“Not far,” Jin said easily. He bounced down off his rock, a soft landing on softsoled boots, and straightened with a nod to the old man in the way that they should go.
“He hasn’t made a deal,” the armed man said. “Dr. Spencer, he’s no townsman; we’ve got no number on him.”
“Maybe if you had,” Spencer said, “he wouldn’t be any good out here.”
The armed man said nothing. Jin motioned to the old one. It was a lark. He was fascinated by these people he had never seen so close at hand, in their fine cloth and hard boots. He reckoned this man for someone–not just a townsman but from the buildings where no one got, not even town folk, and least of all hillers.
And never a hunter who had no number on his hand, for passing the fences and going and coming into the born‑man territory.
“Come on,” he said to the old man Spencer. “You give me a shirt, all right?” He knew that such folk must be rich. “I show you calibans.”
The old man came with him, walking splayfooted down the bank, shifting the straps of all sorts of things he carried. Flitters dived and splashed among the reeds and the old man puffed on, making noise even in walking, a helpless sort in the way no hiller child was helpless.
I could rob this man, Jin thought, just because robbery did happen, high in the hills; but it was a kind of thought that came just because he thought it was trusting of the old man to be carrying all that wealth and going off with a stranger who was stronger and quicker and knew the land, and he was wondering whether the old man knew people robbed each other, or whether inside the camp such things never happened.
He found the calibans where he knew to find them, not so very far as they had been a hand of years ago. Even ariels were more plentiful, a lacery of trails across the sandy margin. Ariels, grays, even browns had turned up hereabouts, and all the lesser sorts, the hangers‑about: it was a rich season, a fat season.
“Look,” he said and pointed, showing the old man a ripple amid the Styx, where the broad marshy water reflected back the trees and the cloudy sky.
The old man stopped and gaped, trying to make out calibans; but there was no seeing that one clearly. It was fishing, and need not come up. They kept walking around the next bank, where mounds rose up on all sides of them, and trees thrust their roots in to drink from the dark hollows. It was forest now, and only leaves rustled.
“They’re all about us,” he told the man, and the man started violently and batted at a flitter which chanced at that moment to land on his neck. The startlement made Jin laugh. “Listen,” Jin said, and squatted down, so the old man squatted too, and paid attention when he pointed across the water, among the trees. “Over there–across the water–that’s theirs. That’s theirs all the way to the salt water, as far as a man can walk. They’re smart, those calibans.”
“Some of you–live in there. I’ve heard so. Could I talk with one?”
Jin’s skin prickled up. He looked toward the safe side of the river, toward familiar things. “Tell you something, old born‑man. You don’t talk to them. You don’t talk about them.”
“Bad people?”
Jin shrugged, not wanting to discuss it. “Want a caliban? I can whistle one.”
“They’re dangerous, aren’t they?”
“So’s everyone. Want one?” He did not wait, but gave out a low warble, knowing what it would do.
And very quickly, because he knew a guard had been watching all this tramping about near the mound, a caliban put its head up out of the brushy entrance and a good deal more of the caliban followed.
He heard a tiny sound by him, a whirring kind of thing. He shot out a hand at the machinery the man carried. “Don’t do that. Don’t make sounds.”
It stopped at once. “They pick that up.”
“You just don’t make sounds.”
“It’s big”
Children said that, when they first saw the old browns. Jin pursed his lips again, amused. “Seen enough, old born‑man. Beyond here’s his. And no arguing that.”
“But the ones–the humans–that go inside–Is it wrong to talk about that? Do you trade with them?”
He shook his head ever so slightly. “They live, that’s all. Eat fish.” Above them on the ridge the caliban raised its crest, flicked out a tongue. That was enough. “Time to move, born‑man.”
“That’s a threat.”
“No. That’s wanting.” He heard something, knew with his ears what it was coming up in the brush, grabbed the born‑man’s sleeve to take him away.
But the Weird crouched there, all long‑haired and smeared with mud, head and shoulders above the brush.
And the born‑man refused to move.
“Come on,” Jin said urgently. “Come on.” Out of the tail of his eye, in the river, a ripple was making its way toward them. The man made his machinery work once more, briefly. “There’s another one. There’s too many, born‑man. Let’s move.”
He was relieved when the man lurched to his feet and came with him. Very quietly they hurried out of the place, but the old man turned and looked back when the splash announced the arrival of the swimmer on the shore.
“Would they attack?” the born‑man asked.
“Sometimes they do and sometimes not.”
“The man back there–”
“They’re trouble, is all. Sometimes they’re trouble.”
The old man panted a little, making better speed with all his load.
“What do you want with calibans?” Jin asked.
“Curious,” the old man said. He made good time, the two of them going along at the same pace. “That’s following us.”
Jin tracked the old man’s glance at the river, saw the ripples. “That’s so.”
“I can hurry,” the old man offered.
“Not wise. Just walk.”
He kept an eye to it–and knowing calibans, to the woods as well. He imagined small sounds…or perhaps did not imagine them. But they ceased when they had come close to the curve of the river where the rest of the born‑men waited.
They were nervous. They got up from sitting on their baggage and had their guns in their hands. Out in the river the ripples stopped, beyond the reeds, in the deep part.
“They’re there,” the old man said to the one in charge of the others. “Got some data. They’re stirred up some. Let’s be walking back.”
“Got a shirt owed me,” Jin reminded them, hands on hips, standing easy. But he reckoned not to be cheated.
“Hobbs.” The old man turned to the younger, and there was some ado while one of the men took off his shirt and passed it over. The old man gave it to Jin, who looked it over and found it sound enough. “Jin, I might like to talk with you. Might like you to come to the town and talk.”
“Ah.” Jin tucked his shirt under his arm and backed off. “You don’t put any mark on me, no, you don’t, born‑man.”
“Get you a special kind of paper so you can come and go through the gates. No number on you. I promise. You know a lot, Jin. You’d find it worth your time. Not just one shirt. Real pay, town scale.”
He stopped backing, thinking on that.
And just then a splash and a brown came up through the reeds, water sliding off its pebbly hide. It came up all the way on its legs.
Someone shot. It lurched and hissed and came–“No!” Jin yelled at them, running, which was the wise thing. But they shot with the guns, and it hissed and whirled and flattened reeds in its entry into the river. The ripples spread and vanished in the sluggish current. It went deep. Jin crouched on his rock and hugged himself with a dire cold feeling at his gut. There was shouting among the folk. The old man shouted at the younger and the younger at the others, but there was a great quiet in the world.
“It was a brown,”Jin said. The old man looked up at him, looking as if he of all of them halfway understood. “Go away now,” Jin said. “Go away fast.”
“I want to talk with you.”
“I’ll come to your gate, old born‑man. When I want. Go away.”
“Look,” the younger man said, “if we–”
“Let’s go,” the old man said, and there was authority in his voice. The folk with guns gathered up all that was theirs and went away down the shore. The bent place stayed in the reeds, and Jin watched until they had gone out of sight around the bend, until the bank was whole again. A sweat gathered on his body. He stared at the gray light on the Styx, trying to see ripples, hoping for them.