Krinata wiped her clammy palms on her trousers, nodded, and went to find a pit-digger. She hadn't pulled latrine detail before, and it never occurred to her to argue. It was only an hour later when she was hauling a sack of degradant to the pit, that she saw Viradel looking at her—thoughtful rather than gloating at an aristocrat doing the duty work.
It was after dark when Krinata brought in her last load of firewood, on a rack Cy had built from bent stems. She was carrying almost half her weight and had to have Shorwh unload her as he did the other gatherers. But Viradel was watching, again with a neutral expression, considering.
Supper was root soup, and roast bird, on edible leaf plates. As tired as she was, she didn't dare sit very long before she went to wash her hair, then tend Jindigar as she did every evening, often quietly reciting her adventures of the day, hoping to lure him back to reality.
Once, Darllanyu had found her slumped into a doze over the unchanging body and had asked, sympathetically, "Why do you sit here? He doesn't know—"
"I think he does. And—I'd hate myself if I gave up." Then she'd confessed that she'd heard Darllanyu talking to him. "Why do you do it?"
"Guilt, I suppose," admitted the Dushau. "We shouldn't have been ambushed—we should've made friends with that hive before you got there. When an Oliat fails—not that we were so much of an Oliat..."
"Don't be too harsh on yourself. As Jindigar says, if your decisions limit our options, ours limit yours. There were any number of things we might have done differently."
"So he was teaching you!"
"I wouldn't call it that." But–she thought at Jindigar– if you recover, maybe we can renegotiate? She hardly noticed Darllanyu's parting glance, weighing her. She was busy taming the wild hope thundering in her breast. She'd whipped Desdinda. If Jindigar survived, maybe...
In the following days Darllanyu accepted Krinata's vigils at Jindigar's side, and between them and the Lehiroh, somebody was always with him. Even so, he developed sores, and the skin seemed loose over his giant frame. His teeth faded to a chalk white, and the normally springy nap of his skin became limp and unpleasant to the touch.
On the other side of the river they found themselves in the neighborhood of the settlement. Here the rolling hills flattened, dotted with clumps of a new kind of short tree, clinging to the banks of the numerous streams. And they saw the first of the gargantuan herbivores—about as large as a land animal could be under this gravity and seeming larger by casting an illusion of size. They roamed the plain in groups structured like a hive, symbiotic to stationary hives.
They moved in groups of a hundred or more, munching the tops of trees, females with nursing calves at the center of the herd. But Darllanyu explained, "They return to their habitat at night, carrying food for those who don't forage. The calves are not borne by the ones suckling them but by bearers who stay in the habitat with others who defend it. The habitat isn't a constructed dwelling, just a portion of land. And they migrate with the seasons, almost never returning to the same locale the next year."
The Dushau advised their party to stay well clear of the herds, as they seemed restless, and the triad distrusted them. Once or twice they saw members of different species traveling with large herds, and Cy remarked how unusual that was. Darllanyu said, "We think this's the echo of the Squadron's activities. Ever since their camp was hit by the tornadoes, the Squadron has become more vicious—destroying hives of all sorts. These creatures are forming alliances, preparing to fight a common enemy headed in this direction."
"But they're just beasts!" objected Fenwick.
"Yes," agreed Darllanyu. "Beasts of Phanphihy."
One midday they came across another kind of oversize herbivore, a single shaggy brown animal. The caravan stopped, for the loner was being stalked by a pack of wolf-like creatures. Darllanyu narrated the stalking ritual with the detachment of a naturalist shepherding tourists, the flatness of her voice showing that she spoke for the triad as she ended, "Those hunters could turn on us if they don't get their prey, and we don't want to attract the attention of this growing network of hives."
Settling her sled into place, Krinata climbed up to quiet the children, who clung to her more now. They were riding with Jindigar, keeping the piols from inadvertently smothering him. No sooner had she topped the edge of the cargo than Imp tore loose from the Cassrians and ran down to the ground. Before anyone could act, the piol had dashed headlong into the stalkers' pack, screaming dementedly.
Krinata was sure that in moments there'd be nothing but shredded piol fur where Imp had been. But the stunned creatures eyed the mad furball and broke ranks. In moments the hunters had disappeared, the grass waving in their wake. Imp scrambled up the herbivore's shaggy brown pelt and perched atop its flat head, chattering for all he was worth, as if trying to steer it away from them.
"Wait right here!" Krinata commanded the Cassrians.
She climbed down and ran to the front of the caravan where Darllanyu and Cy watched the performance. As she came up Cy was asking, "What made him do that?"
Darllanyu said, 'There's one possibility—" And she pushed past Krinata to head for the sleds.
Krinata asked, "How are we going to get him back?"
"Good question," said Cy. "I'm not going out there. I've seen those things squash critters bigger than I am."
Cy had not had his life saved by the piol, nor did he know how Jindigar could be revived by the small beast's loving. "Well, then, I'll go!" said Krinata, tucking her shirt into her trousers as she breasted the tall grass.
Cy started after her. "No! I—"
Krinata was halfway to the beast when the herbivore tossed his head, causing Imp to clutch with sharp fishing claws. Enraged by the pain, the huge creature roared, stomped, then reared back on squatting hind legs, two cloven hooves pawing the air. As Krinata tried to retreat, a front hoof caught her on the side of the head, and she went down.
Shouting, Cy distracted the beast from its intent to pound her to death. Through the ringing in her ears and the roaring beast, she heard Darllanyu call, "Cy, Rita's pregnant! Imp's protecting her!"
And then everything receded into blackness.
"Krinata!" Terab's voice, furry Holot hands and face.
She came to in a bedroll, camp fire lighting their usual shelter, bandages around her head. The huge herbivore was gone, and she thought she'd dreamed it until she remembered it had clobbered her with a hoof. "Imp? Is he all right?"
"Of course," scoffed Terab. "He's indestructible. But you're not. Had to carry you all afternoon. Irnils!" she bellowed to her mate. "Bring Krinata some soup."
Remarkably, after that and a double dose of medicine she was able to get to the latrine, and the next morning, despite a crashing headache, she pulled her sled, though not the tandem rig. She was determined that her stupidity wasn't going to delay getting Jindigar to the help he needed. They had told her how Darllanyu had gotten Rita to call Imp back, and then the herbivore had simply left. She hoped she'd learned her lesson. Next time trust the triad!
Oddly, in the next couple of days, she saw Adina and Viradel watching her, not at all contemptuous, though she'd made a fool of herself. She didn't understand those people.
On the seventeenth day after the hive they came to the cliff overlooking the settlement. A strange sense of deja vu haunted Krinata as she surveyed her new home. They were standing near a rope-and-board elevator rigged at the edge of the cliff, and below them the settlement spread out between the base of the cliff and a broad, winding river. Up on the cliff edge, far to their right, Dushau and ephemerals were constructing something near a waterfall.