Winter in Eden

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Attention and urgency, attention and urgency!”

The Yilanè was repeating herself incoherently like a fargi. Ambalasi looked up from her work prepared to indulge her biting temper. But she saw that the mud-covered creature was shaking with worry and fear so she signed for explanation-amplification instead.

“One is injured while fishing. A bite, much blood.”

“Wait — then take me to her.”

Ambalasi kept a bundle of medical needs ready for just such emergencies. She found it and handed it over. “Carry this — and proceed.”

They pushed through the circle of excited Daughters to find Enge kneeling in the mud, supporting the head of a blood-drenched Yilanè.

“Quickly,” she implored. “It is Efen, she who is closest to me. I have covered the wound to staunch the flow of blood.”

Ambalasi looked down at the blood-sodden wad of leaves that Enge held to the other’s side. “An intelligent action, Enge,” she said. “Hold it there still while I bring some comfort.”

The little snake lay coiled and sluggish in its basket. Ambalasi took it behind the head and squeezed it so that its mouth opened and exposed the single long fang. With her free hand she took out a nefmakel and exposed its moist underside, used it to wipe clean the skin in Efen’s groin. This not only cleaned off the mud — it destroyed any bacteria with its antiseptic action. She discarded the creature and pressed Efen’s damp skin to reveal the artery pulsing there; with delicate touch pushed the sharp fang into it. The modified venom flowed into Efen’s blood; she was unconscious within moments. Only then did Ambalasi uncover the wound.

“A clean bite. It took out a lot of muscle but did not penetrate the omentum. I’ll just have to clean it up a bit.” The string knife removed the ragged flesh. As the wound began to bleed again she unrolled a larger nefmakel and placed it over the damaged area. The creature stuck there, stopping the bleeding and sealing it completely. “Take her some place to rest. She will be all right.”

“Gratitude to Ambalasi as always,” Enge said, rising slowly.

“Wash yourself — you are filthy with mud and blood. What creature bit her?”

“That.” Enge indicated the riverbank. “It was tangled in our net.”

Ambalasi turned to look — and for the first time in living memory was struck speechless.

It was still alive, writhing on the ground, crushing bushes and small trees. A great, undulating gray length, as thick through as a fargi’s body, stretched out on the ground the length of two, three Yilanè — with more of its serpentine form still in the water. Its jaw of great bony plates gaped wide, its tiny and deadly eyes staring sightlessly.

“We have found it,” Ambalasi said finally, with some satisfaction. “You saw the elvers in midocean. This is the adult.”

“An eel?” Enge signed awe and understanding. “This new world of Ambalasokei is indeed a world of many surprises.”

“By its very nature it must be,” Ambalasi said, sinking back into her normal didactic personality now that the first shock of recognition had passed. “I doubt if you are capable of understanding the theory of tectonic plates and continental drift so I will not trouble your mind with it. But you will be able to appreciate the results. This land, and distant Entoban* were once one. All of the creatures were the same. This was soon after the cracking of the egg of time. Since then slow differentiation and the process of natural selection have caused major changes — must have caused major changes in the species. I imagine we will find others, though none perhaps as dramatic as this.”

Within a few days Ambalasi was to remember saying this with some chagrin. It was perhaps the most erroneous assumption that she had ever made.

Efen’s wound healed easily. On the positive side of the accident was the acquisition of the large eel. It was gigantic — and very tasty, and fed them all with much left over. Stronger nets were constructed, more precautions taken, and their source of food guaranteed. Softened by enzymes, it was the best food they had known since their imprisonment.

When the well-fed uruketo returned they used it to cross the river to the site of their new city . The Daughters were eager to see this place of great importance and there was no shortage of volunteers for this expedition.

“Would that this eagerness for work was more evenly apportioned,” Ambalasi grumbled, selected only the strongest then drove the rest away. As soon as they were aboard, and despite their protests, she ordered them all into the interior, sharing the fin-top only with Enge and Elem.

“Make note,” Ambalasi ordered, “that your Sisters while avoiding all real work are always ready to volunteer for an outing. Perhaps you ought to consider some system of awards for labor since you cannot order them to do it.”

“There is much truth in what you say, as always, and I will think about it,” Enge said. “Although I understand them and know their feelings, yet I also know that we must devise some way of sharing the work. I will study the thoughts of Ugunenapsa more closely because she may have considered this problem as well.”

“I know — and I grieve. It has my fullest attention.”

The uruketo shuddered beneath them as the ponderous creature swam aside to avoid a floating tree that was sweeping down the river in their direction. A forest giant that had been undercut by the flood until it had toppled in. Birds flew up from its still-green foliage as it drifted majestically by them. Under Elem’s guidance the uruketo turned again and drew up to the neck of land that was to be their city.

Ambalasi climbed down first and splashed ashore. The ground was covered with yellowed, dead shrubbery, with the bare branches of the dead trees stark above. Ambalasi made a sharp sign of satisfaction.

“The beetles will soon take care of the trunks and stumps. Put your Daughters to work pulling down branches and small trees. Throw everything into the river. Then we will inspect the barrier of thorns.”

Ambalasi led the way, walking slowly in the heat. Before they reached the green wall they had to stop in the meager shadow of a skeletal tree to cool before they could go on.

“Hot,” Enge said with some difficulty, her jaw thrown wide.

“Of necessity, since we are precisely on the equator, a geographical term you would not be acquainted with.”

“The place on the surface of a sphere equidistant from the poles that mark the axis of rotation.” Enge was looking at the barrier so missed Ambalasi’s gesture of irritation. “In my attempts to understand Ugunenapsa’s works I discovered that her philosophy was based in part upon her study of certain natural sciences. So I emulated her fine example…”

“Emulate my fine example and let us keep walking. We must be absolutely sure there are no breaks in the barrier. Come.”

As they walked along beside the wall of flat leaves and sharp thorns, Ambalasi reached in among the branches to remove ripe seed pods, which she gave to Enge to carry. When they reached the riverbank Ambalasi pointed out the gap between the barrier and the water.

“Always this way at the interface,” she said. “I’ll plant more seeds here, also these seeds for thick shrubs that root in the water. Hold them for me.”

The elderly scientist kicked grooves in the mud with a practiced swipe of the claws on one foot while balancing on the other, then bent over, puffing and complaining, to plant the seeds.

Enge looked out into the river to the place further down the bank where a small sidewater joined the larger body of the great stream. Something moved there, swimming into the river, a large fish of some kind. She looked with interest as another one followed, emerging from the water for an instant.

“More seeds,” Ambalasi said. “A sudden attack of deafness,” she added with irritation when she turned to see Enge standing in silence, looking out at the river. “What is the matter?” she asked when there was still no response.

“There in the water, I saw it, gone now.” She spoke with modifiers of such grave importance that Ambalasi turned at once, looking, seeing nothing.

“What was it?”

Enge turned back to the scientist with motions of life and death importance. Hesitating in silence before she spoke.

“I have now thought deeply and have considered all living creatures that I know that bear a resemblance. There is none it could possibly be confused with. The first one I saw unclearly, it could have been anything. The second put its head above the water. I saw it. I am not mistaken. It was there.”

“Desire for explanation,” Ambalasi said testily in the silence that followed. Enge faced her, still in silence and immobility, looked long into her eyes before she spoke.

“I realize the importance of what I am about to say. But I make no mistake.

“There, in the stream, I saw a young elininyil.”

“Impossible. We are the first Yilanè to reach this place; there are no males so no eggs to hatch, no young to enter the sea, no elininyils to grow to fargi. Impossible. Unless…”

It was Ambalasi’s turn to grow silent and rigid, with just shadows of thoughts rippling her muscles. It was a long time before she spoke.

“It is not impossible. When I spoke just now I was speaking with species specific ethnocentricity. Because we Yilanè are at the summit of the ecological pyramid we automatically assume — I automatically assume — that we are alone there, something special and singular. Do you know what I am saying?”

“No. Personal ignorance of technical concepts.”

“Understandable. I will explain. Distant Entoban* is ours — our cities there stretch through all the habitable areas between the oceans. But now we are in a new world, where life forms have developed and differed. There is no reason to assume that our species is unique to Entoban*. It could be here as well.”

“Then — I did see an elininyil?”

“You might very well have. That is a possible conclusion. We must now make observation to see if you were correct. If you did see it — then I believe that this is the most important event since the egg of time cracked. Come!”

Ambalasi waddled down the bank and hurled herself into the river with an excess of scientific fervor. Enge quickly followed, frighteningly aware of possible danger lurking in the muddy waters. The current was slight in the backwater here and Ambalasi quickly reached the channel and started up it. It came only to her waist and she found it easier to walk than to swim.

Enge hurried up, going past the elderly scientist to lead the way. Low branches overhung the stream and the air was thick and humid, filled with biting insects. The flowing water kept them cool enough, but when the channel widened out they plunged beneath the surface to escape the insects. They surfaced, treading water, looking about, unable to communicate other than the most simple concepts until they had climbed out on the grassy bank.

“We are clearly on another island, separated from ours by this side channel of the river. Warm water of a constant temperature, yet shallow enough to keep the larger predators from entering. If — and I accentuate the if — there are Yilanè here this would be a perfect site for the birth-beach. Water protected from the large life forms in the river, plenty of fish for the young to eat. And ready access to the river and the sea when the young have grown and become elininyil.”

“This could be a path about the island,” Enge said, pointing at the ground.

“And it could be an animal track. We will follow it.”

Enge went first, beginning to regret their precipitous venture. They were unarmed — and any sort of creature could be hidden by the jungle.

The track was easy to follow. It swung around the bole of a large tree that had long roots extending into the river, then back to the shore to a sandy beach bordered with soft grass. They shared the same thought instantly; a perfect place for a birth-beach. Something splashed in the water, but when they looked it was gone leaving only a pattern of ripples on the smooth surface.

“I feel that we are being watched,” Enge said.

“Proceed forward.”

The track skirted the beach and entered the thick stand of trees on the far side. They stopped before it, trying to look into the gloom beneath the heavy foliage. Enge made a sharp gesture of unhappiness.

“I think that we have come far enough. We must return to the others. We will come back here when we are better prepared.”

“We must uncover more facts.”

Ambalasi said this firmly, signed knowledge-primacy, walked forward past Enge.

With a screeching cry the creature burst from behind the trees, holding a large spider between her out-thrust thumbs, pushing it into Ambalasi’s face.