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The villagers made them welcome and fed them. Corbell entertained with a medley of advertising jingles. Afterward Krayhayft began a tale while Corbell made himself comfortable against a convenient boulder.
It seemed to him that the village was a well-placed trap.
If dikta followed a band of Boys from Dikta City, they would have to go around the village, climbing cliffs to do it and leaving traces of themselves, and into more desolation. Unless they wanted to risk raiding the village.
There was a "phone booth" at one end of the bridge. The bridge was a wide arch of prestressed concrete or something better, its lines singularly beautiful. It was the only sign of advanced technology among basic and primitive structures.
There had been bread and corn with tonight's fish. There must be a working "phone booth" here to bring them. But was that a working booth? It was too blatant. It might be a trap.
A voice behind Corbel's ear whispered, "We will not let you use the prilatsil."
Corbell turned to stare rudely at the intruder. He had not been watching the booth.
The Boy was of the village: a pink-eyed, golden-haired albino with a narrow ferret face. He almost lost his footing as he squatted next to Corbell. His loincloth was animal skin.
He was young, then. Corbell had learned to tell. The older Boys were never awkward, and they did not brag of their kills by wearing the skins. He gri
"I think they'll bruise me anyway," Corbell said. He'd been wondering about Krayhayft's "punishment." Damn Krayhayft. Corbell would be a bag of nerve ends before the blade fell.
"Yes. You lied," said the golden Boy. "I am to be there when punishment comes."
"Sadist," Corbell said in English.
"I can guess the meaning. No. We do not make pain for pleasure, only for instruction. Your pain will be instructive to you and to us." The Boy chuckled gloatingly, making a liar of himself, and got up.
Now, what was that all about? Corbell expected to die as soon as Gording began to grow young. He knew too much. Or would they only wipe his memory? He shivered. It would still be death, though it would let them use the ancient felon's genes.
They left carrying provisions. One of the boy-children stayed behind. Half a dozen villagers came with them, including the young albino.
The continental shelf had been wider in this area. It was still barren. The day was nearly over before they reached, first fruit trees, then cornfields. They camped in the corn.
They passed a larger tribe on the third day. For a time Krayhayft's tribe mingled with Tsilliwheep's tribe, exchanging news. Tsilliwheep was a strange one: large, pudgy, sullen-faced, a classic schoolyard bully with pure white hair. He issued no orders and he mingled with nobody. When his tribe veered away it took two of Krayhayft's tribe and two boy-children.
They passed single human beings at a distance. "Loners," Skatholtz told Corbell. "They tire of others around them. For a time they go alone. Krayhayft has done it six times."
"Why?"
"Maybe to know if they still love themselves. Maybe to know that they can live without help. Maybe they want to give up talking. Tsilliwheep will be a loner soon, I think. He had the look. Corbell, it is very bad ma
Through waist-high corn they marched. In early afternoon a herd of dwarf buffalo passed, tens of thousands of them, blackening the land and raising continuous rolling thunder. The trampled path was a quarter hour's march across: corn churned into the dirt along with the corpses of aged buffalo unable to keep up. For the first time Corbell saw vultures. Vultures had survived unchanged.
Skatholtz bent their path to take them through a ruined city. An earthquake, or Girl weaponry, had shattered most of the buildings, and time had weathered all the sharp edges. Corbell saw sandblasted public prilatsil; he ignored them. He'd seen no evidence that power was still coming to this ruin.
Boys had made a semi-permanent camp at the far edge of the ruined city. Krayhayft's tribe joined them, and contributed ears of corn to their di
What the locals had mounted on rocks above their fireplace was a piece of clear glass seven feet across, curved like an enormous wok: a good enough frying pan except for the dangerous jagged edges. It had to be a piece of a bubble-car.
On the fourth day they passed two tribes, and joined with them for a time, and left them behind. With the second of these groups went the last two boy-children. Corbell couldn't help wondering if that related to his situation. There are things you don't do in front of children.
Gording was having less trouble keeping up. If the chance came, the old man would be able to run... but ru
"Phone booths" didn't send far enough. Useful for hiding in a city, but not for reaching safety; not unless he could get into the emergency-transport network Skatholtz had diagrammed for him. A car would be better. Or... what did the Boys use to lower a dozen bedrooms onto the roof of Dikta City? A giant helicopter? Some big flying thing, anyway.
He wouldn't find any of those things outside a city. Maybe they existed in Sarash-Zillish alone. He would reach Sarash-Zillish too late; Gording's hair would be showing black by then.
Past noon on the fifth day. Far across the corn they watched a loner hunting. Sprint, walk a bit, sprint, walk: The loner must be tired. But the kangaroo was exhausted. Hop and waddle, hop and waddle, look back at the closing loner, hop hop hop! Until at last it waited for the loner to walk up and kill it.
Krayhayft's tribe veered to give the loner room, but the loner had other plans. He did a fast butchering job on the kangaroo, slung the meat over his shoulder and loped to join the tribe at an angle.
He was dirty. He bled where the kangaroo had snapped at his forearm. He had lost his loincloth somewhere. But he gri
Corbell tried to listen to what the Boys were telling the loner about him. Unfamiliar words, and the sudden drumming of the afternoon rain, made understanding impossible. But the wanderer derived much amusement from what he was hearing.
When the afternoon rain ended, the clearing sky disclosed reaching towers whose tops sketched a dome shape.
They camped a mere hour's distance from what seemed an intact city. The loner had cleaned the mud out of his hair, revealing it as brown streaked with white, and had found a loincloth. He did all the talking that night. Was that why Boys turned loner? Nothing to talk about anymore?
Corbell slept badly. The towers made a broken arc against the stars. If he could break loose, to reach the city alone... But every time he looked around him someone was watching him. As if they could read his mind.
V
Parhalding was bigger than Sarash-Zillish. Moth and rust had done their work... and invading soil and grass and trees and vines. The buildings still stood, most of them. Their flat roofs sprouted green heads. Grapevines and blackberry vines swathed their waists. Corn and wheat grew mixed where soil was shallow. Where soil and water could pool, there were gnarled old trees bearing varied fruit and walnuts.