A Woman of the Iron People

by Eleanor Arnason

  The dining room was almost empty. A crewmember sat reading, a glass of tea on the table in front of him. A woman gathered dishes, stacking them neatly. She was large, with red-brown coloring. Her clothing—a pair of jeans and a white blouse—told me nothing about her occupation.

  Eddie led the way to the serving table. A little man was putting bagels on a plate. His hair was long and blond, covered by a hair net, and his clothing was kitchen-white.

  “You’re late,” he said. “The eggs are gone.”

  “What’s left?” Eddie asked.

  “Noodles and sausage. We have three kinds of sausage.” He tapped a heating unit. “These are made from chicken and are relatively spicy. The ones in the next unit are made from iguana. They’re mild. The ones at the end are soybean. I don’t recommend them, unless you’re really worried about your karma. No animal was killed to make them, and that’s the best I can say.” He paused and glanced down the table. “That’s it, except for the bagels, which turned out pretty well today.”

  I helped myself to chicken sausage, a bagel, and a pot of coffee. Eddie got noodles and tea.

  We sat down at a table next to a wall made up of hexagonal windows. Outside was the lake. I squinted. Two objects floated there, a good distance out. They were hard to see amid the glitter of the waves. I shaded my eyes. They were long and dark, low in the water.

  “The rocket planes,” said Eddie.

  I poured coffee and drank. “Ivanova told me a little of what happened at the meeting. But I can’t say that I understood it.”

  “I wish to hell you and Derek had made it back in time. I wish you hadn’t vanished. I was trying to argue a principle while Ivanova recited the Code of Space. One does not abandon a comrade in trouble. It had a definite impact.” He paused and twirled noodles onto a fork. “Did you know—in the century after the conquest of Mexico, ninety percent of the native population died? The population of Peru fell by ninety-five percent. Three million people vanished off the Caribbean Islands.” He ate the noodles, chewing them carefully. “They died in the mines and on the plantations. They were sent to Europe as slaves. Disease got them. War and execution. Starvation. There is a quote I have memorized by a Spanish writer of the time.

  “ ‘Who of those born in future generations will believe this? I myself who saw it can hardly believe that such was possible.’ ”

  I ate as he talked. The sausage was not really spicy. The bagel was excellent.

  “Eddie, that was hundreds of years ago. You don’t seriously think that something like that is going to happen again?”

  He paused, then sighed. “I don’t know. But I’ve been listening to the conversations on the ship.” He ate another forkful of noodles, then reached for a bottle of Sichuan hot oil, which was on the table along with other condiments. He sprinkled the oil all over his plate. “Everyone wants to get down to the surface of the planet. No. That isn’t entirely true. There are astronomers who don’t care, and some planetologists who want to look at the other planets in the system. But they’re the exceptions. The biologists are going crazy.”

  “What do you expect? These people came eighteen point two light-years to study the life on this planet.”

  “I know.” He ate more noodles. “That’s better. I’m telling you what I’ve been hearing. Most of the people on the ship are talking about the research they plan to do, once they get down here.”

  I drank more coffee. Eddie was not a linear thinker, going from A to B to C. Sometimes, when I listened to him, I was reminded of weaving, of how the pattern emerged bit by bit as the shuttle went back and forth. If I waited long enough, I would understand his argument.

  He said, “That isn’t what bothers me, though I wonder what all these people will do if the natives say, ‘No. We don’t want you. Go home.’

  “What bothers me is the speculation. It’s especially bad among members of the crew.

  “There’s a lot of discussion about the feasibility of interstellar trade. What is so valuable—and so unique—that it’d be worth moving from star to star? And what would keep its value for one hundred twenty years? Most people figure life and art.”

  “Eddie, this has been talked about for centuries.”

  “There are people on the ship who are building economic models. The economists, of course. We should never have brought them along. They are running everything they can think of through the models. Is it worthwhile to ship iridium? Or platinum? Or copper? What if we assume improvements in our technology? Ships that move a lot faster or use a lot less energy?

  “What about people? Think of the knowledge and skill that’s contained in almost any human brain. Why send art to Earth? Send the artist.

  “And when we send samples of the life here—or anywhere—back to Earth, we ought to send the people who understand that life. The farmers and hunters and animal trainers. The old women who know which herbs are medicinal.

  “How else can we possibly know what we have when we grow an organism? How else can we take care of it? And use it?”

  I poured myself more coffee. “The ship is full of people who like to play with ideas. And as you have pointed out before, the crew doesn’t have enough to do at present. Neither do the social scientists. I think you’re taking this way too seriously.”

  “Maybe.” He finished eating. “There are problems with all the models. For example, how can we send people on a trip that will last one hundred twenty years? Not humans. Natives, who may not understand the nature of the journey.

  “No one has an answer to that question, though some of the crew are hypothesizing natives who like to travel and who don’t care if they ever come home.”

  “Um.”

  He made the gesture of agreement.

  “Eddie! You’re learning.”

  He repeated the gesture and then went on.

  “Let’s suppose that it is economic to ship iridium or platinum. Who’s going to mine it? And refine it? We’re going to have to assume a good-sized colony. Maybe the natives will help us. Maybe we’ll teach them our technology.

  “There are people who say it’s crazy to think of moving raw materials—even raw materials that have been at least partially processed, such as ingots of metal. They say, why not build the factories here and produce a finished product? For example, why not build ships? We could fill them with goodies—with life and art—and send them back to Earth. Or else we could go on from here and find other planets in other systems.

  “As you might imagine, this plan would require a really large colony. Or a lot of help from the natives. We’d have to bring them into the industrial age.” He pushed his plate to the side. “And this brings us to Comrade Lu Jiang. Do you remember her?”

  I made the gesture of indecision, then added, “I’m not certain.”

  “She’s the woman who thinks the natives are trapped in their present historical stage. They can’t gather in cities because the men are solitary. The women need men during the mating season and maybe at other times. In most of the societies we’ve studied, the men are important economically. At least to some extent.” He paused, frowning, obviously trying to get his ideas in order.

  “They’re not likely to develop the kind of trade and manufacture that leads to industrial capitalism. Without industrial capitalism, there can be no revolution. These people will always be tribal. Unless we help them, they can never develop a socialist society.

  “It is our duty to help them, according to Comrade Jiang.”

  “I am getting a headache,” I said.

  “I’ve had one for days.” He stood up. “Come on.”

  We took our dishes to the recycling table and stacked them, then went out to the lake. The beach was gravel. Little birds ran over it, stopping now and then to peck. What—if anything—were they finding? Small animals? Bits of debris?

  “You see why I think it was dangerous to come down, even to find you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I told the meeting, if we did thi
s now—if we hunted for you—we’d do it again. There’d be another good reason and another.

  “I said we had to draw a line. We had to make an unbreakable rule.”

  I was angry with Eddie, of course. Anyone would have been. He’d been willing to let us die for a theory—in order to defend a bunch of people he didn’t know against a danger that might be imaginary. It was too damn abstract for me. I thought of myself on the island and Derek on his sandbar. We could have died. Easily.

  “The meeting didn’t listen to you.”

  “No. They were hungry, and they heard Ivanova make her speech on the Code of Space.”

  “Why’d you come on this expedition if you didn’t want to meet aliens?”

  “I was hoping they’d be so damn different that we couldn’t harm each other. I thought—if there were people here and they were vulnerable, there had to be someone on the ship with a good memory. Someone who’d be ready to defend them.” He looked out at the shining lake. “Eddie the Galactic Hero. The man who tried to save his people—four hundred years after the fact and more than eighteen light-years from home.” He glanced at me. His glasses had been transparent in the dining room. Now they were like polished metal again.

  I kept silent.

  “I’ve gotten myself angry. I think I’ll take a walk.”

  “Okay.”

  He started down the beach. I went looking for dome number one.

  It was empty: no other shoppers and no volunteer fashion consultants, nothing except a computer on a table next to the door. I punched in a request for clothing, and it answered with a map. Aisle two, shelves one through nine. “Please remember to input your selections,” it added in luminous yellow letters. “Without this information we cannot charge your account.”

  I got my clothing and went back to my room. My bed was made. There was a note on the pillow from Derek.

  “Always remember: Neatness is next to revolutionary zeal.”

  I crumpled the note and tossed it into the recycling bin, then put on a pair of jeans, a bright pink shirt, high boots, a belt of lizard skin. I needed jewelry. The computer had none, which was hardly surprising. If I wanted jewelry on the ship, I didn’t punch the supply department. I punched arts and artifacts or I went to the personal exchange.

  The rest of the clothing went into a cabinet. I decided to take a walk—not south, the way Eddie had gone. North along the shore.

  The beach was narrow in that direction. Bushes grew almost to the water. There were outcroppings of rock.

  After a while I looked back. I could see the dock and the rocket planes, but not the domes. Vegetation hid them. I found a hunk of limestone and sat down on it. Birds darted along the shore. They were like the ones I’d seen earlier: little and brown. Runners, not fliers. One stopped and stretched its wings. There were claws at the tips and joints.

  “Li-sa?” a voice said.

  I turned.

  Nia stood there. Her tunic was ripped. Her fur was matted. She looked miserable.

  I jumped off the rock and grabbed her, hugging tightly. She stiffened, then returned my embrace.

  “You’re alive!”

  “Both of us.”

  I let go and stepped back. “Who?”

  “I,” said the oracle.

  His kilt was in worse shape than Nia’s tunic. It was a gray rag that barely covered his pubic area.

  “Ulzai?”

  Nia made the gesture that indicated lack of knowledge. “We caught onto the boat after it went over. It floated upside down and carried us through the rapids. Aiya! What an experience!”

  “I can’t swim,” the oracle said. “But my spirit took care of me, as always. And of Nia, too.”

  Nia made the gesture of gratitude. The oracle replied with the gesture of acknowledgment.

  I made the gesture that asked for more information.

  Nia said, “The boat went downriver. We held on. All day. All night. At last it drifted into shallow water. We were able to stand.”

  “Just barely,” the oracle said. “My legs were like string. Aiya!”

  Nia glanced at him, frowning a little. “We pulled the boat to shore and rested, then I looked around. We were on an island. It was large and covered with bushes. There was no water—except the water in the river, which tasted muddy to me. And not much food.

  “We decided to go farther down the river. I found branches that would serve as paddles. I am going to sit.”

  I made the gesture of agreement. The two natives settled themselves on the ground. I followed suit.

  “It was not an easy journey,” the oracle said. “The branches were not good paddles.”

  “Maybe we should have stayed where we were,” Nia said. “But I thought your friends were going to be at the lake. We could tell them what happened. Maybe they would know how to find you.” She paused and scratched her nose. “We spent three days traveling on the river. The first day we stayed close to the shore. Then—in the late afternoon—we saw a lizard. A big one, lying on the bank. It took no interest in us, but we became frightened. We paddled out into the middle of the river.

  “We found an island with trees and made camp. I was pretty sure that the lizards could not climb.

  “The next day we went on. In the afternoon we came to the lake. We made camp on the eastern shore. There was something in the water a long way out. It was low and dark. We thought it was an island.

  “At night lights shone on it, and there were more lights on the shore. I thought, those are Li-sa’s people. We are going to have to cross the lake.

  “The next morning something unexpected happened.” Nia paused.

  “Something fell out of the sky,” the oracle said. “There was a lot of noise. We ran and hid. When the noise stopped we came back. There were two islands in the lake.”

  “I’ve heard of stones falling out of the sky,” Nia said. “But stones do not float. I thought to myself, this is new. And it is big.”

  Nia looked at me. Her gaze was steady. “I did not like it, Li-sa. I began to feel uneasy. I thought, there is something going on that I do not understand, and it is something big.”

  The oracle said, “After that, we were careful.”

  Nia made the gesture of agreement. “We were at the place where the river entered the lake. We waited till nightfall and paddled across. It wasn’t easy. We were going across the current. But we made it. We hid the boat. Then we traveled through the forest below the river bluff. There was no trail. We had to go up and down over the rocks. We had to push through the vegetation. Aiya!

  “We came to the village. The one that belongs to your people. We hid.” She paused for a moment. “This is the hard part of the story.”

  “We decided not to go in,” the oracle said. “Not at once. We wanted to be sure that the village really did belong to your people. We stayed in the forest and watched. We saw.” The oracle paused. “There were boats on the lake that moved by themselves. They went back and forth between the islands and the shore. There were other things. Wagons. People rode in them. The wagons moved the way the boats did, with no one doing any work. And the wagons made noises. They roared like killers of the forest. They honked like osubai. We could tell they were made of metal. We knew they were not alive. But how were they moving? And why were they making so much noise?”

  “We should have gone into the camp,” Nia said. “We knew these were your kinfolk. They wore clothing like yours, and they had no fur. It was my responsibility to tell them what had happened to you and Deragu.” She straightened her shoulders and looked directly at me. “I could not do it, Li-sa. Even though you might be in trouble. Even though these people might have been able to help you. I was afraid.”

  “How long did you watch?” I asked.

  “A day,” said the oracle. “And part of another. Then you came with Deraku, riding in one of the boats that moved even though the people on it did nothing. We saw you get off. We saw your relatives greet you.”

  “That was a relief,�
� Nia said.

  “This morning we saw you go off on your own. We followed.” He made the gesture that meant “it is over” or “the story is done.”

  “I probably would have done the same thing,” I said. “Hidden and watched. I know my people are strange. But there is nothing in the camp to worry about. Are you willing to come with me?”

  “Yes,” said the oracle. “I have heard nothing new from my spirit. And this is what I came for. To meet your people who have no hair.”

  Nia made the gesture of doubtful agreement.

  We turned back toward camp.

  “I am worried about Ulzai,” I said.

  “He will be all right,” the oracle said. “The umazi promised him that they would kill him, and he has told us that there are no umazi here in the north. Therefore, he is safe.”

  Good reasoning, if one believed in messages from spirits.

  “Why did the camp frighten you?” I asked. “You weren’t frightened by my box with voices.”

  “Your radio,” Nia said, pronouncing the word carefully and almost correctly. “That thing is small. I told you, I am not afraid of new things if they are small. And if there are not too many of them.” She paused for a moment. “And you are a friend of mine. I do not know these people.”

  We reached the dock. There was a boat tied up, maybe the one we had come on. A couple of people were standing next to it. They looked at me and the natives, then froze—motionless, watching.

  We turned up into the camp.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said the oracle.

  “I’ll get you some food.” I turned toward the big dome. They followed, keeping close to me.

  There was a hillclimber parked by the entrance to the dome. It wasn’t the same one I had seen before. I would have recognized the big dent in the side. How had they managed to do that in only a few days? A man was lifting a box marked “fragile” out of the back. He stopped, the box in midair, and stared, his mouth open.

  “Brian!” I said. “How are you?”

  “Those are aliens,” he said.

  “It’d be more accurate to say that we’re the aliens. These people are native.”