nearest them until its weight forced the highway down.
The Shemibob called out that Vana should lead Feersh to the rope so that both might add their muscle.
Vana gave the baby to Deyv to hold. He sat on top of a small boulder with the child and watched the proceedings. Presently, the creature's front end passed over the highway. Its haulers rested for a moment and then resumed their labors. It seemed that despite their most strenuous efforts, they weren't going to be able to drag it far enough for its foremost treads to catch. Then The Shemibob signaled that it should start turning its treads. Hopefully, these would give it some slight propulsion forward.
The idea worked. Inch by inch, it moved forward, the section began to sink, and then the treads caught
They were going so fast; however, that Phemropit almost drove itself over the road and back into the great crack. This ended about forty-five feet beyond the highway and narrowed considerably. Phemropit would have gone in nose-first, "head" down. Though it may have floated back up, its end would have been sticking up, its body wedged between the highway and the walls of the fissure. The situation would have been hopeless. Phemropit caught itself just in time and backed up, The Shemibob flashing just how far it should travel. After that, it turned its tracks, the left moving more slowly than the right It swiveled until it was parallel to the highway, and it traveled up on the highway, which bent under the massive weight, and was then on solid ground.
Everybody cheered in his or her manner except the baby. He began crying loudly. Vana hurried back to him, since it was his feeding time.
The Shemibob led Phemropit to a nearby river, where it plunged in to cleanse off the traces of silvery metal. These killed some fish downstream. Phemropit almost got stuck in the mud of the bank coming out, but it finally ground its way onto harder earth.
The Shemibob waited until the rope dried off before she poured a liquid from a small bottle onto the stone attached to it and to Phemropit In a short time, the glue dissolved, and she rolled up the rope and put it back in the bag. Deyv noticed that Hoozisst watched this procedure very intently.
They decided .to move the vessel down the valley in case another quake should open other fissures and spill out more of the poisonous liquid. Several sleep-times later, they resumed their journey. By then
Deyv's leg had almost knit and his shoulder had almost healed. Everybody was happy, or as happy as their natures and the situation permitted. It would have been a terrible loss if Phemropit could no longer have given them its protection. They felt fairly secure with it; it could scare or drive off almost any enemy or predator. Riding on it enabled them to get a rest when they were tired of walking. Though it went more slowly than their normal gait, it compensated for this by traveling during sleep-time. All it had to do was to follow the highway while they snored in the vessel on its back.
Deyv and Vana were well aware that this good life would cease sometime. They would have to go on by themselves, burdened by the baby. The prospect was appalling. But they were determined to get back to their homeland.
Thrush, the child, was healthy. He was, however, somewhat strange-looking at first to his parents.
Neither had ever seen such a hybrid before. He had his mother's kinky hair, but it was black instead of yellow. His eyes, once they'd lost their natal blue, were neither Deyv's brown nor Vana's green but hazeclass="underline" brown with specks of green. His skin was lighter than his father's but darker than his mother's.
Sloosh commented that Thrush was probably a beautiful baby, from a human viewpoint. He wouldn't know. This led him into a short discourse on the races of Homo sapiens. According to him, humanity in its early days had been divided into a number of races, though it wasn't always easy to distinguish one from the other. Then mankind became homogeneous, so interbred that it formed one race. In time, because of changing conditions, new races were created, few of which duplicated previous ones. Then there was one race again. Then, a differentiation into three or four. Then, homogeneity again. And so on.
"This child should grow up to be big, healthy, vigorous, and perhaps intelligent, by human standards. It is time that entirely new genes were brought into your tribes. Even with the custom of occasionally taking new spouses from other tribes, the intermarriage is still confined to a small number."
Deyv and Vana were warmed by his predictions. But, as usual, he had to spoil his compliments.
"However, it is doubtful that the child will survive the journey, since his parents probably won't either.
Once you set out without us ..."
They arrived at last at the point where they must turn to the right if they were to go to the source of the flying figures. They didn't leave the highway for rough country, though. Not yet, anyway. There was a junction with a road running to the left and one in the desired direction. The latter took them about fifty miles before it abruptly ended. Beyond it were foothills and past these a range of mighty mountains.
Here not only was there no road, there was no vegetation. Not a single plant grew on the bare rocks, from which the soil had been washed off long ago.
"Another wasteland," Sloosh said. "And not even with the redeeming beauty of The Shemibob's land.
Still, it does have a certain majesty. A grim forbidding one, though."
Deyv wondered aloud what had killed the trees and the bushes.
"This is what we Archkerri call The Dead Place," Sloosh said. "We know nothing of it because there is no vegetation to report on it."
The Shemibob said that she was equally ignorant. "Knowing and not knowing are light and its shadow, two states entirely different yet as closely related as brother and sister. If you conquer one, you automatically conquer the other. Let's set out for the conquest."
She might also have said that conquering either abstraction always involved overcoming the physical. In this situation, it was the mountains. As they'd done before the breaching of The Jeweled Wasteland, they had to store up enough food to last them. At least, they hoped it would be enough. Thirst would be no problem, since it rained heavily here. But water would be. The flash floods that raced down the ravines and the valleys and the passes would be more deadly than those in The House of Countless Chambers.
And, as far as they knew, the land had no oases.
The Dark Beast had passed over five times before they had what they considered enough provisions. The baby grew larger. In the meantime, the parents had come no closer to deciding whose tribe they would live with. It wasn't a matter that soured their every moment, but it did darken slightly every thought when they were together.
Just before they left camp, the Yawti proposed that Feersh be left behind.
"She's no good to us. She's only a burden, a mouth that eats our food and gives us nothing in return. If we don't take her, we'll have just that much more food. Now, I'm not inhumane. We could put her out of her misery so she won't starve to death or be eaten up by some beast."
The witch opened her mouth as if to protest, then closed it. Her dignified expression said that she would let the others defend her—if they so wished.
"Let the lesser beings speak first," The Shemibob said.
Since Sloosh didn't consider himself to be in that class, he kept silent. Deyv and Vana looked at each other. Though they exchanged no words, they were thinking the same thoughts. Were they as much on trial as the witch? Would their decision make them higher in the estimation of The Shemibob? Or lower?
Or were they perhaps being too sensitive?
Whatever the truth about them, the Yawtl was also on trial. He didn't know that, not being capable of perceiving such subtleties. As cunning as he was, he lacked certain faculties which humans had. Some humans, anyway.