Other Times, Other Worlds

Dance of a New World

Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, September 1948.

If you can’t find the man who can do the job that has to be done — there’s always one answer!

Shane Brent sat in the air-conditioned personnel office of the Solaray Plantations near Allada, Venus, and stared sleepily at the brown, powerful man across the table from him. Shane was an angular blond man, dressed in the pale-gray uniform of Space Control. On his left lapel was the interlocked C.A. of Central Assignment and on the right lapel was the small gold question mark of Investigation Section. Shane Brent had the faculty of complete relaxation, almost an animal stillness.

His hair was a cropped golden cap and his eyes a quiet gray. Below the edge of the gray shorts the hair, tight curled on his brown legs, had been burned white by the sun.

The man on the other side of the table was stocky, sullen and powerful. His face was livid with the seamed burns of space radiation before the days of adequate pilot protection. His name was Hiram Lee.

The conversation had lasted more than an hour and as yet Shane Brent was no closer to a solution. He had been carefully trained in all the arts of persuasion, of mental and emotional appeals. Hiram Lee had resisted them all.

Shane Brent said: “Lee, the whole thing is ridiculous. You’re thirty-eight now. At least seven years of piloting ahead of you.”

Lee snorted. “Piloting! Tell your boss that I’m unadjusted or something.”

“Let’s review the case again. You, at the age of eighteen, were the first third-generation space pilot in history. Your grandfather was John Lee who was an army pilot and who ran out of soup on the second swing around the Moon. As a memorial they left the little silver ship in orbit.”

Lee’s expression softened for the first time. “That’s the way he would have wanted it.”

“And your father, David Lee, was kicked off the spaceways for getting tight and balancing the old Los Angeles of the Donnovan Lines on its tail fifty feet in the air for ten minutes.”

“And he won his bet of fifty bucks, junior. Don’t forget that.”

“And that brings us down to you, Hiram Lee. You made eighty-three trips with Space Combo in the VME triangle. Your education cost Central Assignment a lot of time and money. There aren’t enough trained pilots who can stand the responsibility.”

“The monotony, you mean.” Lee stood up suddenly, his fists on his slim waist. “I told you before and I’ll tell you again. When I started, it was a fine racket. You took off on manual controls and got your corrections en route from Central Astro. You made the corrections manually. You ripped off in those rusty buckets and the acceleration nearly tore your guts out. When I started we had a mean time of one five nine days from Earth to Venus. The trip was rugged. As a pilot you were somebody.

“Then some bright gent had to invent the Tapeworm. Central Astro plots your entire trip and sends the tape over. You coordinate the Tapeworm with takeoff time and feed in the tape. You’ve got a standby Tapeworm with a duplicate tape and you’ve got an escape tape which you feed in if anything goes too far off.

“The pilot sits there like a stuffed doll and the tape does everything. You don’t even have to worry about meteorites. The Pusher obliques the little ones off and the Change-Scanner gives you an automatic course correction around the big one. It just got too dull, Brent. I’m not a guy who wants to play up to the rich passengers and tickle the babies under the chin and say kitcheekoo. I took three years of rocking chair circuits and then I quit. And I won’t go back.”

“What makes the job you’ve got so attractive, Lee? You’re just a foreman and nursemaid to a bunch of Harids working in your herb patches.”

Lee smiled tightly. “I keep ’em working and I tell ’em what to do and I try to keep them happy. You know the final psycho report on them. Their culture is much like the culture of ants on Earth — with one exception. They have a high degree of emotional instability. Did you ever see a Harid run berserk? A bunch of them are picking away and all of a sudden one will stop and start swaying his head from side to side. The others light out for far places. The one who has gone over the edge starts clicking those teeth of his. He lets out a scream that would split your head wide open and comes at you with his arms all coiled to strike. Bullets won’t stop them. You haven’t got time to mess with a powerpack and turn a ray on him. All you need is a knife. You just step inside the arms, slice his head clean off and get out of the way fast. See this scar? I didn’t move fast enough six months ago.”

Shane looked puzzled. “Then danger is an integral part of your pattern of living. Are you trying to tell me there’s no danger in space?”

“It’s a different kind, Brent. Once every few years a ship gets it. The people on it don’t even know what happened. I like a little danger all the time.”

“Would you consent to an alteration of glandular secretions to take away this yen for danger?”

“And start kissing babies again? Not a chance! Every Saturday I draw my pay and I hit all the joints along the Allada Strip. You meet some interesting people. All Sunday I have a head and a half. On Monday I’m out in the weeds again with my crew of Harids.”

“Central Assignment isn’t going to like my report on this.”

Lee chuckled. “I sure weep for you pretty boys in gray. Tell them to mark my file closed and tell them where to file it for me, will you?”

Shane Brent stood up slowly, looking more than ever like a big sleepy animal. “Suppose, Lee, that you could take a route on one of the old ships? Manual controls, magnetic shoes, creaking plates — all the fixings.”

Lee stared down at the table top for a few seconds. He said softly: “Nothing in this world would keep me out of space, brother. Nothing!”

Shane Brent asked: “And what if you had control of a modern job and had orders to take it so far that Central Astro couldn’t give you a tape?”

Lee grinned. “That’d be O. K., too. I hate those smug characters sitting there in their ivory tower and supplying little strips of plastic to do the job that good pilots should be doing.”

Shane Brent looked rueful. “Well, I guess you’ve licked me, Hiram. This will be the first time I’ve ever had to report back a complete failure.”

“Do them good back there,” Lee said, grinning. He stared curiously at Brent. “You know, Brent, you don’t look like a guy who’d get much of a bang out of all this investigation junk. Why don’t you take a break? I’ll get you a gang of Harids. These Solaray people are O. K. to work for. Stick around. On Saturday we’ll hit the Strip. There’s a little gal dancing at Brownie’s. A Seattle gal. Blonde. She won’t even give me the right time, but you just might manage to—”

Brent grinned. “I better think that one over. Sorry to have taken so much of your time, Lee. See you around.”

Shane Brent stood at the window and watched Hiram Lee walk off in the direction of the drying sheds. Already the thick heat had put a sheen of perspiration across the broad muscular shoulders of Lee. He walked with the carefree swing of an independent man of strength and courage. Shane Brent sighed, walked out into the heat and headed for the Solaray Communications Building.

He showed his credentials to the pretty clerk and said: “I’ll need a private screen and a closed circuit and the usual guarantee of secrecy. It will be a charge to Central Assignment.”

He went into the small room she had indicated, and opened the switch under the dead screen. A muted hum filled the room.

“Central Assignment,” he said.

Thirty seconds later a clear feminine voice said: “Central Assignment.”

“Brent calling. Give me Allison, please.”

Allison’s face suddenly filled the screen. He was a white-haired man with a florid face and an air of nervousness and vitality.

“Hello, Shane,” he said quietly. “Closed circuit?”

“Of course, Frank. I’ve got a report on Hiram Lee.”

“Good! Let’s have it. I’ve got the recorder on.”

“Here goes. Memorandum to F. A. Allison. From Shane Brent. Subject: Personnel for Project 81 — Pilot Investigation. Case of Hiram Lee. Hiram Lee has been carefully investigated and it is recommended that permission be given the undersigned to approach Lee with an offer to join Project 81. Lee is alert, capable, strong, dependable to a sufficient degree. His training is excellent. He will need little indoctrination. Quinn is to be commended for recommending him to Central Assignment. It is believed that the probable seven-year duration of the trip will not discourage Lee. It is also believed that the calculated risk of one in four of returning from the Project flight will not deter Lee. Permission is requested to contact Lee and furthermore to sound him out on becoming a colonist, dependent, of course, on his finding a suitable woman to accompany him.”

Allison, who had been listening with interest, said: “Good work! You have the authority you request.”

“Have you got a line on the executive officer for Project 81 yet, Frank?”

Allison frowned. “Not yet, Shane. But something will turn up. Foster and Brady have filled most of the remaining slots. Denvers will go along as head physicist for the refinement of the drive brick for the return. Central Astro had given us the takeoff date as, let me see, ninety-three days from today.”

“Pushing us, hey?”

“Can’t be helped. It’s either then or about three years from then. Say, Shane, instead of returning right away, see what you can find there in the line of an executive officer. Report if you get a line on anybody. Good-by, Shane.”

“Good-by, Frank.”

As the screen went blank, Shane sighed, cut the switch and walked out. At the front exit he went up the stairs to the platform, stepped into the waiting monorail suspension bus, found an empty seat. He felt drained and weary. Frank Allison was a difficult taskmaster. His personal affection for Allison made the job no easier.

At the scheduled time the bus slid smoothly away from Solaray, and braked to a stop in Allada seventy miles away in fifteen minutes. Shane Brent realized with a tight smile that it was the first time he had made any trip on Venus without paying any attention to the lush bluish-black vegetation below. The vegetation had standards of vitality and growth completely different from Earth vegetation. If the port city of Allada hadn’t been originally constructed on a vitrified surface, thousands of laborers would have been required to slash the tendrils which would have grown each day. In fact, when the spot for Allada had been originally vitrified, it had only been done to a two-foot depth. Tendrils broke through on the third day, heaving and cracking the surface. After that experience, spaceships had hung, tail down, over the Allada site for ten days. When the molten rock had finally cooled, the experts had estimated that the black soil was vitrified to a depth of sixty feet. No plant life had broken through since that time. The electrified cables surrounding Allada constantly spit and crackled as the searching vine tips touched them.

Shane Brent went up to his room in Hostel B, shut the door wearily, listlessly pushed the News button under the wall screen and watched the news of the day with little interest as he slowly undressed. Crowds demonstrating in Asia-Block against the new nutrition laws. Project 80, two years out said to be nearing Planet K. Skirts once again to be midway between knee and hip next season. The first bachelor parenthood case comes up to decide whether a child born of the fertilization of a laboratory ovum can legally inherit. Brent frowned. Soon a clear definition of the legal rights of “Synthetics” would have to be made. He stopped suddenly as he had an idea. He decided to submit it to Frank. Why not get Inter-Federal Aid for a project to develop Synthetics to fill personnel requirements for future project flights? But would humanity agree to colonization by Synthetics? It still wasn’t clearly understood whether or not they’d breed true.

He turned off the news, took a slow shower and dressed in fresh clothes. It was a nuisance changing the insignia. He wadded up the clothes he had removed and shoved them into the disposal chute.

At five o’clock he got on the call screen and got hold of the general manager at Allada. The man recognized him immediately. “What can I do for you, Brent?”

“As soon as Hiram Lee gets off duty, send him in to see me at Hostel B.”

“I hope you don’t steal him away from us, Brent. He’s the best man we’ve got with the Harids. He doesn’t scare easy.”

Brent grinned. “I’ll try to scare him away from me, sir.”

He walked away from the screen, went into the shower room and examined the drinkmaster. It was one of the older type. No choice of brands. He set the master dial to one ounce. He pushed the gin button three times, the dry vermouth button once. He turned the stir lever and held it on for a few seconds before he turned it off. He looked in the side compartment and found no lemon, no olives, no pickled onions. That was the trouble with Central Assignment only approving the second-class places. He took the right size glass off the rack, put it under the spout and lifted it until the rim tripped the lever. The Martini poured smoothly into the glass, beading the outside of it with moisture. Down in the lobby the centralized accounting circuit buzzed and the price of the Martini was neatly stamped on his bill.

He walked back into the other room, sat in the deep chair and sipped the Martini, thinking it odd that with all the scientific experimentation in taste effects, no one had yet come up with any substitute for the delicacy and aroma of a dry Martini.

Hiram Lee arrived as he was sipping his third.

Twenty minutes later Hiram Lee stood at the windows, his lips compressed, pounding his fist into his palm in monotonous rhythm.

He turned suddenly. “I don’t know what I’m waiting for, Shane. Yes! Count me in. When do we leave?”

“Hold up there, boy. You’ve got to go to school for a while. And how about the colonization angle. Will you want to stay?”

Lee grinned. “If I could talk that little Seattle blonde into going along, three years would be a short, short trip.”

“Providing she could pass.”

“Oh, sure. I think she’d pass. But she’s too smart to tie up with me. Maybe. At least I’ll give it a try. When have I got to tell you about whether or not I want to stay on this brand new world you boys have located?”

“Let me see. Ninety-three days from now is takeoff. Thirty days would be needed to approve and train a woman. You have sixty-three days to convince this blonde of yours that you’re a very attractive guy. And then you’ll have to talk her into taking a little three-year trip and settling down in the brush with you.”

Lee looked at him curiously. “You knew all this early this afternoon and you gave me that song and dance with a straight face.”

“That’s my profession, Hiram.”

“You’re good at it, but I still have got an urge to bust you one.”

“We’ll arrange that some time. Right now I’m looking for recommendations for somebody to fill the slot of executive officer aboard the Project flight. Any ideas?”

Lee frowned. “None of those boys at Solaray will do. I can tell you that quick. They’re either slowly congealing in their own juice or they’re making too good a thing out of their job. Better hunt around in the other plantations. There’s a guy named Mosey over at Factri-grown on the other side of Allada that has a good reputation.”

“I’ll take a look. And by the way, Hiram. All this is under the hat.”

“Natürlich, mein herr. May I respectfully recommend that we embark on an evening of wine and song? I hold out little hope for the other ingredient.”

One big meal and two hours later, Shane Brent and Hiram Lee walked into the club on the strip — the club called Brownie’s.

The air was chilled, thinned and scented with the crispness of pine. The place was lighted by glowing amber disks set into the walls. It was packed with the usual type of crowd. Bug-eyed tourists trying to pretend that it was old stuff to them; hard-drinking, hard-fisted men from the plantations; neat, careful kids from the ship crews in Allada port; the odd-job drifters who had become parasites on the social structure of Allada; a big party of Allada politicos, wining and dining two inspectors from Asia-Block.

By luck they found an empty table for two not far from the dance floor. Hiram Lee was on hard liquor and Brent, feeling his limit near, had shifted to beer.

Lee said, slurring his words: “You’re smart to get over onto beer, friend. You got to drink in this climate quite a while before you pick up a good head for the stuff.” He glanced at his watch. “Floor show in ten minutes. Then you can see my blondie.”

Shane Brent felt the artificial gaiety draining out of him. He looked around at the other tables, seeing suddenly the facial lines of viciousness and stupidity and greed. He remembered his reading of history and guessed that there must have been faces just like these in the early days of the American West. California in 1849 and 1850. Easy money attracted those who had been unable to make a proper adjustment to their accustomed environment. Actually it was the result of exploitation. The Harids, with their ant culture, had put up suicidal defense until General Brayton had discovered the wave length of the beamed thought waves which directed the Harids of each colony. Science had devised stronger sending devices than the colony waves and suddenly the Harids were servants.

Each foreman, such as Hiram Lee, carried one of the wave boxes and directed his crew. Central Economics had proven that the use of Harids in the culture — picking and drying of the herbs — was cheaper than any mechanical devices which could be set up.

Several couples danced to the music which came directly from New York. The oversize screen, a special three-dimensional job with good color values, covered most of the wall beyond the dance floor, showed a full orchestra. Brent guessed that when the floor show came on the management would either use live music or cut off the New York program and feed recordings into the screen.

The second guess proved right. The screen darkened and the couples left the floor. It brightened again, showing a canned vision of a small group completely equipped with electrical instruments. The M.C. walked out as the spot came on. He carried a small hand mike. After the initial fanfare, the music gave him a soft background and he said: “This show costs a lot of money to put on. All you folks drinking beer kindly turn your chairs around with your backs toward the floor. It is my pleasure to present a young lady who doesn’t belong out here on Venus, wasting her time and talents on you space-burnt wanderers. On the other hand, Venus is a very appropriate spot for her to be. I give you Caren Ames and her famous Dance of a New World!” He grinned and backed out of the spot which widened until it covered most of the small dance floor.

The music shifted into a low, throbbing beat, an insistent jungle rhythm. Brent smiled cynically at the buildup, thought it was pretty fancy for what would probably turn out to be an aging stripper.

She backed slowly onto the floor, staring into the shadows from which she backed. Brent’s breath caught in his throat. She was a faintly angular girl who should have had no grace. She wore a stylized version of the jungle clothes of the foremen on the plantations. Across her shoulder was slung a glittering replica of one of the thought boxes. She carried in her right hand a shining knife of silver.

She moved with such an intense representation of great fear that Brent felt the uneasy shifting of the crowd. The music was a frightened heartbeat. Her grace was angular, perfect and beautiful. Her face was a rigid mask of fear, her blond hair a frozen gout of gold that fell across one shoulder.

The throng gasped as the thing followed her into the middle of the floor, stood weaving, with its eyes on her. At first glance Brent thought that it was actually one of the Harids, but then he realized that it was a clever costume, worn by a rather small person. It had all the swaying obscenity of one of the tiny praying mantis of Earth. The swollen abdomen, the little triangular head, the knotted forearms held high — all of it covered with the fine soft gray scales of a Harid. The three digits of each hand waved aimlessly about like the antennae of a mammoth insect.

The expanding spot showed a small bush covered with the blue-black oily foliage of Venus. The girl stood her ground, lifted the thought box to her lips. She swayed slightly in rhythm with the Harid and her shoulders straightened as the Harid turned away from her, went over toward the bush. It began to pluck at the leaves with the perky, incredibly fast motions of the genuine Harid. Her dance of fear turned slowly into a dance of joy of release from fear. The tempo of the music increased and she danced ever closer to the squat form of the Harid, the knife in her hand cutting joyous sparkling arcs in the flood of tinted light.

She danced ever faster, and Brent said to Lee out of the corner of his mouth: “What is she doing here? She’s wonderful!”

“I told you she was, boy.”

A movement to Brent’s right caught his eye. A bulky man from one of the plantations, very drunk, wavered on his chair as he watched the dance with slitted eyes. The lines around his mouth were taut. Brent felt wonder that the girl’s artistry could have such an effect on one of the hardened foremen.

The music increased to a crescendo, and suddenly stopped. The girl stood motionless, her arms widespread. A very slow beat began. The Harid began to sway its head slowly from side to side in time with the beat. A woman in the darkness screamed softly. Head swaying, the Harid turned slowly and faced the girl. Her face once again became a face of fear. The knotted arms of the thing lifted high. The girl took a slow step backward. The tension was a physical thing — it could be felt in the utter silence of the audience.

At that moment the man whom Brent had noticed earlier roared, and jumped to his feet. There was a knife in his hand. He started for the mock Harid. Shane Brent left his chair in a quick smooth motion. His shoulder slammed against the thick thigh of the man with the knife and the two of them fell and slid across the polished floor. The room was in an uproar. The foreman bounded up, his drunken face twisted with rage. He drew the knife hand back to slash at Brent. Brent fell inside the thrust and struck the man a hammer blow across the side of his throat with the edge of his palm. The lights came on as the man dropped heavily onto his face. No one had thought of the music. It continued on. The mock Harid stood up and turned into a pale slight man who held the head portion of his costume in his hand. His pale lips trembled. He said, with great wonder: “That fellow would have cut my head off!”

The M.C. came out and said to the girl: “Want to try again from scratch, Miss Ames?”

Her eyes were still wide with shock. “No... I couldn’t. Not right now. The next show maybe.”

The M.C. turned to Brent. “Your check will be on the house, of course. The management is grateful.”

The pale young man said: “I’m a little more grateful than the management.”

“Thank you,” Caren said simply.

Brent grinned at her. “You can return the favor by coming to our table after you change, Miss Ames. We’re right over there.”

She looked uncertain for a moment. “I don’t usually—”

“Just this time, Miss Ames,” the M.C. said.

Her smile was brilliant as she turned and left the floor. “See you in a few minutes Mr. — .”

“Brent. Shane Brent.”

By that time the foreman was back on his feet, pale and shaking. He didn’t understand what had happened. His friends led him back through the tables and out the door. He was protesting plaintively.

She sat quietly at the table between them and talked generalities in a quiet, cultured voice. Her between-acts dress was dark and conservative, her blond hair pulled back with determined severity.

She rebuffed the clumsy verbal advances of Hiram Lee very politely. By the time Shane Brent sat through the next show, enthralled anew by her artistry, Hiram Lee had his head on the table and was snoring softly.

During the dull act which followed Caren’s, two heavily built men came over to the table and shook their heads sadly. “Poor ole Hiram! Tch! Tch! You mind, mister, if we lug ole Hiram back with us to Solaray. The poor boy needs a nice soft bunk.”

Hiram protested feebly, but walked unsteadily between them, half supported by them as he left. Caren came back a few moments later.

They sat and talked of many things. At last she smiled and said: “I was silly when I was afraid to sit with you. Usually such things become a bit... messy.”

He grinned. “I’m harmless. It does seem a little funny to me to find somebody like you in... this place.”

Her eyes hardened. “I know how it goes from here on. Caren, you’re too nice for a place like this. Let me take you away with me. I know the whole routine, Mr. Brent.”

“It’s not like that, Caren. Honestly. If I’ve asked a clumsy question, I’m sorry. It wasn’t a buildup.”

She looked into his eyes for long seconds. “All right, Shane. I believe you. I’ll tell you how it happened. I was trained for ballet. When I was nineteen I married a very rich and very weak young man. After two years life became impossible. I managed to get a divorce. Every minute I spend on Earth is spent keeping out of his way. He manages to queer me in every dancing job I get. He has a weak heart. They won’t accept him for space travel. I’m safe here. I can keep this job. But I can’t ever go back.”

She didn’t ask for pity as she told him. It was as though she spoke of someone else.

“What kind of a career can you have here, Caren?”

She smiled and for once it wasn’t a pretty smile. “I can make a living here. Some day there will be other cities beside Allada. Some day there will be a civilization on Venus which will be cultured enough so that my kind of career can exist here. But I won’t live to see it.”

“What do you want out of your life?” he asked gently.

“Peace. Freedom to do as I please.” Her eyes were troubled.

“Is that all?” he asked insistently.

“No!” she flared. “I want more than that, but I don’t know what I want. I’m just restless.” She stopped and looked at him for long moments. “You are too, Shane. Aren’t you?”

He tried to pass it off lightly. “Things have been a little dull lately.”

“Take me for a walk through the city, Shane. When I feel like this I have to walk it off.”

They walked to the edge of the wire near the constant sparking and crackling as the electricity crisped the searching tendrils. Above them the strange stars shone dimly through the constant heavy mist.

She stood with her head tilted back, her eyes half shut. On an impulse he reached out and unclasped the heavy pin that bound her hair so tightly. It fell in a shining flood over her shoulders.

“Why—” she said, startled.

“It just had to be. I feel like we’ve both been caught up in something outside of us and we’re being hurtled along. Everything from here on will be because it has to be.”

Without another word she came quickly into his arms. She was as intensely alive as during the intricate figures of her strange dance.

Once again the pretty clerk pointed out the small room to Shane Brent. He walked slowly, reluctantly, shut the door quietly behind him. In a short time he had a closed circuit to Central Assignment and moments later the alert face of Frank Allison filled the screen.

“What’s the matter, Shane? You look done in. Rough night?”

“You could call it that I guess.”

“How about Lee?”

“Everything is set, Frank. He’ll leave on Flight Seven a week from today. Have somebody meet him and get him cleared and out to the school, will you?”

“Sure thing. What else have you got on your mind? From your tone that isn’t all you called about.”

“It isn’t. I’ve got an exec for you, Frank.”

“Good! A competent man?”

“I guess so. At least he’s had the proper background for it.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense. Who is the man?”

“Me,” Shane said flatly.

Frank Allison looked at him for long seconds, no trace of expression on his face. “Are you serious, Shane?”

“Completely, Frank.”

Allison moved away from the screen. Shane waited impatiently. In a few moments Allison was back and Shane was mildly shocked to see that the man was smiling broadly. “I had a little detail to attend to, Shane. I had to collect ten bucks. You see, I had a bet with West. We had you picked for the job for the last seven months, but in order for you to qualify for it, the idea had to originate with you. If it didn’t, Psycho wouldn’t approve your arbitrary assignment to the spot. Congratulations!”

Shane Brent wanted to laugh as he realized Allison had been playing almost the same game with him that he had been playing with Hiram Lee.

“I won’t be back, Frank,” he said quietly.

Allison sobered. “I had hoped you would, Shane. It’s your privilege to make your own choice. I had hoped that seven years from now, with your experience on this project, you’d be fitted to come in here and take my job.”

“I’m sorry, Frank,” Shane said.

Allison sighed. “So be it. When will you be in?”

“I’ll wait until she can come with me. It’ll be Flight Eight probably. I’ll confirm.”

There was deep affection in Allison’s smile. “Whoever she is, boy, I’m sure that she’s a very lovely person. See you when you get here.”

The screen darkened. He stood for a moment and looked at its opaque dead grayness. He didn’t see the screen. He saw, instead, a distant planet. He saw himself standing in a clearing, his hands hardened with pioneer labor. Above him was an alien sky. Beside him was a tall girl. Her hair of purest gold blew in the soft breeze.

Shane Brent turned and walked quickly from the small room. Caren would be waiting.