I had brief, horrible fantasies about allergic reactions, toxic reactions, shock, and death.
But the wound ought to be covered. I didn’t think any harm could come from a bandage.
I got out the can. “This is going to sting just a little.” I hit the button.
“Aiya!” Nia said.
The wound vanished. In its place was a small dark patch of plastic. The patch was lumpy, and clumps of hair stuck out of it, coated with plastic. Idiot! I told myself. I should have shaved the area around the wound. Well, I hadn’t and the best thing to do now was leave the wound alone. I rocked back on my heels. “Anything else?”
“No.” She took her hand out of the pot, then grimaced. “This still hurts.”
“I’ll get more water.”
I went to the stream and filled the pot again and brought it back. Nia put her hand in. Her eyes were almost shut. I had the impression she was exhausted. I tucked the cloak around her.
“Thank you.” Her voice was drowsy. She closed her eyes.
I put more wood on the fire, then got the poncho out of my pack. It was light and waterproof with a removable thermal lining. I did not remove the lining. Instead I wrapped the poncho around me, lay down, and went to sleep.
I woke later, feeling cold. The fire was almost out. I got up and laid branches on the coals. Flames appeared. How silent the canyon was! I could hear water, but nothing else. Above me stars shone. I recognized the Big Dipper. It looked the way I remembered it—maybe a little brighter. That would be the air in the canyon. It was dry and extremely clear.
I went over to Nia. Her hand was still in the pot. On her face was an expression of pain. But she was sleeping, breathing slowly and evenly.
I checked her leg. It had stopped swelling. The bandage wasn’t tight. She groaned when I touched her, but she didn’t wake. I went to my pack and got out the radio.
This time I got Antonio Nybo. Another North American. There were a lot of them on the sociology team, maybe because there were so many different societies in North America. Tony was from somewhere in the Confederation of Spanish States. I couldn’t—at the moment—remember exactly where. Not Florida. Texas maybe. Or Chicago. Most of his work had been done in southern California, studying the Hispanic farmers who were moving back into the California desert and interacting—not always easily—with the aborigines.
“Lixia! How are you?” His voice was light and pleasant with a slight accent.
“I had an interesting day…” I told him about it, then said, “Now for the problem. I don’t think the leg is broken, but I’m not sure. Is there any way to tell without doing a scan?”
“I’ll ask the medical team. Is it okay to call you back?”
“Yes.”
He signed off. I got up and stretched, then touched my toes five times. My stomach gurgled and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten dinner. I got a piece of bread. It was stale. I enjoyed it, anyway.
The radio rang. I turned it on.
“First of all they say they need more information.” I could hear amusement in Antonio’s voice. “They also say there ought to be more hemorrhaging with a fracture—than with a sprain, I mean. And hemorrhaging produces bruises—usually. Or did they say often? Anyway, if her foot turns black and blue in the next three days, she may have a fracture. But a bad sprain could produce bruising, too.”
“What are you telling me?”
“The only way to be certain is to do a scan. The medical people suggest that they come down with the necessary equipment.”
“Oh.”
“They think,” Tony said gently, “they ought to. And they would love—absolutely love—to get hold of a native. It is interesting what one finds out when one asks an apparently simple question. The aliens are not alien enough.”
“What?”
“I don’t mean at the cellular level. There—we have to assume—they are like the rest of the life on the planet. The biologists say there is no question that the organisms they have examined are alien and belong to a different evolutionary line. That is why they can say—so confidently—that we can’t catch the local diseases. Nor can we spread our own diseases to anything on the planet.” Antonio paused. “You might be interested in knowing that Eddie asked the medical team to double-check this fact.”
“Why?”
“A native died shortly after you arrived at your village.”
“I told Eddie what the woman died of. Old age, poison, or magic. There was nothing unnatural about her death.”
Antonio laughed. “Eddie was worried about the bugs in your gut. The ones that were designed to metabolize the local food. The biology team said absolutely not. The bugs can’t live outside a human. The biology team became offended and spoke about people moving outside their areas of expertise, especially people in the social sciences—which, as everyone knows, are not real sciences like biology and chemistry.”
“Ouch.”
“The problem is not at the cellular level. It’s the fact that the natives look like us. They shouldn’t, according to all the best theories. We ought to be dealing with intelligent lobsters or talking trees.
“According to the biology team, the natives are an example of parallel evolution—like the marsupial saber-toothed tiger of South America. But no one is really comfortable with this explanation. We need more information. The medical team wants some tissue samples, and they want to know what goes on the intermediate levels—between the entire organism, which looks like us, and the biochemistry, which is almost certainly alien. What are the organs like? The muscles and the skeleton? The endocrine system? The chemistry of the brain? They want—in sum—to get into a native and take a really good look around. I’m going to refer this to the committee for day-to-day administration.”
“Okay.”
“In the meantime, the medical people say to treat the injury like a fracture.”
“Okay.” I turned the radio off.
“Li-sa?”
It was Nia. I glanced at her. She was up on one elbow, staring at me. Her eyes reflected the firelight. They shone like gold.
“Yes.”
“Is there a demon in the box?”
I tapped the radio. “This?”
Nia made the gesture of affirmation.
“No.”
“Then how can it speak?”
“A good question.” I thought for a while. “It’s a way for people to talk when they’re far away from one another. My friend has a box like this. When he speaks into it, his voice comes out here.” I touched the radio again. “I can answer by talking into my box.”
Nia frowned. “Among the Copper People—the people of Nahusai—there are songs of calling. When Nahusai wanted something, rain or sunshine or a ghost, she would draw a design that represented the thing she wanted. Then she sang to the design. The thing she wanted would hear her song and come. This is what she told me, anyway.”
I made the gesture of disagreement. “This isn’t a ceremony. It’s a tool, like your hammer.”
“Hakht would not believe that.”
“What does she know?”
Nia barked. “That is true. Well, then, the box is a tool—though it’s a kind of tool I’ve never seen before. I’ve never even heard of a tool like that.” She paused. “It sounds useful. I am going back to sleep.”
I woke in the morning before Nia did. The sky was clear and there was sunlight on the rim of the canyon. I went in among the rocks and relieved myself, then went to the stream and washed. On the way back I passed the dead man. He lay on his back, his arms stretched above his head. He was large—not tall, but wide and muscular with shaggy fur. His kilt was brown with orange embroidery, and his belt had a copper buckle.