Grass Read Free Page B

now let Sanctity stay away from us. It's enough we let them stay on digging up the Arbai city, enough that those Green Brothers make mud pies with their little shovels up there in the north. Let elsewhere stay elsewhere and Grass stay Grass. So we all agree. Let's tell them so, once and for all. It's Hunt season, for heaven's sake. We haven't time for all this nonsense." Though Gustave no longer rode, he was an avid follower of the Hunt, watching the pursuit from a silent, propeller-driven balloon-car whenever the weather would allow.
    "Easy, Gustave," murmured Figor, the fingers of his right hand massaging his left arm at the point where the flesh and the prosthesis joined, feeling the pain pulse beneath his fingers, a constant accompaniment to existence, even after two years. It made him irritable, and he guarded against expressing the irritation, knowing it arose from the body rather than the mind. "We don't need to make an open revolt out of it. No need to rub Sanctity's fur the wrong way."
    "Revolt!" the older man bellowed. "Since when does this fragras Sanctity rule on Grass?" Though the word fragras meant simply "foreign," he used it as it was usually used on Grass, as the ultimate insult.
    "Shhh." Figor made allowances for Gustave. Gustave was in pain also and was undoubtedly made irritable thereby. "I didn't mean that kind of revolt, and you know it. Even though we have no religious allegiance to Sanctity, we pay it lip service for other things. Sanctity is headquartered upon Terra. We acknowledge Terra as the center of diplomatic intercourse. Maintainer of our cultural heritage. Eternal cradle of mankind. Blah and blah." He sighed, massaging again. Gustave snorted but did not interrupt as Figor went on. "Many take our history seriously, Gustave. Even we don't entirely ignore it. We use the old language during conferences; we teach Terran to our children. We don't all use the same language in our estancias, but we consider speaking Terran among ourselves the mark of cultured men, no? We calculate our age in Sanctity years, still. Most of our food crops are Terran crops from our ancestors' time. Why run afoul of Sanctity – and all those who might come roaring to her defense – when we don't need to?"
    "You want their damn what-are-they here? Prodding and poking. You want their nasty little researchers upsetting things?"
    There was a moment's silence while they considered things that might be upset. At this time of the year only the Hunt could be upset, for it was the only important thing going on. During the winter, of course, no one went anywhere, and during the summer months it was too hot to travel except at night, when the summer balls were held. Still, "research" had an awkward sound to it. People asking questions. People demanding answers to things.
    "We don't have to let them upset anything," Figor said doubtfully.
    "They've told us why they want to come. There's some plague or other and Sanctity's setting up missions here and there, looking for a cure." He rubbed his arm again, scowling.
    "But why here?" blurted Gerold bon Laupmon.
    "Why not here as well as anywhere? Sanctity knows little or nothing about Grass and it's grasping at straws."
    They considered this for a time. It was true that Sanctity knew little or nothing about Grass except what it could learn from the Green Brothers. Foreigners came and went in Commoner Town, allowed to stay there only so long as it took to get the next ship out and not allowed to come into the grass country at all. Semling had tried to maintain an embassy on Grass, unsuccessfully. Now there was no diplomatic contact with "elsewhere." Though the word was often used to mean Sanctity or Terra, it was also used in a more general sense: Grass was Grass; what was not Grass was elsewhere.
    Eric broke the silence. "Last time Sanctity said something about someone having come here with the disease and departed without it." He rose awkwardly on his artificial legs, wishing he could