On the Oceans of Eternity

Giernas was a big young man in his twenties, deep-chested and long-limbed. The knife-cropped mop of ash-blond hair on his head was faded with sun-streaks, his close-cut beard a lighter yellow with hints of orange; his eyes were pale gray in a high-cheeked, short-nosed face ta

Sue Chau led the three horses out from under the trees where she'd been on bear-watch. Like him she was dressed in worn, patched deerskin leggings, moccasins, and long hide shirt cinched with a broad belt that bore cartridge-box, flask of priming powder, knife, and a tomahawk thrust through a loop at the small of her back. Her hair was long and jet-black, eyes tilted and a cool blue; her father had been Eurasian, Saigon-Chinese crossed with Ozark-Scots-Irish, and her mother French-Canadian from a Massachusetts milltown.

In the crook of her left arm she carried a Westley-Richards flintlock rifle, and despite the friendly grin that answered his her eyes kept up their continual scan. There were a number of unfriendly creatures in these woods on the western slope of the Sierras. Locals sometimes; most tribes and bands were eagerly hospitable to strangers, but fear or unwitting violation of some taboo or simple human cussedness could make trouble. Wolves and cougars weren't likely to be much of a problem unless it was midwinter and they were very hungry, but Old Ep-the big silvertip grizzlies that swarmed here in the Year 11-could be. The giant omnivores were appallingly numerous, they had little fear of man in an era of stone-tipped spears, and they'd far rather steal someone else's kill than take the effort to hunt for themselves.

"Good-looking beasts, Pete," Sue said, giving the dead animals an expert once-over. "They'll dress out at a hundred, hundred and fifty pounds each, easy."

"Ayup," he said. "Tender, too, and they had time to fatten on this new grass."

The two Nantucketers set to work with a silent, easy teamwork born of twenty months shared experience in everything from ru

"I hate it when I have to butcher on the flat," he said, drawing his ski

The clear thock of steel in wood echoed across the meadow… for the first time ever, he thought with an edge of wonder that never quite faded.

"The meat never drains really good if it isn't hung up," Sue agreed. "Always spoils faster. Borrow your hone for a second?"

She spat on the stone and scoured a finer edge onto her knife; for butchering it was better to use a soft low-carbon steel and resharpen often. They stripped to their breechclouts before they made the first long cuts from anus to neck, and they would have shed those, too, if it hadn't been for the extreme difficulty of getting blood out of pubic hair in a soapless wash. The dogs waited, sitting panting with their tails thumping the forest floor, then falling on their portions-stomach, gut, head-with happy abandon. The major bones and the spines were chopped out with tomahawks and discarded save for a few kept to roast for the marrow; Giernas took a moment to crack the skulls so that the dogs could get at the brains, since they weren't going to take time to tan the skins with them.

A little less than an hour later the two elk were reduced to bundles of hide wrapped around the ribs, haunches, loin, heart, tongue, sweetbreads, kidney, and liver and lashed tight with lengths of tendon. The rangers carefully rolled up the broad white stripes of sinew that lay beneath the spine; it was useful for a dozen things, from bowmaking to sewing. After that they took a moment to strip off their breechclouts and wade into the stream, scrubbing each other down with handfuls of silver sand, squatting to work their hair clean and then standing hastily. This river was so clear that it was nearly invisible where the surface was calm, but it was cold, ru

"All clean," Giernas said, resting his chin on Sue's head and hugging her back to him with thick-muscled arms; she was five-seven, which made his six-one just the right height for that. His hands roved. "And since we've been good doobies and worked real hard…"

Sue laughed, stirred her rump tantalizingly against him, then broke away. "You're that anxious to get a grizzly's teeth in your ass at a strategic moment?" She laughed. "Movement attracts their eyes, you know."

"Ah, Sue, we don't have to actually lie down, it's such a beautiful morning, wonderful time for it…"

The young woman paused on the riverbank, hands on her hips and head cocked to one side. "Tell me something, Pete," she said. "I've heard you use that line while we were holed up in a cave with a blizzard outside and no firewood-

"Hell," he said, his tone slightly hurt. "I said it would keep us warm, that time. It did, too."

"… in tents while it was raining, on days hot enough to melt lead, and one time when we hadn't had anything to eat but grass soup for three days… so we'd forget about how hungry we were, you said. So tell me something… is there any time you don't think is just a peachy-keen wonderful time to fuck?"

"Hmmm." Giernas pulled his face into a pondering frown and stroked his chin in thought. "Now that you mention it… no."

Sue kicked a strategically aimed splash of ice-cold water before she turned and walked back toward their clothes. Giernas yelped, swore, and waded ashore laughing, scooping up his rifle and belt from the edge of the brook. They tied on fresh breechclouts; then they pulled on their hip-high leggings, tied them to the waistband portion of their breechclouts, shrugged into the buckskin hunting shirts, a little cold and clammy from resting on dew-wet bushes, belted on their gear, loaded their horses with the meat, and set off upstream. Giernas carried his rifle now; the bow was back on the saddle, with the quiver. He used it to hunt, saving the precious cartridges and powder, but they weren't hunting now. What he was worried about now was things trying to hunt them; the red-oozing bundles of elk meat were perfect bear bait.

"Perks, guard," Giernas said, as they set out, rifles in the crooks of their left arms and leading-reins in their right.

The wolf-dog was pleasantly full and plainly regarded it as time to do the sensible thing and curl up in the sun to doze, but he didn't need telling twice. A heavy sigh, and the gray shape slipped into the underbrush, moving ahead and to the flanks. The younger pair of dogs followed their sire obediently; Giernas was the alpha of their pack, but Perks ran a close second.

Seen that often enough, Giernas thought-a punishing nip on the nose, or a brief wrestle that ended with an uppity youngster on his or her back, throat caught in a warning grip. With Perks around we've got discipline, by God.