"Then they all went back to tending the trees. Tsu seemed happy as hell
about the whole thing. She hoped I had learned what I wanted, she said."
"I'm interested," Spliid broke in. "I'm coming down tonight, Cliff."
"Where are you now?"
"About a thousand miles east of you. I looked in on Stephans this
afternoon. I'll get down there after dark."
Sunsel glowed an arabesque of colors on the village at Rowley's feet.
The comm was silent. He switched it off.
Commander Waldo Spliid was a big, blond man. He bulked hugely at
Rowley's side, among the intense shadows of the trees. Hume had no
moon. Only the stars spattered a frail shine over the upper levels of
the forest.