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chamber, efficiently laid out, full of up-to-date office equipment; but above the desk stood a hologram of
Mt. Lorn and the undying snows. She paused, frowning at a comset, until she flipped its playback switch.
Once more she reviewed the latest message from Brodersen in Lima. Image and voice alike registered
weariness: " -- just such a hellish lot of utter nonsense to wade through. No end in sight, either. You'd
cope better than I'm doing, honey. And wouldn't it be grand to have you here! I keep telling myself that
isn't really practical, then looking for ways to prove myself wrong -- "
Soon, however, he mentioned Caitlin. At first Lis skipped that part, then she bit her lip and played it
over, twice. Thereafter she sat down and pondered. Finally she ran through the reply that she had been
composing when Aurelia Hancock interrupted. She now had considerable to say that was new and
important. Before she did, something remained which might matter a great deal more.
Her electronic Doppelganger looked out of the screen and declared: " -- Your news is almost scary.
Let me talk to her. The next few minutes of this are for her."
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An awkward clearing of throat and shifting of position, followed by: "Caitlin, dear, hello. Salud. What
Dan tells me about you does not sound good. Not that he says much, I think in part because he hasn't
much to say. Apparently you go about your life in a more or less normal fashion. But, well, for instance,
he hasn't mentioned any jokes between you and him, and he usually shares those with me. Or -- " The
tape recorded a doorchime and stopped.
Lis considered, started the machine again, and spoke into the light-years behind it.
"Dan, this is for Caitlin. Her alone. Switch off and let her have the rest. I've more to give you, but I'll
put that on the next track." She knew he would honor the request.
"Caitlin, I don't think you'd better show this to Dan. Tell him it's girl talk. God knows he has worries
enough. You, your grief, that's the heaviest of them.
"Please," Lis said, suddenly fighting for breath, "can you see I don't want to make you feel guilty or
anything? What you've been through, I'll never be able to imagine. Or what you're longing for -- that's
more nearly the trouble, isn't it? You're lost in a dream of what was, and he senses you are, and -- "
She marshalled her thoughts. "You have to come back. For your own sake, and his, and yes, mine.
Mine, not only through him. I could book passage to Earth, Caitlin, since he's going to be there for
months yet. I would, except that you need all he can give. He mustn't lose you to the half-life you're in. I
mustn't either. I've discovered how much you are to me."
She sighed. "Oh, yes, I've been envious of you, and no doubt I will be once in a while in future. But
not jealous. Not any longer. We both love him, and he loves both of us. Well, shouldn't we care for each
other?" A chuckle. "Could be the day will come when he envies me a little...or feels a little jealous. Which
wouldn't hurt him!
"Caitlin, come home.
"I've not been where you've been, but I am older than you and I have seen parts of life that you
maybe haven't. Let me suggest, let me call to you -- "
When she was done, Lis rose and stretched, muscle by muscle. She'd scan her speech tomorrow,
perhaps edit it, though merely for clarity; she knew what the counsel was, and hoped it might help.
Meanwhile, how about a nightcap, some Sibelius, and bed? She'd want her full energy in the morning.
To hell with being Griselda or even Penelope. She had work to do.
L
Spring came early that year to Ireland. On a morning thereof, Brodersen and Caitlin set out on a
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day-long ramble.
This was in County Clare. Five centuries old, long abandoned, lately restored for renting to visitors,
their cottage nonetheless held remembrances of generations who had been born within its walls, grown
up, fallen in love, begotten and raised children, toiled, suffered, sorrowed, laughed, sung, dreamed,
grown aged, died and been keened over. Low and whitewashed beneath a mossy thatch roof, it stood
alone on a height overlooking the sea; they who dwelt here had mostly kept sheep. Several kilometers
off, a village in a cove still housed fisher folk. Their manners being of an ancient kind, they did not rush to
inform the world who was staying close by, but honored a wish for privacy that their priest had told them
of. Meeting the famous pair in street or store, taking them out in a boat, drinking with them in the pub, the
villagers were content to be friendly.
"A fine day for sure," Brodersen said. He put the knapsack that held lunch on his back while he
looked around.
Westward, gorse and bracken came to an abrupt end at a cliff edge. Afar, the waters shone tawny,
emerald, quicksilver, in a shiver of small waves. Closer in, they burst in surf, white buntains, on rocks and
skerries and steeps. This high up, he heard the roaring. Southward the land was likewise rugged,
northward more so. Eastward it rolled in verdancy toward the blue bulk of a mountain whose top was
the goal of his and Caitlin's hike. Hawthorn hedges bloomed snowy along winding lanes. Scattered
farmhouses sent chimney smoke into a sky where a few clouds wandered. Closer stood the grassy
slopes of a rath, a circular earthwork which had guarded a homestead before St. Patrick walked through
Erin; deserted at last, it became known as a haunt of the Sidhe, of whom the first tales were told before
Christ walked through Galilee.
A cool breeze bore odors of sea and soil and growth. High overhead, a lark sang.
"Aye," Caitlin said. "As if the country would bid us goodbye with a blessing."
He turned his gaze on her. Heavy shirt, slacks, and brogans could not hide erect slenderness or take
away free-striding gracefulness. Bronze hair fell below a headband; a stray lock above fluttered. In the
sun-touched, lightly freckled face, her eyes were more green than the quickening fields, and her smile
held a merriment he had not seen from the time she left his ship for the Others to the time when they had
for a while been by themselves in this place.
"She, uh, she gave me the best blessing she can, way off on Demeter," he said. "You."
Caitlin laughed. "Why, Dan, is it a bard you'd be?"
"No. Hardly my line of work. But- oh, rats- I'm forever wanting to say how I feel about you, and
never able."
"You've a better way than words for that, and you might consider a demonstration when we've
rested on yonder peak. But first we must get there. Come." She led him by the hand down a path to a
narrow dirt road that rambled between its flowering hedges, now right, now left, more or less in the
direction they wanted to go.
When they had fallen into a steady pace -- flex of muscles, swing and soft thud of shoes, lungs full,
blood coursing -- he ventured, "Another thing I can't figure out how to tell, Pegeen, is how glad I am to
see you back to your real self. Glad? Huh! I'd have died to bring it about."
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Gravity descended upon her. "Was I that mournful?"
"Oh, no. Somebody who hadn't met you before would never guess anything strange had ever
happened to you."
"I should hope not." Her tone held a touch of grimness. The one secret that they of Chinook
preserved was the fact of the avatars.
"I lay on you a geas that you keep silent about this," she had told her shipmates, "for my sake, and
the sake of the Others, and likely the sake of many more." Brodersen had added weight to that last by
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