It was late afternoon when Billin finally reached the irrigation ditch and the diversion dam. Wix's idea of course, and brilliant, of course, but only a stopgap in their constant losing battle with the sun and the sand. Although they might have had a chance if Stipock weren't so dead set on getting the iron — no. We'd be losing anyway. But now, Billin thought exultantly as he lurched along down the path of the ditch, now we can live better than we did at Heaven City . Just reach out a hand and pick food from the trees. Water everywhere. We have to leave immediately.
A house (new since he had left, but hardly a surprise, and he noticed that they had built it higher, out of the reach of the sand) and Billin went to the door and knocked.
No one. Getting on toward dark — wait here or go on down?
Billin was too hungry to wait, and too eager to tell his news, though his legs were weak enough that he had to think of every step before they would move.
And then he saw Wix and Dilna coming in from the trees. He stopped and waited until they came up to him.
"Billin," they said as soon as they were close enough to see who it was, and they rushed up and embraced him and welcomed him home. Yet Billin was not too tired to wonder what Wix and the bitch had been doing in the woods (as if he and everybody didn't know — a miracle Hoom hadn't murdered them both by now, except that the sweet simple–minded ox didn't notice), and he smiled at them as he said, "How's Hoom doing?"
"Well," Wix said. Was Dilna blushing? Billin doubted it — she wasn't the blushing type. At least Cirith, ugly and foul–tempered as she was, stayed faithful to Billin and loved him desperately.
"You must be tired," Dilna said, and Billin didn't even have to agree. He just stumbled and Wix caught him before he fell, and then the two of them helped him to the nearest house that might be large enough for him to rest awhile before going on to his own home.
It was a struggle between hunger (stay awake until the fish is fried) and sleep. Sleep won.
He woke in his own bed with Cirith leaning over him, smiling.
"Good morning," Billin said.
"Stay in bed," Cirith ordered, losing the smile the moment she knew he was looking. "You're too tired and weak to get up."
"Then bring me something to eat, dammit," Billin said, lying back down.
"It was so good while you were gone," Cirith grumbled as she brought a bowl from the fire. "No one to complain at me."
"How did you make it through the weeks?" Billin said. And then as Cirith set the bowl on his bed and made as if to walk away in a huff, he lunged over (spilling stew) and pinched her.
She whirled on him. "If you're that wide awake, Billin my boy, you'll have no more sympathy from me!" And then she was off to the children's bed room. Billin lay back on his bed and sighed. It was so good to be home.
He vomited the stew, but was able to eat broth later on in the morning.
And after noon, Stipock, Wix, and Hoom came to see him.
"Three out of four," Billin said as they gathered around his bed. "I feel honored."
"Dilna's pregnant again," Hoom said proudly.
"How many does that make — three?" Billin asked.
"No, four, of course — unless it's twins."
Four of hers, Billin kept himself from saying, but only three of yours. Not my place to tell the fool what everybody else knows.
"You were gone three and a half months," Stipock said.
"The days just flew by," Billin said, smiling.
They waited, and Billin loved watching them as they tried not to seem eager. But he was even more eager than they, and he ended the game and told them.
"A swift–flowing river, plenty of water even during the heat of the summer. A bay, and there are trees every inch, except where there are thick berry bushes. While I was there I wasn't hungry for a minute — I would have brought you back some of the fruit, but it started spoiling in the heat this side of the mountains, and so I ate it."
But as Billin described the paradise he had found a hundred miles to the south (or more — who can tell when the distance is covered on foot, scaling cliffs and wasting days hunting for a path through an impassable barrier), he became more and more uneasy. Hoom and Wix kept glancing at Stipock — and Stipock just watched Billin, his face impassive.
"I tell you," Billin said, determined to fire them with the enthusiasm he felt for the place, "that we could leave the plow behind and live forever there by just gathering. It goes on like that for miles. And the ground is as rich as anything in Heaven City, I swear it, except there's plenty of rain — the mountains must catch all the clouds, keep them from coming to us — and it's warmer than Heaven City, and besides — from the mountains I could see another land across the water, not far — we could build a boat and cross to it, and that other land looks even richer than the one I was in."
At last Stipock answered, "Very interesting."
Billin sat up in bed — too abruptly, and his headache immediately punished him for the impetuosity. "The hell it's interesting, Stipock. It's bloody damn perfect, it makes this place look like a desert, which it is, if you had guts enough to admit it. You chose this place — well, fine, you made a mistake, but by damn I've found a place we could get to in two weeks! Two weeks, and our children wouldn't spend half the year crying for food and the other half blistering in the sun and crying out for water!"
"Relax, Billin," Hoom said. "Stipock didn't mean anything bad. It's just hard to believe a place could be that good —"
"If you aren't going to believe me," Billin said, "why the hell did you send me?"
"We believe you," Hoom said. Hoom the peacemaker. Hoom the cuckold. Billin turned away in disgust. What kind of people did he have to deal with? Stipock, who only cared about that damn iron ore which wasn't worth a quart of oxurine, and who always pretended that he was thinking carefully about things when the truth was his mind had been made up about everything a million years ago and he'd never change it come flood or fire. Hoom, so kind that you could almost forget how stupid he was. Wix, always full of bright ideas — the kind of man that could only be trusted by a fellow with an ugly wife (like me, Billin reminded himself). And Dilna? Why the hell was Dilna always involved in decisions? At least she wasn't here now.
"If you believe me," Billin finally said, "you wouldn't be here, you'd be home packing food and getting ready to go."
"Sleep awhile," Wix said. "You're still tired. We'll talk tomorrow."
"What did I do wrong?" Billin shouted, his voice cracking from the weariness still in him. "I'm not a hornet, don't brush me away!"
"You haven't done anything wrong," Stipock said as he went to the door. But it was Hoom who turned around and said, "I'm glad you're back, Billin. I've missed you."
After they left Billin was too angry even to quarrel with Cirith, and she went to bed in a huff, worried about Billin's strange behavior. And Billin kept waking in the night — angry, though it took him a few moments after waking to remember what he was angry about. Why were they so reluctant? Did they actually like the desert?
"No," Cirith said. Billin realized that he had been talking aloud. There was a faint light in the room — early morning.
"Sorry I woke you," he said.
"That's fine. They don't like the desert, Billin," she said. "But about a week after you left, I guess they realized you might find something like what you found, and ever since then Stipock has been telling people how good it is to suffer, how it makes us strong."
"Don't tell me people believe that crap!" Billin's mouth tasted foul. He got out of bed and staggered on aching legs to get a drink.