The fog was lifting a little. I could see the edge of the river. Gray water lapped gently against a beach of gray sand. The center of the river was impenetrable whiteness.
We pushed the boat into the water. The oracle climbed in, settling down and groaning. The rest of us followed: Derek at the prow and Nia in back of him. I ended between the oracle and Ulzai. It wasn’t an especially comfortable place to be. I was very much aware of Ulzai in back of me: huge and hairy and formidable. Something sharp and hard was pressing against my thigh. I shifted and looked. It was the blade of a spear, long and barbed, made of iron. It lay on the bottom of the boat, along with another spear and Derek’s fishing pole. I had come close to sitting on the tip.
The boat moved away from shore.
I shifted back, trying to get away from the spear blade.
“Don’t do that,” said Ulzai. “I need room to paddle.”
I shifted forward.
“Good.”
We traveled through the fog all morning. The air was still, and there was no sound except the splash of the paddles. The silence had an effect on us. We barely spoke, and we moved carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible. The oracle was an exception. He moaned from time to time and shifted position. It seemed to me he was favoring his injured arm.
The fog grew thin. Islands emerged from the whiteness. The current picked up, and the surface of the river changed. There were ripples and eddies.
“We are getting to the place where the river goes down,” said Ulzai. “The fog has lasted longer than I expected. I am trying to decide whether or not I want to go on. The boat is overloaded. There might be problems, and I don’t want to come on them suddenly.”
The oracle moved again, trying to find a comfortable position. His injured arm was resting on the side of the canoe. He lifted it. I saw blood drip into the water.
I leaned forward, grabbing the arm. He twisted. The boat rocked.
“Be still,” I said.
The bandage had torn open. The edge of the foam was red with blood. Blood soaked the fur. A dark line of blood ran down the inside of the canoe. I leaned out. The boat rocked again.
“What are you doing?” asked Ulzai.
A second trail of blood ran down the outside of the canoe into the water.
“Blood,” I said. “Didn’t you say it was dangerous to let blood get into the water?”
“Yes.”
“The oracle is bleeding.”
“Move back,” said Ulzai. “Take my paddle.”
I obeyed. He stood and stepped over me. I tucked myself into the stern. Ulzai picked up a spear. He straightened up, glancing around.
“Nothing yet. But you, o holy man, keep your arm in the boat. I want no more blood in the water.”
The oracle held his arm against his chest. His shoulders were hunched. I had a sense that he was frightened. Well, so was I.
Ulzai spoke again. “They do not like this part of the river. The water moves too quickly. They do not come here except in the time for migration, and that has not begun.”
Derek said, “Good.”
“If there are any around—if a few of them have decided to go south early, ahead of the rush—they’re likely to be close to shore. Or else behind us. Upriver. We’ll keep going. Pay attention to the current. It is strong and getting stronger. Stay with it. There are rocks to the west. Watch out for them and look to the east from time to time. If you see anything dark in the water there, give a shout. It will be a lizard.”
“Okay,” I said.
He was right. The current was strong. I felt the water tug and pull every time my paddle went in. The boat accelerated. Ulzai stood in front of me, having no trouble keeping his balance. His arm was lifted. The spear was poised. He glanced around, paying special attention to the water behind us. That must be the area of real danger.
“Rocks,” said Nia. “Ahead of us.”
“Go to the east,” said Ulzai. “You are too far out.”
I shifted my paddle and drove the blade in, trying to turn the boat. What I needed—really needed—was the kind of boat I had used on Earth. Oh, for aluminum!
The canoe began to turn. I felt relief.
Ulzai exhaled. I glanced up. He was staring over my head. I glanced back. There was something in the water. A dark head. Huge. It had to be twice the size of the animal in the lagoon.
“Umazi,” said the oracle.
“Don’t look back,” said Ulzai. “Keep paddling. And watch for trouble ahead of us. I’ll take care of this.”
I paddled. After a moment he said, “It is no umazi. The shape of the head is wrong. And it isn’t big enough.”
“Aiya!” said the oracle.
The current felt rougher. There was foam on the water ahead of us. Off to the west a dark shape loomed out of the fog. A rock, not an island. We had reached the rapids, and we were still too far out.
“The lizard will stop now,” said Ulzai. “They hate fast water.”
So did I, which gave me one thing in common with the lizard. Not enough to form the basis for a friendship.
Ulzai said, “It must be hungry. Or crazy. It should have stopped.”
“It hasn’t?” I asked.
“It’s getting close.”
“Ratshit,” I said in English.
Ulzai threw the spear.
Something roared, and I glanced around. The animal was behind us. My God, almost in the boat! The enormous body twisted. I saw a pale belly and a dark spiny back. Ulzai’s spear stuck out of the back like yet another spine, long and narrow. The animal opened its mouth. Teeth and more teeth. The animal roared again.
I must have stopped paddling, though I wasn’t aware of having done it. The boat rocked—turning, caught in an eddy, going sideways to the current.
“Fool!” Ulzai cried. “I told you—”
The boat went over. I went into the cold and rushing water. A moment later the river went over a drop.
I tumbled. My mouth filled with water. The river sucked me down. I didn’t fight. Fighting would kill me. The rule was—go with the undertow. In the end it would surface. The rule was for swimming in the ocean.
God, it was hard not to struggle! My lungs hurt, and something was happening to my brain. A sense of pressure. A darkening.
The river went over another drop. I spun around. Aiya! Damn!
The current slowed. I was able to swim. Up. Up. I broke through the surface, spat out the river, and inhaled.
Ah!
I floated. The river carried me. I breathed in and out. My arms hurt and my shoulder and my lungs.
But I was alive. I lifted my head and saw fog. The water around me was gray. It rippled slightly. Ahead of me trees loomed: shadows, barely visible. An island. I was too exhausted to swim any farther. I let the current take me toward the trees.
There was driftwood on the upriver side. A great tangle. Branches and roots extended into the water, reaching out. I was going to pass them. I swam a few strokes, four or five—I couldn’t have managed any more, grabbed hold of a root, and hung on. The current pulled at me. I breathed. In. Out. So. Hum. Gradually my heartbeat slowed. My lungs no longer hurt so badly.
The pain in my arms was getting worse. I was going to lose my grip on the root. I closed my eyes and prayed to Guan Yin, the goddess of mercy, the bodhisattva of compassion. Get me out of this alive.
She, standing on her lotus blossom, smiled and gestured reassuringly.
I pulled myself hand over hand into the tangle of wood and wedged myself there. The branches held me half out of the water. Aiya! I relaxed. My arms fell, and my hands went into the river. I rested for maybe an hour.
The fog burned off. In front of me the river shone blue-green-brown. A bird, a large one, paddled on the water. It dove and surfaced, then dove and surfaced again. I couldn’t see if it caught anything.
At last I pulled myself entirely out of the water. I began to climb through the tangle of roots and branches, heading toward the shore o
f the island.
Lixia
By the time I reached the shore I was exhausted again. I sat down on a beach of pale gray sand. In front of me was the driftwood: a white and gray wall that hid the river. In back of me I looked around: trees and bushes.
After a while I thought, what about the others?
I had seen Derek doing laps in the big pool on the ship. He was good in the water, almost as good as I was, and I had grown up by the ocean. He might not know as much as I did about rough water, but he’d survived a lot of really nasty situations.
As for the natives—I had no idea if any of them could swim. The river might have gotten them. A terrible idea. I shivered, though the sun was hot and my clothes were almost dry.
I decided to take an inventory. What did I have? A denim shirt. Jeans. Underwear. My boots were gone. One sock remained. I searched my pockets and found a lighter that didn’t work. Maybe water had gotten into it. I’d try it later. A folding knife. A round gray stone with a fossil in it. Some lint.
That was it, except for the AV recorder on its chain around my neck. I touched it. It felt warm. There was a transmitter in there, a small one that broadcast a tracking signal. It didn’t reach far, but the people on the ship already knew approximately where I was. If they decided to search for me, they’d find me. All I had to do was stay alive and hope that they came looking.
In order to find me quickly, they’d have to use machines: power boats or airplanes. I tried to imagine Eddie agreeing to a search like that. It was hardly likely. But he wasn’t the only person on the ship.
I took off my one remaining sock, folded it, and put it in a pocket, then stood and brushed the sand off my clothes. Time to go exploring.
I went around the perimeter of the island, keeping as close to the shore as possible. I found no trails: a good sign. It meant there were no large animals on the island. It also meant I had to push through vegetation. I climbed over logs and under the branches of trees. Vines grew everywhere, forming lianas that were almost tropical. Bugs hummed around me. They did not bite.
A couple of times I came to foliage that was too dense to penetrate. I took to the river, wading through shallow water. Tiny fish darted ahead of me.
When I was halfway around the island, I cut my foot. I wasn’t sure on what: a sharp stone or the shell of a river animal. The cut wasn’t deep, but it did bleed. I kept out of the water after that.
By the time I got back to my starting point, it was late afternoon. Shadows extended across the beach, reaching the tangle of driftwood.
I sat down. What had I learned?
The island was below the rapids. I had gotten a glimpse of them while climbing through the bushes at the north end.
To the west were other islands. The water was quiet there, and the river shore was distant. I wasn’t even sure that I was seeing it. That dim line might be a marsh or still more islands, their edges merging in the late summer haze.
To the east was the main channel of the river. The water looked deep. The current was swift. It had cut into the island, forming a steep bank, almost vertical. Trees grew along the top. Their roots extended into air, reaching for dirt that had vanished, and many leaned out over the water. A few had fallen in. The river rushed past them, tugging at yellow leaves.
The channel was not especially wide. I could swim to the mainland. But not today. I was tired, and the cut on my foot had not stopped bleeding. I didn’t want to meet another lizard. A good night’s sleep and I’d be able to get across the river. Maybe I’d find people. Nia. Derek. The oracle. Ulzai.
O Bodhisattva, Compassionate One, save those people.
I went to the edge of the river, scooped up water, and drank. It tasted funny, but it wasn’t likely to kill me, and I had already swallowed plenty of it. I drank some more, then went to the edge of the wood and sat down, leaning against a tree.
Bugs woke me. They hummed in my ears and crawled on my face. A couple bit me. I brushed them away. It did no good. They came back and bit me again. I got up and walked along the beach. The sky was ablaze with stars. I could see the Milky Way clearly: a wide, glowing ribbon of light. A meteor fell to the east of me. A lovely night!
Except for the bugs. They followed me. They were much worse than they’d ever been before. Why? Had I finally found a species that liked the odor of humans? Or had I begun to smell like the natives? I’d been eating their food for more than sixty days.
I reached the edge of the river and looked out. I could wade in. The bugs would not be able to bite me if I were underwater. But lizards were there.
I turned and walked back the way I had come. There had to be something I could do. Cover myself with something. Figure out a way to build a fire.
I remembered a line from a teacher in college: “Always remember, in a society with a pre-industrial technology, everything takes far longer than you think it will. Everything involves a lot more work. And there are almost always a lot of bugs.”
Another meteor fell: a big one to the south. It had a white head and a long reddish tail. I began to notice a funny sensation in the pit of my stomach. Or was it in my groin? An ache. No. More intense than that. A definite pain.
Menstrual cramps! I couldn’t believe it. I had a capsule in my arm that was supposed to release hormones at a set rate for 180 days. I was safe for half a year. No menses. No cramps. No blood. Well, maybe a little spotting. They had warned us about that. The hormone level was set as low as possible.
What had gone wrong? Had the capsule been defective? Maybe it was stress. I’d been through a lot in the past few days. And stress could do a lot to the endocrine system.
I kept walking. The pain got worse, and the bugs kept following and biting.
I knew just what to do. Get a blanket and a container of tea spiked with whiskey. Crawl into bed in my cabin. Turn on the blanket and consume the tea. Listen to music. Go to sleep. Unfortunately—
At dawn the flow began. The cramps eased. The bugs became less active. I sat down. The sun came up, and the last of the bugs departed. I lay back and put an arm over my face.
I dreamt. There was a tower that looked like Inahooli’s tower. It was in Hawaii in my front yard, surrounded by flowering plumeria trees.
I was sitting near the tower in the shadow of a tree, talking to someone, having an argument. At first I had no idea who the person was. Then I realized it was very small, about knee high to me. It kept changing as it talked, shrinking, then expanding, then shrinking again. Its shape changed as well as its size. At times it seemed to be a tiny human. At other times it was a tiny furry person. Strangest of all, at times it seemed to be a bug, standing on six legs and waving a pair of forearms at me. At all times it was brown and shiny, the color of a cockroach. I couldn’t tell what sex it was.
It had a high shrill voice.
“I am the Little Bug Spirit. I come to people when they begin to take themselves too seriously. They think they are big. I cut them down to size.”
This angered me. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t get my thoughts together.
The person went on, “I am the stone under your foot. I am the bug that bites you in the ass. I am the fart that comes when you are introduced to the important visiting professor. I am menstrual cramps and diarrhea.”
I kept getting angrier.
“My tools are lies and tricks, misunderstandings and accidents. Everything stupid and undignified happens because of me. Hola! I am something!”
I reached to grab the person. It scurried away, and I was alone, feeling happy.
A voice said, “That does no good.”
I looked up. The person was above me, sitting on a branch, surrounded by cream-white plumeria flowers. It waved its antennae. Its dark body glinted.
“The oracle will think this happened because of the spirits in the cave. Ulzai will think it happened because of the umazi. Nia will feel guilty and angry, as if she is responsible. And you will think the boat went over for no good reason.
“I t
ell you, I did it. Hola! I am something, even though I am small!” The person spread wings and flew away, making a whirring noise. It passed the tower and disappeared into the blue-green sky.
I woke. It was midmorning, and I lay in sunlight under a cloudless sky the color of the sky in my dream. I felt confused for a moment. Where was I? Not Hawaii. Nor Minnesota. I sat up and remembered. I was eighteen light-years from home. My skin itched. I looked at my arms. They were covered with lumps.
“Don’t panic,” I told myself after a moment in which I panicked. “Those are bug bites, and the mosquitoes in Minnesota have done a lot worse to you.”
My voice sounded calm. That was a comfort. I stood up. My clothes stuck to me. Sweat, mostly. There was a dark stain in the crotch of my jeans. Sweat and blood.
The first thing to do was take a bath, then wash my clothes and do my yoga.
I walked down the beach till I was past the wall of driftwood. Then I dug a hole in the sand close to the water. It was slow work. I had no tools except my hands and a piece of driftwood.
When the hole was large enough, I dug a channel to the river. Water flowed in. I undressed and knelt in the sandy little pool and washed, using my one remaining sock as a washcloth.
Afterward, I put my clothing in to soak and did yoga, ending by meditating, looking out at the river with half-shut eyes. Light flashed off the green-brown water. O you jewel of the lotus.
I wrung out my clothes and spread them on the sand to dry, sat down and examined my tools. This time the lighter glowed. I tested it on my piece of driftwood. The wood caught fire. That solved two problems. The bugs and how to signal other people.
I put the lighter aside and examined the knife. The blade was ten centimeters long, made of rustproof steel. Sharp. I could use it to cut up food.
I had no intention of trying to cross the river until I’d stopped menstruating, which meant I was stuck on the island for at least four days. What was I going to eat?
I could fast, of course. I had done that before. But I might end up too weak to swim and looking for food was an occupation. I had once read a book by Leona Field, one of the leaders of the Second American Revolution. Leader was the wrong word. Leona was an anarchist; she didn’t believe in leaders. She had spent a lot of her life waiting, in prison and out. Her advice was—plan the next step, be patient, keep busy. I decided to take her advice.
A Woman of the Iron People Page 33