"Consider this," Sloosh said. "It was good that you delayed your journey. Otherwise, you two would have gotten to your homeland only to find your people gone. You wouldn't have had the slightest idea how to track them down. If you'd returned here, you might have been too late. The gateway might have been gone or have winked out. Or it might have shifted so much that it would have been unreachable."
Deyv sank to his knees and began howling. His tribe, his parents, forever lost!
After he'd given his tears to the wetness of the earth, so many that he had no more—at the moment—he lay face down, silent. Then Sloosh's huge half-leaved hand lifted him up onto his feet.
"Vana is still quivering from the quake. She was very concerned about her baby and also the life within her belly. I wouldn't say anything about this until she's recovered."
Deyv rubbed the tears from his eyes and said, "I'd have gone to her now and told her. But I'll wait, do as you say. You're very perceptive, Sloosh. Almost human."
"I suppose you think that's a compliment. So I'll accept it as such. Still ..."
Deyv had hoped to delay telling Vana until she'd had a good sleep. He was unable to conceal his sorrow, though he didn't say anything about it and tried to act as if nothing unusual had happened. It was no use.
Vana knew immediately that he was very upset about something. He denied it, but she attacked him with many questions and finally told him that he was lying to her. She didn't like it; they were married, his concerns were hers and vice versa. If he didn't tell the truth, he was a shrinkell, a small dung-eating beast which emitted an offensive odor.
Deyv told her what troubled him. She turned pale and began to cry out and staggered off to get a knife to gash her flesh. He followed her to take the knife away from her.
"You'll frighten the baby," he said. "Go off somewhere until you are over your grief."
Her tears had started him weeping also. Thrush, hearing his mother, began to howl. Deyv went into the vessel to soothe him while Vana went up the hill and crouched behind a tree. After a while, she came back with red but now dry eyes.
"What do we do now?"
"Sloosh says that we could try to get adopted by the tribe near here. He has more in mind than our wellbeing, though. He hopes to get them to go through the gateway. But he says that they aren't numerous enough to provide the minimum needed to avoid the bad effects of inbreeding. He wants to find other tribes and get them to go through, too."
"It would be nice to have a tribe," she said, "even if they have strange ways and a strange god. But they're more likely to kill us than to take us in."
"I have an idea that might work. If it does, they'll be happy to adopt us."
In the meantime, they had to rebuild the lift and the bridge. Deyv found time to scout around the area when he wasn't building or hunting. He located two more tribes, each about ten miles from the hillpeople in opposite directions. Both lived alongside a river, a tributary of which fed the swamp. They were of the same race as the swamp dwellers and spoke dialects of the same language. They also suffered from the depredations of the red-eared rodents.
Failing to learn enough of the swamp dwellers' tongue by eavesdropping, he decided to kidnap an informant. He and The Shemibob hung around the hill at a discreet distance until a woman carrying a big basket of nuts came along. He shot her with a dart whose point was coated with an anesthetic. The
Shemibob picked her up; Deyv took the basket, which had spilled only half its contents.
Vana tried to reassure the woman that she would not be harmed. It did no good. She was terrified by
Sloosh and the snake-centaur, whom she was convinced were beasts or demons, or what she called dream monsters. Vana, by far the most linguistically competent, quickly learned the tribe's language.
After a while she was able to soothe the woman's fears somewhat. When she allowed the woman to take care of Thrush, she gained more of her confidence.
Be'nyar said that her tribe called itself the Chaufi'ng, that is, The People. The idol was not a god but a representation of the founding ancestor of her tribe, Tsi'kzheep. She had no concept of gods. To her there were only elemental forces, some good, some evil, some indifferent. The world had been created by a bird, the Ngingzhkroob. Rather, the bird had laid a primal egg from which most living things had been hatched, including Tsi'kzheep.
And when would they let her go?
Soon, Vana promised. She also told the woman that the world would soon be destroyed. But the tribes nearby could go through the gateway to a young world and so be saved.
Be'nyar trembled and said that the shimmering thing was an evil force. It was taboo—as Sloosh had guessed— and her people would never enter its mouth. They'd be committing suicide, be eaten up in the force's belly.
Vana told Be'nyar that that wasn't true. She had gone through just such a shimmering and had not been harmed. Be'nyar listened to her story of the transit politely—she had to—but it was evident that she thought Vana was lying.
Deyv, listening to the dialog, learned that the Chaufi'ng believed that as long as the statue of Tsi'kzheep was in their possession and intact, they would be able to defend themselves successfully against their enemies and prosperity would be theirs.
He told Vana to tell the woman that Tsi'kzheep hadn't been doing very well against the red-ears.
Be'nyar replied indignantly that Tsi'kzheep could get rid of them instantly if he cared to. But he had been offended by something the tribe had done. It wasn't known yet just what that was, but the shaman was trying to find out.
Deyv decided to try speaking her language. It was the only way he'd ever become fluent in it.
"If we kill the red-ears, will your people then regard us as friends?"
He had to repeat himself slowly for her to understand him.
She said, "I don't know. Perhaps Tsi'kzheep would be insulted. Then again he might not be. You'd have to ask the shaman."
Further questioning revealed that the Trading Season would start after the next circuit of The Dark Beast was over. There were six tribes which met at the trading place. It was the Chaufi'ng's turn to host the meeting. There was no trade pidgin all could speak. Instead, a sign language was used.
Deyv groaned. Another language to learn! But it had to be done if he was to carry out his suddenly conceived plan.
He called the others aside and told them what his idea was.
The Shemibob said, "It might work. One should not fight the superstitions of a people but use them to get what one wants. Usually that's done out of an evil or selfish motive. In this case, it'll be for good."
The following sleep-time Vana awoke them with the beginning of birth pangs. To enforce the feeling that they did not intend to harm Be'nyar, she was allowed to assist in the delivery. A beautiful girl was born. Everybody was happy but Thrush. Shortly after the infant had been cleaned, her parents took her up the hill and gave her her secret name. Her public name was Keem.
Deyv went out with The Shemibob, Sloosh, and Jum to hunt down the lair of the red-ears. He took with him Be'nyar's soul egg to make sure that she wouldn't try to run away while the four were gone. It wasn't likely that she'd try anything, since Aejip was keeping an eye on her. However, Deyv believed in taking no chances with her.
They came back without finding any red-ears. The next trip, they saw one gnawing through the trunk of a small tree. It p:cked up the log after stripping off the branches and carried it a quarter of a mile to a giant tangle of tree trunks. Since the area around it was stripped except for tbe stumps, its followers had no place to conceal themselves. They stayed far behind the beast, and if it saw them, it was paying them no attention.