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distraction to you, whether you wanted me to be or not."
Their eyes met. "I'm one of Time's soldiers, too, Hal," she said, "and it was
my duty to be elsewhere." "And what if it's to be we never have time for
ourselves?" Hal asked softly. "You asked me that before. We will," she
answered. Her eyes still held his steadily. "We will. I promise you."
An unreasonable happiness leaped up in him; but just at that moment the air
quivered about them like soundless thunder, felt not heard, and they both
looked up. A dot was flashing down out of the sky toward them in jumps,
growing with each jump more into a visible shape, and nearer. It was Simon
Graeme doing what the Dorsai did as a matter of course, but few pilots from
Other worlds would risk-phase-shifting down to almost the very surface of a
world, so as to avoid any but the briefest sound of a ship coming through the
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atmosphere to a landing. "We'll talk more-later," said Hal hastily. "Yes, we
will," she answered; as with a sudden brief explosion of displaced air and
atmospheric motors, the courier ship landed in the open area less than fifty
meters from where they stood.
376
Gordon R. Dickson
They went forward, but the entry port swung open before they had reached it
and Simon looked out. He gripped Hal's hand briefly as they came aboard, and
punched the key that closed the port behind them. "We'll have to move fast,"
he said. "There're more Younger World ships in orbit than I've seen here
before; and that courier from Earth coming out to contact me was noticed. Find
your seats, strap in, and we'll lose ourselves outside Procyon's orbit as soon
as possible . . . ...
It was almost two days, after all, before they reached safely through the
phase-shield and landed inside the Final Encyclopedia. Simon and Amanda had
taken turns driving the ship, so that the next shift to be calculated was
always being worked on even as they were making the current jump. So abrupt
had been their departure that they had left with nothing but the clothes they
had on-in Hal's case, some gray trousers and a light blue shirt that had been
made for him at the Chantry Guild. In Amanda's case, they were her standard
bush clothes for travel out of sight of the local military: boots, trousers
and jacket, both of khaki twill, the shirt with a number of pockets.
Rukh, who was waiting for them in the docking area at the entrance to an
access corridor as they stepped out of the parked ship, showed no interest in
how they were dressed. She herself was looking unusually, almost ominously
formal, in a long black skirt and high-collared white blouse, with her usual
lone adornment the steel neckchain with its pendant granite disk incised with
a cross, showing in the collar's short opening, in front. "Hal!" she said.
She hugged him. There was still a remarkable strength in her thin arms. She
had seemed made of monocellular cord and steel when he had first known her as
a commander of her Resistance Group on Harmony. Now, she felt so light as to
be almost weightless in his arms; but he thought now that there was part of
that original strength, which had survived the attrition of the days and
nights of torture in the Militia cell; and the glow of her faith, which never
failed to seem to set her aglow from within. For a second, holding her, he
thought he touched the reason she had been so easily able to accept Barbage,
her former torturer, as now one of her most dedicated followers. It was not as
if she had merely forgiven him. It was something greater than that. It
THE CHANTRY GUILD
377
o understand how he could have ks if her faith allowed her t what he was then,
and yet suddenly become what he was
rgiveness on her side, or So that there was no need for fo '_ iimd to ask for
it, on his. But she was stri
ding ahead of them now, drawing away from
Amanda's were so Am in spite of the fact that his legs and
longer than hers. urry!" she said. "We've got his quarters right next to the
area, expecting you." rideed, it was only some thirty meters down the silent,
.'gwen-carpeted hallway between the dark-paneled walls to the tingle door at
the corridor's end; and she led them through into ',_,the rooms of Tam Olyn.
The mechanical magic, which could shift areas around within its shell, at
will, had brought Tam as
dm to their arrival point as possible.
They stepped into the familiar main room, which had been designed long since
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