Shrouded Planet

I

Time passed; the Year of Danoy of the 243rd Cycle swung round, and the hugl died away. And the name of Kiv peGanz Brajjyd became an important one at the Bel-rogas School of Divine Law.

Tradition-minded, Kiv was plagued by the implications of the method he had used to bring about the end of the hugl plague. But Jones speedily convinced him that the means were justified by the ends; the peych crop had been saved, and the Scripture upheld.

Throughout Nidor, the Bel-rogas School was hailed for having produced such a one as Kiv. "An obvious choice for the Council of Elders some day," people said. It put a sort of aura over Kiv: his accomplishment had marked him out as a future Elder, when his time came.

Only the manufacturers of the Edris powder suffered, and that did not make itself felt until the following year. The hugl were all but exterminated—and those whose family livelihoods had depended, for thousands of years, on manufacturing Edris powder to stem the plagues of the little beasts, now had no niche to fill in the well-balanced Nidorian economy.

Kiv brooded over that, knowing that it was his fault this had come about, as the poverty-stricken Edris manufacturers flooded into Gelusar to lay their grievances before the Council of Elders.

"I did that," he said in bitter self-accusation to Narla. "I broke the pattern, and now look!"

Narla iKiv let her hands rest lightly on her husband's shoulders. "There had to be suffering, one way or another. Either the Edris manufacturers lost out, or all Nidor would have been stripped by the hugl. Which would you prefer, Kiv?"

He thought that over for a while. "I did right, then,'' he said at length. "But still—nothing like this had ever happened, before. The necessity for such a choice was—"

Shaking his head, he let the conversation die. Already he was learning to hide his deepest woe within himself—and, as time went on, he became more and more convinced that he had done the only thing that had been possible for him to do. It was small comfort, but it sufficed.

He pursued his studies through the following year, dwelling mainly on aspects of theological law. Marked as he was for future acclaim, he knew he had to prepare himself diligently and well for the responsibilities that lay ahead.

He and Narla graduated from Bel-rogas a year later, the Year Lokness of the 243rd Cycle: Kiv with honors, Narla merely with an honorary commendation. But that suited Narla. She had never been an outstanding student, and in any event no possible future lay ahead for her except that which she had already chosen for herself.

On the eleventh day after graduation, she presented Kiv with a daughter.

They named her Sindi geKiv Brajjyd.

To no one's surprise, Kiv was tapped for the priesthood and selected for service at the Great Temple. He and Narla settled of necessity in Gelusar, taking a small apartment almost in the shadow of the Temple.

He had grown up in the sprawling farmlands of Thyvash, far to the southeast, and he would have preferred that his daughter have the same sort of childhood. But Temple service demanded his constant presence in the Holy City, and so city life was imposed on him.

The years passed.

The newly-designated Grandfather Kiv took a post on the staff of Drel peNibro Brajjyd, one of the ranking priests—and, when the incumbent Elder Brajjyd, old B*or peDrogh, died, it was Grandfather Drel peNibro who succeeded to the Council post.

Kiv served as the new Elder Grandfather's second-in-command, and—the memory of his great achievement still bright—was generally regarded as the heir apparent to the Council seat, some day when he had achieved the requisite standing of age in his Clan.

So the years slipped by: Sindi grew out of childhood, becoming first a gawky young girl, then, much to Kiv's amused surprise, almost a woman. He was unhappy, though; city life had made something of Sindi that hurt and displeased him.

Seeds of rebellion seemed to sprout in her. She said and did things that in the old days would have resulted in her instant punishment—but no longer.

The world was changing, Kiv realized sadly, as he grew older.

But he was proud of his daughter, nonetheless. Her impudence was just one facet of her inquisitive mind, a feature he liked to think she had inherited from him. And she followed the ways of her father in at least one respect: she applied for admission to the Bel-xogas School when she was of the proper age.

Naturally, she was accepted—naturally, both because of her father's great reputation and because of her own quick wits. In the Year of Nitha of the 244th Cycle, just twenty-one years after Kiv peGanz Brajjyd had quelled the hugl plague, Sindi, his daughter, was enrolled as a student at the Bel-rogas School of Divine Law.