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hadn't survived. Even more astonishing to them was Hamille, of course; they
couldn't keep their eyes off the alien creature, who seemed not at all
interested in them.
The other offworlders, though, were surprised and fas-cinated by every gesture
and every bit of knowledge that the young people displayed. It was somewhat
startling for them to watch some of the middle-sized beetlelike insects and
flying things be picked out of the air and just popped into the mouth. The
women also showed a pretty fair knowledge of basic chemistry, whether
preparing a dried cake from mixed stone-ground grasses and ground-up insects,
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or salves that could numb and perhaps do more on wounds and bites. Clearly
it wasn't just the physically fit and ruthless who survived; some very
smart people had created a system that worked, and had done so from scratch
while trying to survive themselves. Of them all, only Kat Socolov
seemed less surprised than impressed. A good anthropologist always
knew the difference between tribal knowledge and superstition, and the
first thing you had to do in that field was get it out of your head forever
that ignorance meant stupidity.
Still, only Colonel N'Gana was willing to try the insects a la
carte. He prided himself on his survival training. The cakes, however,
were palatable, and filling, if not exactly delicious.
The day of mutual discovery ended with wonder on both sides, but no clear
answers. The one thing that Kat Socolov couldn't help thinking was how
fragile and vul-nerable human beings had made themselves by being so
dependent on technology. If these descendants of the sur-vivors of conquest
had known how to harvest and process and weave cotton, for example, they would
have had no problems with clothing and blankets and the like, they would have
had fabrics that did not dissolve in the engi-neered rains. But nobody really
knew how to do that, or plow a field with human power, or to do any of the
thousand and one things ancient humans had taken for granted.
They had sunk so far and so fast because nobody was left who knew how to do
those things.
Nobody had needed to do them for centuries.
Sergeant Mogutu was restless during the night, and at one point cried out in
his ancient mother tongue. In the morning, he was dead.
Father Chicanis did what he could, and together that morning at the insistence
of the priest and
the colonel, they managed to bury him in a shallow grave.
"I'm next, I suspect," the priest said. "I don't mind, really. I will at least
die on the world of my birth in a good cause and serving God."
"Don't talk like that! It is self-fulfilling!" Kat Socolov snapped.
He sighed. "Look, there's infection in the arm and it's not going to get
better or stay where it is.
You know it and I know it. And there's no way anybody here can do a com-petent
amputation. We dont even have a sterile blade.
'
"
It was the two young women who came to his aid. They found and mixed a paste
of some local herbs that really did seem to lower the inflammation on his arm;
at least it eased the pain.
Still, looking now at the river, Chicanis said, "I can't come. You and I know
I can't get across that.
I'm going to move north by east and see if I can contact another of the
Families. At least try to be of some use."
The young people were upset at the idea. "You don't have to do that! We will
all go your way!"
Littlefeet told him. "Look, we have a new Family here. We have a priest,
guards and scouts who can take on and beat Hunters, three women to bear more
children, and we can become one!"
It was Harker who shook his head and told them, "We are not here to start a
family, Littlefeet.
We're here to do a job. Over there, beyond the river, beyond the hills, is a
weapon that might drive the demons out. We are here to get it and make sure it
gets used. We must do this even if we all die as a result."
"But the demon city is over that way! I looked upon it from the high mountains
and it took a part of my mind! No one can gaze upon it and not be
changed for the worse! And going right there they will capture you and
you will become their slaves!"
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"We have to take the risk. It's the same as the guards of a Family in your
lives. They must be willing to give their lives for the greater good. You have
no idea how many people are depending on us." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
