Free The Enigma Score by Sheri S. Tepper Page B

friendliness and other times with surliness. He returned each greeting with a raised hand and distant smile. He did not want to stop and talk. There was nothing to talk about. Certainly not about the weather or the scenery. The weather was what it always was on this part of Jubal, sunny, virtually rainless.
    As for the scenery, there was little enough of it. Wind sang in the power lines stretching from the reservoir down to Deepsoil Five; the distant hydroelectric plant squatted at the top of the visible slope like a dropped brick; the fields were neatly furrowed; each dwelling was impeccably maintained. Like a set of blocks, Tasmin thought. All lines crossed at right angles. Even the Ron had had its major meanders straightened, its banks sanitized. Few crystals. No singing. No peacock tailed trees turning toward the sun. No trees of any kind.
    A demolition crew was working at one point on the road, lowering a heavy mesh cone over an intruding ’ling. A noise box directed a loud burst of low frequency sound at the shrouded crystal, and the pillar exploded into a thousand fragments within the mesh cone. Tasmin spent a few idle minutes watching the crew gather up the knife-edged pieces and truck them a few thousand yards to a vacant spot of prairie, well away from the road. In time, every shard would seed another ’let and a new forest of crystals would grow. From the color of the one destroyed, Tasmin thought it might be a Watchling, probably from the North Watcher. That particular ashy shade was rare elsewhere. How it had come here was anyone’s guess. A piece picked up on a wheel or popped into a wagon, perhaps. A shiny gem thrust into a pocket and then carelessly thrown away. Then the dews of night had dissolved minute quantities of mineral in the soil, and the crystal had grown, but how it had reached ’ling size without demolition was someone’s culpable oversight. The thing had been twelve feet tall!
    By evening, he had passed the hydroelectric plant and the dam, circled the shining lake, and reached the top of the long ridge that backed the reservoir. Here the flora was more typical of Jubal, the fanshaped trees relaxing into their nighttime fountain shapes as the sun dropped. His lungs filled with the faintly spicy aroma he loved.
    He had almost decided to place his camp in a small clearing among a grove of the plumy Jubal trees when he heard a voice behind him.
    ‘Master Ferrence? Camp is set up over here, sir.’
    ‘Jamieson? What the dissonant hell are you doing here?’ He turned to see the boy standing beside an arched tent, which was so well hidden among the trees that he had missed it on his walk through the grove.
    ‘Acolyte’s oath, Master.’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Acolyte’s oath only applies in the citadel.’
    ‘Not according to Master General, Master Ferrence. He says I owe you most of a year yet, and where you go, I go. So says Master General with some vehemence.’ The boy was downcast over something, not his usual ebullient self.
    ‘How did you know which way I was going?’
    ‘You and the Tripmaster discussed it. He told Master General and Master General told me. I left a few hours before you planned to.’
    ‘I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask you to go back and say you couldn’t find me.’
    ‘Master General would just send me looking. He said so already.’ The boy turned away, gesturing toward the pile of wood laid by and the cookpot hung ready. ‘We’ve got some fresh meat.’
    Tasmin followed him in a mood of some bewilderment. It had certainly not been his intention to travel in company, and had he chosen company, he would not have chosen Jamieson. Would he? ‘Master General didn’t say anything to me.’
    ‘He didn’t want to argue with you. He told us to make ourselves useful and not intrude on your privacy.’
    ‘Us?’
    ‘Me and Clarin, sir.’
    ‘Clarin!’
    ‘Yes, sir?’ The girl came out of the tent, touched her breast in a gesture of respect, and