"I'm glad I don't have to depend on the weather for my defense," Etienne replied. Not that ii was within his province to criticize the way these Tsla managed their lives.
"Actually," the elder continued, surprising his human audience, "there are times when we trade peacefully with the Na."
"I'd been told the Tsla served as a conduit between Mai and Na, but for some reason it just slipped my memory."
"You must not judge them only by this unusual attack," Ruu‑an advised him. "There are many times when the Mai also prefer to fight instead of to trade."
Etienne was glad Homat was still back at the boat. "Listen, I'm standing here taking in all this information and it isn't even my department. Lyra's the one who should be making a record of your ways." He looked past them, making a perfunctory survey of the battlefield. "Where is she, anyway? I haven't seen her since we split up to try and flank the two Na we first encountered."
"Ah, Learned Teacher Lyra," Tyl murmured.
"Yes. Didn't she stick with you, Tyl?" Suddenly he was very cold, the kind of coldness that comes from inside the body and makes the muscles of one's arms and legs start to cramp.
"No. We became separated during the fight. I have not seen her since. Perhaps we ought to return to the place where we began the combat." He sounded concerned.
There was no sign of Lyra. Not where Etienne and the farmers had slain the two Na, not in the streets nearby, not before the gate. The word was passed among the townsfolk. Surely they'd know her whereabouts. An alien fighting among them would stand out immediately.
When the word came it was, devastating in its finality.
Chapter Thirteen
The expedition's aims, his hopes for a personal rapprochement, the papers they planned to present to various scientific societies, the acclaim and acknowledgment and honors, all suddenly meant nothing beside the hollowness in his heart. Ten years of hard work had been shattered like that gate which had so ineffectively protected Jakaie.
Several of the townsfolk had seen the alien female disappear into a Na sack. They were positive she was alive at the time. Two or three Tsla had been stuffed in the sack with her.
Etienne and Tyl, accompanied by the First Scholar, rushed to the narrow street near the gate, following the lead of two young Tsla. A quick search turned up several raggedy fragments of Lyra's shirt‑and something more significant. Battered but still functional, her pistol lay dark against the paving stones where she'd dropped it.
Asking without wanting to ask, he looked despairingly at Ruu‑an. "Why would they take her alive?"
The elder glanced at Tyl, who knew the strange creature better than he, but no enlightenment was forthcoming. So he answered.
"I told thee, Learned Etienne, that when times on the Guntali are difficult the Na come here to find food. They are not selective in their diet. Meat is meat to them, whether recently killed on the Guntali or traded to them by some merchant . . . or the merchant himself. They take live captives to prolong their supply of fresh food, as we do with our domestic animals."
The sudden irony of it made Etienne want to laugh, but he couldn't, any more than he could cry. All he could do was stare silently through the broker. gate toward the rampart marking the rim of the Guntali, more than a thousand meters higher than Jakaie.
Lyra was up there somewhere, no doubt occupying her thoughts with the unprecedented opportunity granted her to study the culture of the Na at close range. Probably she was bouncing around in her sack with her fellow captives and cursing the lack of a recorder. She'd be doing exactly the same thing when they slipped her on the spit. Her last notes would detail the eating habits of the Na. He was sure it would be a paragon of scientific explication and his wife's final thought would be regret over the fact no one else would be able to read them.
"Damn them," he muttered. "Damn her!" He let all his anger and hate and frustration flow out over the stones and an occasional curious onlooker and when he finally concluded the tirade he was ashamed of himself, because there still were no tears.
As he turned back to the patient Tyl he discovered he could speak with extraordinary calmness. It was the peace of the resigned.
"Do you think they will eat her soon, or save her for a while?" How easily the words came now, the absurd words.
Tyl looked to Ruu‑an instead of replying. "It is hard to say. Certainly they have sense enough to wonder at the differences between her and us. If any among this tribe has ever seen a Mai, they may think she is kin to them, albeit from a larger tribe. They may want to sample this new food right away, but I think they may choose to make a special feast around her. Thus they would save her for a last meal."
"I have to proceed on that assumption."
Tyl eyed him curiously. "What can thee do, Learned Etienne? I am wounded for thee. I was very fond of Learned Lyra. I learned much from her and enjoyed our sharing of customs and knowledge. Both pupil and teacher she was, but there is nothing to be done for her now."
"You and your damn fatalism! She's my wife, damn it, and as long as there's the slimmest chance she's still alive I have to go after her. It's her own damn fault for being so careless and putting me in this position, and she knows it. She's probably laughing over my predicament right now knowing that I have to come after her or risk everything going down the drain. Months of work, years of preparation all at risk because she didn't have a care for her fat rear and let some big dumb cretin of a native stuff her in his shopping bag. Lost her pistol, too." He shoved the other asynapt into his belt.
"I'm going to go back to the boat for our cold weather gear. Lyra'll be lucky if she doesn't freeze to death before she finds herself on the menu. Or maybe she won't be lucky. It depends on how right your assumptions are and how fast I can move up there." He scanned the rock wall.
"One thing I can tell from here; I'll have to hike it. No way the repellers will last long enough to get me up that. What about trails? Are there foot trails leading to the plateau, or do they just follow the easiest route down?"
"Always they follow the easiest," Ruu‑an said. "That is their way. They make no attempt to hide themselves, for they have nothing to fear from us. But I do not understand what thee intend, Learned Visitor. The captured are already lost. Whether alive or dead this moment matters not. Thee saw how the Na fought here in our homeland, constrained by our walls and overheated as their bodies were. Think what they will be like to confront on the Guntali, where they are at home and in comfort. I will meditate on thy mate's behalf."
"Thee meditate thy butt off. I'm still going after her." He turned to their guide. "Tyl, you'll come with me, won't you?"
"As the First Scholar tells, the captured are already lost to us. In any case we can do nothing against the Na in their own land. To do so would only be to add to the rolls of the departed."
"How do you know you can't do anything if you've never tried?"
"Logic, Learned Etienne, anti common sense, dictate our actions. We are calm because we are sensible, content because we understand our role in the scheme of existence." He reached out to try and comfort his distraught hairless friend.
"Please, Etienne, friend, thee must continue with thy work. Thy Lyra would have wished it. Thee must not grieve for her."
"I'm not grieving for her, you gutless wonder. I'm going after her because she may still be alive." Then, more quietly, "I mean no insult, Tyl. I won't grieve for her unless I know for a fact that she's dead."
"If thee wish to perish alongside her, why, that could be understood," said Ruu‑an, attempting to make some sense of an alien reasoning that flew in the face of all logic.
"I've no intention of committing suicide."
"That is what thee will do if thee persist in following the Na onto the Guntali," Tyl insisted. "I am sorrowed, Etienne, but I cannot follow thee. My teachings, my beliefs, will not allow it. You may ask of any others thee wish." He did not add that such a request would be a waste of time.
Etienne forced
himself to reply as courteously as possible. "I respect your beliefs, Tyl. I don't understand them and I don't sympathize with them, I don't even like them, but I can respect them. But I'm wasting tame standing here trying to convince you." He wondered what Lyra would say if she could hear Tyl's refusal.
"I'll go after her myself."
"Thee will not return," Tyi warned him.
"Oh, I'll come back. Look at it like this: I'm going to acquire additional knowledge. It will be a learning experience."
"Death is learned soon enough," Tyl said. "They who‑‑‑"
"I will go with thee."
So intent was he on his mental preparations and his frustration with the Tsla that Etienne didn't hear the voice.
Again it said, "I will help thee."
"Who said that?" He turned, to find himself confronting one of the porters. The last porter anyone expected to say anything: Yulour.
"If thee will have me, Learned One."
"Have you, yes, and glad of it." He didn't think Yulour could think fast enough to be of much help in a fight, but if supplies could be piled on that willing, powerful back they would make much better time. And it would be good to have company. In that respect the porter's slowness did not concern him. He doubted he'd be much in the mood for extended conversation atop the Guntali.
"Why? Isn't it against your spiritual principles?"
"I have no spiritual principles, Learned One." Yulour fought with the large Tsla words. "I do not have sense enough to have them." He looked hesitantly past the human. "Teacher Tyl must allow. I am bound to him."
Tyl was staring curiously at the porter. "I cannot allow myself to go, nor would thy companions, but if thy conscience is clear and committed."
"What is conscience?" Yulour asked innocently.
Tyl sighed. "No matter." He turned to Etienne. "He may accompany thee as he wishes. I cannot stop him, though I would if it were in my power. All beings have free will. Remember this, though: thee will bear a heavy responsibility if he dies. It will be on thy conscience."
"I'll remember that." Etienne faced his one volunteer. He'd had little personal contact with Yulour, indeed, with any of the porters, preferring to give them their instructions through Tyl.
"Thank you, Yulour. I accept your offer of help. It would be better understood among my own people."
The porter shook his head sadly. "I do not understand, Learned One."
Etienne clapped the Tsla on one muscular shoulder. "It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you're willing to help."
"I like Teacher Lyra," Yulour said with simple sincerity. "I want to help her."
"If we can, we will, Yulour."
They hurried back to the hydrofoil, ignoring the crowd of curious Tsla which had gathered around it. Homat was waiting to greet them.
Etienne caught his breath as a blast of superhot air rushed out of the main cabin. Inside the temperature reached for the hundred‑degree line, forty degrees warmer than the air outside. Homat's reaction was exactly the opposite of Etienne's. As cold air poured inside he retreated to the pile of blankets he'd assembled on the floor of the cockpit, curled up beneath them, and peered out apologetically as Etienne strode in after him.
"Please do not be angry with me, de‑Etienne," he pleaded. "Only I was left behind, and I remember how to work the device that makes the air inside the spirit boat hot or cold. I could not resist. It's the first time in many times I have been truly delightful warm."
Etienne had to smile. "Relax, Homat, it's all right. I'm not mad at you." The smile quickly vanished, "De‑Lyra has been taken by the Na, by the ice demons."
Homat began to moan and Etienne hastened to cut him off. "Yulour and I are going after her."
Homat's nearly bald head emerged from the smothering blankets. "After the demons?"
"After the Na, yes."
"You will not come back."
"I really appreciate all the support I'm getting," he mumbled absently as he started rummaging through a storage locker in search of needed supplies. "I never thought I'd see the day when Mai and Tsla were in perfect agreement on anything."
"After the demons," Homat whispered. "I‑I would come with you if I could."
Etienne threw him a surprised look. "That's delightful of you, Homat, but you know how much use you'd be. The temperature atop the Guntali's probably somewhere just above the freezing mark. I don't think you could handle that for very long. No Mai could. The climate here in Jakaie's at the upper limit of your tolerance."
"I wish it were not so, de‑Etienne. It is wondrous that you can move so freely between the comfortable weather of the Skatandah and the roof of the world."
"Our special clothing helps to make that possible, Homat." He held up a thermal coat just excavated from storage. "I'm more concerned about the atmospheric pressure above the six‑thousand‑meter line. The air will be thicker than at a corresponding altitude on my home world, but thinner than I'd like. We have some methods of compensating for that, too."
Into the large backpack went a half dozen supplementary breathers. Each consisted of a facepiece designed to fit comfortably over mouth and nose and flexible metal tubes that fit over the ears and behind the head to hold the contraption in place. The tubes contained pure 02 under pressure and would serve equally well under water. For high altitude use they'd last much longer, since their full flow wouldn't be required.
Two ascents from the bottom of the Barshajagad had prepared him for the coming climb. All that he feared was the possibility of having to do some running at high altitude. He wondered how Lyra was handling the thin air and low temperatures. She was wearing long clothing when the Na had attacked, but that wouldn't suffice if the nighttime temperature dropped below freezing. It might be that all that stood between her and freezing to death at night was the warm presence of her fellow captives.
"Yulour, will you be warm enough?" he asked his sole companion when all was ready. The porter wore several layers of toga and two capes, in addition to a cloak pulled tight over his head.
"I will be fine, Teacher. Please not to worry about me. It upsets me when I see anyone worrying about me."
Tyl and Ruu‑an waited at the main gate to see them off. With typical Tsla matter‑of‑factness, masons and carpenters were already hard at work repairing the broken barrier. Ruu-an presented ore stocky villager who would guide them to the base of the incline the Na usually employed for their travels.
"Do they ever leave a rear guard behind, or anything like that?" Etienne asked the First Scholar.
Ruu‑an made a negative movement with his trunk. "They have nothing to fear from us since we never pursue them."
That sense of invulnerability should be my greatest ally, Etienne mused. Once safely back in their own territory atop the Guntali the Na would relax. Counterattack would be the last thing they'd expect. The shock should be considerable. But he didn't delude himself into thinking that they'd run off in panic. The Na weren't the type to run.
No, he'd have to rely on surprise. Even with two fully charged pistols he doubted he could hold off an entire tribe of the giants for more than a couple of minutes.
"We're wasting time." He led their local guide toward the wall beckoning to the east, moving as rapidly as practicable. Yulour fell in step behind, the big pack bobbing easily on his broad shoulders.
Tyl and Ruu‑an watched them go.
"What a strange folk," the First Scholar declared. "I listen in amazement to the accomplishments you tell me they have achieved, and then something like this is done, something which a child of but a few years can see is useless."
"They are full of contradictions." Tyl's gaze was still on Etienne's retreating back. "One moment they are very wise and the next, foolish as little Mai. I think their souls must be in perpetual confusion."
"Thee believe they have souls, then?"
"I am convinced of it, though other teachers of Turput argue otherwise."
"It may be that their minds are
variable, that they are adults one moment and cubs the next. Very strange folk. I am glad I was able to meet and talk with one of them before they died."
"Yes, I will miss them. The female came to me day after day and asked endless questions, which allowed me to make a close study of her and her ways. Now that they have left us we will have only that to remember."
He turned and helped the elderly Ruu‑an as they started back toward town, continuing the discussion as they walked.
There were plenty of switchbacks which over the years the Na had developed into a recognizable pathway, so the climb was not as difficult as Etienne first feared. He still had to stop at regular intervals to catch his breath. Common sense insisted on calling regular halts while his nerves tried to force him to greater haste. The supplementary breathers wouldn't last forever and he tried to ration the flow of the one clamped over his face.
Despite the frequent pauses they reached the plateau sooner than he'd dared to hope. Gaps in the thick clouds afforded only an occasional glimpse of Jakaie and its valley sitting far below and behind them. Above the rest of the real world brooded the mountain called Aracunga. A thick cloud of ice crystals trailed southward from its crest, looking like smoke flowing from a volcano. In the distance rose a white ghost, the impossible bulk of the sky‑scraping Prompaj Massif.
A few trees stood ready to greet their arrival, thin wispy branches applauding their achievement at the behest of a steady wind. Nearby, green‑brown bushes clung to the ground. Etienne bent to examine the nuts they produced, found them hard to extract from the poor soil. They hugged the earth with hooks of wood.
In the light dusting of snow they saw tracks of animals that walked on broad but delicate feet, with long strides. Etienne visualized something tall and thin running fast. As they left the rim they encountered larger spoor, indication that a large predator had recently passed.
Whenever their course was in doubt Yulour would drop his head toward the ground and employ his oversized proboscis to sniff out the scent of the Na.
"Not far," he told Etienne by the end of the day.