The air was growing cold, and in the fading twilight a delicate frosting of snow glittered on the ground. The snow clouds had scattered, and the stars and the Anvil of Light were already piercing the evening sky. Moramaharta strode beyond the edge of the clearing, robes bundled tightly around him. He chose the steepest trail up the ridge, testing muscle against gravity. They got too little activity here, even in the midst of the wilds, while they deliberated their weighty matters. They needed to be outside more, all of the Five.
He pushed through a clump of dwarf verberta and paused to shake the snow from the arms of his robe. He watched the twinkling snowdust as it fell. Each crystal of snow was like a fragment of memory, a shard of his contact with the perplexing Humans. As the snowdust swirled to the ground, the memories swirled in his mind and would not stop.
He strode upward. Eventually he paused where a break in the trees permitted a view across the valley, all sheen and shadow in the deepening night. The stars were beginning to illuminate the sky now, the Anvil of Light rising imperiously in the east. Below, the meditation hall was a dark shape half-hidden by the woods. Moramaharta studied the sky, the red haze of the nebula thickest and brightest near the Anvil itself, where a darker, dustier radiance concealed a birthplace of new generations of stars. Across the sky, in a darker region, individual stars shone bright; there lay not just the Hope Star but the Outsider world, though he could not, with the unaided eye, pick out either. In that direction lay forces he needed to understand.
A quiet was growing on him now, as he lowered himself to a crouch. He slowed his breathing rate and allowed his gaze to drift, until the memory of the Human contact crystallized as a discrete image floating among the stars. A memory of the *Ell* Circle superimposed itself on the snow-dusted tree branches that framed his vision. And against the shadowy dark of the valley, a greater and yet still indistinct image grew: the shape of the Ell people, their spirit, their puzzlement, their hurt.
Silently but urgently he spun a meditation about the images; he drew into it the emotions that had taken hold of the Inner Circle . . . the urgency . . . the pain of the Hope Star expedition . . . the resonance with the Human horror—all elements to be reconciled with the truth of the Ell nature, the nature hidden in all of them. The elements danced in the center of Moramaharta's meditation, in the center of the center . . .
*
Beneath the stars
*
with the wind and the trees and the snow
*
was a part of the need
*
and the answer.
*
Up here on the ridge, as he looked out among the stars, his spirit expanded; and something touched it that was neither of Ell nor of Humans, but of the world itself—the wind and the trees and the sky, both a remoteness from it and a connectedness. Other times, he had felt the stirrings, the awareness trembling; but now it filled his soul in the clarity of the meditation. There was a power in the land that surrounded him, that seemed to fill him like a vessel with light . . .
*
The mind soared
*
the memories awoke
*
the darkness of the spirit trembled
*
and opened to the light.
*
For a heartbeat, he was flooded by a presence that he could not grasp or control, a ring of psychic unity—a meditation containing him alone, with the trees and the wind and the stars. An illumination seemed to radiate from within him, and the trees shone with an unreal translucence. Something was changing at his center. He felt the light deep within, where he knew he needed to look—within, illuminating the racial memory. It was a shimmering, unclear thing, and yet now he perceived the truth:
The Ell had once been a passionate race. As the Outsiders were passionate in their meditation, so had the Ell been, before the tar'dyenda, when their genetic science had altered them for a world gone mad, a world shaken by earthquakes, drenched by radiations, pummeled by cometary collisions—a world that, for a thousand years, was a ruin of what it had been. The new Ell were different: a calmer, leaner, hardier race, cool and balanced, designed for survival and immune to the instabilities of passion. But they were incomplete. The malaise, the declining birthrate, the failure of artistic and intellectual spirit—all betrayed the flaws in their strength.
And yet, the spirit for which they had searched the light-years, the spirit they had hoped to rediscover in the Lost Ell, was here with them all the time. It was in Moramaharta right now—buried deeply, slumbering, but present nonetheless. And what had caused it to stir in its sleep was the contact with the Outsiders—a contact they just perhaps had lost forever.
Could he undo what had been done? Could he persuade the Circle to take a risk?
He recalled his vow to Dououraym, his promise to step aside if the others judged his views too extreme . . .
The inner light was fading as the meditation slipped away. He rose from his crouch. It was time to return. The sky was clouding over, the stars and the Anvil of Light hiding their faces, and another snowfall was beginning to drift down from the sky.
* * *
He met the others just inside the hall. Lenteffier and Gwyndhellum were on their way out to look for him. "Would you talk, or renew the binding?" Moramaharta asked in greeting. Dououraym was standing nearby, and he could see the concern; and to forestall discussion of his abrupt departure earlier, he said, in the hearing of the others but to Dououraym, "I have an insight, and a request to make."
Dououraym strode, followed by the others, into the meditation chamber. "Speak," he said when all were gathered.
Moramaharta surveyed the Circle. "We must renew contact with the Outsiders. It is critical—more than the body realizes."
Dououraym's eyes probed his. They were as calculating as Moramaharta had ever seen them. "The contact is broken from the other end," Dououraym said. "As you know."
"Then we must wait," Moramaharta said. "If we can contact !!Ghint, we must withhold action. We must renew the contact."
"Must?"
"Any other action will jeopardize the quest."
Dououraym looked at him silently, and Moramaharta was aware of the other three, not fully comprehending, but noting his vehemence. The binder did not usually express personal views so . . . passionately. "This is a question that must be decided in binding," Dououraym said. "But you know that the enemy is vulnerable now."
"Vulnerable to what purpose? That we might reign over the ashes of a failed quest? The Outsiders are our key."
Dououraym clicked his nails impatiently. "There was a resonance, it is true. But there must be practicality."
"I am speaking of practicality."
Dououraym closed his eyes, opened them. "The meditation will decide—if the binder can maintain it—firmly, and without bias."
"The binder has a bias, which he will state plainly so that all will know. But the binder makes a request."
"Which is?"
Moramaharta gazed around the meditation chamber, the place of familiarity and comfort from which all critical decisions were rendered. He knew that he was failing to convince; nevertheless, he had to try. "That the binding occur out-of-doors. Among the trees. And the wind. And the sky. Unsheltered, in the elements."
If astonishment was potentially an Ell feeling, he observed it now on all the faces of the decision-body. Before any could speak, he continued, "I believe that our isolation has hindered us from seeing a truth. The sidan'dri is not enough. We must be surrounded. Surrounded by the stars and the wind and the trees."
Several heartbeats passed before anyone answered. Then it was Dououraym, saying simply, "Can you explain why?"
"From within the meditation, yes. Let us for now say this: It is essential for the strength of the montan'dri in which I would wrap our binding."
He waited. Dououraym's eyes joined his, melted with his. (You remember our agreement?) Dououraym said directly into his thoughts.
(I remember. And will honor it.)
(Then . . .) Dououraym answered, saying aloud, "It is agreed. For one time only. But first we must all of us rest."
"Soon, then," Moramaharta whispered. "Time flees before us.