A Woman of the Iron People

by Eleanor Arnason

  “Li-sa! I need a knife.”

  I felt in my pocket. “I have one.”

  “I have found a place to camp. A cave.” She turned and waved toward the bluff, which was visible only as an area of darkness between the camp lights and the stars. “There is water and dry wood.”

  “You are welcome to stay with us,” I said.

  She made the gesture that meant “thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Then can I go with you?”

  “Why?”

  I hesitated. How to explain? The day had been too busy. I had gotten too much information. I needed peace and quiet. An environment that was familiar.

  “Come along,” said the oracle. “We do not need to know why.”

  We walked through the camp, keeping to the shadows, and climbed the bluff. There must have been a path. I couldn’t see it. I followed the sound that Nia made, brushing past branches, clambering over rocks. In back of me the oracle gasped for breath. I was gasping, too.

  Nia said, “This is the place.”

  I stopped.

  “Stay where you are, Li-sa. I know your eyes are almost useless in the dark.”

  I obeyed.

  “Aiya!” said the oracle. “What a climb! I don’t like the way these clothes fit. They are too tight.”

  A flame appeared. I made out Nia, crouching and blowing. The flame grew brighter. She rocked back on her heels and reached for a handful of twigs. Carefully, one by one, she placed them in the fire. It burned in the middle of a clearing. On one side was the river bluff, rising perpendicular and almost bare of vegetation. I made out the cave. It was extremely shallow—an overhang, really.

  The rest of the clearing was edged with scrubby little trees. Vines grew up the trunks and over the branches. Entire trees were mantled or shrouded. The leaves of the vines were purple-red.

  Nia said, “Give me your knife.”

  I unfolded it and handed it over. She cleaned the fish and wrapped them in leaves, laying them in the coals at the edge of the fire.

  “There is water nearby. I forgot to ask for something to put it in.”

  “I’m not thirsty,” I said and sat down.

  “What will happen now, Li-sa? Will your people leave and take you with them?”

  “Not yet.” I put my arms around my knees. I looked at the fire and thought, she must have managed to keep her fire-making kit after the canoe went over. Or had she managed to find stones that worked as well as her flint and steel? “They want to exchange gifts. They say there is a village north and west of here, on a little river that goes into the big river. They plan to go there and ask the people if they can stay in this country, at least for a while.”

  Nia was silent. I glanced at her.

  “Do you think they’ll say no?”

  “I do not know what they will do.”

  The oracle said, “It seems to me you told us your people live on the western side of the river.”

  “Yes.”

  I glanced at her again. The broad, low forehead was wrinkled, and her brow ridges seemed more prominent than usual. Her eyes were hidden in shadow.

  “Does the village belong to the Iron People, Nia?” I asked.

  “I think so. It ought to. This is their country.”

  “What will happen if they find you here?”

  “I told you before. They will treat me the way all strangers are treated.”

  “There is no possibility that you will be…” I hesitated, then used a word than meant to be damaged by accident. There didn’t seem to be a word that meant to be harmed or injured by intent, unless I went to the words that described the quarrels of men.

  She looked surprised. “No. They are not crazy. They are not the People Whose Gift Is Folly.”

  “What?”

  “You know that story?” said the oracle “I have always liked it.”

  I looked at him. “What is it about?”

  Nia picked up a stick and used it to pull the fish out of the fire. She spat on her fingers, then unwrapped the leaves. “Hu! Is that hot!”

  “Is the fish done?” asked the oracle.

  Nia made the gesture of affirmation.

  “Good.” The oracle moved closer to the fire.

  They ate.

  When they were finished and licking their fingers, I said, “Tell me the story.”

  Nia made the gesture of inquiry.

  “The People Whose Gift Is Folly.”

  “Yes,” said the oracle. “Tell it.”

  “In the far north live a people,” Nia said.

  “No,” said the oracle. “They live in the west.”

  Nia looked angry.

  “I will let you tell it the way you want,” the oracle said. “Even though you are wrong.”

  Nia made the gesture that meant “so be it.”

  “In the far north live a people. They do everything backward and inside out. The men stay at home. They care for the children. The women herd and hunt.”

  “That is right,” the oracle said.

  “The people are stupid and clumsy. They tether their animals inside their tents. They live outside under the sky. The rain beats down on them. The snow piles up around them. The wind moans and bellows in their ears.”

  The oracle made the gesture of agreement, followed by the gesture of satisfaction.

  “When they try to cook a meal, they build the fire in the pot, and when it is burning well, they pile their meat around the pot, against the hot metal. Everything is done stupidly. There are many stories about the ways they get mating wrong. They do not seem to be able to remember what goes where.”

  The oracle leaned forward. “There is a story about a man. The time for mating came, and he went out of the village. He found a pot lying on the plain. Someone—some other fool—had left it there. It was well made and handsome. It shone in the light of the sun.

  “ ‘How lovely you are,’ he said to the pot. ‘I will look no further.’

  “He mated with the pot, and then he returned to his village.

  “Later he became angry when the pot did not come into the village and bring him children to raise. He went out and found it, lying where he had left it. ‘Where are my sons, you stupid thing? Where are my lovely strong daughters?’

  “He kicked the pot and turned it over. Inside it was red with rust.

  “The man fell on his knees. ‘O pot! O pot! You have miscarried! Did I do it? Did my anger kill my children?’ ”

  The oracle stopped.

  “Is that the end of the story?” I asked.

  “I don’t know any more.”

  “I have never heard that one,” Nia said.

  “Until now,” the oracle said.

  Nia made the gesture of agreement. “The story I know is about the woman who became confused at the time of mating. Instead of waiting for a man to come out of the village and into the territory she guarded, this woman found an osupa. She mated with it. I don’t know why the animal agreed. Maybe animals are stupid too in that country.

  “Time passed. The woman had a child. The child was covered with feathers and had a tail.

  “ ‘What a fine child,’ the woman said. ‘He is not usual at all.’

  “The child grew up. He would not learn the crafts of men. Instead he wanted to hunt on the plain. He ran more quickly than any ordinary person. He caught little animals with his claws and teeth.

  “ ‘My child is special,’ the woman said. ‘No one has ever seen a child like this.’ She bragged to the other women when she met them. They became angry, because they had ordinary children, who did what was expected of them.

  “ ‘We all want unusual children,’ they said.

  “The next time for mating came, and they all mated with animals.”

  “I don’t know this story,” the oracle said. “I think it is disgusting.”

  Nia looked worried.

  “If you don’t like it, move out of hearing,” I said. “I want to hear the end.”

  The oracle stood u
p, then he sat down again. “The story is disgusting, but I am curious.”

  “I was not thinking,” Nia said. “I have spent too much time with strange people. This is not a story for a man.”

  “Nia, you can’t stop now.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  I looked at the oracle. “Go.”

  He frowned. “Do I have to?”

  I made the gesture of affirmation.

  He got up with obvious reluctance and moved to the edge of the clearing, sat down with his back to us and stared out at the dark.

  I looked to Nia.

  “There isn’t much more. The women all had peculiar children. Some were like groundbirds. Others were like bowhorns. One woman mated with a killer of the plain. I don’t know how she managed it. Her daughter was made entirely of teeth and claws.

  “None of these children wanted to go into the village. They stayed on the plain and hunted one another. They did not learn the skills of people.

  “At first the women were happy. ‘All our children are unusual. We have done something that has never been done before.’

  “Then they noticed they had no one to help them. And the men in the village noticed the same thing. They went out, both men and women, and pleaded with the children. ‘Come off the plain. Learn the skills of people. We need smiths and weavers. We need herders and women who know how to do fine embroidery.’

  “But the children did not listen. Instead they ran away. They became animals entirely.

  “The People Whose Gift Is Folly had to turn to each other. They mated the proper way. The women had ordinary children. The men raised them. They were like their parents. Stupid, yes. Clumsy and foolish. But people.” She made the gesture that meant “it is done.”

  “Come back,” I said to the oracle.

  He returned. We sat quietly. Nia looked depressed, and the oracle looked sulky. I was feeling bothered.

  What did the stories mean? Both were about the loss of children. Was that a problem here? Did they worry about miscarriages and damaged children as we did on Earth?

  It did not seem likely. This planet was clean. These people had not filled their environment with toxins.

  There was another explanation. The stories were about a people who did everything backward. Maybe the message was sociological, not biological. If you want healthy children, be ordinary.

  A good message. Relevant and true. Look at me. Look at everyone on the ship. We were not ordinary. Most of us had no children. Those who did had parted with them 120 years ago.

  My neck hurt. I rubbed it. “I’m going back down to the village. We need blankets, if we are going to stay the night, and something to keep water in. I have to tell Derek where I am.”

  Nia made the gesture of agreement, then pointed. “The path begins there.”

  I stood and stretched, made the gesture of acknowledgment and went in the direction she had indicated.

  I lost the path in the darkness and had to scramble down over rocks. Branches caught my clothes. Thorns scratched me. I fell a couple of times. Finally I reached level ground; and the lights of the camp shone in front of me.

  The main hall of my dome was empty. Voices came through a closed door: a pair of women talking. Farther down someone played a Chinese flute. The performance was live. I could tell by the mistakes.

  I flicked on the light in my room and opened the closet under my bed. As I had hoped, it held a blanket.

  “Where have you been?” asked Derek. He came in, closing the door after him. He had changed to blue jeans and a light blue cotton shirt. His beard was gone. The skin on his face was parti-colored: reddish brown above and white below. An odd sight. His blond hair was very short.

  “You found a barber?”

  He made the gesture that meant “it doesn’t matter” or “let’s talk about something else.” “I have been all over camp looking for you.”

  “I was up on the bluff. I need your blanket.”

  “Why?”

  “Nia and the oracle have made a camp of their own. They don’t have anything to sleep on.”

  “Why don’t they come down?”

  “I didn’t ask. Maybe they feel the way I do. There are too many people here. Everything is too complicated.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. I’ll get my blanket.” He left, returning in a couple of minutes. “What else do you need?”

  “No pillows. It’s going to be hard enough getting the blankets up the bluff. And the natives don’t use pillows. I’m trying to decide if I want to stay with Nia.”

  He tossed his blanket toward me. It unfolded in midair and fell in a heap.

  “Damn you.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  I picked the blanket up and refolded it. Derek returned with another blanket, which he added to the pile. “Janos won’t need this.”

  “You think not?”

  “The dome is way too warm. I’ll go to the edge of camp with you. I don’t entirely like being inside.”

  I remembered stories about Derek. He had a house in Berkeley full of artifacts and books. A lot of books. Most of them were made of paper. Some were new and came from specialty presses. Others were old and fragile.

  He worked in the house. Guests stayed in it. If one of the guests was a lover of his, he stayed inside with her. But when he was alone, he slept in a lean-to in the backyard. The roof was a piece of canvas stretched over living bamboo. The floor was grass. He didn’t use a sleeping bag or any kind of mattress. In hot weather he slept on the grass. In cold weather—in the rain and fog of the northern California winter—he used a ragged blanket.

  That was the story. I didn’t know if I believed it.

  We left the dome and walked up into the darkness under the bluff. I carried the blankets.

  “Okay.” He stopped. “This is far enough.” He looked back at the lights of camp. “Did you turn in your recorder?”

  “Yes. Goddamn!”

  “What?”

  “Nia and the oracle were telling stories this evening. I forgot that I didn’t have a recorder on.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem for you. I know your reputation. If something interests you, you’ll remember it.”

  “Huh,” I said. “I always like a backup.”

  “That also is part of your reputation.” He touched my arm. “I have something to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “I had a talk with Eddie this evening. He came in after you wandered off with the oracle.”

  “Yes?”

  “He wants us to go upriver with Ivanova and him. He wants us to translate for them.”

  “Eddie is going? A man?”

  “That was part of the compromise. We are supposed to send representatives of each of the three factions. For intervention. Against intervention. And the compromise position.”

  “Why?”

  “To explain our problem to the natives. To give our problem to the natives and ask them for the solution. Since it’s their planet.” I thought I could hear sarcasm in Derek’s voice.

  “That might make sense, though I’m not saying it does. But why are they sending a man?”

  “Eddie is the chief advocate of nonintervention. And we are supposed to be honest with the natives. We have to explain to them—to show them—what we are like.”

  “It’s crazy.”

  “Uh-huh. And it isn’t what I want to talk about.” Derek paused. “He wants us to lie.”

  “What?”

  “He wants us to change what Ivanova says when she speaks to the natives. He wants us to make certain that the natives do not like her argument.”

  “No! We’d be certain to be caught. The meeting will be recorded, and someone will check our translation. Maybe not right away, but soon.”

  “I told him that. He said we could do it without being obvious. We could slant the words. Twist them just a little. Change the intonation.”

  “I can’t believe this of Eddie. I’ve worked with him for years.”r />
  “Do you think I’m lying?”

  I looked at him, but saw almost nothing. “No,” I said at last. “What did you say to him?”

  “I said the risk was too great, and all we’d gain would be a little time. Ivanova and her people aren’t going to pack up and go home. They want to be on this planet. They’ll go to the next village over and ask permission to land. We’d have to lie again.

  “And what is he going to do, I asked him, when the rest of the sociology team comes down? Ask all of them to lie? How long before someone says no and goes to the all-ship council?”

  “This isn’t an ethical question for you,” I said.

  “I’m willing to lie. But only for my own reasons and only if I’m pretty certain I will not get caught. I won’t lie for Eddie.” He paused. When he spoke again, his voice had changed. The mocking tone was gone. “I am not certain that intervention is a bad idea. Eddie does not come from a culture with a pre-industrial technology. When he goes into the field, he takes a modern first-aid kit and a radio. If he gets into trouble, he can yell for help. He has never been through the kind of experience we’ve gone through, here on this planet. And he has never been through what I went through, when I was growing up.”

  “You told him no,” I said.

  “I told him maybe. As carefully as possible, in case there was a recorder on. But he thinks he has a chance to pull me in.”

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “I never make a decision in haste, my love. And I never limit my options until I have to.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  He laughed.

  I waited.

  “Eddie admits that his plan will do nothing except buy time. Interesting, isn’t it, how metaphors of buying and selling have stayed in the language? We buy time. We sell out our honor. He says he doesn’t really know what he is going to do with the time. But he will not let these people go the way of his people in the Americas. He’s willing to risk everything in the hope of stopping that.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Go on up to Nia and the oracle. I think I’ll go and find a bottle of wine. It’s been a long time since I’ve been drunk.”

  I climbed the bluff, getting lost again. I have no idea how long I blundered around, tangling myself in bushes, tripping over roots, and sliding down slopes of dirt and stone, then climbing up again, cursing.