"Yes, Zammis?"
"What's a planet?"
As the cold, wet summer came to an end, we had the cave jammed with firewood and preserved food. With that out of the way, I concentrated my efforts on making some kind of indoor plumbing out of the natural pools in the chambers deep within the cave. The bathtub was no problem. By dropping heated rocks into one of the pools, the water could be brought up to a bearable—even comfortable—temperature. After bathing, the hollow stems of a bamboolike plant could be used to siphon out the dirty water.
The tub could then be refilled from the pool above. The problem was where to siphon the water. Several of the chambers had holes in their floors. The first three holes we tried drained into our main chamber, wetting the low edge near the entrance. The previous winter, Jerry and I had considered using one of those holes for a toilet that we would flush with water from the pools. Since we didn't know where the goodies would come out, we decided against it.
The fourth hole Zammis and I tried drained out below the entrance to the cave in die face of the cliff. Not ideal, but better than answering the call of nature in the middle of a combination ice storm and blizzard. We rigged up the hole as a drain for both the tub and toilet. As Zammis and I prepared to enjoy our first hot bath, I removed my snake-skins, tested the water with my toe, then stepped in. "Great!" I turned to Zammis, the child still half dressed.
"Come on in, Zammis. The water's fine." Zammis was staring at me, its mouth hanging open. "What's the matter?"
The child stared wide-eyed, then pointed at me with a three-fingered hand.
"Uncle . . . what's that?"
I looked down. "Oh." I shook my head, then looked up at the child. "Zammis, I explained all that, remember? I'm a human."
"But what's it for?"
I sat down in the warm water, removing the object of discussion from sight.
"It's for the elimination of liquid wastes . . . among other things. Now, hop in and get washed."
Zammis shucked its snakeskins, looked down at its own smooth-surfaced, combined system, then climbed into the tube. The child settled into the water up to its neck, its yellow eyes studying me. "Uncle?"
"Yes?"
"What other things?"
Well, I told Zammis. For the first time, the Drac appeared to be trying to decide whether my response was truthful or not, rather than its usual acceptance of my every assertion. In fact, I was convinced that Zammis thought I was lying— probably because I was.
Winter began with a sprinkle of snowflakes carried on a gentle breeze. I took Zammis above the cave to the scrub forest. I held the child's hand as we stood before the pile of rocks that served as Jerry's grave. Zammis pulled its snakeskins against the wind, bowed its head, then turned and looked up into my face. "Uncle, this is the grave of my parent?"
I nodded. "Yes."
Zammis turned back to the grave, then shook its head. "Uncle, how should I feel?"
"I don't understand, Zammis."
The child nodded at the gravel "I can see that you are sad being here. I think you want me to feel the same. Do you?"
I frowned, then shook my head. "No. I don't want you to be sad. I just wanted you to know where it is."
"May I go now?"
"Sure. Are you certain you know the way back to the cave?"
"Yes. I just want to make sure my soap doesn't burn again."
I watched as the child turned and scurried off into the naked trees, then I turned back to the grave. "Well, Jerry, what do you think of your kid?
Zammis was using wood ashes to clean the grease off the shells, then it put a shell back on the fire and put water in it to boil off the burnt-on food.
Fat and ashes. The next thing, Jerry, we were making soap. Zammis's first batch almost took the hide off us, but the kid's getting better ..."
I looked up at the clouds, then brought my glance down to the sea. In the distance, low, dark clouds were building up. "See that? You know what that means, don't you? Ice storm number one." The wind picked up and I squatted next to the grave to replace a rock that had rolled from the pile.
"Zammis is a good kid, Jerry. I wanted to hate it... after you died. I wanted to hate it." I replaced the rock, then looked back toward the sea.
"I don't know how we're going to make it off planet, Jerry—" I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my vision. I turned to the right and looked over the tops of the trees. Against the grey sky, a black speck streaked away. I followed it with my eyes until it went above the clouds.
I listened, hoping to hear an exhaust roar, but my heart was pounding so hard, all I could hear was the wind. Was it a ship? I stood, took a few steps in the direction the speck was going, then stopped. Turning my head, I saw that the rocks on Jerry's grave were already capped with thin layers of fine snow. I shrugged and headed for the cave. "Probably just a bird."
Zammis sat on its mattress, stabbing several pieces of snakeskin with a bone needle. I stretched out on my own mattress and watched the smoke curl up toward the crack in the ceiling. Was it a bird? Or was it a ship?
Damn, but it worked on me. Escape from the planet had been out of my thoughts, had been buried, hidden for all that summer. But again, it twisted at me. To walk where a sun shined, to wear cloth again, experience central heating, eat food prepared by a chef, to be among . . . people again.
I rolled over on my right side and stared at the wall next to my mattress.
People. Human people. I closed my eyes and swallowed. Girl human people. Female persons. Images drifted before my eyes— faces, bodies, laughing couples, the dance after flight training . . . what was her name?
Dolora? Dora?
I shook my head, rolled over and sat up, facing the fire. Why did I have to see whatever it was? All those things I had been able to bury — to forget —boiling over. "Uncle?"
I looked up at Zammis. Yellow skin, yellow eyes, noseless toad face. I shook my head. "What?" "Is something wrong?"
Is something wrong, hah. "No. I just thought I saw something today. It probably wasn't anything." I reached to the fire and took a piece of dried snake from the griddle. I blew on it, then gnawed on the stringy strip. "What did it look like?"
"I don't know. The way it moved, I thought it might be a ship. It went away so fast, I couldn't be sure. Might have been a bird." "Bird?"
I studied Zammis. It'd never seen a bird; neither had I on Fyrine IV. "An animal that flies."
Zammis nodded. "Uncle, when we were gathering wood up in the scrub forest, I saw something fly."
"What? Why didn't you tell me?" "I meant to, but I forgot".
"Forgot!" I frowned. "In which direction was it going?"
Zammis pointed to the back of the cave. "That way. Away from the sea."
Zammis put down its sewing. "Can we go see where it went?"
I shook my head. "The winter is just beginning. You don't know what it's like.
We'd die in only a few days."
Zammis went back to poking holes in the snake-skin. To make the trek in the winter would kill us. But spring would be something else. We could survive with double layered snakeskins stuffed with seed pod down, and a tent. We had to have a tent. Zammis and I could spend the winter making it, and packs. Boots. We'd need sturdy walking boots. Have to think on that. . .
It's strange how a spark of hope can ignite, and spread, until all desperation is consumed. Was it a ship? I didn't know. If it was, was it taking off, or landing? I didn't know. If it was taking off, we'd be heading in the wrong direction. But the opposite direction meant crossing the sea.