We talked about a thousand crazy things like that. I gradually lost my self-consciousness and my fear that he would laugh at me. It became a kind of game: I would make an observation, he would turn it into a parable or conundrum before my eyes. He seemed heartily amused, and the long, hot afternoon passed swiftly.
The shadows were beginning to make the contours of the land dramatic when we came to a shallow, pebbly river. There was a grassy ledge nearby, and there Squire Tellegen instructed us to pitch the camp. Jimmicky and I worked at setting up the tent, caring for the horses, fetching water, and starting the fire while he strolled down to the river, writing in a notebook. Jimmicky said to me in a low voice, “Does he always pester you this way?”
“No,” I said. “He’s bored, with no one to talk to.”
Jimmicky shook its head. “I’m glad I don’t have your job.”
I hadn’t considered it an onerous duty to talk to him, but now it struck me that most blands would. For a moment I felt uncertain that I had acted right. Then I thought to myself, Pelch would have talked to him. That made me feel more confident.
Jimmicky fixed the squire’s dinner first, and we waited till he had eaten it, then fixed our own. Afterwards, when I brought him some coffee, he was shuffling a game of cards he had brought along. He said, “Sit down, Tedla. I need a partner.”
“I can’t do that, sir,” I said. “It’s too hard.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you.”
“I’m too old,” I said.
He broke out laughing. “You, old?”
I was a little annoyed at his deliberate misunderstanding. “I mean, too old to learn new things. I’ve been a bland more than a year now.” He knew as well as I did that blands’ brains began to atrophy at nine months, and we got progressively more stupid with age.
In a serious voice he said, “I will be very displeased if you don’t play with me.”
Of course, I sat down then. Without another word, he dealt.
We had played card games at the creche, but the deck he used was an adult one, much more complicated than I had seen. There were five different communities of cards, arranged into generations, with “cousin” cards crossing the boundaries. We actually used the antique kinship term, though it meant nothing to me.
He explained the rules of the game, but I didn’t recognize the cards very well, and kept making stupid mistakes. He won hand after hand.
“You know, it’s not very much fun for me if I win all the time,” he said.
I gave him a sullen glance, thinking it served him right for trying to play with a bland.
We played some more, but I was getting very sleepy, and he finally gathered the deck into its case. I had not noticed how dark it had gotten till I looked up at the sky, and gave a little gasp of amazement.
I had never seen so many stars. I got up to get away from the fire’s light. From one horizon to the other, the sky was simply spattered with them, thick as flour spilled on a black floor. The big streak of the galaxy arched overhead. Away off in the darkness, I could hear the river rushing over its bed.
I felt Tellegen at my side, also looking up. “Which one is the aliens’ star?” I asked. A docent had pointed it out to me, once, but I didn’t remember.
“You can’t see it now,” he said. “Only in winter.”
He pointed some other things out to me, though. He showed me the ecliptic and the zenith, and one of our neighboring planets, and the patterns of the constellations.
The air had gotten very chilly, and when I shivered he said, “Are you cold?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t realized what it would mean to be out here, exposed to the transparent sky at night, with no shelter anywhere. It was like being suspended over a chasm, not sure of what kept you from falling. I wanted to clutch the ground, but there was nothing to hold onto but grass.
“Does it frighten you?” he asked gently. I nodded.
He put an arm around me, and I was grateful to have an anchor, somehow imagining that he was more firmly rooted to earth than I, and could catch me if I fell into the sky. In a hesitant voice I said, “Do I have to sleep out here all night?”
“Would you like to sleep in the tent?” he said.
I nodded. I knew we had staked it firmly down, and at least inside I wouldn’t be able to see the emptiness above.
“Well, it’s a big tent,” he said. “I expect there’s room for you. You’ll have to be very quiet, and not disturb me.”
“I won’t,” I said.
Pelch was wrong; he was very cheerful the second day. I was the crabby one. My body ached in a thousand places, and it was sheer torture to climb on the horse again. Tellegen noticed how stiffly I moved but didn’t say anything, for which I was grateful.
Beyond the river, the land began to rise and got more rugged. Away off in the distance we could see blue hills against the sky. Here, the land seemed exaggerated, oversized. The day before, the hills had merely been undulations; here, they were presences, towering over us.
We reached the roundup site shortly after noon. We topped the crest of a ridge, and suddenly saw below us a wide river valley that narrowed like a funnel to the south. At the narrow end, where the hills hemmed the river close, were herded thousands upon thousands of head of cattle, grazing on the abundant valley grass. There were temporary pens and chutes set up, and we could see the ranch blands moving through the herd on their tough, wiry horses. Blue smoke rose from their camp.
As we came down the steep hill path, one of the men in charge saw us and came riding across the river and up the path to greet the squire. I had been riding next to him while no humans were about, but now I fell back with Jimmicky. As we came down into the valley I listened to the two men talking about business—the health of the herd, the number of calves, what percentage to cull for market. Squire Tellegen listened to all the details, and asked probing questions that made me realize he was genuinely interested.
Jimmicky and I split off to set up the squire’s camp at a spot he showed us, well upstream from the blands’ camp, so we would have clean water. When we were done, Jimmicky settled down to sleep in the warm sun. I knew I ought to wait at the camp where my duties were, but all the activity was going on by the pens, and I was curious. I decided to go locate Squire Tellegen, so I could keep an eye on him. When he headed back to the camp I would run ahead so I could be there, waiting for him.
I walked past the blands’ camp. There was only a single large tent set up—their roundroom, I assumed. A cook with a crippled leg was preparing a huge pot of stew and baking bread in a portable metal oven. It gave me a suspicious look, so I didn’t stop.
The blands had set up the cattle pens in a chain. The first pen was a corral large enough to contain almost a hundred of the beasts, sorted out from the larger herd farther down the valley. The buffs were huge black animals, very shaggy, with manes that nearly covered their short horns, and sharp cloven hoofs. Two ranch blands on horses were in among the crowd of cattle, sorting out the calves and driving them one by one down the chute to the second pen for branding. I watched them, entranced by the unconscious grace and skill of their movements. They were using only soft pad-saddles, like pillows, and guiding the horses with their knees and whistled commands. The horse and rider seemed like a single entity, their motions were so coordinated. Rushing into the crowd of cattle, wheeling round, dancing sideways, then charging forward—the horses seemed to know exactly what they were doing, as if they could think with their riders’ brains.
I spied Squire Tellegen standing at the fence, watching. There was a human with him, so I hung back; but presently the man left, so I ventured closer. When Tellegen noticed me, he said with some surprise, “Hello, Tedla. Have you come to watch?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, checking his face closely to make sure it was all right.
We stood there together for a while, both absorbed in the show. As we watched, one buff grew angry at the herders, and charged with her horns down. The horse s
lipped agilely away, but banged up against the fence, smashing the rider’s leg. The bland didn’t cry out, but the others had seen the accident, and rushed up to help it off the horse. Within a few seconds, another bland was on the horse and back at work, while the first limped away, leaning on a companion. Tellegen followed it with his eyes, frowning.
“Will it be all right?” I asked.
“I expect so,” he said. “They’re very hardy. They won’t accept human medicine; we’ve tried again and again. They have their own remedies that they trust more.”
The horse seemed scarcely to notice that its rider had changed; the new bland had the same rapport with it.
“The buffs are a hybrid,” Tellegen explained to me. “They are part domestic cow, part native buffalo. We’d hoped to get the docility of the tame cattle and the hardiness of the wild. But they’re still dangerous beasts. I suppose there’s no way to get a creature that can survive the winter on the range without a savage disposition.”
“Do the blands stay with them all year?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “These blands aren’t like you, Tedla. For them, being penned up at Menoken Lodge would be torture. They’re wild creatures, too.”
We walked on to view the activity in the second pen, where the branding was going on. Here, the blands were working on foot. As the calves came in, the blands skillfully roped them, tripped them, and tied their legs; then a human recorded the calf’s sex and weight, took a blood sample, and gave it a serial number, which the blands branded onto its ear with an inkgun.
“We keep track of the lineages, to ensure genetic diversity,” Tellegen explained.
“Are there bland cattle?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Humans are the only mammals with a sex that can’t reproduce.” He looked down at me. There was a hesitant, sad note in his voice. “Nature had to make us this way, because we threatened to overrun the planet. Now that we have learned better, we still must endure the punishment.”
He said “us,” but I knew he meant “you.”
That evening, after he had eaten dinner, he lit the lantern and went into his tent to write in his notebook. I finished washing up the dishes, then sat by the riverbank, listening to the stream gurgle by. Jimmicky had disappeared somewhere. There was a sweet scent of vegetation cooling after release from the hot sun—letting out its breath, perhaps, freed as I was by the approach of night. The sun had just set, and the sky was salmon and blue in the west. The hills were outlined in overlapping shadows against the sky.
A wind blew past, and the grass around me rustled. It brought the faint sound of voices from the blands’ camp just downstream. I rose, hesitating, and glanced at the squire’s tent; but I knew he wouldn’t need me or miss me for an hour at least. As silently as I could, I sneaked away down the riverbank.
When I got within earshot, they were singing. One had a stringed instrument, and another was drumming. It sounded strange and wild. The phrases blew my way on the wind; I could barely understand them, because the herders’ accent was so strong. But the tune spoke to me, lonely and searching. It made all our roundroom songs sound like jingles and nursery tunes. This was music that came from the grass hills and the hoofbeats, from wind and harness and hard ground, sweet as the scent of grass and ruleless as the weather. There was no trace of anything human in it.
I was still in the shadows outside the circle of their campfire, but I could see their weathered faces, like eroded stone or knotty wood, lit by the fire. Their bodies were lean and wiry. Everything about them seemed alien and free.
I heard a soft step behind me, and turned to look. Squire Tellegen had followed me. He said nothing, just smiled at me then stood there at my side, listening to the music. At last, in a voice that was barely a breath, he said, “What drew you down here, Tedla?”
Carried away by the moment, I said, “Squire, could I go with them some day? Could I go herding?”
My question took him completely by surprise. He blurted out, “Do you want to leave me, then?”
The pain in his voice was so unexpected by me, that I hung there, torn between my affection for him and the first real glimpse of freedom I had seen since the day when I wasn’t born. I glanced back to the campfire, then to his face again.
He quickly regained control of himself. Gravely, he said, “Tedla, if you want to go with them, I won’t stop you. I want what’s best for you. Spend the night with them. See if that is what you really want. I won’t need you until the morning.” He turned and left then, walking away stiffly, like a man trying to prevent himself from looking back.
The ranch blands had stopped singing, and were roasting something over the fire now. They were talking low among themselves, and I heard their laughter. I stood there, longing to step forward into their circle, but feeling as if an invisible barrier stood between me and these free neuters. The squire had been right; I was not like them. I was tied too firmly to humanity.
I turned and walked back toward the squire’s camp. When I got there I sat down quietly outside his tent, twisting a strand of grass in my hand. Presently, he looked out.
“You came back,” he said, and there was a terrible happiness in his voice.
“I haven’t fixed your night-drink yet,” I said.
I thought he would say more, but he just looked at me for a long time, then let the flap drop between us. I relaxed and went off to put the kettle on the fire.
***
His justification came only three days after we got back, and the whole house was on edge. Though I had come back from the roundup feeling confident, I quickly caught the prevailing anxiety. All of us were completely dependent on his making the right decision.
His friends and admirers sent him many messages in those three days, but he refused to read any of them, and they just collected on his desk. Pelch fretted that he wasn’t taking anyone else into account. On the eve of his justification day, he told Pelch to have us all leave him alone so he could spend the next day in prayer and reflection, speaking to no one from sunrise on. The morning after, I prepared to go up to his room feeling hollow inside with dread. But I found him standing there, looking out his window pensively. I said nothing and he said nothing, but I’m sure he saw how radiant I felt. When I went downstairs Pelch was waiting, its face haggard with worry. When it saw my face I thought it was going to hug me.
After justification, it was as if he had a new lease on life. He allowed me to coax him into some changes—getting his hair professionally cut again, stocking a better vintage of wine than penny-pincher Pelch wanted to buy. His friends showed up in droves, and as winter set in and we began baking and preparing for Leastday, Menoken Lodge seemed almost cheerful. Outside, the plains were desolate and wind-whipped under a glowering sky, and the river gorge became choked with ice, but inside we were a cozy family.
The roundup trip had changed my relationship to the squire. After coming back, I had half expected us to fall back into more formal roles, but Tellegen would have none of it. He often dawdled at dressing in order to talk to me, and on evenings when he had no guests he now insisted that I play cards with him.
At first I resisted, telling him I was too stupid. He didn’t argue or try to encourage me. He simply said, “I am your guardian, Tedla. I have a right to ask you to do this.” Almost against my will, I became interested. It was like any other exercise—hard and painful at first, but soon becoming pleasurable. The feeling of intense concentration, the sense of order coming out of disorder, my growing control—it was all unexpectedly satisfying. It got so that, when he was occupied and I had nothing else to do, I would secretly take the cards out of his desk and play games with myself so I could get good enough to amuse him.
But he was very good at cards, and it was hard to satisfy him. One night when I had kept the game going longer than usual, and felt quite pleased with myself, he burst my confidence by saying, “That’s not good enough, Tedla. I need you to challenge me, or I won’t be amused.”
“You should get a human to play with you, then,” I said.
“It intrigues me to have you,” he said. I thought he meant as it would intrigue him to see a dog sit at a table. I was a novelty, a diversion, something he could show at parties—a card-playing neuter.
But I now think it was an experiment. He wanted to see if I was capable of learning, and if so, how fast. How disappointed he must have been. Every time he tried to teach me something different I would resist, wanting to keep doing the old things I already knew. I wanted to settle back and coast, not to exert myself or compete, not to have to try—or fail—again. I had been given a license in life to cease struggling, and he was revoking it. Of course I resented it.
I was angry at him the first night I beat him. He had been irritable all day, criticizing me for little things, complaining about the other blands’ work, and the whole household was grumbling. By the time we sat down to cards, I was secretly vindictive. I became so caught up in the run of the tricks that I didn’t even notice he was losing till he laid down his cards and said, “Your game.”
I didn’t believe it. I looked at my remaining cards, then at his, and saw I could not help but take him. He was watching me carefully, as if to note down my reaction. I felt a rush of anger. “You let me win,” I accused. He had tried that a few times, early on, thinking it would encourage me, and found it had the opposite effect.
Now he shook his head. “I played as well as I knew how. You just played better.”
“That’s not true!” I said. My frustration boiled over. This all seemed part and parcel with the day. “I don’t want to play any more,” I said.
He looked mystified. “Tedla, you just won. You said you couldn’t do it, and you did. Doesn’t that give you any pleasure?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, it gives me great pleasure,” he said.
He could not know how much it threatened me to think I could win. If I were better than him at anything, then I would have to question the natural order that placed him above and me below. I did not want to question that. To question that was to start questioning everything. Nothing would be safe once I took that step.
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