With Friends Like These... Part 10

But there was something odd this evening. There were many people gathered around the pier, and not just tourists. Market-owner Diego was there, as were her friends Juana and Maria, and many others.

Then she saw the Hermosa, chugging slowly and painfully toward her mooring place at the pier's far end, a white stormcloud of seagulls and terns escorting her. She saw how close the old boat's sheer dipped to the water. She began to move faster, and as she got closer she could see the old man standing straight and 119.

proud on the tiny bridge, and the sun also made color with his teeth.

* She was on the pier, the boards click-clacking under her soles as she ran and yelled, pushing past the people, not caring if she b.u.mped the wealthiest Norteamericano in the world into the bay.

"Grandfather, Grandfather... 1"

His hands smelled of fish when he picked her up, but they were good at brushing away tears.

120.

Dream Done Green Where do you get your ideas?

That has to be the question most often asked of writers, and writers of science fiction in particular. I tend to the answer the great writer-artist Carl Barks gave when his character inventor Gyro Gearloose inquired of a nondescript bird as to why it sings, and the bird replied, "Oh, maybe I'm glad, maybe I'm sad, maybe I'm a little mad."

But there are exceptions. A farmgirl in Maryland wrote me once and happened to mention that her favorite books were about horses, and science fiction. Why, she wondered, weren't there more science-fiction horse stories?

I wondered too, and so ...

The life of the woman Casperdan is doc.u.mented in the finest detail, from birth to death, from head to toe, from likes to dislikes to indifferences.

121.

Humans are like that.

The stallion Pericles we know only by his work.

Horses are like that.

We know it all began the year 1360 Imperial, 1822 After the Breakthrough, 2305 after the human Micah Sch.e.l.l found the hormone that broke the lock on rudimentary animal intelligence and enabled the higher mammals to attain at least the mental abilities of a human ten-year-old.

The quadrant was the Stone Crescent, the system Burr, the planet Calder, and the city Lalokindar.

Lalokindar was a wealthy city on a wealthy world. It ran away from the ocean in little b.u.mps and curlicues. Behind it was virgin forest; in front, the Beach of Snow. The homes were magnificent and sat on s.p.a.cious grounds, and that of the industrialist Dandavid was one of the most s.p.a.cious and magnificent of all.

His daughter Casperdan was quite short, very brilliant, and by the standards of any age an extraordinary beauty. She had the looks and temperament of a t.i.tania and the mind of a Baron Sachet. Tomorrow she came of legal age, which on Calder at that time was seventeen.

Under Calderian law she could then, as the oldest (and only) child, a.s.sume control of the family business or elect not to. Were one inclined to wager on the former course he would have found planty of takers. It was only a formality. Girls of seventeen did not normally a.s.sume responsibility and control for multimil-lion-credit industrial complexes.

Besides, following her birthday Casperdan was to be wed to Comore du Sable, who was handsome and intelligent (though not so rich as she).

Casperdan was dressed in a blue nothing and sat on the bal.u.s.trade of the wide balcony overlooking Snow Beach and a bay of the Greengreen Sea. The aged German shepherd trotted over to her, his claws clicking softly on the purple porphyry.

The dog was old and grayed and had been with the 122.

Dream Done Green family for many years. He panted briefly, then spoke.

"Mistress, a strange mal is at the entrance."

Casperdan looked idly down at the dog.

"Who's its master?"

"He comes alone," the dog replied wonderingly.

"Well, tell him my father and mother are not at home and to come back tomorrow."

"Mistress"-the dog flattened his ears and lowered his head apologetically-"he says he comes to see you."

The girl laughed, and silver flute notes skittered off the polished stone floor.

"To see me? Stranger and stranger. And really alone?" She swung perfect legs off the bal.u.s.trade. "What kind of mal is this?"

"A horse, mistress."

The flawless brow wrinkled. "Horse? Well, let's see this strange mal that travels alone."

They walked toward the foyer, past cages of force filled with rainbow-colored tropical birds.

"Tell me, Patch . .. what is a 'horse'?"

"A large four-legged vegetarian." The dog's brow twisted with the pain of remembering. Patch was extremely bright for a dog. ."There are none on Calder. I do not think there are any in the entire system."

"Off-planet, too?" Her curiosity was definitely piqued, now. "Why come to see me?"

"I do not know, mistress."

"And without even a human over h-"

Voice and feet stopped together.

The mal standing in the foyer was not as large as some. La Moure's elephants were much bigger. But it was extraordinary in other ways. Particularly the head. Why ... it was exquisite! Truly breathtaking. Not an anthropomorphic beauty, but something uniquely its own.

Patch slipped away quietly.

The horse was black as the Pit, with tiny exceptions. The right front forelock was silver, as was the diamond on its forehead. And there was a single streak 123.

of silver partway through the long mane, and another in the black tail. Most mal wore only a lifepouch, and this one's was strapped to its neck. But it also wore an incongruous, utterly absurd hat of green felt, with a long feather, protruding out and back.

With a start she realized she'd been staring . . . very undignified. She started toward it again. Now the head swung to watch her. She slowed and stopped involuntarily, somehow constrained from moving too close.

"This is ridiculous! she thought. It's only a mere mal, and not even very big. Why, it's even herbivorous!

Then whence this strange fluttering deep in her tummy?

"You are Casperdan," said the horse suddenly. The voice was exceptional, too: a mellow tenor that tended to rise on concluding syllables, only to break and drop like a whitecap on the sea before the next word.

She started to stammer a reply, angrily composed herself.

"I am. I regret that I'm not familiar with your species, but I'll accept whatever the standard horse-man greeting is."

"I give no subservient greeting to any man," replied the horse. It shifted a hoof on the floor, which here was deep foam.

A stranger and insolent to boot, thought Casperdan furiously. She would call Patch and the household guards and . . . Her anger dissolved in confusion and uncertainty.

"How did you get past Row and Cuff?" Surely this harmless-looking, handless quadruped could not have overpowered the two lions. The horse smiled, showing white incisors.

"Cats, fortunately, are more subject to reason than many mal. And now I think I'll answer the rest of your questions.

"My name is Pericles. I come from Quaestor." Quaestor! Magic, distant, Imperial capital! Her 124.

Dream Done Green anger at this maFs insolence was subsumed in excitement.

"You mean you've actually traveled all the way from the capital... to meet me?"

"There is no need to repeat," the horse murmured, "only to confirm. It took a great deal of time and searching to find someone like you. I need someone young . . . you are that. Only a young human would be responsive to what I have to offer. I needed someone bored, and you are wealthy as well as young."

"I'm not bored," Casperdan began defiantly, but he ignored her.

"I needed someone very rich, but without a mult.i.tude of ravenous relatives hanging about. Your father is a self-made tyc.o.o.n, your mother an orphan. You have no other relatives. And I needed someone with the intelligence and sensitivity to take orders from a mere mal."

This last was uttered with a disdain alien to Casperdan. Servants were not sarcastic.

"In sum," he concluded, "I need you."

"Indeed?" she mused, too overwhelmed by the outrageousness of this animal's words to compose a suitable rejoinder.

"Indeed," the horse echoed drily.

"And what, pray tell, do you need me for?"

The horse dropped its head and seemed to consider how best to continue. It looked oddly at her.

"Laugh now if you will. I have a dream that needs fulfilling."

"Do you, now? Really, this is becoming quite amusing." What a story she'd have to tell at the preparty tomorrow!

"Yes, I do. Hopefully it will not take too many years."

She couldn't help blurting, "Years!"

"I cannot tell for certain. You see, I am a genius and a poet. For me it's the dream part that's solid. The reality is what lacks cert.i.tude. That's one reason why I need human help. Need you."

125.

This time she just stared at him.

"Tomorrow," continued the horse easily, "you will not marry the man du Sable. Instead, you will sign the formal Control Contract and a.s.sume directorship of the Dan family business. You have the ability and brains to handle it. With my a.s.sistance the firm will prosper beyond the wildest dreams of your sire or any of the investors.

"In return, I will deed you a part of my dream, some of my poetry, and something few humans have had for millennia. I would not know of this last thing myself had I not chanced across it in the Imperial archives."

She was silent for a brief moment, then spoke brightly, "I have a few questions."

"Of course."

"First, I'd like to know if horses as a species are insane, or if you are merely an isolated case."

He sighed, tossing his mane. "I didn't expect words to convince you." The long black hair made sailor's knots with sunbeams. "Do you know the Meadows of Blood?"

"Only by name." She was fascinated by the mention of the forbidden place. "They're in the Ravaged Mountains. It's rumored to be rather a pretty place. But no one goes there. The winds above the canyon make it fatal to arrears."

"I have a car outside," the horse whispered. "The driver is mal and knows of a winding route by which, from to time, it is possible to reach the Meadows, The winds war only above them. They are named, by the way, for the color of the flora there and not for a bit of human history . . . unusual.

"When the sun rises up hi the mouth of a certain canyon and engulfs the crimson gra.s.ses and flowers in light... well, it's more than 'rather pretty.' "

"You've already been there," she said.

"Yes, I've already been." He took several steps and 126.

Dream Done Green that powerful, strange face was close to hers. One eye, she noticed offhandedly, was red, the other blue.

"Come with me now to the Meadows of Blood and I'll give you that piece of dream, that something few have had for thousands of years. I'll bring you back tonight and you can give me your answer on the way.

"If it's 'no,' then I'll depart quietly and you'll never see me again."

Now, in addition to being both beautiful and intelligent, Casperdan also had her sire's recklessness.

"All right... I'll come."

When her parents returned home that night from the party and found their daughter gone, they were not distressed. After all, she was quite independent and, heavens, to be married tomorrow! When they learned from Patch that she'd gone off, not with a man, but with a strange mal, they were only mildly concerned. Casperdan was quite capable of taking care of herself. Had they known where she'd gone, things would have been different.

So nothing happened till the morrow.

"Good morning, Cas," said her father.

"Good morning, dear," her mother added. They were eating breakfast on the balcony. "Did you sleep well last night, and where did you go?"

The voice that answered was distant with other thoughts.