Why was it here? Someone/thing had left it, of course, but for what purpose? To see what he would do? To exchange it for something of his?

He had nothing to match its quality except his rifle or his blade, both of which were indispensable. Finally he took a fishhook, line, and sinker from his supplies and draped them over the spear as an offering. Whoever wanted to contact him would have no difficulty in doing so and Jean’s leg would make it impossible to track that one down. Nevertheless, he took time to examine the tracks left by the spear’s owner. Moccasins; he memorized their design, rolled his coracle, and went on. If the owner of the spear wanted an interview, the opportunity was his. As for Jean, he would simply go about his daily routine.

Nightwind was pleased. The stranger had not taken the lance; therefore he was either honest or cautious. He had left a gift and a fine one. The fishhook was obviously of offworld manufacture and therefore to be treasured. In leaving a gift the colonist had shown himself to be generous – or cautious. He had not left a gift of meat to taunt Nightwind’s hunting prowess, nor had he tried to lie in ambush.

Nightwind hefted his spear and trotted after Jean, thinking to devise other tests. It was not to be.

***

Jean woke to the gentle rocking of the coracle and the first slant of sunlight. He was uneasy about the lance he had found the previous morning and when he raised himself to look toward shore his uneasiness proved itself. This morning he saw not a lance but a dozen moving human forms. They waited for him to pole to shore.

For an instant he considered poling to the opposite end of the pond and running – where? The futility of that action was so apparent that he discarded the thought as soon as it formed.

Trying to seem unafraid, he poled directly toward the crowd on the shore. His heart beat heavily with both fear and anticipation. He had seen no human face for many months.

At the center of the group stood one commanding figure, a gray-haired woman. Her physical stature was slight, but she radiated confidence and authority. At her side stood what had once been a mighty man, very dark and short, now stooped with age. Beyond him stood a young man of Jean’s age, his face welcoming, and another of the same age but less friendly. This last one carried the lance Jean had seen the morning before.

Jean grounded the coracle, noting how the remainder of the party held back, and staggered ashore, shamed by the clumsiness his wound engendered. He faced them across a little space, his finger on the trigger of his rifle, both hammers cocked. The woman noted this and smiled. “Welcome home, Jean Dubois. I am Helene Dumezil.” more tomorrow

Chapter 15

Following Nightwind’s instructions, Vapor soon reached the tribe. They were camped on a hillock overlooking a shallow lake where the children were playing with boats of bundled reeds and floating on inflated trihorn stomachs. The smoke from the central fire rose in a cloud, driving back the tiny insects that plague a man, and the scent of several dozen personal amulets made the air slightly acrid.

The barges were drawn up to dry and the elders were gathered in their customary place of comfort near the fire. Vapor could smell the cooking humpox and herby. He was greeted with shouts and teasing as he trotted into camp and Mist-on-water handed her brother a large chunk of steaming meat which he then carried to the fire.

His mother greeted him with a kiss, then let him have several bites in peace before she began her interrogation. She was a strong woman and one of the most outspoken of the elders. Vapor was very proud of her, and no less proud of his dark, taciturn father.

“Tell us of this stranger. Is he a colonist?”

“Yes, Mother, but a strange one. He is self-sufficient. He lives in the world, not hiding in a burrow, and he came across the lake to this place.”

“Searching for what?”

“I do not know, but he has adapted well and looks likely to survive.”

She fed the fire as she considered. “I wonder what is his purpose here?”

“There is one way to know.”

“Ask him?” She seemed amused.

“Yes.”

“And if we do not like his answer?”

“Kill him; but I think that his answer will suit.” Vapor paused dramatically, “He is a cripple, you know.”

She looked at him suddenly and he realized that she read some message there that he had not meant to convey. “How is he crippled?”

“His left leg is stiff from some old wound and gives him pain.”

“How does he bear it?”

“Well.”

“What color is his hair?”

Now Vapor knew something was up. “Pale yellow, like Mud-runner’s.”

“Ah!” She seemed both surprised and pleased. “I told him to take the child, but he would not listen. I told him that the boy was a true son of his father.”

“What?”

“The Old Man, you fool, the Old Man. Do you think his hair was always white?”

***

Jean stared at the lance, completely bewildered. His first thought was that some colonist was here; his second thought was that he had unknowingly returned to the vicinity of the colony. Then he realized that it belonged to one of the others.

Who were the others? The elders would not discuss them and Jean only knew that from time to time, always during the hunts, children or young women would turn up missing and their disappearances were always attributed to the amorphous others. Were they the winged people, or yet another intelligent species? Or were the disappearances engineered by the presence he had known on the island?

Jean pulled the lance free and examined it. It was of some wood he did not recognize, certainly not lal, siskal, or greenhorn. Something from the mountains, then. It was adorned with leer feathers and paint in bands of many colors and headed by a fine blade of iron. That the blade had been fashioned with care was obvious.

Why was it here? Someone/thing had left it, of course, but for what purpose? more tomorrow

Vapor was anxious to return to his people, to milk his weary weeks for all the glory they would afford.“I will go at once. Will you stay to watch the stranger?” Nightwind said that he would and Vapor took up his amulet and set out at a soggy trot along Nightwind’s back trail.

Nightwind had agreed to watch the stranger, but he was not bound to do so in the same manner that Vapor had chosen. Vapor had remained out of sight; Nightwind was more inclined to give the stranger something to chew on. He slipped back into his moccasins as soon as Vapor’s footsteps had retreated, then walked noiselessly down to the edge of the lake. There, in the center of the stranger’s firepit, he thrust his ornate spear.

***

Jean woke late and lay for a time, lulled by the gentle motion of the coracle. He was secure now in his ability to survive – always barring accidents – and for the first time he could relax and let some of the tensions of the last weeks drain away. The melt was a beautiful time – or a beautiful place, depending on one’s orientation. For the colonists it was a time, a season of excitement, of blood and meat, of planting and harvesting. During the melt, the colony rose from its cranky somnolence to prodigious feats of labor, only to sink into lethargy for another year when the melt had passed.

But the melt was always present somewhere on the planet; in Jean’s new perspective it was not a time but a place, a moving, eternal spring. The colonists never saw the beauty of the melt for they were too deeply engrossed in harvesting what it offered against the bleak months of winter. While Jean had trekked north, busy with his own survival, the beauty of the place/time had soaked into him, making him thankful for the misfortune that had forced him to follow the melt. Now, lying quietly in the coracle, he watched the sun rise and drive away the night’s chill. The edges of the water were lacy with ice here on the forefront of the melt, making delicate patterns of sunsparkle. All around him were the waxy yellow lal flowers growing on the fast-sprouting bushes, mingled with the green of new leaves. If he stayed in place for many more days the yellow would be supplanted by the red siskal flowers and the purple of the greenhorn, but he need only trek hard once again to reach this region of yellow where the leer abounds and the melt makes war on the last regiments of snow. He felt a curious peace and luxuriated in the beauty around him. His only tempering sadness was that he alone was present to watch the miracle that was the melt.

Surfeited with laziness, he poled to the water’s edge. He stopped, the pole dripping forgotten in his hand.

There, thrust into the ashes of yesterday’s fire stood a proud, feather-ornamented, steel-bladed lance. more tomorrow

Jean’s leg still hurt constantly, but not with the same intensity. He seemed to be getting into the swing of the long march and he felt good, save for a loneliness that became more intense with each kilometer.

Three weeks passed and the game became less plentiful, with a greater proportion of leers. Then he saw his first snow and he fell on his knees before it and gave thanks. He was marching faster than the melt! Overcome with relief, tears coursed down his cheeks.

Jean celebrated by killing a trihorn. He laid over for two days, curing the hide to replace the fast-failing one on his coracle and jerking the meat. Trihorn was a treat after a diet that had consisted almost entirely of herbies, which were easier to kill. If only he could find some way to conserve his ammunition, he would be satisfied, but so far he had been unable to kill with his bow. To come within effective bowshot of a wary animal required better stalking than his leg allowed.

He was only slightly worried, though. It would take, he figured, about two hundred days to reach the colony and he was killing only every third day, now that he had established a system of drying meat. With the coracle to sleep in, he had not had to fire in self defense in three weeks. That came partly from his increasing prowess as an outdoorsman; he knew now the little tricks of staying out of harm’s way. He should be able to get to the colony on his remaining ammunition.

But there was no margin for error. He must not shoot without scoring a kill and he must not get himself into a position where he had to fire to preserve his life, or where he had to kill more than one animal at a time. Leers were out and trihorns could only be taken when he found a solitary bull grazing away from his harem. Mostly he must live on the fleet but harmless herbies.

By the end of the second day, the vegetation around him had become slightly more lush and he had cured the hide, replacing the old one on the coracle. When he put out into the water that night he felt well satisfied.

***

Nightwind came to relieve Vapor of his self appointed guard duty. He dropped beside Vapor on the dry knoll and stripped off thigh-high waterproof moccasins. “What has happened?”

Vapor offered a piece of meat from the fire. “The stranger has decided that he is outrunning the melt and has laid over. He has smoked meat and is sleeping on the water.”

“What?”

Vapor explained about the coracle. Nightwind was incredulous and slipped away to see for himself. When he returned he laughed and called the stranger a crazy one. Vapor shook his head. “No. He does not have a warding amulet.” Vapor touched the aromatic bag that hung in the trees, giving off a scent which was faint to their human noses but horrific to the native fauna. “How would you sleep at night without one?”

Nightwind considered and agreed that the stranger was not so crazy after all. “Vapor, the council would hear you speak of this one. They wish to know whether it would be better to approach, ignore, or kill him.”

Vapor nodded. This was the message he had expected when Nightwind arrived and he was anxious to return. He had taken this reconnaissance on himself, nor would anyone have ordered him to it. The tribe consisted of individuals who cooperated readily enough but were violently independent. Now he wanted to milk his weary weeks for all the glory they would afford. more tomorrow

In the afternoon Jean cut numerous wands of greenhorn and when he reached a knoll he worked through the night for a second time, scraping, curing, and sewing on the project for which he had sacrificed so much.

***

It was apparent to Vapor that the stranger was a colonist and might therefore present a threat. He was a cripple, however, and despite the fine rifle he carried he was no personal threat. The threat lay in what he represented; was he the first of a new wave spreading out to endanger Vapor’s people?

By now Vapor was convinced that this was no ordinary colonist. He had a strange self-sufficiency that no other colonist had ever shown. He lived on the land, not separated from it by walls of timber. When his boat had been destroyed, he had not panicked but had immediately begun a northward trek.

Only once since then had Vapor left him. He had crossed Mist-on-water‘s trail and had run his sister down to tell of this new wonder so that the information could be relayed to the tribe. Then he had returned to his role of unseen observer.

Once the stranger had wasted an afternoon drying meat and curing wood and hides, but otherwise he had made steady progress. He had made crude bows and found them wanting. Vapor’s own bow was a laminate of greenhorn and lal joined by a glue made from trihom hooves. It would cast an arrow swiftly and with power. A man could hunt with it, though not alone and certainly not if he were a cripple. Vapor wondered just what the stranger planned to do with his crude bows and why he bothered with them when he had a rifle.

For two nights now the stranger had not slept. It was plain that he had not learned to extract the juice of the siskal root to make a warding amulet and was therefore unable to trust himself to the mercies of the night. Vapor himself woke several times during the night to watch the work in progress, but he could not understand its meaning.

When morning came, Vapor could see that the stranger was dead on his feet and wondered what he would do now. When he saw, he laughed in amazement and admiration at the stranger’s imagination. He had made a bowl–shaped framework of greenhorn and now he stretched the trihom hide over it and lashed it tight. Then he turned it over and carried it to the shallow lake of snowmelt. It was apparent that this was why he had stopped in this particular place. Carefully loading his gear aboard, he pushed his makeshift coracle away from shore and poled to the center of the lake. There he dropped a stone anchor overside and lay down to sleep in comparative security.

Jean woke a few hours before sunup and poled to shore. He had slept eighteen hours, nearly an entire planet day. By moonlight he broke down and bundled his coracle and started out. He had made several kilometers by the time the sun rose and he walked the day through, rebuilding his coracle in the dusk. The next day he repeated the process, still eating dried meat and the fruits which hung everywhere. He stopped early the third day to hunt and quick-jerk the meat of a herby.

He thought he was doing all right, but he had no way to know. If he marched too quickly he would eventually reach the forefront of the melt and would need only to lay over one or two days to be back at the peak. If he marched too slowly, however, he would soon find game and fruit becoming scarce. So far he could detect no change either way. more tomorrow