Another person—a blonde with a Scandinavian accent—got up and spoke about the evils of drink. A couple of other people got up and argued with her. The problem wasn’t alcohol, it was the lack of a decent recreational program. It was the Western cult of individuality. It was the miserable performance of the psychology team.
De sat and listened. His face was paler than usual. There were dark patches under his eyes. He looked exhausted and unhappy. At last, when everyone was done, he stood up. He apologized to his colleagues, to the people on the ship, and to the entire human race. He promised to mend his ways, to come to work promptly, and to go into therapy. Finally, he thanked everyone in the room for their concern and good advice. As far as I could tell, he was being sincere. My family had been in the West too long. I would never really understand the Chinese.
The senior nutritionist stood up and praised De for his new constructive and cooperative attitude. The meeting ended. I went to find a drink.
Never, I thought. I would never go through group criticism. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if the committee insisted on it. I couldn’t quit nor could they fire me. Not this far from Earth. Most likely, if it came to a crisis, they’d relieve me of my duties and refer me to the committee in charge of nonmechanical maintenance. I’d wash walls or replace cracked tiles until it was time to leave the system.
Once again I was thinking too far ahead. Stop it! I told myself and went back to camp. Derek sat by the fire, his knees up, his arms around them.
“Well?”
He glanced at me and grinned. “The oracle offered to talk to Eddie and explain it isn’t wrong to kill in self-defense. He seems to think Eddie is some kind of idiot. And Nia said there is a river that goes between the country of the Amber People and her country, the land of the Iron People. At one point the river spreads out into a long narrow lake. The lake is deep and there are no islands. It might be a safe place to land.”
“How far?”
“She isn’t entirely certain. Nine or ten days, she thinks.”
“Do we go there?” I asked.
He made the gesture of affirmation. “It will make Eddie happy, and it’s on the way to Nia’s people.”
Sunlight woke me, slanting into the grove. A gray line of smoke curled up through it, moving languidly. The oracle crouched by the fire. He was skinning a fish.
“You reset the traps,” I said.
“Yes, and we have been lucky. This is a greenfish. It is delicious, especially when baked. Go and perform your morning ceremony.”
I obeyed him, doing yoga by the lake. I was still very stiff. But as far as I could tell, no major damage had been done. Talk about lucky!
When I got back to camp, Nia was pulling on one of Inahooli’s tunics. It was dull blue, embroidered in orange: a pattern of triangles. She put on her own belt and her knife with the bone handle and the sheath of dark leather. After that she tugged at the hem of the tunic and smoothed it across her chest. “Hu! This is better! There is something to be said for new clothes with bright colors and no bad aroma.”
We ate and broke camp, following the trail around the lake, then back onto the plain. To the west and south were clouds. They were high up, fluffy and thin, arranged in flocks or clusters. In the north the sky was clear. I could make out Hani Akhar.
I thought about the China Clipper : corridors and little rooms and far too many people. There would be no sky and no wind and no birds, except in the aviary. Maybe I should make a run for it, toss away my radio and AV recorder, and vanish into the wilderness. That was one way to avoid group criticism—unless, of course, they caught me.
I looked around at the plain. It was—or seemed to be—almost empty. A few orange bugs fluttered above the pseudo-grass. A few birds soared in the sky. Way off in the distance I saw a herd of animals. They were black dots moving through the yellow and green vegetation. I had no idea what they were.
This land was too vast and too alien. I couldn’t turn my back on my civilization and live utterly alone without hope or help from my people.
That night we camped on top of a low hill. There was nothing in sight except for pseudo-grass. We ate Inahooli’s food. Eddie did not call.
“Should we call him?” I asked.
Derek made the gesture that meant “no.” “We don’t have to go hunting for aggravation. It will find us, more than we want or need.”
I made the gesture of agreement.
In the middle of the night rain began to fall. Thunder grumbled, and there were flashes of lightning. We huddled under our cloaks and ponchos and got wet.
By morning the rain had stopped, but the air remained humid, and the vegetation on the plain was beaded with water. It bent over the narrow path. Derek and I pushed through it, getting wet a second time. The natives, riding in back of us, looked as if they were more comfortable, but not by much.
“A person is coming,” Nia said.
I looked ahead. The trail was a dark line winding through the vegetation. A bowhorn moved along it. A person rode the animal.
“A man,” said Nia. “He travels alone.”
“No,” said Derek. “There is someone else—off on the plain.” He pointed north.
I peered and saw a dot moving down a slope. “Why aren’t they together?”
“I don’t know,” Nia said. “Maybe they are both men.”
The trail went into a hollow, and I lost sight of the riders, though only for a few minutes. We came out onto a low rise. A bowhorn stood in the middle of the trail: a large animal, dun-colored with a white spot on its chest. Its horns were as black and shiny as obsidian.
Derek and I stopped. The two natives rode up on either side of us and reined their animals. I looked at the bowhorn’s rider.
A male, almost certainly. He was wide and tall with dark, shaggy fur. His tunic was like the one I had on: cream-colored with geometric embroidery. On his arms were thick gold bracelets, and he wore a necklace of gold and amber.
He looked us over calmly, then spoke in the language of gifts. “I see that you have met my sister.” His voice was deep and soft.
“Inahooli,” Derek said.
The man made the gesture of assent. “I am Toohala Inzara of the Clan of the Ropemaker and the People of Amber.” He waved to the north. “My brother Tzoon is off in that direction. I haven’t seen my brother Ara for a couple of days. But he is out there somewhere, probably to the south. How is our sister?”
“As well as can be expected,” Derek said. “She has been alone for a long time.”
The man made the gesture of agreement. “She has always been edgy and hard to get along with. I was hoping her temperament would improve, now that she has—at long last—achieved something of importance. But it hasn’t?”
“No,” said Derek.
“Aiya! Such a difficult person! If you don’t mind, I’ll be going. I don’t like being with so many people. And two of you—I have to say it—are very odd-looking. That makes me even more uneasy.” He looked us over again. “It’s too bad Ara didn’t see you. He is the curious one.” He turned his animal off the trail and rode around us.
Derek started walking, more quickly than before. The rest of us followed. After a while Derek said, “He’s going to visit Inahooli. Is that possible?”
“No one among my people would do a thing like that,” said Nia. “Though I went to find my brother years ago.”
The oracle said, “I visit with my mother from time to time. But I am holy and a little crazy as well. An ordinary man would not go looking for his relatives.”
“This man must not be ordinary,” Derek said. “He will reach the lake tomorrow in the afternoon and find the grave. What will he do then?”
Nia made the gesture of uncertainty. “I do not know.”
“He was huge,” I said. “Are most of your men that big?”
“No,” said Nia.
“Thank God,” said Derek. “I was beginning to think of meeting three brothers the size of gorillas and trying to expla
in to them what happened to their sister.”
“As big as what?” asked Nia.
“Gorillas. They are relatives of ours, but much bigger than we are.” Derek was still walking quickly. “He’ll be a couple of days behind us when he starts.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Inzara. If he decides to come after us. Maybe three days, if we’re lucky and he spends time at the lake. Nia? How fast can a bowhorn travel?”
“The Amber People follow the herds. They understand animals and they understand patience. He will know better than to push his bowhorn too hard. Most likely, he will keep to a pace that is twice ours.”
“I used to hate problems like this. Bob has twice as many pieces of fruit as Alice, who is half again as tall as Krishna. How many days until Inzara catches up with us?”
“What is he talking about now?” asked the oracle.
“Nothing important.” I thought for a while. “It’ll take him two days, Derek. We ought to start worrying in the evening of the day after tomorrow. No, the day after that.”
“Okay. We are going to move as quickly as we can. Maybe the river is closer than we think.”
“Are you frightened?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” he said in English. “If we kill any more natives, we are going to end up on the ship—cleaning out sewer lines, most likely. Or maybe cleaning cages in the laboratories. Anyway, we’ll be finished down here forever.” He glanced at me. “I bend rules a lot, and I operate close to the edge. But I have no intention of getting myself in serious trouble.”
“Why do you bend rules?”
He laughed. “To prove I can.”
We traveled till sunset, then made camp. The clouds parted and the Great Moon shone down on us. It was a little past full. Derek peered up at it. “The eruption must have ended.”
“Uh-huh.” I got out my one remaining human shirt and looked it over. A little dirty and with one tear. I decided to put it on.
“It’s too late,” said Derek. “That man has already seen Inahooli’s shirt.”
“Nonetheless…” I changed into my shirt and folded Inahooli’s, putting it away.
My radio rang. I turned it on.
“First the good news,” said Eddie. “The committee has decided to approve—with regret—your action in relation to Inahooli. You had no choice. Maybe if you hadn’t been half-unconscious, you could have figured out another way to stop her. But it was her fault that you were in no condition to think. Her karma was working itself out. There should not be any increase in your karmic burden, at least in the opinion of the committee.” I could hear a certain aloofness in his voice. Eddie had nothing against the various Asian religions—in their place, which was not a committee in charge of establishing policy for a scientific team. “Nothing bad is going on your record.”
I felt my body relax. I let my breath out in a sigh, then rubbed the back of my neck. “Okay. What is the bad news?”
“There are three pieces. Derek got a reprimand for that silliness about the bracelet.”
I looked over at Derek. He shrugged.
“However, that is not going to slow down anyone with his list of publications. The second piece of bad news is—the committee has decided to recommend a shipwide discussion of our policy re the natives.”
“Nonintervention?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.” Eddie sounded grim. “They want to reopen the question. I really would like you up here, or at least I would like the option. And that brings me to the third piece of bad news. Lysenko has gone over all the information we have about your part of the continent. The nearest place he is willing to land a plane is to the west of you. It’s a river that widens into a lake. He says it’s not good, but it’s possible.”
“How far?” I asked.
“Our best estimate is eight days. I am going to try to stall the first meeting of the all-ship committee.”
“That isn’t the worst of it, Eddie.”
“Oh, no? What is?”
“We met a native today. Inahooli’s brother. He is going to visit his sister.”
“Does he know you met her?”
“I had on a tunic that belonged to Inahooli. So did Nia. He recognized the clothes. That didn’t bother him. The natives are always exchanging gifts. But when he finds the grave…”
“Oh, damn.”
“And he has two brothers. They are traveling together or—at least—in the same direction. We may have three large angry natives after us.”
Eddie was silent for a minute or two. “What do you plan to do?”
Derek said, “Run like hell and hope they don’t follow.”
“I guess that’s the best idea. The committee is right about one thing. There have been too many incidents. I can’t figure out why.” Eddie sounded plaintive.
“You aren’t thinking,” Derek said. “Consider the people who’ve been having all the trouble. Me.
Harrison. Gregory. All men. We all ran into the same problem: the social role of adult males. I don’t know how Santha managed to avoid trouble. Do his people allow men into their village?”
“Now, that is an interesting story,” Eddie said. “But it is pretty long, and diagrams help a lot. I’ll tell you about Santha when you get back up here.”
“Okay,” said Derek.
“I’m not sure your explanation works. What about Lixia? Why has she had so much trouble?”
“Remember her traveling companions. Two men and a woman who has a widespread reputation for perversion.”
There was a silence. “You’re right, aren’t you? This is my mistake. I should have pulled Lixia out after the fiasco in that first village and reassigned her, maybe to the other continent.”
Derek made the gesture of uncertainty, then said, “I don’t know. I am not crazy about second-guessing history. And I don’t like words like ‘should.’ ”
“Well, do the best you can. Lysenko will be waiting when you reach the lake.”
Derek turned off the radio. “Do you notice how much Eddie uses the first person singular? The way he talks, he is the one who makes all the decisions and takes all the responsibility with no help from the rest of the committee.
“I, me, my, mine—
Each one a danger sign.
“That’s what the witches used to tell us. Listen for those words, they said. If a person uses them too often or with too much emphasis, then he or she is sinking down into the well of self. And that is a dangerous situation. You may be face-to-face with a greedhead or a power freak.”
I made the gesture of acknowledgment. I didn’t want to discuss the social theories of the California aborigines—not in English in front of Nia and the oracle. It was rude. I looked at Nia. “Our friend, the one whose voice is in the box, is worried about the amount of trouble we’ve encountered.”
“It is never easy to travel,” the oracle said. “I know that. One of my sisters is a great traveler. She has been as far north as the men go and met the Iron People in their summer range. She has been south as well and seen the ocean and gotten gifts from the people who live there: the Fishbone People and the People of Dark Green Dye. My mother has told me about her adventures. Hola! What a tale!” He bit one of his fingernails. “What does your friend expect?”
“A good question. I’m not entirely sure.”
For the next three days we traveled as quickly as possible. Nothing much happened. The sky was mostly clear, and the land rolled gently. We saw animals in the distance: flocks of grazing bipeds and once a solitary animal that Nia said was a killer of the plain.
“A male. See how big he is and how he shambles?”
“Nia, that thing is a black spot to me. I thought it might be a person.”
“What eyes you have! It is certainly a killer and a male. A female would be traveling with her children. The children would be hungry, and she would be dangerous. But a male is not much of a problem.”
“You say that!” the oracle put in. “I know be
tter.”
“You were alone and had no fire.”
“We’ll make one tonight,” said the oracle.
This was in the middle of the third day. By then we were all getting uneasy, looking behind us and around us.
We stopped early atop a rise that was higher than the other little hills. Derek peered east. “Nothing,” he said. “I can’t see them. But nonetheless, we are going to keep watch. And I don’t think I want to risk a fire.”
“We have to,” Nia said. “There are worse things here than men. I do not want to lie in the darkness and wait for a killer of the plain.”
“All right,” Derek said.
We built the fire and huddled around it. Derek took the first watch. I sat and worried. Finally, when I couldn’t stand the worry anymore, I called Eddie.
“Any sign of the three brothers?” he asked.
“No. And I don’t want to think about them. How are things on the ship?”
“Not good. Meiling went over to the opposition.”
“What?”
“She has filed a report against nonintervention. The natives are not fools, according to her. They have eyes to see and minds to think with. They know that she is something utterly different, something utterly outside their experience and the experience of their ancestors. Hairless people are not mentioned in the stories about creation.
“Knowledge—by itself—is an intervention. Our presence changes the way the natives see the world. According to her, there is no way to study these people without causing change.”
“The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle,” I said.
“So I am told. I’m not an expert on the history of science. And I don’t think it’s possible to apply the laws of physics to the behavior of people. That is like Social Darwinism. A stupid and dangerous theory.
“Meiling says the policy of nonintervention does only one thing. It makes life hard for the workers in the field. They can’t trade information with the natives, and they can’t offer help. Simple medical care, for example.”
“I did,” I said. “When Nia got hurt.”
A Woman of the Iron People Page 23