The Color of Distance

Chapter 11

Juna had barely settled into a comfortable routine when Ukatonen and Anito informed her that she would take part in a digging race against two of the village’s strongest bami.

Juna leaned back against the wall of their room. She had been working hard for the last eighteen days. Even though Anito and Ukatonen didn’t expect the same level of grinding toil from her that the villagers did, she still labored hard for them. She was tired.

“No,” she said. “I won’t do it.”

“You must do it,” Anito insisted. “Ukatonen and I have agreed with Lalito that this would happen.”

Juna shook her head. They had entered her into this race as though she were a dumb animal. She couldn’t allow them to continue treating her like this.

“This is your agreement. Not mine. I not do. I not—” She paused, searching for the right word. “I not tinka. I not yours. Understand?” She felt a red flush of anger flare on her skin.

Ukatonen touched Juna’s shoulder. “The villagers treat you badly, don’t they?”

Juna nodded, her skin deepened to brick red frustration.

“If you win this race, they like you more. They not treat you so badly. Understand?”

Juna thought it over. She needed to gain the respect of the villagers before the Survey returned. If they knew and respected one human, perhaps the rest would be easier to forgive. This race might help her earn some respect, but only if she could win it. Unfortunately, she wasn’t physically capable of finishing, much less winning, any kind of race in her current condition. Just getting through the day was hard enough.

“I can’t do it. I work for eighteen days with no rest. I’m tired. I need rest.”

Ukatonen ducked his chin, thinking.

“You must work all this month. That is the agreement,” he reminded her.

Anito touched Ukatonen’s shoulder. “We do different work. Not hard and not where villagers can see,” the alien suggested. Anito turned to Juna. “Understand?”

Juna thought it over. A chance to rest. It sounded tempting.

“Maybe can do race, if rest,” she told them.

A lavender ripple of intense relief rolled over the two aliens. This was important to them as well, Juna realized. She had better win.

The next day, Ukatonen took them deep into the forest to gather seeds. They did that for about an hour, then made themselves a nest in the branches of a tree. Anito went off to hunt, while Ukatonen plied Juna with honey and fruit. He made her eat until her stomach felt as if it were about to burst. Then she fell asleep, and did not wake until late afternoon. Anito and Ukatonen fed her another meal, of honey, meat, and fruit. Then they walked home, arriving shortly after dark, and fed her another big meal. She became sleepy soon afterwards, with a suddenness that made her wonder if they were spiking her food, but she was too tired to ask. She was asleep before she had finished covering herself over with leaves.

She slept late the next day, well into mid-morning, and awoke to find another huge meal awaiting her. She ate as much of it as she could. As she was finishing, Anito came in with an armful of thick bamboolike reeds.

Juna stretched, taking inventory of her physical condition. She felt better. Her muscles were still sore, but they lacked the deep bone-ache of true fatigue. She felt more energetic today than she had in weeks, despite the big meal she had just consumed.

“How you feel?” Anito asked, as Juna leaned against a wall, stretching her Achilles tendons.

“Better. Not so tired.”

“Can do race?”

“Maybe.”

“Want link? Link make you feel better.”

Juna thought about it. It was tempting. If she accepted the link, then she would begin the race in good condition, but she had to win through her own power and skill. Only that would count toward the greater goal of winning respect from the villagers.

“No,” she said. “I not link. It not good. I win by myself. Understand?”

“I understand,” Anito said.

Ukatonen came in carrying several skeins of rope and strong twine, and began sorting through the reeds, lifting them up and eyeing them carefully for straightness. Anito squatted down nearby, beckoning to Juna to join them.

“We make cultivator for race,” Anito told her.

Juna picked up the cultivator that she had been using to churn up the burnt-over fields. It was w^ll made, but the design was extremely primitive, little more than a forked stick. She remembered the U-bar cultivator she had used in her father’s garden. It could turn up three times as much soil as one of these, with half the effort.

“Does my cultivator have to be the same as this?” Juna asked, an idea beginning to form. “Can I use a different kind of cultivator?”

It was a dangerous idea, risky because it might backfire, and because it broke Contact regulations. If it worked, she could gain the respect of the people the Survey had harmed. If it failed, well, they didn’t like her anyway. Besides, she broke Contact regulations every day. By the time the Survey returned to pick her up, this infringement would be only one of many that she would have committed in order to survive.

“No one has said you couldn’t,” Ukatonen told her, after thinking it over.

“If we made it wider and added another handle, and put some bracing here and here, and changed the— What do you call this?” she asked, pointing to the tines of the existing cultivator.

“###” Anito supplied the word in skin speech. Juna’s computer, sitting close by, recorded the new word and began generating a phonetic equivalent for it.

“—changed the tines like so,” Juna said, using the skin-speech word that Anito had given her. “The cultivator would work better.” She depicted, on her stomach, a crude picture of what she planned to build.

“It would be too tall, and the handles would be too close together,” Ukatonen argued.

“Not for me,” Juna replied, drawing herself up to her full height and stretching out her arms, reminding the aliens that she was taller than they were and had shorter arms.

“All right. We will build it the way you say,” Ukatonen agreed.

The rest of the day was spent fashioning the cultivator, with frequent breaks to stop and eat. The aliens were continuing to ply her with food. Juna was amazed at how much she had eaten lately. Still, she needed all the help she could get to win tomorrow’s race.

They finished the cultivator a couple of hours before sunset, took it to the bank of a nearby river, and tried it out in the soft mud by the water’s edge. Anito and Ukatonen were impressed by how much dirt it could turn up, and how easy it was to use. Juna began to feel confident. They rinsed the cultivator off and carried it back to the village. She ate another big meal, mostly honey, seaweed, and a starchy mush made from the tubers of a wide-leafed plant that grew in the river. Juna finished her meal, spent a little time fussing with her computer, then burrowed into the compost-generated warmth of her wet, leafy bed.

She was beginning to get used to this, she realized as she composed her mind for sleep. According to her computer, it rarely fell below seventy, but it was cool enough to make her glad of the warmth of her bed. Dry, clean sheets and blankets were a distant dream, as was a good hot meal. She longed for cooked food. She drifted off to sleep, dreaming of hot couscous topped with succulent chunks of lamb, the way her mother used to make it.

Anito woke her a little after dawn. A steady, light rain was falling; they could begin the race early. They walked out to the burnt-over area. The villagers, already assembling, looked on curiously as Juna unwrapped and assembled the new implement. Then the crowd of villagers parted as Lalito led out the two bami that she was going to compete against. Juna stared at them in dismay. Muscles bulged and rippled on their shoulders. They looked like no bami she had ever seen before. A deep ochre cloud of worry passed over Anito. Ukatonen touched Anito’s shoulder and the two aliens conferred. Anito came over to Juna.

“They’ve enhanced the muscles on those bami. Do you still want to go on with this?”

Juna eyed the two powerful-looking young bami, surrounded by the other villagers. One of the villagers glanced at her. A ripple of open derision flared on its body. Then it turned back to encourage and congratulate the bami she was to race against. A sudden surge of anger crowded out any doubts. Juna gripped the handles of her cultivator. She was tired of the aliens’ scorn. She would win today. She had to. Muscles or no, the bami could accept no help from their elders until after the race. So, it was her strength and endurance against theirs. Their muscles may have been enhanced, but she had her cultivator. It was a matter of strength versus invention. Juna flickered assent.

“Good,” Anito said. “Let’s go.”

Juna picked up her cultivator and headed over to where the villagers were gathered in a knot around their champions. They stopped before the village chief, Lalito. Ukatonen stepped forward and addressed Lalito in formal patterns. From what little Juna could understand, plus the gestures he made toward her cultivator, Juna knew he was talking about the new tool. Lalito listened, and asked a couple of questions. Then she flickered assent.

Juna looked to Anito for a translation.

“Lalito has said that you may use your cultivator.”

The speech was much longer than that. Juna wondered what they had said to each other. Although her vocabulary was still poor, she had a very good grasp of the shades ef meaning conveyed by the aliens’ use of color. She was sure she detected some fairly pointed sarcasm on both their parts.

“Thank you, kene,” she told Lalito. “How is the race to be run?”

“You will start here, where the unbroken ground begins, and you will dig until either the sky clears or the sun sets. Your opponents will go one at a time. When one gets tired, the other will take over. Do you understand?” Lalito asked.

Juna replied with the most formal assent she knew. Lalito’s ears lifted in surprise. Juna picked up her implement with a small, secret smile, and strode over to the starting place.

“Do well,” Anito said. Her skin patterns were a gentle, encouraging blue.

“I will try.”

Anito handed her a gourd full of sweet honey-water. Juna drank from it, then slung it over her shoulder. She stood waiting, her cultivator at the ready.

The two bami were receiving last-minute instructions from their elders. At last one of them picked up a cultivator and stood beside her.

Lalito and Ukatonen stood on either side of the contestants. They raised their arms. “Begin,” they said in unison.

Juna plunged the tines into the loose dirt at the starting line, placed her foot on the crossbar, and pulled back on the two handles. The tines lifted and broke the seared crust of dirt from below. A quick shake broke down the larger clods. She lifted the cultivator and plunged it in again.

A ripple of concern washed over the villagers like an ochre dust cloud as they saw how fast Juna could turn over the dirt. The bami glanced over its shoulder and darkened with worry as it saw how much dirt she turned. It began to dig faster. Juna smiled and kept on digging.

The steady lift-and-pull motion loosened her muscles. She fell into a work trance, as she did back home, working in her father’s garden. She glanced up after a while and realized that she was several meters ahead of her rival. A short time later, the second bami took over from the first. The gap between them narrowed until the bami was digging beside her. After a while it pulled ahead, a meter, then another. Juna continued the steady pace of her digging. She had once cleared half a hectare of ground in a single afternoon, on a bet with her brother, Toivo. Experience had taught her that a steady, unvarying pace always won.

Sure enough, she pulled even with the second bami, and then ahead. A while later, it dropped out. Juna stopped for a couple of minutes to drink a gourd of honey-water, and to gulp down a couple of handfuls of sweet, sticky mush. Then she rinsed off her hands and started digging again.

The afternoon wore on. It began to rain, a heavy downpour that slowed to a steady, unrelenting drizzle. Where the ground had been worked, the mud was knee-deep. Juna found herself pushing just to keep ahead of the mud. Her arms ached. Her back was a solid sheet of pain, and the skin on her hands was chafed and blistered. She concentrated on maintaining a steady rhythm of dig, pull, lift. She was slowly pulling ahead; now she was consistently more than a meter ahead. The sun, only a bright spot of glare behind the thick grey clouds, was sinking toward the horizon. She might win after all. She looked back at the trees where the villagers were sheltering. There was no sign of them, save an occasional rustling of the branches. No wonder the Survey had missed these people.

Then the second bami came out of the forest. Instead of relieving its partner, the two began to dig together. Juna groaned inwardly as she saw her hard-earned lead shrinking. Holding her hand up between the tree line and the sun, she estimated the amount of daylight left. Less than an hour. If she could hold her lead that long, the race would be over. She bent to her digging, feeling the drag of the handles against her hands as she dug, pulled, and lifted. A blister burst with a warm trickle of fluid. It greased the handles of the cultivator. Dig, pull, lift. The bami were even with her. She continued, ignoring pain, ignoring exhaustion, refusing even to spare a glance at her rivals. She must win. She would win. Dig, pull, lift. The shadows grew long and the villagers came out of the forest, their skins a whirl of bright colors as they encouraged their bami. There was a chirring noise and Lalito lifted her arm, signaling the end of the race. Juna fell to her hands and knees, then collapsed into the churned red mud, gasping for breath. She was having trouble breathing, her throat was sore. Hands turned her over. She felt a pinprick on her arm, a brief presence inside her. Then a wave of darkness rolled over her.

Anito craned her neck anxiously, straining to see what kind of progress Eerin was making. Once the sun touched the trees, the race would be over. Eerin glanced up and increased the pace of her digging. When the sun finally touched the treetops, Eerin and the bami appeared to be just about even.

Lalito chirred loudly, signaling the end of the race. Eerin fell to her knees. The two bami leaned against each other, exhausted. The village streamed out onto the path between the two expanses of dirt that each side had cultivated, eager to see who had won. Anito pushed through the crowd to the front. Ukatonen crouched beside Eerin. She was sprawled on the ground, chest heaving as she struggled to breathe. Her palms were bleeding.

“How is she?” Anito asked.

“Completely exhausted,” Ukatonen replied. “She won by three and a half hand-spans.”

Anito examined Eerin’s palms. The protective layer of skin was worn completely through in spots, oozing blood. Glancing up at the handles of Eerin’s cultivator, Anito saw that they were slick with blood, almost black in the last, dying rays of the sun.

She linked with Eerin long enough to stabilize her. When she emerged from the link, a cluster of tinka looked on anxiously. They helped carry Eerin back to the tree and placed her on the bed.

“I’ll need to do some deep work, en,” Anito told Ukatonen. “Will you monitor me?”

“Of course, kene.”

They linked and entered the new creature’s body. The depth of Eerin’s exhaustion amazed Anito. Her blood was sour with fatigue. She had used up her body’s reserves of energy, and had begun to consume her own muscles. Anito was surprised at this. No Tendu would work that hard except over a life or death matter. Why had Eerin done it? It was only a race. She didn’t even need to win it in order to gain the respect of the village.

Anito broke down the proteins that Eerin’s strange body reacted to so strongly, and filtered out the accumulated poisons. Then she turned to rebuilding Eerin’s muscles and replenishing her energy reserves.

Ukatonen broke the link.

“You were giving too much of yourself, kene,” Ukatonen told Anito. “Let the creature’s body repair itself.”

“But she won’t be able to work tomorrow,” Anito argued.

“She’s earned a day off,” Ukatonen said. “If Lalito protests, then I will call her leadership into question. I may do it anyway. She lacks harmony.”

Anito’s ears spread wide in surprise. She had never heard of an enkar actually questioning a village chief’s leadership, except in ancient tales.

“Would you really do that, en?” she asked.

Ukatonen gestured with his chin at Eerin, lying unconscious on her bed. “Lalito nearly killed Eerin with this foolish race.”

“But, en, it was I who spoke first. I goaded the villagers into it. This race is my fault.”

“Lalito allowed her villagers to make fun of Eerin; she even encouraged it,” Ukatonen said. “It is one thing to be angry before restitution is agreed on. It is another to maintain a grudge this way after a judgment has been made. It shows no respect for you, and no respect for Eerin. It shows even less respect for the enkar whose judgment Lalito agreed to abide by. If this agreement doesn’t work out I will be obliged to die. She is putting my life at risk with her lack of harmony.”

“No, en!” Anito said.

“It won’t go that far,” Ukatonen assured her. “Lalito lost a lot of face today. She would lose even more if she refused to grant a favor to Eerin after such a heroic performance. It will take several days for the villagers to prepare the soil that Eerin and the bami cultivated today.”

A soft, chirring call interrupted their conversation. They looked up. The two bami who had raced against Eerin were standing in the doorway, with their sitiks.

“Please excuse us, en, kene,” one of the bami said in simple, humble speech. “My name is Ini, my sitik is Arato, and this is Sarito and his bami, Ehna,” he said, gesturing at the other bami and her sitik. “We didn’t mean to interrupt, but we wanted to see if the new creature was all right.”

“Please come in,” Ukatonen said. “Eerin worked so hard that she made herself sick. She’s asleep now. She’ll be fine in a couple of days.”

“I’m glad to know that,” Sarito said as they entered the room and sat down. “If there’s anything we can do—”

“Thank you,” Anito said. “It’s very kind of you to be concerned.”

“Why—” Ehna said, then stopped, embarrassed.

“What is it, Ehna?” Ukatonen asked in soft, gentle hues. “It’s all right.”

“Why did the new creature work so hard that she threw her body out of harmony?”

Ukatonen looked at Anito, ears raised questioningly.

“That’s a good question, Ehna,” Anito replied. “We still don’t understand the new creature very well. I think that she thought it was very important to win the race. I know she wanted the people in the village to treat her better. Perhaps she thought that winning the race would help.”

“She’s very strong,” Ini conceded. “But—”

“Yes?” Ukatonen prompted.

“But maybe not very smart, to work that hard, and selfish, to ask you to repair her.”

“There are many things that Eerin doesn’t understand yet. She is like a new bami, still half-wild,” Ukatonen explained. “It will take time to bring her into harmony with us.”

“Eerin may not be very wise, but she is not stupid,” Anito said. “She learns quickly, and well, when she is given a task that she can perform.”

Ini held out the basket he was carrying. “We brought you a couple of ooloo, and some arika roots from the storeroom. Perhaps they will help Eerin recover more quickly.”

It was clearly a peace offering, and a generous one. Arika roots were a great delicacy this time of year. They would not be ready for harvest for another six months. These must have been the last of their supply. Anito was equally happy to see the ooloo; they had been under protection in Narmolom for the last several years, and it was her favorite kind of game.

“Thank you very much,” Ukatonen said as he accepted the gifts. “We were about to eat. Will you join us?”

It was not often that one got to eat with an enkar in private. Usually that privilege was reserved for the village chief and a few special cronies. The visitors accepted eagerly. Anito was worried that there wouldn’t be enough, but Ukatonen pulled out some preserved delicacies from the bottom of his pack, and Sarito and the others fetched honey, fruit, and fish. They ate well, and the party became quite cheerful.

“It will be hard,” Ukatonen said in rueful shades, “telling Lalito that Eerin will be unable to work tomorrow. She will not be pleased. I hope she doesn’t make us stay longer because of it. Anito needs to return to her village before the floods. We will have to hurry back as it is. Their village doesn’t have a chief, and Anito has asked me to help them decide who the new chief should be.”

Sympathy flared on the visitors’ chests.

“I don’t think that Lalito will protest,” Arato said. “Your new creature did four days’ worth of work today, and so did our bami. It’s a good thing that we have enough netting and leaves to protect the soil from the rains.”

“Some of the other elders are unhappy about the race,” Sarito told them. “The village lost much face today. They think Lalito is not acting wisely.”

“Has she been chief long?” Ukatonen asked as he finished off the last bite of fish.

“Only five seasons,” Sarito replied.

“It must have been hard for her,” Anito mused, “having all of this happen so soon after she became chief. My sitik was the chief elder of Narmolom. It isn’t an easy task, bringing so many conflicts into harmony.”

“She will learn, I’m sure,” Ukatonen said. “Batonen chose Lalito, and he makes good choices. This disaster would be difficult even for the best chief. Lalito cannot bring harmony to Lyanan by herself. The elders must disagree with her when she’s wrong, as well as support her when she’s right.”

Arato and Sarito flickered agreement. “We will try, en,” Sarito added.

“Thank you, kene,” Ukatonen said. He stood. “Your bami must be very tired.” He gestured with his chin at Ini, whose head kept dropping onto his chest as he dozed off.

The elders and their bami said their farewells and left. As soon as they were gone, Ukatonen leaned back against the wall, and shut his eyes. Anito was surprised at how exhausted and worn he looked.

“Good,” he said. “That was a good evening’s work. I think tomorrow will be easier.”

“You look tired, en. Is there anything I can do?”

Ukatonen flickered negation. “It’s been a long month, for me as well as for Eerin. I’ll be glad when it’s over.” He got up slowly, “I need a good night’s sleep.”

He burrowed into his bed. Anito sat up a little longer, looking at the sleeping forms of Eerin and Ukatonen. She was tired too. It would be good to be going home again. Narmolom, she thought to herself, picturing the village’s name-symbol in her mind. Once everything she knew and loved was there. Now she had traveled and the village seemed smaller, but it still held everything she loved. Almost everything. There was Ukatonen, who reminded her so much of Ilto. It was good having someone to teach her things. It gave her something familiar to cling to during the difficult transition to adulthood.

Anito crawled into bed. She fell asleep thinking of home.

Juna awoke in a bed of leaves. She shifted slightly, wincing at the pain in her back and shoulders, remembering the race. Had she won? Slowly, painfully, she sat up. She was alone. She hobbled over to the night-soil basket and used it, grateful for the chance to move her bowels in privacy for once. She picked up the water jug and drank deeply, then washed herself off. Checking her computer for the time, she saw that she’d slept for more than sixteen hours. No wonder her stomach ached with hunger; she had eaten nothing but some kayu mush yesterday.

Anito and Ukatonen returned with full gathering bags.

“How are you feeling today?” Anito asked, setting down her bags and squatting to examine Juna.

“I hurt. Did I win?”

A gentle ripple of amusement crossed the alien’s skin. “Yes, by three hand-spans of length. You dug twice as much as they did, but they only measured length.”

“What do the villagers think?”

“They wonder why you work so hard. None of them would do such a thing to win a race. You nearly died last night.”

Ukatonen touched Juna’s arm. “Anito almost made herself sick trying to heal you.”

Juna looked at Anito in surprise. “I didn’t know you get sick from healing. I am sorry. Please forgive my ignorance.”

Anito turned magenta in puzzlement and surprise. “You not know?”

“My people not link. How I understand linking? I not do before.”

“One elder died saving your life,” Anito told her. “My sitik, Ilto, got sick from saving your life.”

Juna looked from Anito to Ukatonen and back, shocked at how much her life had cost these people. She remembered how thin and frail Ilto had been. She had been responsible for his illness, and the death of another elder. Yet the villagers had treated her with kindness. Anito had saved her life several times.

“Why?” she asked, fighting back tears of shame and regret. “Why are you so good to me after all the trouble that I have caused?”

Anito laid a gentle hand on her arm. “You were new, different. My sitik knew that saving you could kill him. It was time for him to die. He chose to save you even though it made him sick. He wanted to do a big thing before he died. Understand?”

“Not all, but I understand some. Are you angry with me?” Juna asked.

“I was,” Anito said, then looked away, suddenly dark grey, as sadness washed over her.

Juna touched Anito on the arm. The alien looked at her. “I understand. If it was me, I be angry too. Please tell me how I can make all this better?”

Anito shook her head. “You didn’t understand then. Is done. I not angry now.”

“I understand now. I not forget,” Juna replied. “Thank you.”

Ukatonen touched her arm and handed her a large red jellyfruit. “You need to eat now,” he said.

Juna tore a hole in the peel and sucked out the soft jellylike interior, straining the seeds out with her teeth. Juice rolled down her chin. She sucked the last of the sweetness from the seeds, and licked the inside of the inedible peel. With a ripple of amusement, Ukatonen tossed her another.

“You eat. You work too hard yesterday,” Anito said, handing her a leafy cone containing small pieces of raw meat mixed with some sort of gluey mush. Despite its daunting texture, it was delicious. They gave her a basket full of leathery brown globes, about three centimeters across. Eggs. Ukatonen picked one up, slit it open with a deft claw, and sucked out the contents, then handed an egg to Juna.

“Lalito brought these for you,” Ukatonen told her. “They’ll make you well more quickly. She«aid that you don’t have to work today.”

“Good,” Juna said, lavender with relief.

Juna regarded the raw egg in her hand. She couldn’t refuse to eat it, not without offending Lalito. She nipped a hole in the egg and sucked out its contents. There was a disturbing solidity to the yolk. Her teeth closed on something that crunched like gristle, and there was the sudden taste of blood in her mouth as she swallowed. There had been an embryo inside the egg, she realized, repressing the urge to gag.

Her revulsion must have appeared on her skin, because Anito leaned forward, skin ochre with concern. “Are you all right?”

Juna nodded. “We don’t—” She paused, searching for the right word. “We don’t eat eggs with young inside.”

Anito’s ears spread wide. “You don’t? That’s the best kind!”

“How you find eggs so new?” Ukatonen wanted to know.

“We don’t find them. We grow them,” she said, using a verb form for “grow” that applied to raising plants. She didn’t know if the aliens had any terms for raising food animals.

Ukatonen looked puzzled. “I don’t understand. Eggs are not from plants.”

“Eggs from birds,” Juna agreed. “We grow birds. Gather eggs.”

“How grow birds?” Anito asked.

Juna remembered the chicken farm on the satellite, the thick-legged birds, awkward and slow in the heavy gravity that they were kept in to make the shells thicker, the muscles meatier. Each bird in its own wire cage, looking ugly and vulnerable in the harsh glare of the sun tubes. She had gone there once, as part of a school trip. She had had nightmares about those chickens for almost a month afterward.

How could she explain the chicken farm to these aliens? Did they even understand the concept of a cage?

“It’s like narey. You grow narey in pool. We grow birds in boxes. You feed narey, we feed birds. You eat narey, we eat birds, and birds’ eggs. Understand?”

“How birds breathe in box?” Ukatonen wanted to know. “Air get bad.”

“We put holes in box. Box is open like this,” Juna explained, holding up a gathering bag and sticking her fingers through the mesh and wriggling them.

“Why you not hunt birds?” Anito.

“Growing them is easier than hunting,” Juna replied. “My people not have time to hunt.”

The ears of both aliens spread wide and they turned a deep, incredulous purple. They looked completely and suddenly absurd, like a matched pair of toy monsters. Juna fought back a smile and a ripple of amusement. It wouldn’t do to laugh at them.

“What your people do? Why not hunt?”

“We make things. Learn things,” she replied. “We play.”

She remembered a moment shared with Padraig, laughing at some joke, their eyes meeting in understanding and delight. She looked away, fighting back a sudden surge of loneliness. Oh God, she realized, Jive years without another human being…

A gentle hand touched her shoulder. Juna looked into Anito’s alien eyes. The Tendu was concerned about her. She fought back another rush of tears.

“I miss my people,” Juna said.

“I understand. It’s a long time since I see Narmolom. I miss my people also.”

Ukatonen touched her shoulder. “We not talk about your people anymore today. You rest. You eat. We go back to Narmolom soon.”

To Anito’s relief, their remaining time at Lyanan passed quickly and without incident. Some Tendu from the surrounding villages had come to watch the race, and they stayed to help finish preparing and planting the last bits of the burnt-over area.

The villagers’ manner toward Eerin had changed after the race. The cultivator had impressed them, even though her dogged persistence to win had not. Contempt and anger had changed to curiosity. They watched her, ears wide, flickering comments among themselves. Ini and Ehna congratulated her on winning. After that, some of the boldest bami came up and began to ask her questions.

Eerin spent her free time sitting with the bami, showing them her talking stone and learning new words. The elders watched in fascination, but hung back from the new creature, afraid of losing face.

Indeed, the last few days in Lyanan were so pleasant that Anito was almost sorry when it came time for the farewell banquet. Despite the devastation of its land, the village of Lyanan was able to produce a very creditable feast. There was a great deal of fresh ocean fish, honey, fruit, and a variety of pickled greens and fruit served over sprouting namman seeds, as well as bibbi and kiltani greens. There were several fruits that Anito had never seen before. Lalito made her a present of the seeds, to take back to Narmolom, with instructions on how to grow them.

Once the banquet was over, there was a long round of speeches. Lalito praised Ukatonen and Anito. She even had a few kind words for Eerin. Then other elders got up and made similarly complimentary speeches. Arato and Sarito were the only elders who had anything to say about Eerin, praising her strength and hard work. The eldest of the bami got up and presented finely woven carrying baskets to Anito and Ukatonen. Anito flushed a nostalgic blue-grey, remembering all the times that she had done this for guests visiting Narmolom.

From the elders Anito received a thick sheaf of yarram, a finely woven net, two large sealed gourds full of sea salt, and several smaller gourds containing salt-pickled fruit. Ukatonen received several new blowgun reeds, neatly coiled inside a large bamboo container, another container full of blowgun darts tipped with bird down, and a gourd of neatly packaged seeds, the product, Anito was sure, of the village’s finest trees.

Even Eerin received some gifts. Ini and Ehna gave her a large gathering bag, Arato gave her a small gourd of sea salt. Sarito came forward with a small hunting net. Then a tinka slipped out from the crowd, handed Eerin a coil of rope, and vanished before Anito could prevent Eerin from accepting it. It was a courting gift, something made by the tinka. By accepting it, Eerin had signaled her willingness to be courted by the tinka who had given it to her.

Irritation forked down Anito’s back. She would have to speak to Eerin about taking gifts from tinka. She should have done it sooner, but she was only now beginning to realize how dangerous Eerin’s ignorance could be. It was good that they were leaving tomorrow. She doubted that the tinka would leave the safety of the village and follow them through the jungle. A ripple of turquoise joy passed over her. Tomorrow they would be going home!