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xi
188 CR, day 344
Cloudside
It had begun slowly, a tenderness about the wound, and that had been going on for weeks. Maybe, Elai thought, it was the cold. Old Cloud limped worse with his old wounds when it rained, and complained a great deal. But whenever she complained it meant not going outside and it meant having the nurses hovering about her, so she kept from limping.
It was healing, she reckoned. By spring it would be well. A little discomfort was only natural.
But the scar went red and the place went hot and finally she could not help but limp.
So the nurses noticed; and they brought old Karel to look at it. And Karel got out his knives.
They gave her bitterweed boiled up to kill the pain, but the tea made her sick at her stomach and left her only doubly miserable. She clamped her jaws and never yelled, only a scant moaning while old Karel hunted away in the wound he had made; and the sweat went cold on her. “Let me go,” she said to the riders who had come to help Karel hold her still; and mostly they did, except when the knife went deep and the sweat broke out on her and she threw up.
Karel held up a bit of something like a small bone. Her mother Ellai came to see.
“Seafolk spine,” Karel said. “Left in the wound. Whoever wrapped that leg up, never looked to see. Never should have left it that way.”
He laid the spine aside and went back to his digging with the knife; they gave her more tea and she threw that up too, the several times they gave it to her.
Afterwards her mother only looked at her, as she lay limp and buried in blankets. Scar was somewhere down below, with Weirds to keep him quiet; only Twig was in the room, and her mother just stood there staring at her, whatever went on behind her eyes, whether that her mother was thinking she was less threat now, whether she just despised the intelligence of the daughter she had birthed.
“So your starman knows everything,” her mother said.
Elai just stared back.
xii
189 CR, day 24
Message, R. Genley to Base Director
Weather has made observation difficult. Persistent fogs have obscured the riverside now and we have only limited view.
Last night the calibans came close. We could hear them moving around the shelter. When we went outside they retreated. We are using all due caution.
xiii
189 CR, day 24
The Base Director’s office
“Genley,” McGee said, “is in danger. I would remind you, sir, the Base has fallen before. And there were warnings of it. Take the calibans seriously.”
“They’re far from Base, Dr. McGee.” The Director leaned back, arms locked across his middle. The windows looked out on the concrete buildings, on fog. “But this time I do agree with you. There’s a possibility of a problem out there.”
“There’s more than a possibility. The rainy season seems to act on the calibans, and everything’s stirred up on Styxside.”
“What about your assessment of the calibans as a culture? Doesn’t this weather‑triggered behavior belong to something more primitive?”
“Do we sunbathe in winter?”
“We’re talking about aggression.”
“Early humans preferred summer for their wars.”
“Then what does this season do for calibans?”
“I wouldn’t venture an answer. We can only observe that it docs something.”
“Genley’s aware of the problem.”
“Not of the hazards. He won’t listen to those.”
The Director thought a moment. “We’ll take that under advisement. We know where you stand.”
“My request–”
“Also under advisement.”
xiv
189 CR, day 25
R. Genley to Base Director.
…I have made a contact. A band of Stygians riding calibans has shown up facing our camp oh our own side of the Styx this foggy morning. There was no furtiveness in their approach. They stopped a moment and observed us, then retreated and camped nearby. Mist makes observation difficult, but we can see them faintly at present.
189 CR, day 25
Base Director to R. Genley
Proceed with caution. Weather forecast indicates clearing tonight and tomorrow, winds SW/10‑15.
Drs. McGee, Ma
xv
189 CR, day 26
Styxside Base
They reached the camp by morning, staggering‑tired and glad enough of the breakfast they walked in on, with hot tea and biscuits.
“Hardly necessary for you to trek out here,” Genley said to McGee. He was a huge florid‑faced man, solid, monument‑like in the khaki coldsuit that was the uniform out here. McGee filled out her own with deskbound weight‑gain. Her legs ached and her sides hurt. The smell of the Styx came to them here, got into everything, odor of reeds and mud and wet and cold, permeating even the biscuits and the coffee. It was freedom. She savored it, ignoring Genley.
“I expect,” Genley went on, “that you’ll follow our lead out here. The last thing we need is interference.”
“I only give advice,” she said, deliberately bland. “Don’t worry about your credit on the report.”
“I think they’re stirring about out there,” said Ma
“Weather report’s wrong as usual,” Genley said. “Fog’s not going to clear.”
“I think we’d better get out there,” McGee said.
“Have your breakfast,” Genley said. “We’ll see to it.”
McGee frowned, stuffed her mouth, washed the biscuit down, and trailed him out the door.
The sun made an attempt at breaking through the mist. It was all pinks and golds, with black reeds thrusting up in clumps of spiky shadow and the fog lying on the Styx like a dawn‑tinted blanket.
Every surface was wet. Standing or crouching, one felt one’s boots begin to sink. Moisture gathered on hair and face and intensified the chill. But they stood, a little out from their camp, facing the Stygians’ camp, the humped shapes of calibans moving restlessly in the dawn.
Then human figures appeared among the calibans.
“They’re coming,” McGee said.
“We just stand,” said Genley, “and see what they do.”
The Stygians drew closer, afoot, more distinct in the morning mist. The calibans walked behind them, like a living wall, five, six of them.
Closer and closer.
“Let’s walk out halfway,” said Genley.
“Not sure about that,” said Ma
Genley walked. McGee trod after him, her eyes on the calibans as much as the humans. Ma
Features became clear. There were three elder men among the Stygians, three younger, and the one foremost was youngest of the lot. His long hair was gathered back at the crown; his dark beard was cut close, his leather garments clean, ornamented with strings of river‑polished stones and bone beads. He was not so tall as some. He looked scarcely twenty. He might be a herald of some kind, McGee thought to herself, but there was something–the spring‑tension way he moved, the assurance–that said that of all the six they saw, this was the one to watch out for.
Young man. About eighteen.
“Might be Jin himself,” she said beneath her breath. “Right age. Watch it with this one.”
“Quiet,” Genley said. He crouched down, let a stone slip from his clenched hand to the mud, let fall another pebble by that one.
The Stygians stopped. The calibans crouched belly to the ground behind them, excepting the biggest, which was poised well up on its four legs.
“They’re not going to listen,” McGee said. “I’d stand up, Genley. They’re not interested.”