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Journal Entry 00918 154 000 Reunion Part 9

Reunion, Part 9

Journal Entry 154 / 00918

Seren, Cerim 07, 00918

Garth took a deep breath of the cold morning air, looking out over the

valley. At the far end, he thought he saw a river fork in two directions,

one heading westerly, the other more to the north. On the other side of

that fork sat The Great Hall, looking as dark and imposing as he could

ever possibly have imagined it.

He wondered if he should wait for his guide to find him here, or if he

should head down into the valley and hope his guide would catch up there.

He decided on the spur of the moment that if his guide were to find

him, the Great Hall would destine the meeting. Settling the pack on his

shoulders, he set out down the hill.

He was glad for wearing a watch. He had never been an outdoors person,

preferring towns and cities and the infinite variety they presented. He

understood that there was variety out here, but for him it was harder

to find and he had never had the time to learn how. And without the

movement of the sun overhead, the only hint he had of the passing of

time came from his watch.

Glancing down at it once as he walked, he was surprised to realize that

more than five hours had passed since he had started out. He looked

around, wondering where his guide could be. While he had heard that once

in a while people walked the entire Hall without a guide, he also knew

that it was extremely rare.

He walked on, stopping at streams to refill his canteen and take a cold

drink from the fresh water himself. He had been assured that there was

nothing at all in the water around The Great Hall that could poison or

infect a Terran.

As he walked, he started to notice the movements of small animals in the

bushes. He'd been told that, depending on the region, mammals or psaurids

tended to dominate, but that around the Great Hall he might see one or

both. Nobody knew for sure why. Squirrels bounced from tree to tree,

as did something of equivalent size but furless, with an extended jaw.

The forest seemed to come alive around him. He'd been told that the only

reason anything ever happened on a walk to the Great Hall was part of a

test, and he wondered what he was being tested for right now. He thought

back to his conversation with Skii yesterday about Pamthreats and their

smaller-sized cousins, the Pardalet. Was that was this was about?

Shaking his head, Garth rose from the stream and walked on. He knew

that the Great Hall didn't intend to kill him. He felt that, although

he couldn't for the sake of him say why.

He walked on. The sky grew dark, then alight again. "What the?" He looked

up, not seeing a cloud in the sky, and then the darkness swept over him

again, and it was light. "First flash?"

"That's what it looked like." Garth turned around to see a slim, black

Felinzi approaching him. "Hi there. You Garth?"

Garth nodded. "Who are you?"

"Call me Pat," the figure said. Garth had trouble discerning if the

Felinzi was male or female; the voice seemed masculine, as did the

body mostly, but there were still elements to him that seemed decidedly

feminine. He decided, finally, that Pat was male.

"Where have you been all day?" Garth asked.

"Catching up to you, silly. You were walking like a horde of Pamthreats

were chasing you. I've been jogging at some points. That's one big stride

you've got there."

Garth looked down at his legs, wondering if Pat was being complimentary.

He decided that he was just being factual. "Thanks. If it's going to be

dark soon, shouldn't we get ready for sleep?"

"We should at least get ready for dark," Pat said. With a shrug, he

dropped his pack on the ground. "This is actually a pretty good clearing.

You mind if we camp here? There's a stream about forty meters that way

and the ground looks pretty clear." Pat examined the skies carefully. "I

don't think it's going to rain tonight, so we should do okay."

"I didn't bring a tent. What do we do if it rains?"

"We get wet." Pat smiled. "I don't think it's likely. Come on, unroll your

pack and pull out the food and tell me why you chose to walk the Hall."

Garth set down his pack as well. "I don't know," Garth admitted. "Let's

just say it feels like the right thing to do."

"That's not a very good reason to walk the Great Hall. 'It seemed like

a good idea at the time.'"

"Do I really need a good reason? I'm going to Walk the Hall and come

out the other side. I'm not going to be changed. I'm going to get the

advantages and there's not going to be much in the way of disadvantages

to me, is there?"

"Depends," Pat shrugged, rolling out his sleeping bag. "What do you

think the advantages are?"

"Well, I'll be harder to kill, right? And I'll be fertile."

"Do you really think either of those are going to do you any good? Terra's

almost a world of soft rounded edges, and nobody cares about fertility

there. It's all plastic and birth bags. But you're a little young to

understand that."

"Look, are you here to guide me or criticize me? What right do you have

to take apart my motives piece by piece?"

Pat half-smiled, half-laughed for a moment. "Hey, I walked the Hall when

I was 11. They almost fought a war over me."

It took Garth less than a second to realize who he was talking to. "You're

that Patricia?"

"Patrick, now, thank you," the Felinzi smiled. "I'm surprised you didn't

figure it out quicker."

"It's not like I've ever seen your picture since you walked."

"True. Kefferah and I sorta went underground after that. We just wanted

to be left alone."

Garth nodded.

"Look, uhm, I didn't mean to kill the conversation or anything. We still

need firewood. Do what you can to collect kindling, and I'll cut us a few

slabs of wood from that fallen tree I passed up the trail a little." Pat

pulled a small steel pommel from his bag. "Be right back."

Garth collected what kindling and firewood he could from around the

campsight, relieved that most of it was dry. As he came back, Pat was

walking back with an armload of quartered logs. "These new biphase

microwave knives are the best. Just aim and woosh! organic matter just

falls apart."

"Including people?" Garth asked.

"It's programmed not to operate on recognized sentient tissue. I wonder

if Katckins are in its memory, or is it just Pendorians?" He wielded the

currently bladeless pommel in Garth's direction. Garth flinched. "Just

kidding. I wouldn't use it on you. Besides, there's an easy override

on it."

"Why?"

"Survival option. In case I ever meet a non-sentient Pamthreat. They're

close enough that the sensor at the tip can't tell them apart."

Garth nodded. Pat sat down on one of the logs he had picked up and

started the fire. "What have you got to eat there?"

Garth counted off the contents of his pack. Pat examined the contents of

his own and scratched his chin. "Well, if you're willing to eat soup, we

can combine the contents of our packs. I can cook something reasonable."

He grinned. "Sorry, I've become something of a cooking fiend recently, and

the idea of living on field rations doesn't warm my stomach very much."

"I'll make do." Garth looked up in what he assumed was the direction of

the Hall. "Do you think we'll make it tomorrow?"

"Probably. Sometime in the early afternoon, at any rate. Why? Are you

anxious to get this over with?"

"A little," Garth admitted. "Although I'm a little surprised when they

asked me that I told them I wanted the morphing off."

"Why surprised?"

"I guess because I've never really been comfortable with my appearance. I

look at you and I see someone who's perfect compared to me. But recently

I've begun to realize that compared to anything else, this is the form

I have to live with."

"Better the Devil you know then the Devil you don't, eh?" Pat asked,

looking in the same direction Garth had been staring earlier and, like

Garth, seeing nothing. "It's funny, but I never thought about it that way.

I always saw the Hall as something that would put right the strangeness

I was always feeling before I walked it."

"What kind?"

"I don't know," Pat admitted. "I mean, I was surprised when I came out

male because I was always very girlish when I was a little girl. I played

with dolls and worried about my hair and my dresses. I was never a tomboy.

But for some reason, my boy-ness has become important to me. I like it

in a way I could never really describe."

"And the Hall did that to you?"

"I don't know." Pat shook his head. "Wish I understood it. Someday,

though, Garth, I hope you're as happy with your body as I am with mine."

"I hope so too."

"Well, you're determined to try. That's a good first step."

Garth nodded. They were silent as Pat spooned out portions of the dinner

he had cooked.

Pat volunteered to clean the dishes as well, and Garth let him disappear

down to the stream to wash up. Although not by any stretch an outdoorsmel,

Garth prided himself on having enough common sense to relieve himself

downhill from the campsite and away from the stream.

Pat returned. "So, tell me about Earth. What's it like a century later?"

"I don't know. What was it like when you left?" Pat shrugged. "I thought

so. It's hard to say much has changed. You've seen the politics. It's

just the same place."

"It must have changed somehow," Pat said. "People change. Places change. I

mean, I understand they rebuilt the coliseum in Rome again."

Garth nodded. "But, I mean, I'm not really the person to ask. You could

get a historian or something."

"I guess." Pat broke off half of a bar and handed it to Garth. He tasted

it warily, then ate the rest. "Ready for bed?"

"I think so," Garth said. "My feet are killing me. My legs, too."

"That happens when you go walking," Pat said. "Wait until tomorrow. You'll

wake up stiff and sore and have to break that down just to get comfortable

walking again."

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The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik, et. al., and Related Tales

are Copyright (c) 1989-2000 Elf Mathieu Sternberg. Distribution limited

to electronic media not-for-profit use only. All other rights are reserved

to the author.