Free Grass by Sheri S. Tepper

what it could do for Sanctity … 
    "You'd let them die? Whole worlds of men?"
    The other shrugged elaborately, wincing as the shrug started a sudden pain in one arthritic shoulder. "In the long run, I think it would be best for Sanctity, don't you? Mankind is too widespread already. Sanctity has done what it can to stop exploration, but it does go on. A group here, a group there, sneaking out. Little frontier worlds, here and there. And what happens? A place like Shame, for example, where we can't even get a decent foothold! No, men are spread far too widely for us to control well."
    "That's certainly the current view of the Council of Elders, I agree, but – "
    "In any case," the other interrupted, "we need to keep an eye on Yrarier so we know what he's up to. Didn't you tell me that Nods had been assigned to Grass? Head of Acceptable Doctrine with the penitents there, didn't you say? Or did someone else tell me?"
    "It must have been someone else. You mean our old friend Noddingale?"
    "Him, yes. Though he's adopted one of those strange Green Brother names. Jhamlees. Jhamlees Zoe."
    "Jhamlees Zoe?" The other laughed breathlessly. "Don't laugh. The Brothers are quite serious about their religious names. Stay a moment while I write a note. Have one of your youngsters pack it into something innocent-looking, cover it with a code note and a destruct-wrap, and send it on the ship that takes Yrarier." He sat at his desk and began to write, "My dear old friend Nods … " his hand forming the letters with some difficulty.
    His equally ancient friend, leaning over his shoulder, interrupted him by venturing curiously, "The old Hierarch will be dead within hours everyone says. Will the new Hierarch feel the same way about this business, Cory? About consolidating and letting some of the worlds just … well, just go?"
    "The new Hierarch?" Cory laughed again, this time with real amusement as he turned his wide, fanatical eyes on his companion. "You mean you didn't know? That's right! You've been outside for a while. The Council of Elders met a week ago. The new Hierarch will be me."

4
    It looks as though it has been winter forever," Marjorie Westriding Yrarier remarked, careful to keep her voice level and without complaint. Complaint would not have been diplomatic, but her host and escort, Obermun Jerril bon Haunser, would not allow himself to take offense at a mere expression of opinion. Taking offense would be even more undiplomatic than giving it – certainly by someone who did not know her but whose business it undoubtedly was to get to know her as soon as possible. Looking at the angular planes of his long, powerful face, she wondered if he ever would. He had not the look of a man who cared much who others were or what they thought.
    However, he set himself to attempt charm with an unaccustomed smile. "When summer comes," he said in the heavily accented Terran he used as diplomatic speech, "you will believe it has lasted forever also. All the seasons on Grass are eternal. Summer never ends, nor fall. And though you do not see it at this moment, spring is upon us."
    "How would I know?" she asked, genuinely curious. From the window of the main house, which was set upon a slight rise, the landscape below her seemed an unending ocean of grayed pastels and palest gold, dried grasses moving like the waves of a shoreless sea, a surface broken only by scattered islands of broad and contorted trees, their tops so thickly twigged they appeared as solid masses inked blackly against the turbid sky. It was not like spring at home. It was not like any season at home, where she now desperately longed to be, despite the enthusiasm she had at first whipped up for this mission.
    "How do you know it is spring?" she demanded, turning away from the window toward him.
    They stood amid high, echoing walls in an arctic and empty chamber of what was to be the embassy. The distant ceiling curved in ivory traceries of plaster groins; tall glass doors