They dug a shallow pit into the slope, and shored that with branches to make their shelter. They made a fire, and arranged it to burn low in a shallow ditch half circling the shelter, so that it would protect Burgess and Seqiro too. They found a fruit, and Nona magnified it so that it would serve them all for the evening meal. But that wasn’t successfuclass="underline" the fruit expanded its fibers and cells too, so that it resembled a magnified image, and did not taste good.
With wood it didn’t matter, because they didn’t care if it became coarser, so long as it was solid and strong. With metal it didn’t matter, for the same reason. But with food it did. They had encountered a limit to Nona’s magic. So they had to borrow from their carried supplies, this once. However, Seqiro found that he could tolerate his grain expanded to double size, and that did seem to be nutritive, so at least the magic could extend that type of food. Burgess, also, was relatively adaptable; since he sucked in and ground up his food anyway, a coarseness was not much of a problem. So he consumed the expanded fruit. Also, the shear was not choosy, and would eat fruit as well as a blob of expanded blood Nona made from the sodden bandage she changed on Seqiro. The shear, now tame, was satisfied to clamp its beak on the pole supporting the top of the tent and hang there, sleeping; it needed no feet. That was just as well, since it had none.
Again they took turns walking guard. Darius was first. He made sure the fire was continuous, if low; the smoke helped drive off the nocturnal bugs. He fashioned a route that passed the dug-in tent, Seqiro asleep on his feet, and Burgess, settled on the ground at the end of his path. There was a slight susurration from Burgess; he still pumped air, in order to breathe with his nether gills, but not enough to make him float. His eye stalks were retracted, but the light-sensitive patches around his rim remained open.
Darius was surprised at how readily he had come to accept the alien structure of the floater as routine. Probably it was because of the connection between minds. That was not operative now, because Seqiro was asleep, but in the day Burgess’ mind was part of their network.
Actually the floater’s mind was being defined in terms of the human mind, in much the way as was the horse’s mind, because Burgess did not have intelligence of his own. He had tremendous storage capacity, remembering virtually all his own experience and that of all other floaters in the hive, but he did not normally reason things out for himself. When a human mind reasoned something out, while being connected to Burgess’ mind, then it seemed as if the floater were thinking similarly, but that was illusion. That made Burgess more compatible than he might have been otherwise, because though his nature was alien, his thought patterns were becoming human, learned from the human minds. It was like one of the computers in Colene’s thoughts: programmable.
Colene—and there was another matter to be thought out, now that the others were asleep and his thoughts were private. He loved her, foolishly perhaps, but firmly. He wanted to marry her, and could not. Because she was a creature of depression, while he required a creature of joy. This had to do with the nature of his duty as Cyng of Hlahtar, in his home Mode. He had to draw from his wife all the joy she possessed, and multiply it, and send it out to all those in the vicinity. That spread joy to everyone, and made life worthwhile despite its often menial nature. His wife, too, would get her joy back—but it was never quite as much as it had been at the start. So with each repetition, at each new community, her joy was further depleted, until it was too low to be of value. Then he had to divorce her and marry another woman, so as to start the process over. For this reason, the Cyngs of Hlahtar seldom married for love. Instead they married for joy, in an un-romantic sense: the joy they took from their wives. They seldom bothered to have sex with their wives; that was reserved for their romantic interests, their bed maidens.
Darius had hoped to merge marriage and love by finding a maiden he could love who was filled with joy. So much joy that he could never deplete it. This was not a matter of feeling good, but of having a certain indefatigable power of joy. This simply would not work, with Colene; he could draw only dolor from her. The irony was that in the course of his quest for Colene, he had found a woman who would make the ideal wife. That was Prima, whose powers of multiplication of emotion were equivalent to his own. He could marry her, and draw from her without ever depleting her. She was a generation older than he, and not physically attractive to him, but that didn’t matter—if he went the normal course, and married her for her power of joy.
The trouble was that he wanted to marry Colene. This was a foolish desire, and he knew it, but that was the way it was. He could love her, but he couldn’t marry her. She understood this, and accepted it, now. But he didn’t.
A further irony was that she was too young for sex, according to the dictate of her culture. So the other part of his potential relationship with her was in a null state, too. He could neither marry her nor take her for a mistress. Yet he loved her.
When their journey was complete, and they reached his home Mode, what would happen? He would have to marry Prima, but who would he have in his bed? Colene was fiercely jealous of any sexual expression he might have with any woman other than herself. This put him in an awkward position, since the standards of his own culture differed. He wanted her to be happy, but she would not be even remotely happy if she were neither his wife nor his mistress.
It seemed to be an insoluble problem. Maybe they would be better off if they did not reach his home Mode soon. Yet that, too, was problematical. He wasn’t sure how long he could resist her blandishments. She wanted to seduce him, and her attempts were both subtle and unsubtle, and the plain fact was that he found her little body enormously appealing. She thought that her lack of breasts the size of Nona’s made her inferior, but the truth was that he liked women whatever way they came, and could derive as much pleasure from a slender one as from a voluptuous one. Attitude really made a greater difference than body, and Colene’s attitude was the height and depth of intrigue. So it was not safe for him to remain with her too long in the present manner. They had to complete their journey and get off the Virtual Mode.
Darius paused. Had he heard something? There did not seem to be anything in the forest; their smoldering fire seemed to be an effective deterrent. It probably wouldn’t stop a big crab, but that wasn’t the problem. Suppose something came that wasn’t afraid of fire?
Yet the sound didn’t seem to be from the depths of the forest. It seemed to be close, within the fire enclosure. It was also too faint to hear. Was it merely the embers settling?
Darius got down and put his ear to the ground. Now he heard it more clearly: click-click, click-click. From within the ground. What could it be?
He scuffed the dirt with a foot, making a shallow excavation. He uncovered something. He took a stick, touched it to the nearest fire, and brought the crude torch across to illuminate the spot.
Now he saw thin projections rising from the scraped earth. He relaxed, relieved. Worms! These were little worms coming up to forage at night. They clicked as they moved. Did they have jointed shells?
He reached down to touch one. But as his hand approached the worm, it whipped to the side, its pointed end stabbing into his finger. Pain flared.
He jerked his hand away. But now the worm came with it, the head still burrowing into his finger. He had to grab its body with his other hand and yank it out—and that hurt again, because its head was barbed. The thing was a bloodsucker!
He dropped it on the ground and stomped it. Then he stomped the other heads showing. He put his finger in his mouth, trying to stop the pain, but it kept hurting and bleeding. The little monster must have injected something to stop the blood from coagulating.