“There isn’t any way,” I said. “I won’t go along with a lie of this magnitude.”
Agopian looked at me. He seemed a little drunk. “You are tougher than I am, Lixia, and more in love with abstractions. Truth. Beauty. Integrity. You’ll destroy us all for those words.”
“You are in no position to criticize,” Ivanova said.
I looked at Eddie. “When are we leaving?”
“Tomorrow. Early. You and Derek ought to go up to the village and say good-bye formally.”
Derek made the gesture of disagreement. “Angai said no more men. I think she’s serious.”
“The oracle is up there.”
“He’s holy. I’m not. I’m taking Angai at her word.”
“I’ll go up,” I said. “After lunch and after a swim. Does anyone want to come with me?”
“Swimming?” asked Derek.
“To the village.”
“I will,” said Ivanova. “If Eddie thinks it’s all right.”
“I think we’ll put off arresting anyone until we’re back in camp. I don’t know the procedure, and I don’t really want to call and ask. It’d lead to a lot of questions.” Eddie looked around. “Do the rest of you agree?”
Derek and I nodded.
Ivanova said, “I think I’ll refrain from voting on this question.”
Agopian nodded. “I’m abstaining, too.”
“You might as well go,” Eddie said to Ivanova.
“Thank you.”
Derek and I made sandwiches. We ate, and I went for a swim. The water was cool. The river washed away a lot of my tension. I felt like floating down it, away from the village and the boats, away from all these people and their arguments. Of course, if I went far enough, I’d float into the middle of the lizard migration. I swam back and climbed onboard, grabbed a towel and tucked it around me.
Tatiana was back, sitting on the rear deck with Ivanova and Agopian. There was a bowl of fruit on the folding table next to her. Oranges, bananas, and bright green apples. A heap of orange peelings lay next to the bowl. The air was full of the aroma of orange.
Tatiana spoke in Russian, quickly and eagerly.
“What happened to the oracle?” I asked.
She glanced at me. “He stayed in the village. He was with someone. A large person with reddish fur in plain clothes.”
Nia.
I went into the cabin and got dressed.
When I came out, Ivanova stood up. We climbed the bluff together.
There were children outside the village. They were standing facing the wind, holding their hands out, the palms forward.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You told us you could feel the wind. Our palms have no hair. We are feeling the wind and trying to understand what it would be like to feel that way all over.”
I translated for Ivanova. She laughed. “They will have no trouble. It is the adults who’ll be afraid and fight change.”
The children stayed at the edge of the village, playing their game of pretending to be hairless. Ivanova and I walked to the main square. Angai was there, sitting under her awning. Nia and the oracle were with her.
I made the gesture of greeting.
Angai made the gesture that meant “sit down and stay awhile.”
We seated ourselves in the shadow of the awning. The wind blew dust around the square.
“We are leaving in the morning,” I said.
“Good,” said Angai. “When you are gone, people will stop worrying. After a while this visit will seem like a dream to them or like a story told by an old woman about something that happened a long time ago. Then you will be able to return. They will be less frightened the second time. But remember—when you come, bring only women and make sure they are clever and sensible.”
I translated for Ivanova.
She said, “Give Angai our thanks. Tell her, we will do as she asks. Tell her, when we come again we will bring many gifts and stories and no men.”
I told Angai.
She made the gesture of acknowledgment. “I think this will turn out well, though I should not have gotten angry last night. Now I will have to find a way to make Anhar happy.
“Go now and take the oracle. I will ask the spirits to take care of you.”
I made the gesture of gratitude. “That’s it,” I said to Ivanova. “She wants us out of the village.”
We stood. So did the oracle. He had a big lumpy leather bag: his food.
I looked at Nia. “What about you?”
“I will stay here for another day or so. Then I plan to go north and visit Tanajin.”
“After that?” I asked.
She made the gesture of uncertainty, stood up and hugged me. A tight hard hug that left me breathless.
“Come to our village,” I said.
She made the gesture that meant “maybe.”
“Go,” said Angai.
The oracle started off. Ivanova and I followed.
When we reached the children again, they were playing with a ball. So much for the game of hairlessness.
I said, “We’re leaving in the morning. Close to dawn, I think. Come down then if you want to see our boats.”
“We will,” one of the children said.
We walked to the edge of the bluff. Ivanova stopped and looked back at the village and the plain.
“Come on,” the oracle said.
“The oracle is impatient,” I said.
“I want to remember this.”
She stood for another minute or two. The oracle fidgeted. I waved him on. Finally she looked at me. “I have not been especially clever in the last year. But I am not stupid. I have a good idea of what is going to happen to Mesrop and me.”
She went down the bluff, following the oracle.
They would be tried for crimes against democracy and for endangering the lives of the people they had frozen. Maybe for murder. We had no provision for rehabilitation and no place to send people who had committed serious crimes. The only thing we could do was freeze them until we returned to Earth or until our colony had evolved far enough to have a really advanced psychotherapeutic facility or a prison.
This might be the last time that Ivanova saw a native village or a landscape like this one. I took another look at the windy plain and the children chasing their ball. Then I followed Ivanova down the bluff.
Nia
The hairless people left in the morning. The people of the village began packing in the afternoon. Nia helped Angai, but only with the things in the front room of the tent. The back room was the place where Angai kept her magic. Everything there was hidden by a curtain of red cloth embroidered with animals and spirits. The curtain went across the tent from top to bottom and side to side. Nothing came through it except the aroma of dry herbs and the feeling of magic. The feeling made Nia’s skin itch and prickle.
She stayed as far from the curtain as possible, kneeling by the front door in the afternoon sunlight, folding clothing, and putting it in a chest made of leather.
On the other side of the room Hua knelt. She was right next to the curtain, below a picture of a spirit: an old man, naked, with his sexual member clearly visible. His back was hunched, and he leaned on a cane. The Dark One, thought Nia, in one of her many disguises.
Hua had laid out tools and was counting them before she packed them: knives of many sizes, needles, spoons made of polished wood and horn.
Angai was behind the curtain, packing up whatever she kept there, objects that Nia did not want to see.
“How can you bear to stay here?” Nia asked.
Hua looked up and made the gesture of inquiry.
“By the curtain. In this tent.”
Hua repeated the gesture of inquiry.
“Nia has never liked magic,” Angai said.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Hua said.