by Gene Wolfe
“I’m angry at myself,” she muttered.
“Then your anger is misdirected. You should be angry at me. I am.” For an instant (only an instant) I had heard Silk’s voice issuing from my own mouth. I tried to prolong it, but»could not. “What would you like to tell me?”
“Nothing.”
“Then let me say a few things, and after that you’ll have a few things of your own, I feel sure.” I waited for her to object.
When she did not, I continued, “First, the fault was mine, and mine alone. It wasn’t yours or anybody else’s. There was no reason for me to act as I did, and you resisted as fiercely as you could. You have-”
“I shouldn’t have.” It might have been a child, a small girl, speaking. “I hurt you. I know I did.”
“I hurt you a great deal more.” It was so overwhelmingly true that I found it impossible to go on.
“I deserved it.”
“You did not. You never will. You are entitled to be furiously angry with me. That was the second thing I was going to say, al- though I said it already this afternoon. If you had killed me while I slept, no one could have blamed you.”
“I would have blamed myself.”
“It occurred to me that you might before I fell asleep, and to tell the truth I was hoping you would.”
“No!” She shook her head violently enough for her hair to brush my cheek.
“Here is a third thing. I am a fool on a fool’s errand. I’ve been struggling to hide that from myself ever since I set out. To go to the Long Sun Whorl and bring back the strains of corn we need, and an eye for Maytera Marble, and so forth, is reasonable; but it’s a task for a bold and able man of twenty, not for me. Ten or fifteen years ago, I might have been adequate. Tonight I’m worse than inadequate. I’m thoroughly ridiculous.”
“You went because you were afraid they’d want your wife to go if you wouldn’t,” Seawrack reminded me. “You told me about that.”
“She might have done it, to. She’s brave and practical, with a good level head in a crisis. I won’t list my shortcomings-you know them already. I’ll simply point out that that’s not a description of me.”
“But-”
I raised my voice. “As for bringing Silk here, it’s less than a dream; and I very much doubt that Marrow and the rest even want me to do it. A trader named Wijzer told Marrow that to his face in my hearing, and Wijzer was right. All their talk about bringing Silk to New Viron was nothing more than a trick to get me to go. Or to get Nettle to, if I wouldn’t. A cheap and obvious trick that even Hoof and Hide should have seen through.”
Seawrack turned her head to whisper into my ear, so that I felt the warm caress of her breath. “You were right. I have things to say too. Is that all right?”
“Go ahead.”
“When you’re through. You’re going, in spite of all you’ve said. I know you are.”
I sighed; I could not help it. “I’ve told you I’m a fool, and I promised I would. That doesn’t mean you have to come with me. The lander in Pajarocu will probably explode as soon as they try to get it to go fly. Everybody on it will be killed, and it would be better if you weren’t one of us.”
“Is there more you want to say before we both go to sleep, or is it my turn?”
“I’m practically finished. Fourth and last, you’re not a prisoner on this sloop.” I recalled Sciathan the Flier then, and what Silk had said about him after Auk got him out of the Juzgado, and how Nettle and I had re-created that speech in our book. “You are my guest, a guest who’s been treated very badly. You’re free to leave any time-right now, if you like. Or when we reach Pajarocu or any other town.”
I fell silent, and after a time she murmured, “Are you waiting for me to jump into the sea again, Horn?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m not going to yet, and it’s my turn to talk. While you were sleeping I was trying to forget.” I,
“I don’t blame you.”
“Not what you think. I was trying to forget 4he water, and everything I did in it. Every time I remembered something that happened there, I would think of something that’s happened since I’ve been with you, some little thing or something you said, and put it there instead.”
“Can you do that?” I was incredulous, as I still am.
“Yes!” she said fiercely. “So could you.”
It was not the time to express my doubts.
“That’s the first thing I had to say, what I’ve been doing. I wasn’t angry or afraid, the way that you think I was. I was remembering and forgetting.”
For half a dozen gentle rockings of the sloop, she said nothing more.
“The second thing is that I’m one of you. Like you and the boy, but I don’t like him.”
“A human being.”
“Yes. I am a human woman. Aren’t there women who aren’t? What does the Babbie have?”
“A female hus. Not a woman.”
“Well, a woman is what I am. Like your Nettle, or the Tamarind you talk about sometimes. I am a woman, but I don’t know how to.”
I tried to say that I would help her all I could, but it would be much better if she had an actual woman to emulate. If Nettle were with us, for example.
“I’m learning how from you.”
Possibly there is something adequate that could be said in response to that; but I could not think of it, nor can I now.
“You said you were a fool on a foolish errand.” (This was an accusation.)
“It’s the truth.”
“You’re not a fool, and I can prove it. Then I’m going to swim. You said the people who sent you to bring this good man Silk don’t even want him. Didn’t you just tell me that?”
“Yes. I said it because I know it to be true. I believe I’ve known it ever since I set out, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it to anyone, not even to myself.”
“All right. They really don’t want him. I think they’d say something else if they were here, but I won’t argue about it. They don’t want him.”
Thinking wistfully of Patera Silk, I nodded and grunted my assent.
“But I’m going to ask you just one thing, and you have to answer me. Do you promise?”
I nodded in the dark. “I will if I can. Did you say a moment ago that you were going to swim? Did you mean tonight, Seawrack?”
She ignored my questions. “Here’s how I prove. You have to tell me honestly. Do they need him?”
I opened my mouth to say no, but closed it again without speaking.
“Do they? You promised.”
“I know I did.” I was recalling our dreams for this fair new whorl, and contrasting them with the realities of the past twenty years. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure they do. But Seawrack, you mustn’t swim. Certainly not at night, and not even during the day until you’ve had time to heal.”
She rolled on her side, her back to me. I lay upon my own, feeling the easy motion of the sloop and, whenever I opened my eyes, seeing a scatting of bright, cold stars along the horizon. If she needed to forget a great deal, I needed to remember even more, and to think about it all as honestly as I could. And I did, or tried to at least.
An hour later, perhaps, she murmured, “I’m hungry, Horn.
Will you get us something to eat tomorrow? Not fish.”
“Yes,” I promised. “Certainly. I will if I can.”
I had not realized that Babbie was near us, but he gave a little snuffle of contentment as I spoke, and lay down at my feet.
When I woke at shadeup, he was still there; but Seawrack had gone.
* * *
Rain and more rain, all day long. I held court and heard three cases. It is hard to be fair in such foul weather; there is that in me that wants to punish everyone; but I try hard to be fair, and to point out to everyone who appears before me that if only they themselves had been fair, they would not have to come to me for justice. This I say in one fashion to one, and in another to another. Still, I thank the Outsider, and all the l
esser gods, that I had no criminal cases today. The impressions of his fingers are on all these quarreling, handsome, mud-colored people; but the light is bad on such days as this, and it can be terribly hard to see them.
Back to the events I have resolved to record.
As well as I can remember I had planned, as I lay there in the dark next to Seawrack, to sail north along the coast the next day until I found a good spot to anchor in, then go ashore and hunt, leaving her to watch the boat. When I woke and found her gone, I realized that I could do no such thing. She had said that she was going for a swim, not that she was leaving me forever. What if she returned, and could not find the sloop?
Krait returned, although Seawrack did not. After a long and no doubt somewhat dishonest account of his adventures ashore (he was full of blood and full of himself as well) I explained the situation. The acrimonious quarrel I had expected followed, and he left again. That was midmorning, perhaps, or a little earlier.
It would be easy-and pleasant as well-to pass over the day that followed in silence. It was not nearly as easy or pleasant to pass it as I did. I had plenty of water, but no food at all. My conscience urged me to pull up the anchor and proceed to Pajarocu-or at least to proceed to search for it; but I could not bring myself to do it. Babbie swam ashore to forage for food, I think finding little or nothing. I remained on the sloop, cold and hungry. My fishing lines caught nothing, and indeed I had no proper bait. (One hook was baited with a knotted scrap of sailcloth, I remember.) I spent hours looking over the side with my new harpoon in my hand. I believe that in the whole time I glimpsed one small fish, which vanished before I could throw.
About shadelow, a fat bluebilly leaped on board. Seawrack was back, and I knew it. I put a line through its gills and put it back into the water, built a fire in my box of sand in record time, pulled the bluebilly back up and cleaned it, and soon had it sizzling in our largest pan.
She climbed in about then, and I thanked her.
“You got nothing with your hunting.” I knew she was tired from the sound of her voice.
I shook my head and ventured to ask how she knew that, though no doubt a glance at my face would have made it plain to anyone.
“If you had shot something you wouldn’t watch the sea with the spear for fish. Where is the Babbie?”
I explained that I had not gone ashore to hunt in spite of my promise, that Krait had declined to remain with the sloop, and that I had not dared leave it in a completely unprotected anchorage with no one on board. “I’ll hunt tomorrow,” I told her, “but you must remain here, and put out to sea if there’s even the slightest chance of bad weather.”
She shrugged, and I knew there would be an argument next day. “I’ll eat a piece of that. Can I? I know I said I wouldn’t, but I will.”
When we had finished our meal, she asked me to hold out my hand. I did, and she slipped a ring on it. The mounting was white gold, I believe-some silvery metal that did not tarnish as plain silver would have. The stone was white and dull, scratched and very old.
“You have given me a ring,” Seawrack said, “and now I am giving you one.” Her little hand-the only one she had-had slipped into mine. “You must wear it, because you might fall in the pit again.”
She kissed me, but would not explain. At the time, I had no idea what that ring was (although I would soon find out), and certainly would never have guessed that it would sornpday save my life in a ruined lander on Green, as it did.
It was left behind, of course, with everything else. I wish that I had it back, if only to help me with Barsat and to remind me of her.
-11-
THE LAND OF FIRES
With the block and tackle, and Krait and Seawrack to pull the rope with me, and Babbie pushing and lifting the stern with his shoulders, we were able to get the sloop well up onto the beach. When there was no moving it any farther, I stowed the block, fetched my slug gun and some of the silver jewelry, and moored the sloop to dwarfish but sturdy-looking trees at both the bow and the stern.
After that, I climbed the biggest dune I could find to study the wide, flat expanse of sand and dark green, tangled brush. It did not look promising; but I reminded myself that the majestic trees of the island had produced no game at all, while we had shot at a green-buck in the ruins, which had not appeared any more promising than this.
Some minutes passed before it struck me that I was actually standing on what I myself had named Shadelow-that for the first time ever my feet were solidly planted on the unknown western continent upon which Pajarocu and its working lander waited. Behind me to the south lay the sea, and to eastward I could see the sea as well. Far to the north, too, I could just make out the gleam of it, or thought I could. But to the west the land widened, rising so much that I was reminded of home, where the distant lands to north and south bend up around the sun and at last close over one’s head to become the majestic skylands.
At my elbow Krait drawled, “It’s a big country.”
With more conviction than I felt, I told him that we would find Pajarocu in it, and soon.
He shrugged. “I’ll help as much as I can.”
“Then I feel sure you must have found out something of value last night.”
“No.” The wind whipped his loose clothing and he trembled, looking at least as cold as I felt.
“But you fed again. You said so at some length when you came back, and marveled that a place with so few people could provide such good hunting. Didn’t you have a chance to talk to anybody?”
“You’d like it better if I starved.”
I would not be diverted into a quarrel. “You found someone here. Human beings from whom you fed.”
“Not here I didn’t. Up there, farther in.” He pointed westward.
“Didn’t you ask them about Pajarocu? You must have. What did they say?”
He shook his head. “I had no opportunity to ask anybody anything. They were all asleep.”
“Good,” I said.
“Yes, she was.” He grinned, though without displaying his fangs.
Behind us, from the foot of the dune on which we stood, Seawrack called, “Aren’t you going to hunt?”
“In a moment!” I told her. “I’m going to go down the other side!”
“We’ll meet you there!”
I turned back to Krait. “I want you to stay here and protect the sloop. Will you do that?”
“Gladly, if you’ll tell me why you were happy that I hadn’t asked for directions.”
“Because I was warned that people friendly to the town would mislead us if we asked where it was. These people don’t like strangers, even when they’re human.”
Krait grinned again, stroking the chin he had shaped for himself that morning. “And one of us isn’t.”
It was my turn to shrug. “A detail.”
“I agree, Father. We’re every bit as human as you are, whatever that means. Don’t you want to know where the humans I found are?”
“I want to know a good deal more.” I tried to study his face, and turned away from its glittering eyes. If he chose to deceive me, there was nothing I could do about it. “But that will do to start with. Where are they?”
He pointed west again. “See that notch in the mountains?”
I nodded. It was ten leagues at least.
“A little river runs through there, coming pretty well straight toward us. If you look carefully, you can see the sun on it through the trees here and there.”
I tried, but my eyes were not as sharp as his.
“They have a lean-to on the bank, down where the land flattens out and the water slows down.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Can you tell me where the river goes after that?”
He shook his head. “Sinks into the ground, maybe. It’s pretty sandy all around here. But I don’t know, and it might reach the sea. I didn’t follow it.”
“We’re going to hunt here, for greenbucks or whatever we can find that can be shot and eaten. What do you
think of our chances?”
He hesitated, scanning the monotonous expanse of thickly spaced bushes and scrubby trees just as I had earlier. “Not much, but I could be wrong.”
“Did you see any game?”
He shook his head again.
“What did you see? I mean here, where we are now.”
“Trees, mostly.” Before I could stop him, he had started down the dune toward the sloop. I watched him for a moment or two, then clambered and slid down the other side, reaching the bottom just in time to meet Seawrack and Babbie, who had walked around the end.
“I was going to climb up there after you,” she said, “but it hurt my feet, and our Babbie sank down in it. Sand that’s full of sharp little rocks belongs under the water. Could you see much from up there?”
“All sorts of things,” I told her, meaning more than the mere geography I had observed. “Some of which I don’t want to talk about. Not yet, at least.”
I scratched my beard. “Seawrack, I plan to hunt due west, which will mean we’ll be walking almost parallel to the shore for a long way, but tend gradually inland. The nearer to the mountains we get, the better the hunting is likely to be. Do you still want to come?”
She nodded, and we set out.
I tried more than once to show her the mountains, but in every place we stopped our view was obstructed by leaves and branches. “It’s going to be horribly easy to lose our way,” I told her. “We’ll have to stop and look at the sun wherever it can be seen. The boy says there’s a river, though, and we can follow that-if we can find it.”
“Did he kill something?”
That called for a flat lie, and I supplied it, saying that in spite of his boasts I thought that he had really eaten raw shellfish.
We started off again, but had not walked far when Seawrack asked whether Krait had met any of the people who had built the fires we had seen the first night. I replied that I believed he had, but that he had been unwilling to tell me anything about them.
“Aren’t you willing to tell me either?” She was following me as we made our way through the tangled trees, but apparently my voice had been all the clue she needed.