A man has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification. So I contend that…honest, fervent politics are religion; that whatsoever a man will labour for earnestly and in some measure unselfishly is religion.

—David Herbert Lawrence, Letters, vol. 1

Bonneville, New Utah

When Zia and Michael arrived, the house was the pandemonium of hand-waving, room-changing, orders-bellowing, and petty officiousness that accompanies any gaggle of minor officials unaccustomed to holding either real respect or real authority. Asach and The Lads had retreated to the roof: Asach to avoid being observed; The Lads to avoid being dragooned. They might have been a TCM detail, but they were locals, and it didn’t take long to grow fond of Mena’s cooking. They had no particular love for these foul-smelling, book-touting zealots from Maxroy’s Purchase, and they didn’t much like what they were hearing down below. This lot was outright bragging that they’d “tithe the last tenth” and put this “band of mammon-grubbing pilgrims out on the street.”

So, much mirth was suppressed when Michael burst into the compound, and confronted the assessors with the black-frock-clad Zia, who was the last word in officiousness. Accounts ledgers, sealed TCM security certificates, and perfect Anglic diction were laid on with a spatula. Then, in the good-cop counter to Zia’s bad-cop berating, Mena and Lena appeared with mountains of food, topped off with genuine Mormon bush tea. It was lights out in short order; then in what seemed barely five minutes rousted to another mountain of breakfast, and slightly confused by their sense of well-being, the True Church tithe team was on its way. The Lads’ joy at one pulled-over at the expense of the MPs quite overwhelmed any sense of obligation they might have felt toward their brethren-in-faith, and they cheerfully volunteered to head off as escorts to whatever hinterland Asach might next direct.

Their second shock came when they headed downstairs later that morning, after the tithe-collectors had finally departed. Michael stood, not triumphant, but stooped, crushed and crumpled, face sallow, patrician demeanor evaporated. Zia’s hand wrapped that of a small, hooded girl with purple bruises marbling her face. Both their faces were wet with tears. But the worst was Ollie, slumped at the little stone table, face in hands, shoulders wracked, sobbing like an infant, while Zia explained to Michael.

“They came on the SunRail. The overnight. They left right after we did. Right after the MPs let them go.”

“Who’s the girl?”

“My niece. Ollie’s niece. He couldn’t leave her. Her father’s a TCM pig—” she spat, then looked sharply at the Lads. “Sorry. I don’t mean you or the rest of Ollie’s contract security boys. I mean MPs, you know? A private, joined up on the Purchase. One of those MP fundies who—you know? Just look at her.”

Their eyes widened in horror, and they nodded.

The wiry one suddenly blurted: “Where’s Deela?”

Zia looked at him. Tried to remember him. There were so many. All of them sweet on little Deela, with her sweet little smile and her emerald-green eyes. The light of Ollie’s eye.

“With the boys. Ollie came ahead on the SunRail when he heard, because—”

And now Michael blurted: “Where are Deela and the boys?”

Ollie shot from the bench, sobbing and pulling something from his shirt, shoving it forward, half lurching, half falling into Michael’s face. The Lads crowded around. They couldn’t make out the image. A dark glade. Something butchered. Something hanging, butchered, but with much too much red.

And Ollie shouted: “That’s Hugo. Look what they’ve done to my Hugo!”

And Zia’s voice joined in, sounding very far away. “We don’t know. That’s why they came ahead. We don’t know. Except, of course, poor Hugo.”

Michael sagged; suddenly looked old. “That’s it, then. They know.” Then he looked up, wild-eyed.

“You can’t stay here! They’ll know! They’ll come here, and they’ll know, and we’ll all—”

But somehow, all at once, Zia and Ollie and Marul were ringed: by Nejme, and Mena, and Lena; by the house staff; by the Lads, who stepped into the circle. Suddenly, Michael stood on the outside, and everyone else was on the inside, ringed around their own.

Asach reached out, gently, and took the image from Ollie’s quavering hand. Examined it carefully. Rubbed a finger over one portion several times, enlarging the detail. Looked at it thoughtfully, dispassionately.

“Ollie,” Asach said, “do you hire Saurons for your security details?”

He stopped blubbing with one breath, suddenly sober, suddenly back on the job.

“No!”

“How about Tanith? Hire any Tanith Jungle Boys?”

He was already shaking his head. “No! No offworlders! Only locals! Only lads from wards I know!”

Asach looked up from the image, slowly. “Only, feathery thing, a tamarisk. But there’s no tracks. No limbs that’d hold that weight. That’s why they—that’s why his weight is borne by the trunk. It took somebody strong as an ox to get that boy up that tree.”

And then Asach was looking at Michael. “And then there’s the method.”

Asach looked at Zia and Ollie. Then down at Marul. “I’m sorry. But you’ve already seen it. I think you should know. And I suppose they’ll tell you anyway, once they’ve figured it out for themselves. Or not. Which would say a lot in itself.”

Back to Michael. “It’s a nasty death. It’s a nasty death, because it’s meant to send a signal. Question is, who was the signal for?”

Michael was pale, on the verge of fainting.

And then to Ollie. But clearly, the boy’s father already knew. Asach handed him back the image, and pulled Michael aside, out of Mena’s hearing. “It’s called reverse kosher, for some pinch-minded, sadistic reason I don’t care to pursue right now. You can tell by the bleeding. First he was pinned to the tree. Then he was gutted. Then his throat was cut. It isn’t pretty, and depending on what bastard does it, it can be very slow.”

And very, very slowly, Asach looked Michael full in the face. “So, tell me, Michael. Who on New Utah pays hired goons? From offworld? From the nether regions of Hell?”

He cowered.

“See, I don’t think sending these folks away will make much difference now. Do you?”

He shuddered, as if a spell had lifted. He shook his head. “No.”

“Michael, I think it’s time to start spilling your guts to your dear, old friend. Because these people,” Asach waved a hand to take in the assembled behind them, “desperately need our help.”

He nodded.

“OK, so, do you believe me now?”

He nodded.

“Evidence of things seen, or unseen?”

He shuddered again. “Seen. Unseen. Both.”

“So, who was this message intended for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Michael?!”

“I DON’T know.”

“Then let’s try it a different way. Michael, where is your mother?”

Nothing.

“Michael, where is Lillith Van Zandt?”

Nothing.

“Michael, is Lillith Van Zandt here on New Utah?”

He nodded, slowly.

“Well, then, old friend, I think it is time to spill.”

They trundled poor Marul off to bed, in the company of Mena, Lena, half the household, and The Lads, who swore on their mother’s heads that they would trade watch to ensure that no harm came to her during the night.

Asach, Zia, Ollie, Michael, Nejme, and later Mena, lullabies complete, huddled around a table in the kitchen, with Lena on the periphery tending refills. And oh, did Michael spill. It had all been the opal meerschaum trade, he said. Lillith wanted in on the action; the TCM had a lock; and good son Michael had been dispatched to ooze his way around the margins and insinuate himself.

He’d insinuated as far at Bonneville. He’d sniffed and sniffed, and found that the TCM seemed to hold a bunch of warehouses there. Officially, they were tithe-houses, secured for the annual collection. Michael wasn’t so sure. Seemed to be a lot of to-and-fro, especially this past year, and well before the collection and debtor’s assizes.

So he’d gone to Bonneville. Bought the house. With Lillith’s money, not his. Found a staff. Settled in. Put it about a bit, quietly, that he’d broker. It was Nejme, really. Nejme and Mena. People came, spoke with them. It trickled in. Never much. Never much from one seller. No really big chunks. Bits and pieces, packed in sand, direct from wherever it came from. But nice quality. Even a few pieces of black—old family pieces, you know? It trickled in.

“What did they want for it?”

“Excuse me?”

“The meerschaum. What did they want? Selenium?”

Michael looked confused. So did everyone.

“Selenium?

“Vitamins? Fertilizer?”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that. No barter. Strictly cash.”

“Crowns?”

“Whatever. Crowns, local, credits, scrip. TCM tithe credits are favorite here. Sort of cuts out the middleman.”

Everyone nodded.

“And the other end?”

“There was no other end. I only worked here.”

“So you still have it all?”

“No.” He looked over at the grim-faced woman in the conservative black dress. “That’s where Zia comes in.” He re-told the story: the meeting; the Bonneville warehouse; the twenty-two kilos, sold, supposedly, fair-and-square, to a TCM contract buyer from something called Orcutt Land and Mining. The promissory voucher for full, one-to-one tithe credit. The notice of the impending auditor descent, and the subpoena to the debtor’s assizes. His hideously expensive, panic-driven flight to Saint George. Zia’s deal for salvation.

Asach thought for awhile in the exhausted quiet. Looked over at the plump, tough little woman with the pinched, grim face cowled by her severe, black frock and bonnet.

“And, you had in mind—?”

Zia felt nothing. Business was business. Hugo was dead.

“The warehouses,” she said. “I had in mind the warehouses. The warehouses for Orcutt Land and Mining.”

Ollie started. “Zia, No!”

She shrugged. ‘What does it matter now? Hugo is dead.”

“But Deela! And—”

“What does it matter? If they have them, if they want them, they are gone now too, no matter what we do.”

She turned back to Asach. “I know when the warehouses will make delivery to the TCM in Saint George.”

Michael jumped in. “But how can you? That’s what you never explained. How can you know when? I’m telling you, there isn’t enough product out there! There isn’t—”

“There will be. Very soon now, it’s coming.”

“But how do you know”

Zia glowered at him, her face pinched, and hard. She detested him. Detested his patrician manners; detested his phony Bonneville whites, detested his caviling clinging to his Mama’s purse. She barely, just barely, refrained from name-calling.

“I know, because we all know. Anyone from here. Anyone from Bonneville. Don’t we?”

She scanned the table. Nejme, Mena, Lena: they met her gaze briefly, then averted their eyes. But everyone nodded, slightly.

Asach knew too, of course, albeit in a different way, and from the other end. Had been briefed that much. Knew that a neutron star, in an eccentric orbit, opened a tramline—an Alderson point—from New Utah to Maxroy’s Purchase on a roughly 21-year cycle. Knew that the True Church had, every twenty years or so, briefly registered some mining company or other on Maxroy’s Purchase, and used its books to mask illicit shipments of fertilizer, vitamins, medical supplies—and in return pull in prime opal meerschaum. In between those decades, the price would climb and climb. The end game speculation was the stuff of dreams for small players.

And now, the Jackson Delegation was more-or-less hanging around, awaiting Asach’s report; awaiting the opening of the tramline, ready to offer free trade in fertilizer, in exchange for the munificent benefits of Empire membership. Munificent for some. Not so very munificent at all, if you had neither planetary government nor space travel. In which case, you enjoyed all the benefits of being colonized, as on Makassar.

But this seemed a different conversation. This was not a question of TCM stockpiles waiting to ship out. This seemed a question of TCM warehouses expecting goods in. And everybody here seemed in on it.

Asach took a stab in the dark. “So, what you mean is, you know when the opal meerschaum will start coming in?”

Zia nodded.

“As in, in to Orcutt Land and Mining?”

Zia nodded again.

“And that is—how?”

Zia did not answer. Shifted her glower to Nejme, who still did not meet her eyes.

Finally, Mena spoke. “It’s just a bit—embarrassing.”

“Ma, there’s nothing wrong with it, you know! That’s just a superstition. There’s nothing wrong—”

“No, nothing wrong at all,” affirmed Nejme. “Which is why we all agreed, together, to work with Michael.”

All three of them raised their eyes to the Eye above the doorway.

“We call them tangiwai—His tears.” Nejme nodded. Mena continued. “They come from the Gatherings. We pick them up—pilgrims pick them—on the way too and from the Gatherings. They are just—souvenirs—you know? To show that you have been?”

Lena nodded enthusiastically. “And they’re stony cool, you know? Elthazar found a big, flat chunk once, and carved it into a fire screen. Carried it all the way back, and carved it into a fire screen. It’s really beautiful at night. You light the fire, and—”

Nejme glared. “Now that’s going too far! You should treat tangiwai with respect. Just because—”

“Oh, like selling them to offworlders and carving pipes is more respectful?”

“That’s different.”

“Different how? Different because—”

Mena spoke, softly. “Different, because people need the money.” She turned to Asach.

“It is hard to come by cash, you know? For the tithe? And so of course in the end most of them keep the littlest pieces, but sell the best to a broker.”

“Like Michael.”

She smiled, softly. “Yes, like Michael. None of us would do it, you know. Take the stone in exchange for money. Not from another islander. It would just—in the end—it makes trouble, you know? People get jealous? And we don’t deal with the TCM if we can help it.” Her face suddenly clouded, saddened. “It’s too dangerous for us. They hate us. Anyway,” she brightened, “somebody from outside. Somebody—”

“Like Michael.”

“Yes, High Church, like Michael, or Muslim—somebody like that, is better. Even Mormon LDS—Sixers, I mean, not True Church. Just not TCM. We weren’t brokers, before, but Michael—”

“needed someone he could trust to run a House, ” finished Nejme.

Asach nodded, doodling idly with one finger on the table. Didn’t look up.

“Michael?”

He jumped.

“Michael, why were you messing about with middlemen in the dark of the night?”

He squirmed, uncomfortable, but did not reply.

“Michael, if Lillith Van Zandt wanted to horn in on the opal meerschaum trade, why another wholesaler? Why not deal direct?”

He squirmed again. “Well, we couldn’t, really. And anyway, like I said, I didn’t know—”

“Didn’t know what? Didn’t know something that, by the sound of it, at least half the children on this planet know? Oh, please, Michael. That’s not like you at all.”

He bridled. “Now look here, Asach, I’ve been completely frank with you. I don’t know—”

“Frank, yes, but completely? I think not. There’s more. Isn’t there Michael? More? Something more that Lillith Van Zandt wants to know.”

“Well, the source, of course. She wants the source.”

“Why? Why would she bother? Sounds like it gets trotted right up to her front door. Well, your front door, anyway.”

“I don’t know.” He was really whinging now. Asach hated it when he whinged. There wasn’t much to Michael but charm, and when that evaporated, what remained got under the skin. “She just said I had to. Had to deal with Orcutt. Had to follow Orcutt to the source.”

“The source of what?”

“Well, I just thought the meerschaum. Why not? I mean, there’s a market for it. I just thought she wanted to corner the market.”

“Oh good grief, Michael. Whatever for? Can you honestly see your mother bothering to corner the market in etched pipes and fireplace screens?”

But, again, just: “I don’t know.”

Exasperated, Zia interrupted. “Well, maybe Collie Orcutt knows.”

Michael looked blank. Asach looked interested. Nejme looked up. Mena froze. Lena began to speak, but Mena waved her down.

“Who?”

“Collie Orcutt? The previous owner? Went bust, oh, eight, ten years ago? TCM took his paper?”

“His paper?”

“His paper. His claim.”

Nejme filled in: “The mining rights to his land.”

“Oh, more than that, in his case. He was way, way in. Had a vision? Had a vision, of a united Church, here in Bonneville? But thought he was beyond the tithe. Way out there, in The Barrens, where they never go. Thought wrong. Borrowed from the wrong people, at the wrong time, at the wrong rates. True Church Militant got it all. Well, most of it. Mining, minerals, water: left him with a chunk of barrens and a solar well. Took in haulpaks and chewed up a couple of mountains. Made a fortune. That’s about when I was hired, clerking in the Bonneville warehouses. Then they dumped it all. Some consortium bought the claim. It’s still filed in Saint George and Pitchfork River. TCM still uses the warehouses, though. I’ve never met the current owners.”

“Yes,” said Lena, glaring at the ceiling, “Collie Orcutt got the wrong end of the Stick, as we say around here.”

“Not too loud, I hope,” said Ollie, dismally.

The night cold fell upon the courtyard. The House was quiet. All but Mena and Asach slept. A low fire burned in a ceramic stove, pulled close to the table, radiating warmth. Mena spoke softly.

“No, they won’t harm you. But you have to be prepared. That’s all Himmist country, out there, in The Barrens. They keep to themselves.”

“But you worship Him, yes?” Asach looked thoughtfully on the Eye above the doorway.

“Yes, of course. He sees us everywhere.”

Asach waited, patiently. Mena shook her head. “But you must understand. We look on you as an ally, a guest. We truly believe, as it is said: ‘In His Gaze, we are all pilgrims, we are all Seers, and all islands are One.’ But the backlanders?” She shook her head again. “They won’t harm you, but they won’t help you.”

“Why not?”

Mena sat a moment, finding the right words. “It’s hard for them, you know? They may help. But more likely, they will see you as a threat. They see everyone as a threat, and who is to blame them?” She shook her head sadly. “It is the history of our church: congregations smashed, driven into exile—first from New Scotland to New Ireland, then from New Ireland to Maxroy’s Purchase, then from the Purchase to Saint George, then out of Saint George to Bonneville—until there was nowhere left to go. Except The Barrens.”

“But you are still here in Bonneville.”

Mena nodded. “Yes. It’s the MP converts who fare the worst. Most of them were Mormons, you see. Sixer LDS, not True Church. People like us—direct descendents of the New Scotland Church of Him—” she waved her hand to indicate the household— “who were never Mormon to begin with, we’re all right. As long as we pay the tithe. But the former Sixers?” She shrugged her shoulders. “They are considered the descendants of heretics. Shunned. Cast out into The Barrens.”

“How is anyone to know?”

“You mean the Church?” she countered, aghast, then lowered her voice. “The True Church? Not know who an immigrant is descended from? Of course they know. That was one of the tenets of the schism. The primacy of reconstructing the genealogy of everyone, all the way back to Adam and Eve. The Sixers didn’t care so much about that any more. Didn’t think it was possible, anyway.”

Asach smiled. “I take your point. So, The Barrens Himmists won’t help anyone—because?”

Mena sighed. “Well, they cite scripture, of course. But really? I think it’s sort of tit for tat. Payback for exile.”

“Scripture?”

“ ‘May we turn our Gaze from those who refuse to See, praying fervently that they may not remain blind.’ They are pacifists, and open to evangelizing, but they feel no obligation to help nonbelievers. The most extreme fundamentalists won’t even look at a non-believer. If you head out there, you’re on your own.”

Asach nodded. “What else do I really need to know?”

Mena walked her through the catechism. Fundamentalist Himmists believed, really believed, that the Coal Sack, with its bright red sun called Murchison’s Eye, was actually the face of God. That once, during the Secession Wars, the eye had opened, awaking Howard Grote Littlemead, founder of the religion. That His Face represented the fourth arm of the Cross, which had nothing to do with crucifixion, but represented a quadrine, or quadripartite, God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and His Face, or Eye, with which he saw all. That, appalled by the sins of those who waged war in His presence, refusing to believe, he closed his Eye on them once and for all. That Himmists on New Utah could not really see that face directly in the heavens, being far from New Scotland where the phenomenon was most visible. Himmists in The Barrens felt closer to “His Earthly Eye” and Gathered once every score years to visit it. About that, Mena would say no more. She handed Asach a tract, entitled “The Catechism of the Great Weep,” and said only, “Read it. It’s what every child should know.”

Asach thanked her, pocketed the tract, looked tenderly at this sensible, helpful woman. “Mena?”

“Yes?”

“Do you believe? I mean truly believe? Do you believe in the Face of God, with Howard Grote Littlemead as His prophet?”

Mena smiled, and took Asach’s hand in her own, patting it gently. “Littlemead? I don’t know. I think Littlemead was one small man, in the vastness of space, who despaired of his lot on earth and looked for God in the heavenly lights. Who among us has not? Who among us has not, in the secret vaults of the heart, prayed for salvation in the dark of night?”

“Indeed,” said Asach. “Indeed. Don’t we all. Mena?”

“Yes?”

“What’s a Seer?”

She shook her head. “Read the Catechism, first.”

“OK, I promise. I’ll do it before I sleep tonight. But, please tell me, so that I’ll understand it after I do.”

Mena thought a moment. Sighed. “Ok,” she said, “I guess it does no harm.” Crow’s feet crinkled around her eyes. “A Seer is born at a Gathering, so a Seer spans two Gatherings, so a Seer learns to See the way and lead others to the next Gathering. The Seer spans the Gathering past, to the Gathering next. Understand?”

Asach smiled, reaching for the pamphlet. “Clear as mud.”

They departed early next morning. Just Asach, and the boys. They made a detour through the market quarter, catching pre-dawn deliveries before the stalls were even open. The boys packed the rig full with water; dried fruits; dried meats; dried nuts; blankets; self-erecting shelters. They bolted extra fuel tanks to the outer hull, and extra solar chargers to the roof. They stripped out the heavy Plate in the driver’s door and the floor. A lot of tithe credits changed hands. They gulped tea at a teamster’s stall, then headed east.

Back at the house, Mena and Nejme traded off, sending the same message, over and over, by satphone, by telegraph, by ‘tooth, with no assurance that it would even get through to the remoteness of Orcutt Station: Asach Quinn comes, a friend of truth. Meet at Butterfield Wells. We beg you: do not avert your Gaze.

The swing from cold of night to heat of day was sudden, and incredible. Before dawn, they had to chip a haze of frost from the view screen. After sunrise, they peeled away every layer of clothing decency allowed. The boys hummed and bounced to internal tunes. Bonneville fell away. Heat shimmered on salt panne and desert varnish.

It would have been more comfortable to drive at night, and sleep by day, with reflector shelters to keep them cool. But they needed the solar boost. Once up to speed, while the sun was bright and the road was level, it saved a lot of juice. With it, Butterfield Wells was the turn back point; as far as the boys could go with any guarantee of getting back before running out of fuel. Without it, they’d be marooned. There was no traffic. They were utterly alone.

The desert varnish gave way to surface glaze: silty flats, the thin crust polished smooth. Mirage shimmered in the distance, showing what had been, perhaps millennia before: vast lakes of water; lagoons and islands; estuarine pools. If anything was alive out there, it did not move. Sometimes the breeze would carry the faintest scent of water; of aromatic herbs, blown like whispers across the desert from the far, far mountains.

They passed an adobe bubble, with a minaret barely taller than a man. Once a shrine, or a roadside mosque, now fallen to ruin. “Making good time,” said the driver. They drove on.

Eventually a tiny blob rose above the road at the horizon. It hovered, upside down, a reflection in the shimmering heat that floated above the pavement. For a good while, it stayed there. Then, it set, like a tiny moon, and a real blob, a right-side-up blob, grew in its stead. At first it was nothing. Then it was solid. Then they rumbled to a stop, at a tiny public square.

The lads were disconsolate. At first, they refused to leave Asach there. But Asach was adamant. “You have to go back. You have to get Ollie back to Saint George. You have to help him find Deela and the boys. You have to help him find out what happened to Hugo.”

They could not argue with that. They tried to leave water. Asach waved them off, indicating the miniscule fountain: a rusty pipe, sticking out from a concrete block, trickling cold, clear water into a grate, where it disappeared. They tried to leave blankets, but Asach wanted no more than the cloak. They tried to leave food, and Asach acquiesced.

“Go on,” Asach waved them off. “You’re burning daylight.”

Butterfield Wells, The Barrens, New Utah

The square was little more than a dusty crossroad with a water tap. Not so much as a tree, nor anything natively tree-like. There was a good deal of wind, and a windmill to power the water pump. They sat in its thin stripe of shade. Asach entertained three pleasantly grubby children by using one handful of pebbles to knock another handful of pebbles from a circle scratched into the gravel.

Each would giggle, then throw down a pebble with that universal awkward, jerky toss of children everywhere old enough to walk and talk, but not yet old enough to be truly helpful at very much. Then, as Asach aimed and tossed in reply, in delighted unison they would shout encouragement: “WANpela! TUpela! TREEpela!” In variably, Asach would “miss” at least once, and the ecstatic associated child would run in a little circle herself, hands stretched overhead, shouting “GOOOAAAL! Mi Winim! Mi Winim!”

The game went on and on. The children were tireless. Eventually, a boy appeared, slightly older. From where, it was difficult to say. There seemed nowhere to come from, and nowhere to go to. The Barrens appeared to be utterly flat, horizon to horizon, but it was their vastness that tricked the eye. There were actually folds in the ground big enough to conceal a rail car; slashes deeper than a building that raged with water when rain fell in mountains that were mere purple stains on the rim of the horizon.

The boy scowled at Asach. “Yu save long tok Anglis, a?

The girls stopped, unsure, then clustered nearer to Asach, who answered simply, “Yes. Do you?”

At this, the little ones erupted: “Me too! Me too! I speak Anglic too!” then ran around the windmill and giggled, playing hide-and-seek from behind the pole.

The boy scowled again. He was at best a year or two older than the others, but very serious. “Are you a pilgrim?”

With puckered eyebrows, Asach matched his earnestness. “I’m waiting for Collie Orcutt.”

This seemed to satisfy him for the moment, but he clearly felt the need to assert some kind of authority over the situation. He picked up a pebble, and with one vicious swipe from where he stood, hurtled it against the polished white stone still lying within the scratched ring. With a crack the white stone went flying across the gravel. He stalked over, picked it up, pocketed it, and said, “Mine now!”

The littlest girl, still clinging to the windmill pole, shouted, “That’s not fair!” She began to sob. “It’s my best one! It’s my favorite! It’s mine!” She stamped a foot.

The boy shrugged. Asach assessed the situation. Pulled a handful of stones from somewhere within the cloak. Opened one hand to reveal a child’s treasure of purple, pink, green, and speckled red. “Double or nothing,” Asach said. Eyes wide, the boy nodded.

Asach played skillfully—or rather, lost skillfully. By the end, the boy held all the colored stones; Asach held only the white one. “You win!” Asach said, folding the white pebble into the little girl’s hand. Unsuspecting and smiling, the boy counted and re-counted his new stash as the little girl bounced over to Asach’s lap. “I’m Jolly!” she announced.

“Yes, I can see that.”

“No, silly. My name is Jolly”

“Her name is Jo-lynn,” the second one said. But everyone calls her Jolly.”

“And what’s your name?”

The girl’s eyes widened in horror.

Damn, thought Asach. I forgot. Never ask a child’s name. She’ll think you are trying to steal her spirit.

“Never mind honey. Don’t be scared. I forgot. We—we do things different, where I come from. Names don’t mean the same thing there.”

The boy nodded, sagely, promoted to ally by his recent acquisition. “The Anglis, they don’t know anything.”

The horrified girl regarded Asach sternly. “What’s your number?” she blurted at last.

Mystified, Asach gambled. “Three hundred and fifty-seven.”

The horrified one giggled. Jolly peered up from Asach’s lap, little brow furrowed. “Are you a boy, or a girl?” she said.

Asach looked down, smiling. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re a big silly!’ she answered, exploding in a frenzy of knees and elbows to run rings around the pole. “You’re a bi-ig sil-ly! You’re a bi-ig sil-ly!” The third girl, obviously her sister, joined in. “Sil-ly, sil-ly, SIL-ly!”

No-longer-horrified girl bounced forward. “I’m a four. We’re all fours. Well, four is really nine, but we say fours. Only papa says we’re too little to Gather. But mama says this is the big one, so we should, and wouldn’t you be sorry if it was and they not even there? But you’re a pilgrim. So you must be a four too. Only you look old. Are you a three? Mama’s a three. Did you Gather before? Sometimes people are really old before they Gather.” Her eyes went wide again. “But you’re waiting for Uncle Collie. Maybe— are you a Seer? You’re never a Seer, are you? Like cousin Laurel?”

At which the other two gasped and stopped running. The little boy’s face went white. Un-horrified girl looked re-horrified, and just stood gaping.

Asach thought fast. Whatever was meant by the question, there could be only one answer. Asach took a calculated guess about the rest.

“No, honey, I’m not a Seer. I’m going to visit your Uncle Collie, that’s all. And I hope to get to meet Laurel while I’m there. We have some things to talk about.”

Color returned to the boy’s face. He nodded sagely again, then leaned over to stage-whisper into horrified-girl’s ear: “They’re gunna talk about the Gathering.” Then he announced: “Well, I’m a four, and I‘m not too little to Gather!”

With that, horrified girl broke into a gale of giggles, and led the trio in a new romp around the windmill. “Sil-ly’s gunna Gath-er. Sil-ly’s gunna Gath-er.”

Asach leaned back and smiled as dust boiled toward them from the distance. Threes and Fours and Seers, oh my. They’d have a lot more to talk about than mining claims.