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"I don't know," The Shemibob said. "Her daughter must have pointed her in the right direction.
Certainly, the Yawtl wouldn't help her."
She reared up even further, and she shouted, "Hoozisst, you thief! Bring that bag to mel"
She muttered, "I left the bag by the edge. Would you believe it, that greedyguts walked across the highway while it was still swinging, and he came back with my bag. He was going to run off with it!"
Presently the Yawtl, gri
"I was saving it for you, O Shemibob."
"Sure you were," she said, smiling savagely. "So why didn't you look for me?"
"I was just going to put it in a safe place."
"Which is where it is now. Do you really think you could get away with it? Go bring that poor blind woman here before she steps over the edge."
"I'd rather lead her onto thin air," Hoozisst said. "I owe her a death."
"Get her!" The Shemibob said sternly.
Apparently, Hoozisst wasted no time in telling Feersh that her daughter was dead. She came to them wailing even more loudly, though whether because she felt grief for Jowanarr or for her worsened plight, no one knew.
Presently Sloosh, followed by the two animals, came to the boulder. He said, "It was fortunate that I'd not had the cube unstrapped from my back. I was just about to ask that it be taken off when the quake struck."
Jum, knowing that his master was in pain, whined while licking his face. Aejip lay down by Vana but rose a moment later and moved away. Sloosh said, "What's the matter, Vana?"
"The Shemibob was wrong," she said, her face grim with pain. "My time has come sooner than she predicted."
39
WHILE Sloosh straightened Deyv's leg and then set it with two long splints of wood, The Shemibob helped Vana. The baby came swiftly, impelled by the shock of the earthquake and his mother's narrow escape from death. He was rather small but healthy, and after The Shemibob had cleaned him and wrapped him in a cloth from her bag, she put him in Vana's arms.
Sloosh unfolded the vessel so that mother and child would have a warm, comfortable, and safe place to rest. Vana herself carried the baby into it, but she reeled with weakness. Deyv gave his breechclout to
The Shemibob, who washed it and, after it had dried, used it to diaper the baby.
The Yawtl went out to peel bark off an utrighmakL tree to make bark-fiber cloths. It wasn't his wont to do service for others, but he must have thought that he might get back into the good graces of The
Shemibob by being useful. The work also took him away from her. "Out of sight, out of mind" was an ancient proverb but still applicable.
Both Deyv and Vana ate and drank much and spent time directing their healing substances, Vana to her torn tissues and Deyv to his broken bone and swollen muscles. Vana also began nursing the baby.
Other temblors of a lesser energy came, and the vessel was lifted a dozen times into the air an inch or so, but the shocks were of little consequence. Hoozisst, in the midst of working the bark, found time to make a crutch for Deyv. It was shortly after this that Deyv and Vana were called from the vessel. He hobbled on the crutch; she darned the baby against her breast
What Sloosh had summoned them to see was a pool of some silvery stuff that had filled the fissures. It was, Sloosh said, a liquid metal, no doubt made by the ancients. It must have been in a huge container or containers which had been long-buried by accumulating dust or washdowns from the mountains. Or perhaps by a cataclysm. In any event, the containers had ruptured, and now the liquid was seeping out.
Sloosh didn't have to point out the strange qualities of the liquid metal. In the fissure into which
Phemropit had fallen the stuff was flowing over its edges. And there on its surface bobbed boulders, large and small. And Phemropit and dead Jowanarr.
"Stay upwind of it," the Archkerri said.
He indicated a large bird that was also floating on the shiny gray surface.
"It flew over and then dropped as if shot. The metal, if it is metal, gives off poisonous vapors."
Though standing twenty feet away, Deyv could smell a bitter odor. It caught at his throat and made his eyes water.
The Shemibob brought out a rope from her bag, a thin gossamery material through which the light shone. She attached a stone to one end of the rope with a sticky stuff.
"To give it weight," she explained.
Then, holding her breath, she ran near the edge of the fissure. She cast the rope out with such accuracy that the stone landed on Phemropit near its snout and stuck to its surface. Immediately, she backed away, the rope ru
By then the silvery liquid metal had drained off Phemropit's detector and ray holes. It flashed that it was aware of what they were doing. The Shemibob used her light-device to tell it that when it was over the highway, it must use its tracks to help itself off. The creature replied that it had already thought of that.
Though the rubbery material of the highway had sagged, it had started to contract in order to shorten itself. Most of it was floating on the silvery liquid, but a section was still curved underneath. This arc was near the other side of the fissure, downwind. Those hauling Phemropit could not go to that side to pull the creature over the part under the surface. They had to strain to drag it over the end of the "bridge"
nearest them until its weight forced the highway down.
The Shemibob called out that Vana should lead Feersh to the rope so that both might add their muscle.
Vana gave the baby to Deyv to hold. He sat on top of a small boulder with the child and watched the proceedings. Presently, the creature's front end passed over the highway. Its haulers rested for a moment and then resumed their labors. It seemed that despite their most strenuous efforts, they weren't going to be able to drag it far enough for its foremost treads to catch. Then The Shemibob signaled that it should start turning its treads. Hopefully, these would give it some slight propulsion forward.
The idea worked. Inch by inch, it moved forward, the section began to sink, and then the treads caught
They were going so fast; however, that Phemropit almost drove itself over the road and back into the great crack. This ended about forty-five feet beyond the highway and narrowed considerably. Phemropit would have gone in nose-first, "head" down. Though it may have floated back up, its end would have been sticking up, its body wedged between the highway and the walls of the fissure. The situation would have been hopeless. Phemropit caught itself just in time and backed up, The Shemibob flashing just how far it should travel. After that, it turned its tracks, the left moving more slowly than the right It swiveled until it was parallel to the highway, and it traveled up on the highway, which bent under the massive weight, and was then on solid ground.
Everybody cheered in his or her ma
The Shemibob led Phemropit to a nearby river, where it plunged in to cleanse off the traces of silvery metal. These killed some fish downstream. Phemropit almost got stuck in the mud of the bank coming out, but it finally ground its way onto harder earth.
The Shemibob waited until the rope dried off before she poured a liquid from a small bottle onto the stone attached to it and to Phemropit In a short time, the glue dissolved, and she rolled up the rope and put it back in the bag. Deyv noticed that Hoozisst watched this procedure very intently.