“I—I knew that,” Nona said. “I didn’t think—the dry tinder—a big wet boat—I just made a huge and futile effort, only—”
“Only it wasn’t futile,” Colene finished. “You figured that even if you could do the magic, it would be just a little-bitty spark.”
“Yes.”
They stood and watched the boat burning, awed.
“I hope you never get angry at me,” Darius murmured.
“Oh, I would never—” Nona said, horrified.
“He’s teasing you,” Colene said. “But I guess we don’t have to worry about carrying fire.” She turned to Nona. “But maybe you should see if you can tone it down a little, because if we needed a candle lit, and you made a fireball—”
Darius had to laugh. But Colene was right; Nona’s magical pyrotechnics could be dangerous. He gathered some sticks, chips, and dry grass, fashioned a small setting, and showed it to Nona.
Nona squinted. Nothing happened. Then, after a moment, there was a faint curl of smoke. Then a little flame appeared. She had it under control.
“So we’ll sleep right here,” Colene decided. Then she did a double take. “Hey! We’re communicating again! Seqiro’s recovered.”
“In a small radius,” Darius said. “He still lacks the strength for more than that.”
Colene went over to hug the horse. “Don’t strain yourself, hoof-foot,” she said. “We can get along without you for a while.” Then she said something else, but it was indecipherable: the horse had taken her at her word, and was resting.
They foraged for fruits and nuts, which were plentiful, and leveled a section of the shore so that Burgess could move comfortably. Nona got a long branch and used it to knock down more fruits, which she offered to Burgess and Seqiro. Darius dug a shallow trench around their camping site, and piled branches in it for Nona to ignite, once they settled down for the night. With this ring of fire, they should not need much else for protection. Nevertheless he intended to keep watch, if no one else did. The business of the crab had satisfied him that this world was not to be trusted.
When night came, the others did sleep, using a tent made from material Nona expanded for the purpose: more handkerchief laced with leaves. But later Colene roused herself, came to him, kissed him, and indicated their tent: it was his turn to sleep. He knew she would stay alert, because she understood the danger as well as he did. He went to the tent and flopped down gratefully beside Nona.
He woke later, to find the figure touching him. In fact, she was kissing him. What was this? “No, Nona!” he protested.
He was answered by a laugh. Then he realized that it was Colene, who had finished her turn and taken Nona’s place in the tent. Embarrassed, he gave her arm a squeeze, and returned to sleep.
But later yet he discovered himself between two human figures. Both women were there. Then who was keeping watch? Alarmed, he crawled out—and saw Burgess floating along his path. The floater was taking his turn.
When dawn came, Burgess had settled back, air quiescent, eye stalks retracted. But Seqiro was pacing the region. My fatigue of the mind has recovered, he thought to Darius.
That was good. They were now reasonably rested, and back to strength, and could continue. As he understood it, they would have to survive in this Mode for several days, to give the mind predator time to forget about Colene. Then they would have to return to the anchor point and cross. With fortune, the hive floaters would also have forgotten about them by then.
Meanwhile, during their enforced stay in this Mode they had gotten to know Burgess, and Nona had discovered a new ability, fire. They could have gotten by without it, because of the matches, but what she could do was better and could well be useful in an emergency. Since the Virtual Mode could be dangerous, this was good.
They foraged for more food and took care of personal incidentals, then got together to decide on their course. Burgess had no idea of the landscape or animal life here; no member of his hive had penetrated even this far, so there was no currency on it.
“Let me get this straight,” Darius said. “Your kind, the floaters, gather together in tribes called hives, and you constantly exchange information through your contact points, so that every member of the hive knows what every other member does. So if any member of your hive had ever been in this wilderness, and lived to rejoin the hive, you would know it?”
Burgess signaled agreement. With Seqiro back on duty, increasingly able to fathom Burgess’ thoughts, there was hardly any confusion now. The floaters were creatures of currency: they had a need always to be current on hive knowledge, and suffered if they lost currency. That was why Burgess had invoked the Virtual Mode. He had to find another hive with which to be current. They were the weirdest kind of hive he could have imagined, had he been a creature of imagination, but he could relate.
“So no other floaters will follow us here, but you have no good information for us,” Darius concluded.
That was true. Since Burgess could travel here only with difficulty, he was a liability to the party.
“That’s not true,” Colene said. “Burgess knows a lot about this world. We aren’t going to be in the wilderness forever, and the moment we get out of it, he’s going to know what we need to know. We’re not dumping him.”
“That was not the nature of my thought,” Darius said hastily. “If Burgess doesn’t know anything about the inner wilderness, then neither do any of the hivers. They won’t know whether we’re alive or dead, or deep inside or just at the edge of the region. So we don’t have to go far. In fact, we don’t have to go anywhere, now that we’ve found relatively safe spot to camp, here.”
“Hey, that’s right!” Colene agreed. “We can dig in and be comfortable.”
Nona was gazing at the sky. “Do you know the flying creatures, Burgess?” she asked.
Burgess oriented his eyes. Yes. Those were predatory creatures that needed to be fended off. He floated to a sandy patch and lowered his intrunk, ready to send a blast of sand up.
“They look like birds, from here,” Colene remarked.
They were not birds. Burgess had no concept of birds, because they were vertebrates, none of which existed here. Neither were these insects. They were of another phylum. They were dangerous, and it would be necessary for the others to hide from them.
“From little birds?” Colene asked incredulously.
But the growing picture Burgess was sending made her turn quickly serious. The most descriptive term was shears: they had mouths which sliced or cut the flesh of their prey, swiftly. They tended to attack in swarms, so that it was hard to defend against them all, and flesh was usually lost.
“We had better stop them from touching us,” Darius said, as the swarm of shears loomed closer. “Nona, if you can grow some shield material—”
Nona caught up a chip of wood and started expanding it. Darius himself went for his sword, then reconsidered; against a flying swarm it would be almost ineffective. Instead he donned heavy gloves, and Colene did the same. Then they put on heavy jackets from their supplies, and took one to Nona.
The shears did not give them much time. Several of the creatures swooped down, making a peculiar buzzing sound. “What kind of wings do they have?” Colene demanded.
Burgess provided a picture: two paddlelike projections, which angled into the air, moving in opposite directions. They were like propellers, except that each had only one extension, sweeping in almost a full circle clockwise, then counterclockwise, so swiftly that the pair of them blurred into fuzziness.
One came straight at Darius. He batted it away with one fist—and felt a flare of pain. His glove had a gash, and blood was welling from the side of his hand. The creature itself spun to the side and then zoomed on away.