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Eyimalia had been settled long ago by ninety religious fanatics who founded Pravela, the state religion. To them, the crescent of arable land between the sea and the northern desert seemed unbounded. They told of walking for days through rustling deciduous forest broken by meadows of tall grass and flowers, and by marshes overflowing with life.

Clark examined pictures of exotic species. These were the primeval Eyimalian plants. Antigens to the epsilon immunological system accumulated in them, and in plants on a few other, very different planets scattered around the galaxy, for reasons unknown. Reasons unknown, Clark thought. What a wilderness knowing is.

"We came in late afternoon from the woods upon a broad clearing that extended to the horizon," an explorer wrote. "Low clouds shimmered in the sun's departing light. The grasses, brown and yellow, were touched with fire, the trees to our left and our right as black as the somber guard of Paradise. The cries of the birds above us came clear as the clarion thereto. Trembling at the thought that it was my task to become worthy of this place, I cried to my Shira: 'We are home!'"

"Shira?" Clark said aloud.

"Yes?" Teresa daFlora was sorting cards behind him.

He read the passage to her.

She smiled. "Did you ever feel that way?"

"About home? Do you?"

"About Merced? Yes, I suppose. It isn't very beautiful, and the people do things that are ugly, but even so...People do try to be good to one another here, despite everything, despite the fact that...they often can't. And the city, too. We're on a rise in the plain. At night the wind howls in the streets. When it rains and the drops hit the metal plates on the houses, it sounds as though someone far away were singing, and then I love this place. Do you feel that way about a place?"

"I don't know. I might."

That evening, he asked Paula what a Shira was.

"It's just an Eyimalian custom. Your Shira is your best friend, and you're supposed to stay near each other and help each other out. It used to be a big deal and they'd have a ceremony like a wedding when people became Shira. It used to be there was no penalty if you killed your Shira."

"Why not?"

"Because you were supposed to know more about it than the judge did," she said impatiently. "It was a very important relationship. If you committed a crime, they could put your Shira in jail. There's a lot of poetry about it."

"Do people still do it?"

"Yes." Before he could ask whether Efirr and Sevit had had such a relationship, she walked off.

"What's the matter?" he called.

"Nothing," she said, coming back. "Fuego says Sevit's cousin Greyesar should be here in a few days." While they were eating supper, she said, "I thought you knew all about that Shira business. It was all in the news after Efirr."

"He and Sevit were Shira?"

She looked away. "Of course."

He thought she was going to brood again, but she looked back at him, asking, "What have you been up to these days?"

"Reading about Eyimalia. At the library."

"That's a good idea. The library we went to? Where that woman works?"

Clark nodded.

"Is she painting it?"

"No. Some kids are."

"Oh." Paula looked at her plate. She divided the remaining pool of gravy into four puddles. "Isn't it closed?"

"She lets me in."

"I see. Well, that's nice of her."

Clark grinned. "You're trying not to pry, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are. I can tell you're curious. You're watching my hands."

"All right, all right. Then tell me."

"What?"

"Never mind."

Clark thought about the exchange on the way to the library the next day. He read about the Rediscovery and the treaty of alliance signed by Eyimalia and Reshebora. The pact gave advantages in trade to the latter and granted Eyimalia weapons with which to conquer surrounding planets, including Paffir Haretz.

The native population there organized into a confederation of quarrelling tribes, with war parties now razing one another's villages and now fighting at hopeless odds against the Eyimalians. In some places the people burned their crops and fled, to starve elsewhere. Peasants flocked to the castles of the aristocracy and stood cheek by jowl without food or water, only to be killed there by bombardments and disease.

In the end, the few trading cities were destroyed. The river that flowed among them was said to glow. Clark looked at a heat photograph of the Lir. The river was indeed warm from the burning debris that floated in it.

The aristocracy demolished, Eyimalia divided the land into farming provinces. Villages were constructed at regular intervals, not only along the rivers but everywhere, supplied with wells and set to raising crops for tribute.

About two hundred years later, Paffir Haretz was granted autonomy. Three Eyimalian families--the Viyato first, and with them two smaller clans named Ketry and Var--received exclusive trade privileges on Paffir Haretz in return for payments to the Ministry for the Welfare of Autonomous Planets. A glance at a photo of the Minister's private planet was all Clark needed to tell where the payments went.

Paffir Haretz' history ended at autonomy. Clark tried typing "Paffir Haretz, current" on the Datalogue but the response was, "What?" He sat with his chin in his hand.

The library's day had ended. Teresa daFlora turned out the light. She found a printout on the next table, and stopped to read it before dropping it in a return chute. The sky and the light from a window behind Clark were deep blue. They made the paper she held faintly blue as well. Her lips moved while she read to herself. Clark stared at her so intently that when she looked at him he jumped.

"Ready to go?" she asked.

He nodded, and they went out. The street was quiet, the sky nearly purple. A bright celestial body shone. "Is that a moon?" he asked. MORE ASTRONOMY

"They say our dreams happen there. It's where we live in our sleep."

They stood on the steps, looking at it.

"Then when it's overhead, everyone dreams more?"

"Yes. They put children to bed early tonight." She laid her hand on Clark's shoulder.

He had said, "Shira?" and she answered, "Yes?"

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CONTINUE.....................

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