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with the situation we have here on the Dorsai. You grow up, knowing the boys
of your district, and those from a lot of others. And when they finally sign
contracts and go off-planet, that's all they are, still just tall boys. But
then, perhaps it's a year, or several, before they come home; and when they do
you find they're& different."
"You mean, they've become men."
"Not only men," she said, "but men you never thought might come from the boys
you knew. Some things you hardly noticed about them have moved forward in them
and taken over. Other things you thought were the most important part of what
made them, have gone way back in them, or been lost forever. They've grown up
in ways you didn't expect. Suddenly, it's as if you never had known them. They
can be anybody& strangers."
Her voice had sunk so low that she seemed to be speaking more to herself than
him; and her gaze was on nothing.
"You sit and talk with them, after they come home," she went on, "and you
realize you're talking to someone who's gone away from what was common to both
of you and now has something that has nothing to do with you, that you've
never known and maybe never will know& "
She looked at him. Her eyes were brilliant.
"And then you discover that the same thing that happened to them has happened
to you. You were a girl they grew up with when they left; but that girl is
gone, gone forever. With you, too, some things have comeforward, other things
have gone back or been lost forever. Now they sit talking to a woman they
don't know, that now they maybe never will know. And so, everything changes."
"I see," he said. "And it changed that much far the second Amanda and for
Kensie and Ian?"
"Yes," she said, soberly. "They came back, two strangers, and fell in love
with a stranger they had once grown up with. With any other three people that
would have been problem enough but those twins were half and half of each
other, and Amanda knew it."
"What happened?"
The third Amanda, Hal's Amanda, did not answer. She had drawn her knees up to
her chin, and hugged them. Now she rested her chin upon her knees, staring
down into the valley.
"What happened?" Hal asked again.
"Everybody had simply assumed that Kensie and Amanda would end up together,"
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she said, at last, "including Ian. When Ian found he was in love with Amanda
himself, it was unthinkable to him that he should interfere in any way with
his twin brother. So he married Leah, who had wanted him for a long
time.Married her simply and quickly."
"And tookhimself out of the picture."
"No, "Amanda shook her head. "Because he had made a mistake.After the two of
them had come home, different, it wasn't Kensie, but Ian, that the
secondAmanda had fallen in love with. Ian. Only with Ian being the kind of
person he was, there was no chance that, having once married Leah, that
situation could ever be changed."
"But you say& "began Hal puzzled,then checked himself. "But, if she had any
love for Kensie at all, what was to keep her from ending up with him?
Certainly that would have been better than the two of them "
"The way they were." Amanda turned her head to look at Hal. "Kensie and Ian
were too close not to know each other's feelings; and Kensie loved Amanda as
completely as Amanda loved Ian. Knowing how she loved Ian, Kensie could not
take the place he would have filled in her life if things had been otherwise.
He went back to the wars as if& he was too much a Dorsai to deliberately put
himself in the way of getting killed. But for all his brightness, he lived in
the shadow of death for years after that; and it seemed as if death was
perversely avoiding him."
She looked away from him, down to the valley again.
"The Exotics say," she went on, "that there are ontogenetic laws which
explain why someone like Kensie could lead a charmed life under such
conditions."
"Yes," said Hal. He had not realized how strangely he had said the word until
he looked up and saw her gazing at him.
"You know something about ontogenetics?" she asked."Something that applies to
the second Amanda, and Ian and Kensie?"
"To Ian and Kensie, maybe," he said. The part of him that concerned itself
with what he calledThe
Purpose that half-seen thing he must do with his life was working
powerfully, now; and he heard his own words almost as if someone else was
speaking them. "Ontogenetics merely says nothing happens by chance or
accident. Everything is interrelated. Stop and think. When Donal Graeme was
moving toward his goal of bringing all the inhabited worlds under one order,
his enemy was William of Ceta, just as Dow deCastries was the special opponent
of Cletus Grahame."
"Yes," Amanda frowned."But what of it?"
"To defeat William, who had unlimited power and wealth, Donal needed to
defeat all possible military opponents. To do that he needed a military force
larger than had ever been seen on the inhabited worlds. Only one other man
could train that force as Donal needed it trained and the rule in the Graeme
household was that no two of their men served in the same place at the same
time; far the same reason that a father and mother of young children may
travel by different spacecraft, so that in case a phaseshift accident should
take one of them, the other would still be there to take care of the
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children."
"But it was different with Ian and Kensie," Amanda said. "They were allowed
to serve in the same farce, together."
"Until Kensie's death.Then the rule was broken once more by Eachan Khan
Graeme, who you'll remember was the family head, Donal's father andJan'solder
brother." The Purpose-oriented part of Hal's mind was in complete control of
him, now. He went on, not noticing the sudden intensity with which she was
regarding him. "He asked Donal tofind work with him for Ian, as the only means
of rousing Ian after his twin's death ."
She was watching him closely.
"You know a good deal about the Graemes," she said.
Suddenly aware of her attention, he grew flustered.
"I& don't," he said. "I only know something about ontogenetics ."
"What you're saying adds up to the fact that Donal had Kensie killed to free
Ian far his own use."
"No, no& " he protested. "Only Donal's need far Ian, acting on the network of
cause and effect "
"No!" she said. "Do you think any such farces could combine to kill Kensie,
and Ian wouldn't be aware of it? They were one person, those twins!"
"But you said yourself that Kensie had been searching far death, ever since
he had lost Amanda," he protested. "Maybe Ian simply, at last, let him go. You
remember Kensie was assassinated. Dorsai aren't easy to assassinate, unless
they don't care any
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