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Stories from the Verse
Re Verse All
Chapter 111: Hastings 220
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 97
The night passed uneventfully, and Luthus already had oatmeal cooking when Lauren and Tommy came downstairs. He insisted on giving them a big breakfast, eggs and ham and hash browns, salt and pepper, with butter and brown sugar for the hot cereal.
“You know,” he said, “you don’ have to go. Plenny o’ room here, an’ plenny o’ food.”
“We do appreciate the offer,” Lauren said, “but if we don’t find our friend he’s likely to come looking for us, so we should keep moving. Thank you, though. This has been very nice.” Once quite filled with the excellent food, Lauren helped clear the table, and then took Tommy upstairs to pack their things and get ready to leave. The girl asked a question.
“Explain to me,” she said, “why we’re not staying? It can’t really be because you’re afraid of him.”
“No, not at all,” Lauren answered. “If things were different, I probably would stay. I’m sure that there is something I could do for Luthus. But I’m concerned about the other verser. I have the impression he’s moving—hard to tell, of course, because we’re moving, so the vectors aren’t consistent. But if he’s moving, it might be that he senses us and is coming toward us. That might be fine; he might be one of the many versers I’ve met or heard about who automatically befriend other versers. On the other hand, there are versers who will fight whoever they find, verser or indig, and I would rather not be somewhere where indigs are going to get caught in the crossfire.”
She wasn’t sure whether Tommy nodded; she had her own attention on packing her bedding at that moment. But then she was done.
“Ready?”
“I guess,” Tommy replied in a voice that suggested she was not really eager to begin another day’s hike.
“We’re building your strength and endurance. You’re going to need it for the decades ahead.”
This time Tommy did nod, perhaps a bit wearily in anticipation of the decades ahead.
They said goodbye to their host on the way out the door, and Lauren paused to get a bearing on her target before continuing down the hall in the direction they had been going.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with five other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #395: Character Obstacles. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
