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A few days later, the _Khoragos_ departed Hsia. Because of the extraordinary
fluxing, boats were being sent from Tasman and Elizabeth's Land, and some
effort was being made to evacuate the citizens of Naderville. It would take
months, and Lenk did not want to be there if things went wrong. He insisted
Shirla and I accompany him to Tasman.
Beys left Naderville in a small schooner, with a five-man crew, all that would
go with him.
None was ever heard from again.
Shirla sat on the deck of the _Khoragos_ in a small folding chair, sipping
from a bowl of tea. She smiled up at me as I approached, afraid but trying
hard not to show her fear. I sat beside her and she offered me the cup. I took
a sip.
"When is he going to show us?" she asked.
"Tonight. He's busy arranging things now. He's still Able Lenk."
Shirla gazed out to sea and her teeth began to chatter. With a jerk, she
stilled the quiver in her jaw and looked miserable. "You'll be going soon,"
she said. There had been so little time to talk, so many meetings and
arrangements before leaving Hsia. None of this had been worked over between
us.
"I don't think so," I said.
"If you can fix the clavicle..."
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"Ferrier says he doesn't believe that's possible, now."
"But if you can ... You'll go back to the Way."
I took her hand. "I don't know what will happen."
"You come from a larger place than anything I can conceive of," Shirla said.
"I've been taught all my life to be afraid of that place, to despise it. Now
you're my love and you come from there."
"We all come from there," I said.
"But I don't want to leave here. You must."
I squeezed her hand. In truth, nobody knew what would happen. "He wants you to
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be there, too," I said.
"Good Lenk invited me?"
"He did."
"Olmy," she said, putting her other hand over mine, "I wanted -- "
She tried valiantly again.
"I wanted -- "
Tears dripped down her cheeks.
"I _wanted,_" she managed again, and shook her whole upper body to rid herself
of this foolishness. "Never, ever, ever want anything with all your life,
ever. Never want. They will take it away. You will go away."
"I want, too. I know where I am now," I said.
"Who are you?" she asked.
Lenk sat in the cabin where we had met it seemed years earlier. Allrica Fassid
stood beside him, but left as Shirla and I came in. On the table before him
was an ornate xyla box.
"Nobody can offer any proof that you are from the Hexamon," he said as we sat
in two chairs opposite. "That is remarkable. I accept that you are, because of
what you have done. I know the ways of history, and it all smells right to
me." He turned to Shirla.
"You are a good woman, and have never wanted more than to have a family and
live a decent life."
Shirla blinked at him, then looked at me, too stunned to answer.
"Isn't that so? There's no need to be shy."
She nodded. It was so. Lenk knew his people well.
"You have made love with this man, in a certain way, under difficult
circumstances, and that means you are committed to him, and believe he is
committed to you. Do you accept him for what he is?"
"I don't think we came here to talk about that," Shirla said softly.
Lenk focused his deep-set, dark-lidded eyes on me. For a moment he looked
remarkably like a dead man. "I hear that Brion and Beys thought you could pass
judgment, that Beys worried you would split him like a ripe fruit. They were
cowards. The Hexamon cannot judge us."
He leaned forward and opened the box. Inside, the clavicle lay in many pieces,
some of them melted. Even after years, at the end of two projections within
the shattered sphere, a tiny bit of glimmer showed, the last trace of a small
finite artificial universe sympathetic with the Way.
None of the controls remained, however, and I saw it could never be repaired.
"You were a fool to come here alone," Lenk said. "Whoever sent you here was a
fool. I have withstood Lamarckia and treachery and the devils of my own
nature. I do not fear you or the
Hexamon. Brion is dead, and that is a kind of waste -- though he had too much
of the Hexamon in him -- and Beys is gone. So what are we to do, you and I?"
I stared across the table at the man who had started all this, saw his weary
defiance and his strength. I saw that Shirla was still in awe of him. He had
his center of power, and the force necessary to oust him from that center
would cause more bloodshed and, in the end, with all of
Lamarckia changing, do nobody any good.
"You've made a beginning for yourself," Lenk said. "You've gathered a
following. You could be like Brion, only I suspect you'd be a little colder
than he was, and never trust someone like
Beys. You could be formidable, Olmy."
I studied Lenk and felt the remains of my hate dissolve, not because of any
lessening of indignation and anger, but because he was part of a river of
human history that could not be shifted without immense pain. He was not the
worst, far from the best; but inevitably, he was in his place, and for me to
oppose him would be another kind of cruelty, not to him -- he might relish the
battle -- but to his people.
To Shirla.
I could guarantee nothing. The Hexamon might never come, and I could not
return to the Way.
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My mission was over.
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After a moment, Lenk leaned back and said, "I thank you for what you've
managed this far. I
bless you for your work. You're a smart and decent man, Ser Olmy, but you are
not like me, and not like Brion. Go and live a life with this woman."
I did not want my children on Lamarckia. Shirla wanted children; we
compromised.
Shirla and I lived in Athenai for ten years. It was there we adopted our first
boy, Ricca, one of the many orphans called Beys's children. I came in time
almost to forget the Hexamon. For weeks on end I thought little or nothing of
my past. I was well-known wherever we lived for being the Hexamon agent, but
even in the worst of times, nobody resented me, or at least nobody expressed
their resentments to me. The Adventists, what remained of them, came now and
then, and
Lenk did not oppose their coming. He knew I would not encourage them.
When Lenk died, Allrica Fassid took over the reins of power for a while, but
the first starvation set in five years later, and she committed suicide.
Others followed. The divaricates kept their political scheme, and never did I
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