But he did not move more closely to her. Even though she might be free, she was, after all, a female.
It seemed she would move more closely toward him, but then she hesitated.
Brenner noted that there was a cloth wrapped about her left ankle, apparently to shield the lock, chain, and disk, to protect them from the mud. Yesterday, he recalled, in the street, when they had collided with one another, she had not been wearing the chain and disk.
Behind him Brenner could hear Rodriguez ordering Pons about.
Brenner wondered why the woman had come to the vicinity of the gate. He wondered if she might come with them for a bit, outside the gate.
There were streaks on her face. Brenner did not know if these were tears, or from the rain.
Brenner became aware of some Pons gathered about him, though he now stood back on the road, away from Rodriguez, away from the sled. He pushed them a bit away. Two or three of them looked up at him, their eyes peering inquisitively, too, it seemed, anxiously, through the holes in the hoods. The Pons were short, their heads on the whole coming only a bit above his belt. One of them pulled on his jacket, looking up at him. It seemed they were eager for him to come along, that he accompany them. Brenner pushed the Pon away.
“Good,” Rodriguez was saying, behind him. Brenner gathered that he was making progress with the Pons, that he was succeeding in communicating with them. He was enlisting them, or, perhaps better, impressing them, in the matter of drawing the sled. He was determined they prove useful. To be sure, what he wanted would not require great intelligence to fathom. On the other hand, Brenner did not know what the intelligence of the Pons might be. He doubted that it was particularly high, except, of course, that, whatever it was, it would count, in its type, as being the equivalent of any intelligence existing in any galaxy, or yet to be detected in any galaxy, this having to do with the equivalence of all life forms. Brenner hoped that they would have at least the intelligence of bright children.
Another Pon tugged on his jacket.
“Go away!” said Brenner. Then he said, “I’m sorry.” It was bad enough that Rodriguez might contaminate the data. He did not want to risk the same thing.
Yes, the woman’s face was wet. Surely it must be from the rain.
Why had she come, Brenner wondered. She has come for her pastry, he thought. That is why she has come. She had come for her pastry. He felt the package in his pocket.
“We are ready,” called Rodriguez.
He thought the woman sobbed, and put out her hand.
Brenner felt he should apologize to her for last night. How shamefully he had treated her! He had not treated her, at least not always, as he should have, as a same. Indeed, unaccountably, astoundingly, shamefully, he had betrayed his own conditioning program, that which had been imposed upon him from childhood. Needless to say Brenner, predictably, had experienced a good deal of misery and guilt this morning, at least after leaving the establishment of the zard. After all, you could not really expect his conditioning program to sit idly by and languish in its own neglect, and, indeed, it had not long delayed in exacting its revenge. On the other hand, Brenner had not suffered as much as certain individuals might have hoped, which such individuals might have regarded as an additional defect on his part.
“Tell her to get her ass back to her room,” called Rodriguez.
She trembled there, standing in the rain, a few feet away, barefoot on the planks of the road. She was then looking past Brenner, presumably toward Rodriguez. She feared him, of course. He was the sort of man, and she must have known others, particularly in a place such as Company Station, who would not hesitate to enforce his will on a woman, even with blows. Then she looked to Brenner. He did not order her away. In this, small, and vulnerable, trembling, her face stained with tears or rain, clutching the cloak about her, she seemed to take courage.
They looked at one another.
Brenner supposed she wished her pastry.
Some Pons were about. Brenner heard a squeak of the wooden runners of the sled on the planks. It had apparently moved a few inches. “That’s it,” said Rodriguez.
Suddenly, clutching the cloak about her, she hurried to Brenner.