Return to Eden

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Arnwheet was squatting in the shade blowing fiercely on his whistle. It was one that the Paramutan had made for him, with a moving rod at the end just like one of their pumps. But instead of spitting out water this whistle pumped out shrill and quavering noise that sliced through the afternoon heat. It was midsummer and the days were longer and hotter. Little could be done during the torrid afternoon, little had to be done. There was meat and fruit and all of the green things that grew in the earth, fish and wildfowl as well. There had been three full moons since Kerrick and Herilak had returned from the city with the new death-sticks. They had moved quickly and had not been followed. Since then no murgu had come out of the city that they knew of. The trail from the south was watched carefully, but none came. That incident was over. While two of the older death-sticks had sickened and died, none of the new ones had been affected. The sammads were well fed and at peace. A peace that they had not known since the long winters had begun.

The shrill wavering sound hung in the hot air: Kerrick marveled at the boy’s application. The sides of the tent were rolled up to let what little breeze there was move through. The baby was asleep and Armun was working the knots out of her hair with a comb carved from horn. Kerrick watched her with great pleasure. The whistle cut off abruptly, then started again even more harshly. Kerrick rolled over and saw that two hunters had joined Arnwheet under the tree and were examining the whistle. One of them, it was Hanath, Kerrick saw, was trying to play it, his cheeks growing red with the effort. He passed it over to Morgil who blew and worked the stem and elicited the sound of a dying mastodon from it. Armun laughed at their efforts. Kerrick rose, stretched and yawned, walked out blinking into the blistering sunshine. Morgil panted and gasped and handed the whistle back to the boy when Kerrick joined them.

“You have so little to do than to come to steal Arnwheet’s toy?” Kerrick said.

“Hanath… told me of it,” Morgil panted. “It makes an awful noise. And was it made by the Paramutan you told us about?”

“It was. They are very clever and carve bone and wood. They make another thing like this, only bigger that they use to suck water out of their boats.”

“And they live on the ice and hunt fish in the cold and there is snow?” Hanath said with great interest. “You must tell us more about them.”

“You have heard the stories, you know as much now as I do. But what do you care about the Paramutan? Does not your brewing of porro keep you even too busy to hunt?”

“Many others hunt. They trade all the meat we need for porro.”

“And we have drunk enough porro for a while,” Morgil said. “It is good when it is good, but terrible when it is bad. I think the manduktos do the right thing, drink it only when something special happens. You told us the Paramutan come south to trade. Do they come this far?”

“No, they hate the heat, they would die here. At the end of the summer, those that want to trade go to the shore to the north where the great river meets the ocean. That is the only place where they go.”

“What is it they want to trade?”

“They bring cured hides, furs sometimes, rich eating fat. What they want in return are flint knives, spearheads, even arrowheads. They make their own kind of bone fishhooks, certain kind of spearheads, but they need our knives.”

“I have the feeling that I need some furs,” Hanath said, wiping sweat from his forehead with forefinger.

“I too,” agreed Morgil. “We think that the time for trading has come.”

Kerrick looked at them both with astonishment. “I think that the last thing you will need here are furs.” The whistle wailed shrilly as Arnwheet blew it for his attentive audience. Kerrick thought about what they had said and smiled. “I don’t think that it is furs that you want, but maybe a long trek, some hunting, cold weather and frost.”

Morgil clasped his hands together and rolled his eyes skyward. “The sammadar sees our secret thoughts. He should be alladjex, not Fraken who is young and stupid.’

“I don’t have to be an alladjex to see that you two have not been on the trail for a long time — and want the smell of the northern forest in your nostrils again.”

“Yes!” they said it as one and Hanath obviously spoke for them both. “Tell us where this place is where the Paramutan wait. We will make lots of knives…”

“Others will make them, we will trade them for porro,” Morgil said. “But will these Paramutan come again to trade? You told us that they have crossed the ocean and now hunt and fish on a distant shore.”

“They will come, they told me so. Crossing the ocean is nothing for them. There are those things they need that they can only get by trading with the Tanu. They will come.”

“And we will be there to meet them. Can you tell us of where we can find the furry-faced ones?”

“You must ask Armun. She knows the place because that is where she first met the Paramutan.”

She came out of the tent when he called her, sat next to Arnwheet and brushed his tangled hair from his face. He whistled happily at his growing audience.

“It is very easy to find,” she said when they had explained what they wanted. “You must know the trail that comes from the mountains to the sea.”

Kerrick felt a sudden excitement as she talked, could almost smell the chill mist blowing in from the ocean, the cold pelting of driving snow. He had forgotten what it was like to be cold. Not that he wanted to freeze to death again, but to eat a mouthful of snow, to walk in the dark pine woods — that was something worth doing. Under eager questioning Armun talked more about the Paramutan and the way they lived on the ice, the many things they made, the rotten fish they liked to eat. The two hunters listened closely to her words, gasping in fascination at their strange ways. When she had finished Hanath slapped Morgil so enthusiastically on the shoulder that he knocked him over on his side.

“We will do it,” he cried. “We will go, now is the time to leave. We will go north and trade with the furry ones.”

“Perhaps I will go with you,” Kerrick said. “To show you the way.”

Armun’s eyes widened with shock. Before she could speak her anger he seized her hands in his. “We will both go, why not, take a mastodon to carry the things we wish to trade.”

“That will be too slow,” she said. “And we will not go, nor do I even wish to talk of it. The children are here…”

“And the children are safe here. Ysel eats soft-chewed food now, Arnwheet has his friends, while the sammads and many hunters are on all sides.”

“I want to go too!” Arnwheet called out and Armun shushed him.

“This is a thing that hunters wish to do. You are not quite the grown hunter yet. Some day, but not now.”

She took the boy back to the tent with her, leaving the three hunters with their heads bent close, making plans. She was concerned, but not worried. But what should she do if Kerrick said that he wished to go with them? She must decide before he returned. He wanted very much to go, that was clear. Perhaps life on this island was too easy. Certainly it was too hot. She laughed out loud. She would very much like to do this thing as well. By the time Kerrick had returned her mind was made up.

“I think those two have had a good idea,” he said. His fingers twisted at the skymetal knife as he talked. “Of course there is no real need for furs here, not in the summer at least. But the Paramutan have many other things.”

“Like what, whistles?”

“Not only whistles,” he said angrily, then saw that she was smiling.

“You want to make this trek, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well so do I. It is too quiet here now, too hot. Malagen, the Sasku woman, she likes to look after Ysel, she will do it willingly if I go with you. Arnwheet has his friends and will not even know that we have gone. I think that it will be a very good thing to go north for a while. We will find cold rain, perhaps snow, and when we return the worst heat will be over.”

A shadow passed across the clearing before the tent, drifted back. Kerrick stepped out and looked into the burning blue bowl of the sky, shielded his eyes with his hand. It was a large bird, an eagle perhaps, soaring in slow circles, a black silhouette against the sky. It was too high to make out any details. It moved away and he went back into the shade. Was it a Yilanè bird sent to look for them? Not that it mattered: Lanefenuu would never forget those dead uruketo. The fighting was over.

Day followed burning day as the uruketo swam slowly west along the coast. When the waves broke on the sandy shore they moved steadily, with at least three Yilanè on the fin at all times watching the coast slip by. Only when there were large inlets and bays did their progress slow as they made a careful search of the indented coastline. It became even slower when they came to one large bay with islands, it appeared to be a river mouth, that had to be carefully searched. Fafnepto was on the fin, blinking in the sunlight as she looked at the cool darkness under the trees close by. When they turned by a rocky headland she pointed it out to Vaintè.

“Oddness of rock shape, memorable/unforgettable. I will go ashore there and hunt fresh meat.”

“Appreciated by all. When we have finished the search we will return and meet you here. Good hunting.”

“For me, it is always good hunting.” She climbed down the fin and slipped into the water.

It took almost the entire day to search the bay. After that they started up the river through large, sweeping bends. For the first time Vaintè began to worry that their search would be in vain. She knew that Gendasi* was large, but had never truly appreciated the size of this new continent. Always before she had followed on the track of the ustuzou, going where they led. Now, on her own, she was beginning to realize that even something as large as an uruketo would be difficult to find — when she had no idea of where to look. The river was still wide and deep, moving inland in lazy loops. The other uruketo could have easily come this way. Should they search further? It was a great relief to discover that sandbars soon blocked the channel and they had to return. There was no need to follow the river any more. Those they searched for must still be somewhere along the ocean’s shore.

It was late afternoon before they returned to the rocky headland. Fafnepto was nowhere to be seen.

“Is this the place where she landed?” Gunugul asked. Vaintè signed assuredness of location. “Then she is still hunting. We will all enjoy pleasure/satisfaction to have fresh meat. I will have bladders floated ashore so we may leave when she returns.”

Vaintè watched the crewmembers bring up the bladders and slide into the river with them. The water looked cool, the forested shore inviting. She had been in the smell-filled confines of the uruketo too long. A moment later she was slipping down from the uruketo’s back and swimming strongly towards the beach.

“Excitement of discovery,” one of the crewmembers called out, pointing to the corpses of five large deer lying in the tall grass.

Vaintè admired them, then looked up as Fafnepto herself appeared from under the trees. She signed urgency of speaking as Vaintè began to compliment her on her kill.

“There is a thing I would have you see Vaintè. This way.”

“Has it to do with those we seek?”

“No. But I think it is the ustuzou you told me of. They are beyond these trees.”

“They can be dangerous!”

“Not now. All dead.”

The skin tent was on the far side of the small meadow near the stream. Two large ustuzou were crumpled on the ground before it, a third smaller one was lying nearby.

“I killed them before they saw me,” Fafnepto said. “You said they could be deadly.”

“You searched the structure?”

“Yes. None there. Many hides — and a hèsotsan.”

One of the ustuzou lay face upwards. Vaintè turned the other one over with her foot claws, hopefully, but it was not Kerrick. “You were right to kill them,” she said.

“Is this the stone tooth of which you spoke?” Fafnepto asked, pointing to the spear in the dead hunter’s hand.

“It is one kind. Another is sent through the air, very much like the dart from a hèsotsan. Not poisonous but a great deal heavier. They are very dangerous beasts.”

“Then we can be sure that the uruketo you seek is not near here.”

“A wise observation. The search will continue.”

Vaintè walked back to the shore in enforced silence, her body rippling with the intensity of her thoughts. She knew that the search for the uruketo and the Daughters of Life, as well as the renegade scientist, would go on. She had told Saagakel that she would do this. And Fafnepto was here to aid her in that search. But it would not go on forever. Now that she thought about it she realized that she cared little if Enge and her accomplices lived or died. Not now, not after seeing the bodies in the clearing. The sight of those dead ustuzou drove the present search from her thoughts. It wasn’t important. What was of primary importance, what she really needed to do, was to find Kerrick.

Find him and kill him.

“Message of urgency/import for the Eistaa,” the fargi said, trembling with the effort to remember what she had been instructed to say, to be clear and comprehensible in her speaking.

Lanefenuu leaned back on her board, her mouth working hard on a large portion of jellied meat. Her advisers sat in a circle about her, their attitudes appreciative of her wonderful appetite. She threw the bone aside and gestured a truncated continuance of talking to the fargi. The creature gaped in ignorance.

Muruspe caught the fargi’s attention. “You are ordered to speak. Finish telling what was told to be said.” The fargi gasped with sudden comprehension when she understood the simplified commands, spoke quickly before she forgot everything.

“Ukhereb reports discoveries of relevancy. Requests presence of Eistaa for revelation.”

Lanefenuu waved the fargi out of sight, heaved herself to her feet, signed for a water-fruit and used it to clean her hands. “A request for my presence signifies matters of importance,” she said. “We go.”

As they left the ambesed two of her advisers hurried ahead to be sure her way was clear, the rest trailed behind. Muruspe, who was her efensele as well as first adviser, walked at her side.

“Do you know what it can be, Muruspe?” Lanefenuu asked.

“I know no more of it than you do, Eistaa. But my hope is that these Yilanè of science have uncovered some evidence of the ustuzou that kill.”

“My hope as well. A matter of lesser importance would have brought Ukhereb to the ambesed herself.”

Akotolp was waiting at the dilated opening in the wall to greet them, signing pleasure and joyful anticipation.

“Apologies of request-for-presence from Ukhereb. That which we wish to show you could not be brought easily/quickly.”

“Show me at once — anticipation becomes unbearable.”

Akotolp led the way into the dusky interior, then through another partition into a chamber of darkness. Only when the entrance had been sealed was it possible to see by the weak red glow being emitted by a cage of insects. Ukhereb held up a damp sheet of some white substance with dark marks upon it.

“This image would vanish if exposed to daylight at this moment. I wished the Eistaa to see it at once.”

“Explanation of significance, meaning unclear.” She bent close, following Ukhereb’s pointing thumb.

“Image obtained from high in the air. These are trees around a clearing. This and this are the structures made of animal skins that the killing ustuzou erect. Here a group of three ustuzou, here more. And here and here.”

“I see them now! They are so ugly. They are the same kind as the one killed here in the city?”

“They are the same. See the light fur on the head, skins bound about below.”

“Where are they now?”

“North of the city. Not close, but north of us on an island on the shore. I will have other images for you to look at soon, the processing is now going on. In one of them I believe there is a hèsotsan.”

“One of our hèsotsan,” Lanefenuu said angrily. “This must end. Twice they came here, killed Yilanè, took hèsotsan away with them. This shall not happen a third time.”