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didn’
t
indulge, common though the vice had become in the Union as trade with the Southeast revived, and decided against hauling out his pipe.
    She poised above him. Her mouth was drawn tense, her nostrils were flared and white. ‘You can tell me how Launy met his end,’she said, flat-voiced. ‘I’m sure it was gallantly. But I’ve received nothing except the bare news, a year late.’
    Terai nodded. ‘He was a prisoner aboard my ship. A random shell from his side killed him instantly. I never saw him flinch. In fact, he was standing by prepared to help
give
first aid if needed.’
    ‘I see. Then I’d like our daughter to hear this. Our sons, too, but they’re older and in school.’ She stepped into the hall and called upstairs: ‘Ronica! Come down here!’
    A girl of perhaps five obeyed. If that was her age, she was big for it, within a tomboy’s smudgy sweater and jeans – but had she been cuddling a teddy bear in her room? When her mother made introductions, she grew mute and motionless, but not stiffly; Terai thought of a lynx kitten.
    ‘Sit down, Ronica,’ Anneth said, saw to it that the child did, and followed suit. ‘You are kind, Commander Lohannaso, and we’re fortunate. Also in your timing. In a month, we move to –’ She broke off. ‘No matter. Please tell what you have to tell.’
    Terai had rehearsed the account in his mind, over and over. Despite that, he stumbled through it.
    And Ronica’s green eyes got larger, narrower, larger, narrower. Tears coursed out, but silently, apart from the gulped breath. Her blond head never bowed. Did she remember her father at all? Very likely not – but from her kinfolk, chapter members of his Wolf Lodge, whatever memorial service they had been able to hold for him in wartime – yes, surely she did.
    And at the end, although Terai gentled his narrative, she sprang to her feet, fists clenched, and cried in a tempest of rageful sobbing:
    ‘You killed ’im! You old Maurai killed ’im! But we’ll kill you! Orion shall rise!’
    ‘Ronica!’ Anneth swept from her chair to grab the girl to her. ‘Be still.’
    ‘Orion shall rise!’
    The look that Anneth gave Terai was stark. ‘Excuse us, Commander,’ she said. ‘I made a mistake. If you don’t mind waiting, I’d better carry her upstairs and soothe her.’
    ‘I quite understand, Mizza Birken,’ he answered, lifting himself. ‘Take your time. I have a room at the inn, and don’t plan to catch the Seattle train till tomorrow. We’ll talk about Launy, or anything, as much as you want meanwhile.’ Awkwardly: ‘If you’d rather not, I can explore your woods, maybe get in a spot of birdwatching.’
    Thank you, Commander,’ she said – the least bit less frozenly than before? – and hurried her daughter out.
    He sank back into his chair.
What odd words for a youngster to scream,
passed through him.
Something she overheard from adults, I imagine, but something meaningful. … What meaning? Only a slogan, I suppose. Orion is the Hunter or, in some parts of the world, the Giant in Chains. It’s a winter constellation here, and the Northwest Union extends past the Arctic Circle. Nevertheless … this may bear watching.
    For the next twenty years, off and on, as far as he was able, he watched.

CHAPTER THREE
    ‘The Otter stream took me and drowned me and carried me –
    Quietly, quietly –
    Throughout that summer day
    From reeds as they rustled at Fallen Bridge fishing hole,
    On into Idris Wood,
    Where sun and shadows play.
    ‘The shaw opened up on the meadows of Arwy farm.
    There was the apple tree
    Where first I kissed my girl.
    (Oh, afterward, hand in hand, stood we on Honey Hill,
    Wild with surprise at how
    The world was all awhirl.)
    ‘Past Alfenton village and dreams in its thoroughfares,
    Toyed with and broken by
    A boy who once was me,
    The river sent rolling whatever was left of him
    South toward Budley Bay,
    Where first he saw the sea.
    ‘At Ottery Simmery, high gleamed the