Chapter 19

"I won't be here tomorrow," she warned MacPherson. "And today must be a short one. I need my rest; I'm going down to Eden tomorrow."

"Ye gae yersel'?" he said in surprise. "Why?"

"Long story," she told him. "But I need to be there, on the first landing. Does it frighten you, knowing we're here now?"

He gave her a long, speculative look. "Nae, Missus," he said at last. "Wha' I did, I did forr rreasons I ha'e tol' ye, an' I do no' know still if they werre guid rreasons or bad. Bu' be they guid, be they no', 'tis done noo. We arre herre, an' 'tis finish' an' beyon' me con'rrol. 'Twoul' be foolish t'fear wha' I canna con'rrol, an' sae I mus' simply wai' forr wha' is t'come."

She arched her eyebrows. "What a very sensible thing to say," she remarked.

"Och, I can say a thing mair," he continued. "I can wish ye guid luck, an' I do tha' mos' sincerrely. Ye've become me frrien', as guid as th' frrien' who once save' me afterr Luciferr, an' I mus' wish me frrien' weel on this thing ye do."

"Thank you very much, Angus."

"Noo gae," he said gently. "'Tis as ye say, ye need yer rres'. Come again t'tell me wha' is happen', when ye can. Bu' God gae wi' ye."

On the way down with Heisinger, Igwanda and Amuri she couldn't avoid a small sense of dejá vu. It was a trip she'd made so many times before. But always with Carlos, or almost always, and then with Meier as well, she thought. God, I miss Carlos, and I miss those days, too. If it were only possible to turn back the clock...

"I beg your pardon?" she started from her reverie. Igwanda had said something to her, but she'd been so focused on her memories that she'd missed it completely.

"Nothing, Grandmother," he told her tenderly. "I was just saying this must bring back a lot to you, and I guess it does."

"Yes," she said. "A very big lot." She bestirred herself mentally. "But it should be special for you and Alicia, it's your first time here. You'll be among the last to see Eden as it was and is and won't be for very long at all now. You too, 'Sheda," she added, turning to the astronomer. "And you as well, Arlen," she included Nassir, who was piloting the lander.

As the craft descended lower she looked out the porthole to discover, much to her amazement, that the meadow where they'd always touched down remained as pristine as ever. Even the pavilion and its outbuildings stood as they had been. "How astonishing," she murmured. "I thought they'd raze it all as soon as we left."

"Do we land there, Amanda?" asked Heisinger, pointing.

"I think so," Meiersdottir answered. "Here, right here," she specified further, indicating the spot where they'd always set down before. "And do it so the ramp extends out this way. It was like that every time humans came here, including that dreadful first visit when they killed most of the landing party." Her mind shuddered slightly in recollection of the scans of the fateful initial landing that she'd viewed long ago. "They'll probably recognize the positioning with their collective memory, even though this whopping thing is so much bigger than they've ever seen."

And so they came to rest once again on what was still the only planet other than Earth that had ever been found to have spawned a full range of life.

The village, too, was still there, and clearly still occupied. As they'd come down she'd seen that smoke continued to emanate from both the smelter—although she thought it was less than before—and their original rectangular building; and she'd even spotted a few of the natives in the pathways linking the various structures. One had been driving a cart pulled by a hexapod creature, proof that the Edenites had not totally abandoned the humans' teachings; it was the humans—in particular, Ling Zo, one of her late husband's troopers on the first visit and his sergeant on the second—who'd taught them the art of domesticating the local beasts. It pleased her that not all of the human lessons had been abandoned.

As she'd expected, though, not a single native came to the meadow to meet them. Gagugakhing's final words on their last visit echoed in her head: "if you come again we will not greet you, we will not speak you." That particular female, Meiersdottir knew, would be long dead now; but what she'd said had not been her decision alone but that of the entire Edenite collective, and it was clear that the decision stood.

"I told you, Alicia, they won't come to us," she said to Heisinger. "We must go to them." She turned to the pilot. "Arlen, please extend the ramp."

As soon as he did the four humans strode briskly down to the ground beneath. Well, "strode" as briskly as Meiersdottir's aged legs could manage, but she moved as rapidly as she could and they were soon at its base. There one distinction from earlier times made itself manifest, the undergrowth was appreciably taller than it had been then, reaching to their knees and higher.

"They used to tend this better," she commented. "Well, no need now, I suppose. Carlie, make us a path, will you, dear? That way." She pointed.

She cast longing glances at the familiar pavilion, but followed in her grandson's wake as he beat down the plants ahead of him. Soon they were in the taller surrounding foliage on the route that led to the Edenites' construction. Here, she noted, the undergrowth appeared well-trodden; they make no use of the meadow itself, she thought, but evidently they come to look at it now and again.

Then, abruptly, they emerged on the other side of the woodland equivalent into the laboriously made clearing where the natives had erected several houses, with the remainder of the ground beaten down into streets and pathways that ran between them. Several of the Edenites were plying those streets as the humans stepped out, but seemingly intent on their own business and studiously ignoring the intruders.