“Oh,” I said.
We rode on in silence. At last the oracle said, “I forgot one thing about the story of the cooking pot. If you look up into the sky, you will see the pot grow more and more empty night after night. And then—night after night—you will see the pot refill.”
“Who eats from it?” I asked.
“People aren’t certain. Maybe it is the great spirits, and maybe it is the people who die. They must go somewhere and when they get there, they have to eat.”
I made the gesture of uncertainty and then the gesture of agreement. That meant I agreed, but not with any enthusiasm.
“Now I am hungry,” the oracle said. “I should have told another story.”
“Do you want to? I’m willing to listen.”
“Not now. Maybe Nia will come back soon.”
She didn’t. After a while rain began to fall: a fine drizzle. We took shelter in a grove of monster grass. The rain grew heavier. Drops of water came down through the foliage above us.
The oracle said, “On a day like this, I remember the house of my mother.”
“You do?”
He made the gesture of affirmation. “I remember it was always dry, even when rain came out of the sky like a river—like the waterfall my spirit inhabits. Aiya! It was comfortable! The flap was up over the smoke hole, and the fire burned low. Raindrops hissed in. The smoke coiled around itself under the ceiling—like lizards in the late spring when they mate.” He paused for a moment. “When it was done coiling, the smoke would slide out around the lifted edges of the flap—the way the male lizards do when they are finished with their womenfolk and eager to get away but also tired.”
What a speech! Amazing how well people were able to speak in a culture without books or holovision. We—who valued the written word and the projected image—talked in grunts and avoided metaphors as much as possible.
I looked at the oracle. His shoulders were hunched against the rain. His tunic clung to his body. The fabric was so thin that it offered almost no protection. Poor fellow.
Something clicked in my mind. Why didn’t these people wear trousers? They rode astride. On Earth, through most of our history, trousers had been connected with the riding of horses. Cultures that traveled on horseback wore trousers. Other cultures did not.
The rule did not work for China. Everyone wore trousers there and had for centuries, but few people rode horses.
I had an idea that Chinese trousers had come from Central Asia. If that were so, I had my connection with horses.
There was another exception to the rule: the Indians of the North American plain. They had not worn trousers. But they did not have horses long, before they were overwhelmed by white “civilization.” Maybe they would have developed trousers in time. And they did wear leggings.
I looked at the oracle again. His fur was a protection, of course, but surely not for his sexual organs. I realized I was up against the time-honored question. What does one wear under a kilt? Or a tunic, as the case might be. I searched my vocabulary, trying to find the right words.
The oracle said, “The rain has stopped.” He touched his animal on the shoulder, and it moved out onto the trail. My animal followed. Maybe I’d better have Derek ask the question.
The rest of the morning I pondered on loincloths and shorts and bicycle pants and the problem of male fertility. If they mated only once a year, they could not afford a high rate of infertility. Maybe that was the reason they didn’t wear trousers. But surely the men were uncomfortable.
Derek and Nia returned early in the afternoon. They brought food: a blue biped. It was a little one: a cub or chick or fawn.
We stopped and made camp. The rain began again. Derek and I went looking for dry wood. I asked him my questions about clothing.
He laughed. “I guess I should have told you. I asked the oracle about that long ago. Some men wear nothing. Others wear something that sounds like a jock strap. And there are people in the south who wear shorts instead of kilts. He doesn’t know what they wear underneath.”
“A jock strap ought to have some effect on fertility.”
“I haven’t seen the garment in question,” Derek said. “I don’t know how tightly it fits, and we don’t know much about the physiology of these people. For all we know those things the oracle has aren’t testicles. Maybe he keeps his spermatozoa in his ears.”
I made the gesture that meant “no.” “It’d interfere with hearing. But—” I made the gesture of agreement. “We need to do more research.”
He grinned.
I added, “I think I’ll leave this particular problem to you.”
“Okay. There’s probably an article in it. ‘Variations in Underwear among an Alien Humanoid Species.’ The title isn’t quite right. It isn’t pompous enough. But it’s a beginning.”
“Do you always start with the title?”
“The title is very important, Lixia my love. And we had better get our wood before the rain gets any heavier.”
By the time we got back to the camp, Nia had finished cleaning the biped. It looked less alien without its feathers, though I couldn’t decide what it reminded me of. A rabbit? A monkey? We roasted it. It had a mild flavor, like chicken.
After dinner Derek called the ship. One of the computers answered. It had a female voice and a soft Caribbean accent. Eddie was busy, it told us. It would put our call through to Antonio. There were chiming noises, a whole series of them, then a beep.
Derek asked, “Where is Eddie?”
“At a meeting,” Tony said. “Drafting a manifesto.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Derek. “On what?”
“Need you ask? Nonintervention.”
“Let’s keep this brief,” I said. “The natives are here, and they aren’t comfortable when we speak a language they don’t understand.”
“Okay,” said Tony. “Give me your report.”
Derek told him about the three brothers.
Tony was silent for a while. At last he said, “You were lucky. We were lucky. If those men had gotten angry, we’d be up here arguing about how to pick up the pieces. And Eddie would be saying we shouldn’t intervene.”
“Yes,” said Derek. “Do you have any information on the rendezvous?”
“Uh-huh. Keep going. The river you’re following is a tributary of a much bigger river. When you reach it—the big river, I mean—turn downstream. The lake is south of you about eighty kilometers. The plane will land there, though Lysenko is still not happy. He keeps asking for a salt flat. We have told him beggars can’t be choosers. He says there are no beggars in a socialist society.”
“What?” I said.
“We think he was joking. Humor does not always cross cultural boundaries.”
Derek said, “I’m going to turn the radio off.”
“Good night,” said Tony.
Derek hit the switch. He yawned. “So much for that. Maybe tomorrow it’ll stop raining.”
It didn’t. We traveled through drizzle and mist. My body ached: mostly my shoulder and arm, but also much older injuries—a couple of root canals and the ankle I had broken at the Finland Station on my way to join the interstellar expedition. My first time in an L-5, my first experience with low g, and I decided to try the local form of dancing.
The valley grew narrow. I began to see outcroppings of rock. It was yellow and eroded. Limestone, almost certainly. We had passed out of the area of volcanic activity.
Most of the rock was high above us. The lower slopes of the valley were covered with vegetation. Not monster grass any longer. These were real trees. The bark was rough and gray. The leaves were round and green.
“It is going to be an early autumn,” said Nia. “They have changed color already.”
“Is that the color they will stay?” I asked.
She made the gesture of affirmation. “Some trees turn yellow after they turn green, but this kind changes no further. The leaves will be green when they fall.”
“Aiya,”
I said.
Late in the afternoon we came to a place where the valley was very narrow, and the trail went under a cliff. There was an overhang. No. A shallow cave.
We dismounted and led our animals up a little slope to the cave. There were ashes on the floor and pieces of burnt wood.
“I thought so. We’ll stay here tonight.” Nia looked at Derek. “You get wood.”
Derek made the gesture of assent. He left. We unsaddled the bowhorns and led them down to the river to drink, then tethered them where they could graze. One of the animals was limping a little. Nia crouched and examined a hoof.
The oracle called, “Lixia! Come here!”
I went into the cave. At the entrance it was maybe fifteen meters wide and ten meters tall, but it narrowed rapidly, and the ceiling dropped until I had to bend my head. The oracle stood where the cave ended or seemed to end. As I approached him I felt a cold wind: air coming toward me. “This is a holy place.” He stepped to the side and pointed. I saw the opening: a meter high and half a meter wide. The wind came out of it. The oracle said, “The hair on my back is rising, and I have a queasy feeling in my gut. This is definitely a place that belongs to the spirits.”
“Can we stay here?” I asked.
“I think so. I felt nothing in the front of the cave.”
I looked at the hole. Once we had a fire going, I could make a torch. “Is it forbidden to go in?”
“I don’t know. The spirits in this land are not the ones I know.”
We returned to the front of the cave. Nia was there, dripping water. “Aiya! What a day!” She brushed off her arms and shoulders. “That hoof looks all right. The animal is tired and doesn’t want to travel in weather like this. Who does? Either she is faking or there is an old injury that I can’t see.”
Derek came out of the woods, his arms full of branches. He ran up the slope, slipping a couple of times in the mud, reached the cave, and said, “This was dry when I got it. Now—I don’t know.”
“I will find out,” said Nia.
She built a fire. I told Derek about the holy place.
“After dinner,” he said. “We’ll go and take a look.”
Nia looked up. “Can’t you learn? Remember what happened the last time you got curious about something holy. That crazy woman almost killed us.”
“Don’t you wonder about things?” asked Derek.
“No.” Nia rocked back on her heels. “I have learned more about strange places than I ever wanted to know.”
“What about strange people?”
She frowned. “I like Li-sa. I am glad that I met her. I was tired of living in the forest and I never really liked the Copper People.”
“What do you mean?” asked the oracle.
“I don’t mean your people. I have nothing against them. But I did not like the Copper People of the Forest.”
“Them!” said the oracle. “They are peculiar.”
Nia made the gesture of agreement. “It was good that Li-sa came and I had to leave. I might have stayed there my whole life. That would have been terrible!”
The oracle made the gesture of agreement.
“What about me?” asked Derek.
“I have not decided if I like you,” said Nia.
“No?” Derek looked hurt.
The oracle said, “I will go into the back of the cave. I am used to holy places, and my spirit will protect me.” He rummaged in one of the saddlebags and found a piece of meat. Cold roast biped. He bit into it.
“I won’t,” said Nia. “I have no spirit to protect me, and holy places have always made me uneasy. But it’s good that you are going. You can make sure that Deragu does nothing that he shouldn’t.”
The oracle chewed, unable to talk. But one hand made the gesture that meant “why do you think I am doing this?”
We finished the biped, got branches, and lit them. Derek led the way to the back of the cave. Shadows moved around us. Our torches flared and streamed in the wind coming out of the hole. Derek crouched. “A tight fit. I think I can make it.” He turned sideways and squeezed in. His torch was the last thing to vanish.
The oracle and I waited. I was pretty calm, I thought, but the oracle fidgeted. A nervous fellow. I bit a fingernail.
“It opens out,” said Derek. His voice echoed. “A lot.”
The oracle crouched. “I can see his torch. I am going.” He squeezed out of sight. A minute or two later he said, “Aiya!”
I glanced at the entrance to the cave. The fire burned brightly. Nia sat by it, hunched over, a dark shape. Beyond her was rain, a shining curtain.
I went in on my knees, remembering that I’d gone caving in college and had discovered that I was slightly claustrophobic. The claustrophobia was made worse by dark.
There was no darkness here. The torch blazed in front of me. Smoke blew in my face, making me want to cough or sneeze. The passage got narrower. My head brushed the ceiling, and my shoulders rubbed against rough wet stone.
“Hurry,” called Derek. “You’ve got to see—”
The passage widened. I felt space above me and stood, lifting my torch. Nothing was visible except the floor—it was covered with a film of water and shone dimly—and two points of light in the distance, the torches my comrades carried.
“Here,” said Derek.
I went toward the sound of his voice.
He stood by a wall, his torch held high. The wall was yellow limestone, covered with water. There were paintings on it. Animals. They were red and orange, dull blue, gray, and brown. I recognized the creature that had attacked us by the lake and the blue bipeds. Dinner.
People moved among the animals. They were stick figures, done without any detail, though the animals were carefully detailed. The people carried spears and bows.
“Hunting magic,” said Derek. He walked along the wall.
I saw more animals: birds. They looked as if they ought to be large. The legs were heavy, the bodies round and solid. They had thick necks and large heads. The mouths were full of teeth.
“Do you notice what is missing?” asked Derek. “Bowhorns and silverbacks. The animals we think of as mammalian.” He spoke the language of gifts, but the last word was English.
I made the gesture of agreement. We kept walking. There were more big birds and pseudo-dinosaurs. The figures were nothing like the other art I had seen on the planet. That had been intricate and often abstract: an art made of patterns, a decorative art. These figures were simple and realistic. They looked alive—except for the people, who looked as if they had been drawn by children.
Derek pointed at the painting of a lizard. It had a long tail and spines along its back. Its feet were webbed. It was huge, at least in comparison with the hunters who surrounded it. The lizard and the hunters were painted in black. There were streaks of red on the lizard. Wounds, I was almost certain. Painted spears stuck out of the animal.
Derek looked at the oracle. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. I have never seen an animal like that. Maybe it is a monster.”
“Why are there no bowhorns?”
“I don’t know.” The oracle paused. “This place is very old. I can feel the spirits who live here, but I don’t know who they are. They are old and hungry. I can feel that. Aiya! Their hunger! It is like a wind in the middle of winter!”
Derek turned and stared at the oracle. “What are they hungry for?”
“I don’t know. There are many things the spirits like. Good food. Good weaving. Embroidery. The work of metal smiths. Some like flowers and branches of leaves. Others like blood.”
“Hu!” said Derek. He went back to looking at the wall.
There were more paintings, one on top of another: lizards and birds and pseudo-dinosaurs. I didn’t recognize most of the species. Most had spears in them.
“We’ll have to ask the biologists about this,” said Derek. “Look. This bird has arms.”
The arms were tiny and ended in claws. The animal was definitely a bird
. It had a beak. Its body was covered with feathers, rendered in soft strokes of red-brown paint. It had a tail made of plumes, nothing like the long and narrow tail of a lizard or a dinosaur.
“Weird,” I said.
The oracle had moved away from us toward the center of the cave. “Come here.”
He stood by a circle of stones about twenty meters across. The stones were painted red, and there were skulls among them. Some had beaks and others had muzzles full of irregular teeth. All were painted red. All pointed in toward the center of the circle.
At the center was an area of darkness. The stone floor was discolored.
“Now I know,” the oracle said. “These spirits are the kind who like blood. Take this.” He handed me his torch and stepped into the circle.
“Be careful,” said Derek.
The oracle went to the area of darkness. He went down on one knee, then twisted and looked at us. I saw the glint of his eyes. “Come here. I am going to need light.”
“Is it safe?” asked Derek.
“To come in the circle? I don’t know. But you can hardly be worried, Deraku. You are fearless when it comes to the spirits. You are willing to steal what belongs to them.”
“Maybe I have learned something.” Derek glanced at the darkness around us. “And maybe this place is different. Maybe these spirits are more frightening than the Trickster.”
“I think you will be all right,” the oracle said. “I will speak for you.”
We stepped over the red stones and walked to him. He had his knife out, and he was testing the blade with his thumb. “This is too dull.” He put the knife back in its sheath, then held out his hand. “Give me your knife, Deraku.”
Derek pulled out his knife.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Keep quiet,” said the oracle. “And hold the torches so the light falls on me.” He took Derek’s knife and tested the blade. “Good.” He laid it on the ground, then put his right arm on his knee, the hand palm upward. The skin of the palm was hairless and black. I could see calluses at the bases of his fingers. The calluses were dark gray. The oracle felt along his arm. Then he picked up the knife. He was left-handed like most of the people I had met on the planet.
A Woman of the Iron People Page 26
