A Woman of the Iron People

by Eleanor Arnason

  We kept going until we came to a place where the canyon floor was wider than usual. The stream spread out. On the far side the canyon wall was broken. There were fissures and huge black boulders. A waterfall tumbled down between the rocks and there was vegetation, bushes, and a few small trees.

  “We’ll camp on the other side of the river,” Nia said, took off her sandals and picked them up.

  I followed her to the edge of the stream. Casually she glanced back. “He’s close now. He thinks the dark will hide him. But I have good eyes.”

  She waded in. I followed. As promised by the people in supply, my boots were waterproof.

  Halfway across the water deepened. Nia went up to her knees. I stopped and considered what to do. I couldn’t take off my boots where I was, and I didn’t like the idea of going back the way I had come. The sun was gone. It was twilight in the canyon. Somewhere in the shadows was the man. I had no wish to meet him, especially alone. I waded on. My boots filled with water.

  By this time Nia was on the far bank. She bent and brushed the fur on her legs, then stamped her feet. I climbed up beside her and took off my boots, turning them over. Water poured out.

  Nia jumped. “Not on me, you idiot! I just dried my fur!”

  “I’m sorry.” I took off my socks and squeezed them. “What now?”

  “We’ll make camp there.” She waved at the tumbled boulders. “The man will have to come close in order to see us. I intend to be waiting.”

  There was a hollow—an empty space—among the rocks. We set our baggage down. In the last light of day we gathered wood.

  “Now,” said Nia softly. “You build the fire. But do not light it until I speak.”

  As I worked I heard her moving close to me, invisible in the shadows among the rocks. The noise she made stopped. I listened. A bird whistled, and I could hear the stream. Nothing else.

  In back of me a voice spoke: “Light the fire.”

  I got out my lighter. The dry leaves caught at once. Yellow flames licked up around the branches. I was able to see. On the other side of the hollow was Nia’s bag and something that looked like a person lying full length on the ground, wrapped in a cloak or a blanket. But Nia had spoken from in back of me. I was sure of that. Whatever was under the cloak, it was not my companion.

  “Going to sleep already?” I said. “All right. Good night.” I put another branch on the fire. I was thirsty but afraid to go to the stream. I thought about eating. The bread was dry, and the fish was salty. If I ate either one I’d get even thirstier. Anyway, my stomach was queasy.

  The fire dimmed. I added more branches. I had the feeling that someone was watching me. The skin on my back prickled, and I was beginning to sweat. I stood up and stretched, then casually looked around. There was nothing visible except a heap of rocks. I sat down. A pebble rattled. I stood again. What had that been? I listened but heard nothing.

  I sat back down. After a moment I began to do my breathing exercises. I inhaled and thought the syllable so. I exhaled and thought the syllable hum. Gradually I relaxed. It was, I realized, a pleasant night. The air was cool and dry. The sky was clear. Stars shone brightly. A moon was rising over the canyon’s rim: a reddish point of light. I kept on breathing slowly and deeply. So. Hum. So. Hum.

  A scream! I scrambled to my feet, looking around. Something moved behind a boulder. I grabbed my axe and ran.

  Two bodies struggled in the shadows. They were both dark, both furry. I couldn’t tell them apart. They rolled out of shadow into firelight. A hand went up, holding a knife. Around the wrist was a wide copper bracelet. Nia wore no jewelry. I turned the axe and swung it, bringing the flat side down against the fellow’s arm. There was a groan. The hand opened. The knife fell. I stepped back.

  They rolled again—almost into the fire. Nia was on top. She had a hammer in one hand. Her other hand reached for the fellow’s throat. He grabbed her tunic with both hands. Then he arched his back and heaved. Nia went up. She was in midair. I couldn’t believe it. How could he be that strong? She came down in the fire. Sparks flew. Burning branches scattered across the ground. Nia screamed.

  The man scrambled upright and grabbed a branch. It was burning from one end to the other. How could he hold it? Was he crazy? He started for me. He certainly looked crazy. His eyes stared and his mouth was wide open. He was howling.

  I raised my axe. He swung. I blocked the blow. I could feel the shock along my arm from the wrist to the shoulder. He stepped back and raised the branch again. It was still burning. He was still howling.

  The branch came down. I blocked it again. He let go. The branch fell blazing, and he grabbed the handle of my axe, twisting and yanking. I lost my grip.

  He turned the axe around—it was a single rapid motion—and raised it over his head. He was making a noise like an evacuation signal, a high even scream.

  There was no time to get out. He had reached the top of his swing. The axe blade glinted. I tasted bile.

  The screaming stopped, and the man grunted, then looked surprised and fell.

  Nia stood on the other side of him: a silhouette against the light of the scattered fire. She was still holding the hammer.

  I took a deep breath.

  She asked, “How is he? I hit as hard as I could.”

  I knelt and felt his throat. There was no pulse. Was that normal? I had no idea. I put my hand over his mouth. There was no breath. “Where did you hit him?”

  “The head. With this.” She lifted the hammer.

  I felt the back of his head and found a spot where the skull went in. I pulled my hand away. There was blood on my fingers and something else as well: an object, stuck to the tip of my middle finger. It was hard and triangular. The edges felt rough. I couldn’t see the color, but I was pretty certain I knew what the object was. A piece of bone. I wiped my hand on the man’s kilt, then looked at Nia. “I think you killed him.”

  “Aiya! Another one.” She dropped the hammer and rubbed her face. “I have to sit down.”

  I stood up, holding out a hand. She tumbled toward me. I caught her, but she was too heavy. I couldn’t keep her upright. I fell, landing on the dead man, and Nia came down on top of me.

  Damn!

  “Nia?” She didn’t answer. I pushed and wriggled out from between the two furry bodies, stood up and rolled Nia over. It wasn’t easy. She was limp. A dead weight.

  I felt her throat. Ah! There was a pulse, strong and regular, maybe a little rapid. I couldn’t be sure. I went to the fire and found a branch that was still burning and carried it back. What was wrong? Her tunic was torn, and one of the torn edges was smoldering. But I saw no other evidence of burning. I crouched and looked at her hands. One palm was puffy. Maybe that was a burn. I touched the palm. Nia winced and groaned.

  “Are you awake?”

  She blinked.

  “Where does it hurt?”

  She frowned. “My hand and my leg.”

  I felt along her legs. There was no blood. I found no wounds.

  “The ankle,” she told me.

  I touched her left ankle. She winced again. I pressed in. Nia groaned. Something was wrong there. But what? How could I tell if anything was broken or out of place? I didn’t know how an ankle was supposed to feel. Not on this planet. Not an ankle belonging to an alien. I thought for a moment. There was always bilateral symmetry. I checked her right ankle, then went back and rechecked the left.

  “They feel the same.”

  Nia frowned. “To you. Not to me. What am I lying on?”

  “The man.”

  “Aiya!” She got up on one elbow. “Help me.”

  “I don’t want you to move.”

  “I will not lie on a corpse.”

  I frowned, trying to remember my first aid. Would it be okay to move her? I was having trouble concentrating, maybe because I had just helped to kill someone and the body was right in front of me.

  Nia struggled into a sitting position. I laid down my torch and helped her off the
dead man. “Is your back all right?” I asked. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Do you feel any other pain?”

  “I told you. My hand and my leg. Nothing else. I think I will lie down.”

  I eased her onto the ground. She lay full length next to the dead man. I got up and grabbed hold of his arms. He was heavy, much heavier than Nia, and entirely limp. I managed to pull him a meter or so, then gave up and let go. His arms hit the ground with a thump. “That’s it. He stays here.”

  “I do not feel good,” said Nia.

  I didn’t think her leg was broken, but I wasn’t positive. I’d better put on a splint. And get cold water for the hand. And get a cloak. She might well be in shock.

  “I am going to need your cooking pot.”

  “Take it. What a strong man! I made a mistake. I thought he’d be old or very young. I am not as clever as I think I am.”

  I got her cloak and covered her, then took the cooking pot to the stream, filled it with water, and brought it back. “Put your hand in. It will help the burn. I’m going to rebuild the fire.”

  She made the gesture of assent. I went to gather wood. When the fire was burning brightly, I made a splint. I had an elastic bandage in my first-aid kit. For padding I used my undershirt and a spare pair of socks.

  “I hope this is temporary,” I said. “I need those socks. How is the hand?”

  “Better, but now my shoulder hurts.”

  I pulled the cloak down. The fur on one shoulder was matted. I touched it and looked at my hand. The fingers were red. “Another wound. He did a good job on you.”

  “I knew when I saw him I was in trouble. But it was too late to change the plan. Is the wound bad?”

  I got a piece of gauze and wiped the blood away. “It’s a nick. He must have got you with the point of his knife.” I looked at the contents of my medical kit. What was safe to use? She wasn’t human. I had no idea of how she would react to any human medication.

  I had brief, horrible fantasies about allergic reactions, toxic reactions, shock, and death.

  But the wound ought to be covered. I didn’t think any harm could come from a bandage.

  I got out the can. “This is going to sting just a little.” I hit the button.

  “Aiya!” Nia said.

  The wound vanished. In its place was a small dark patch of plastic. The patch was lumpy, and clumps of hair stuck out of it, coated with plastic. Idiot! I told myself. I should have shaved the area around the wound. Well, I hadn’t and the best thing to do now was leave the wound alone. I rocked back on my heels. “Anything else?”

  “No.” She took her hand out of the pot, then grimaced. “This still hurts.”

  “I’ll get more water.”

  I went to the stream and filled the pot again and brought it back. Nia put her hand in. Her eyes were almost shut. I had the impression she was exhausted. I tucked the cloak around her.

  “Thank you.” Her voice was drowsy. She closed her eyes.

  I put more wood on the fire, then got the poncho out of my pack. It was light and waterproof with a removable thermal lining. I did not remove the lining. Instead I wrapped the poncho around me, lay down, and went to sleep.

  I woke later, feeling cold. The fire was almost out. I got up and laid branches on the coals. Flames appeared. How silent the canyon was! I could hear water, but nothing else. Above me stars shone. I recognized the Big Dipper. It looked the way I remembered it—maybe a little brighter. That would be the air in the canyon. It was dry and extremely clear.

  I went over to Nia. Her hand was still in the pot. On her face was an expression of pain. But she was sleeping, breathing slowly and evenly.

  I checked her leg. It had stopped swelling. The bandage wasn’t tight. She groaned when I touched her, but she didn’t wake. I went to my pack and got out the radio.

  This time I got Antonio Nybo. Another North American. There were a lot of them on the sociology team, maybe because there were so many different societies in North America. Tony was from somewhere in the Confederation of Spanish States. I couldn’t—at the moment—remember exactly where. Not Florida. Texas maybe. Or Chicago. Most of his work had been done in southern California, studying the Hispanic farmers who were moving back into the California desert and interacting—not always easily—with the aborigines.

  “Lixia! How are you?” His voice was light and pleasant with a slight accent.

  “I had an interesting day…” I told him about it, then said, “Now for the problem. I don’t think the leg is broken, but I’m not sure. Is there any way to tell without doing a scan?”

  “I’ll ask the medical team. Is it okay to call you back?”

  “Yes.”

  He signed off. I got up and stretched, then touched my toes five times. My stomach gurgled and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten dinner. I got a piece of bread. It was stale. I enjoyed it, anyway.

  The radio rang. I turned it on.

  “First of all they say they need more information.” I could hear amusement in Antonio’s voice. “They also say there ought to be more hemorrhaging with a fracture—than with a sprain, I mean. And hemorrhaging produces bruises—usually. Or did they say often? Anyway, if her foot turns black and blue in the next three days, she may have a fracture. But a bad sprain could produce bruising, too.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “The only way to be certain is to do a scan. The medical people suggest that they come down with the necessary equipment.”

  “Oh.”

  “They think,” Tony said gently, “they ought to. And they would love—absolutely love—to get hold of a native. It is interesting what one finds out when one asks an apparently simple question. The aliens are not alien enough.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t mean at the cellular level. There—we have to assume—they are like the rest of the life on the planet. The biologists say there is no question that the organisms they have examined are alien and belong to a different evolutionary line. That is why they can say—so confidently—that we can’t catch the local diseases. Nor can we spread our own diseases to anything on the planet.” Antonio paused. “You might be interested in knowing that Eddie asked the medical team to double-check this fact.”

  “Why?”

  “A native died shortly after you arrived at your village.”

  “I told Eddie what the woman died of. Old age, poison, or magic. There was nothing unnatural about her death.”

  Antonio laughed. “Eddie was worried about the bugs in your gut. The ones that were designed to metabolize the local food. The biology team said absolutely not. The bugs can’t live outside a human. The biology team became offended and spoke about people moving outside their areas of expertise, especially people in the social sciences—which, as everyone knows, are not real sciences like biology and chemistry.”

  “Ouch.”

  “The problem is not at the cellular level. It’s the fact that the natives look like us. They shouldn’t, according to all the best theories. We ought to be dealing with intelligent lobsters or talking trees.

  “According to the biology team, the natives are an example of parallel evolution—like the marsupial saber-toothed tiger of South America. But no one is really comfortable with this explanation. We need more information. The medical team wants some tissue samples, and they want to know what goes on the intermediate levels—between the entire organism, which looks like us, and the biochemistry, which is almost certainly alien. What are the organs like? The muscles and the skeleton? The endocrine system? The chemistry of the brain? They want—in sum—to get into a native and take a really good look around. I’m going to refer this to the committee for day-to-day administration.”

  “Okay.”

  “In the meantime, the medical people say to treat the injury like a fracture.”

  “Okay.” I turned the radio off.

  “Li-sa?”

  It was Nia. I glanced at her. She was up on one elbow, staring at me. Her eyes reflec
ted the firelight. They shone like gold.

  “Yes.”

  “Is there a demon in the box?”

  I tapped the radio. “This?”

  Nia made the gesture of affirmation.

  “No.”

  “Then how can it speak?”

  “A good question.” I thought for a while. “It’s a way for people to talk when they’re far away from one another. My friend has a box like this. When he speaks into it, his voice comes out here.” I touched the radio again. “I can answer by talking into my box.”

  Nia frowned. “Among the Copper People—the people of Nahusai—there are songs of calling. When Nahusai wanted something, rain or sunshine or a ghost, she would draw a design that represented the thing she wanted. Then she sang to the design. The thing she wanted would hear her song and come. This is what she told me, anyway.”

  I made the gesture of disagreement. “This isn’t a ceremony. It’s a tool, like your hammer.”

  “Hakht would not believe that.”

  “What does she know?”

  Nia barked. “That is true. Well, then, the box is a tool—though it’s a kind of tool I’ve never seen before. I’ve never even heard of a tool like that.” She paused. “It sounds useful. I am going back to sleep.”

  I woke in the morning before Nia did. The sky was clear and there was sunlight on the rim of the canyon. I went in among the rocks and relieved myself, then went to the stream and washed. On the way back I passed the dead man. He lay on his back, his arms stretched above his head. He was large—not tall, but wide and muscular with shaggy fur. His kilt was brown with orange embroidery, and his belt had a copper buckle.

  His mouth was open. I could see his teeth, which were yellow, and his tongue, which was thick and dark. His eyes—open also—had orange irises.

  I was going to have to bury him, I realized. The bugs were gathering already. Damn it. I had no shovel. I glanced at Nia. Still asleep. I bent and grabbed a rock and laid it next to the body. It—he—stank of urine. Poor sucker. What a way to go. Was there a good way? I went to get more stones.