She giggles. "Wobbly," she says.
"Old World charm," he agrees, trying and failing to catch her eye as he smiles.
"You have everything worked out?" she asks after they have begun eating.
"Sort of," he says, smiling again.
"Is that a yes or a no?"
"Both. I need more information. I want to go and check things over first. Then I can figure the best course of action."
"I note your use of the singular pronoun," she says steadily, meeting his gaze at last.
His smile freezes and fades.
"I was referring to only a little preliminary scouting," he says softly.
"No," she says. "We. Even for a little preliminary scouting."
He sighs and sets down his fork.
"This will have very little to do with anything to come later," he begins. "Things have changed a lot. I'll have to locate a new route. This will just be dull work and no fun."
"I didn't come along for fun," she replies. "We were going to share everything, remember? That includes boredom, danger, and anything else. That was the understanding when I agreed to pay our way."
"I'd a feeling it would come to that," he says, after a moment.
"Come to it? It's always been there. That was our agreement."
He raises his goblet and sips the wine.
"Of course. I'm not trying to rewrite history. It's just that things would go faster if I could do some of the initial looking around myself. I can move more quickly alone."
"What's the hurry?" she says. "A few days this way or that. I'm in pretty good shape. I won't slow you down all that much."
"I'd the impression you didn't particularly like it here. I just wanted to hurry things up so we could get the hell out."
"That's very considerate," she says, beginning to eat again. "But that's my problem, isn't it?" She looks up at him. "Unless there's some other reason you don't want me along?"
He drops his gaze quickly, picks up his fork. "Don't be silly."
She smiles. "Then that's settled. I'll go with you this afternoon to look for the trail."
The music stops, to be succeeded by a sound as of the clearing of a throat. Then, "Excuse me for what may seem like eavesdropping," comes a deep, masculine voice. "It is actually only a part of a simple monitoring function I keep in effect—"
"Aldon!" Paul exclaims.
"At your service, Mr. Plaige, more or less. I choose to make my presence known only because I did indeed overhear you, and the matter of your safety overrides the good manners that would otherwise dictate reticence. I've been receiving reports that indicate we could be hit by some extremely bad weather this afternoon. So if you were planning an extended sojourn outside I would recommend you postpone it."
"Oh," Dorothy says.
"Thanks," Paul says.
"I shall now absent myself. Enjoy your meal and your stay."
The music returns.
"Aldon?" Paul asks.
There is no reply.
"Looks as if we do it tomorrow or later."
"Yes," Paul agrees, and he is smiling his first relaxed smile of the day. And thinking fast.
THE WORLD. Life on Balfrost proceeds in peculiar cycles. There are great migrations of animal life and quasi-animal life to the equatorial regions during the long winter. Life in the depths of the seas goes on. And the permafrost vibrates with its own style of life.
The permafrost. Throughout the winter and on through the spring the permafrost lives at its peak. It is laced with mycelia— twining, probing, touching, knotting themselves into ganglia, reaching out to infiltrate other systems. It girds the globe, vibrating like a collective unconscious throughout the winter. In the spring it sends up stalks that develop gray, flowerlike appendages for a few days. These blooms then collapse to reveal dark pods that subsequently burst with small, popping sounds, releasing clouds of sparkling spores that the winds bear just about everywhere. These are extremely hardy, like the mycelia they will one day become.
The heat of summer finally works its way down into the permafrost, and the strands doze their way into a long period of quiescence. When the cold returns they are roused, spores send forth new filaments that repair old damages, create new synapses. A current begins to flow. The life of summer is like a fading dream. For eons this had been the way of things upon Balfrost, within Balfrost. Then the goddess decreed otherwise. Winter's queen spread her hands, and there came a change.
THE SLEEPERS. Paul makes his way through swirling flakes to the administration building. It has been a simpler matter than he had anticipated, persuading Dorothy to use the sleep-induction unit to be well rested for the morrow. He had pretended to use the other unit himself, resisting its blandishments until he was certain she was asleep and he could slip off undetected.
He lets himself into the vaultlike building, takes all of the old familiar turns, makes his way down a low ramp. The room is unlocked and a bit chilly, but he begins to perspire when he enters. The two cold lockers are in operation. He checks their monitoring systems and sees that everything is in order.
All right, go! Borrow the equipment now. They won't be using it.
He hesitates.
He draws nearer and looks down through the view plates at the faces of the sleepers. No resemblance, thank God. He realizes then that he is trembling. He backs away, turns, and flees toward the storage area.
Later, in a yellow snowslider, carrying special equipment, he heads inland.
As he drives, the snow ceases falling and the winds die down. He smiles. The snows sparkle before him, and landmarks do not seem all that unfamiliar. Good omens, at last.
Then something crosses his path, turns, halts, and faces him.
ANDREW ALDON. Andrew Aldon, once a man of considerable integrity and resource, had on his deathbed opted for continued existence as a computer program, the enchanted loom of his mind shuttling and weaving thereafter as central processing's judgmental program in the great guardian computerplex at Playpoint. And there he functions as a program of considerable integrity and resource. He maintains the city, and he fights the elements. He does not merely respond to pressures, but he anticipates structural and functional needs; he generally outguesses the weather. Like the professional soldier he once had been he keeps himself in a state of constant alert—not really difficult considering the resources available to him. He is seldom wrong, always competent, and sometimes brilliant. Occasionally he resents his fleshless state. Occasionally he feels lonely.
This afternoon he is puzzled by the sudden veering off of the storm he had anticipated and by the spell of clement weather that has followed this meteorological quirk. His mathematics were elegant, but the weather was not. It seems peculiar that this should come at a time of so many other little irregularities, such as unusual ice adjustments, equipment glitches, and the peculiar behavior of machinery in the one occupied room of the hotel—a room troublesomely tenanted by a non grata ghost from the past.
So he watches for a time. He is ready to intervene when Paul enters the administration building and goes to the bunkers. But Paul does nothing that might bring harm to the sleepers. His curiosity is dominant when Paul draws equipment. He continues to watch. This is because in his judgment, Paul bears watching.
Aldon decides to act only when he detects a development that runs counter to anything in his experience. He sends one of his mobile units to intercept Paul as the man heads out of town. It catches up with him at a bending of the way and slides into his path with one appendage upraised.
"Stop!" Aldon calls through the speaker.