A wave washed over the Paramutan and he stood up, dripping and spluttering and calling out with joy.
“Here, not believed, hair of sunshine, friends of years.”
“Kalaleq!” Kerrick shouted as the Paramutan staggered, laughing, from the sea. He seized Kerrick’s arms and shook them, turned to Armun and shouted with joy, put his arms around her as well, until she had to push him away as his strong fingers seized her bottom.
“Where were you sailing to?” she asked him.
“South — but too hot, see I wear nothing but my fur.” When she looked down he let his tail drop to reveal his privates but she slapped his arm and he lifted it into place again. The Paramutan never changed.
“Why — south?” Kerrick asked, clumsily, trying to remember the complex language.
“To seek hunters. We waited on the beach to the north but none came. We have hides and many good things. Then we thought to look further south, look for hunters. Never thinking that friends would await us here.”
Hanath and Morgil came close and there were mutually incomprehensible greetings. Other Paramutan soon joined them. Shouting with pleasure and bringing the inevitable gifts of raw and rotten fish. Morgil’s eyes bulged and watered as he forced himself to swallow a vile mouthful. Then they all went to the fire to share the fresh meat there. Kerrick cut off pieces of raw meat from yesterday’s kill and these were received with cries of intense pleasure. Kalaleq gobbled his down, smearing his face with blood, while he told Armun everything that had happened since they had parted.
“The kill is good, the ularuaq fill the sea so full you can walk across it on their backs. All the women have had babies, sometimes three and four at a time. We have found how to catch and kill the big birds. And how is it for you here? You must tell me so I can tell Angajorqaq for she will beat me savagely if I do not remember and tell her everything.”
“We are all together, there is peace. There are babies — but not like the Paramutan for we do not lie as well as the Paramutan. But all is well.”
When all of the meat was gone the Paramutan ran to the ikkergak, now beached by the receding tide, and rooted out the bundles of hides. Hanath and Morgil brought their knives and spearheads to the beach and, with much excitement and shouting, the trading began. Armun was in great demand for translation. Kerrick sat down on the dune away from all the turmoil and Kalaleq came over to join him. The language was coming back to Kerrick now and talking was easier.
“We were filled with fear when we found that all the hunters were gone,” Kalaleq said.
“Gone from the north and the snows. We have a camp far south of here. The hunting is good and it is warm all the time.”
“I would die! Even here the heat burns.” Kerrick smiled at this, his skin garments closed tight against the chill wind from the ocean. “We have caught much fish, sought out certain plants we must have for the takkuuk, leaves and the inner bark of certain trees for brewing with water for drinking. But the need for knives is great and we wept with fear that we would have to return without them. Now we weep with joy to have found you — and spearheads too.”
Armun came to join them, handed Kalaleq the folded square of woven charadis cloth. Kalaleq shook it out and held it to the sky.
“What is it, unbelievable! Soft as the fur on a baby’s bottom. Smells good too.”
“It is for Angajorqaq,” Armun said. “It can be worn around the head like this, let me show you. It is woven from the fibers of a certain plant. It is something the Sesak do. They are hunters who live inland, far from the sea.”
“Oh, what skills they have, even though they must weep daily not being able to see the ocean. There are so many marvels here, this charadis, your spears, your bows, your spearheads, your knives, the ekkotaz — I must eat more!”
“You have many marvels as well,” she said, laughing and pushing his hands away. Food and sex, that was the Paramutan way. “Your ikkergak that you sail in, your harpoons for killing, small boats with sails, pumps and whistles.”
“You are right — we are so good! We make so many things my mind goes around and around just thinking about it.”
Kerrick was smiling at the bragging and all the artifacts they told each other about, all the things they made. Tanu, Paramutan — even Sasku. They were so different, yet they were the same. They made things. So very different from the Yilanè who could make nothing. Only the Yilanè males were creative. They were artistic, made sculptures of metal, the two who had escaped the hanalè had even learned to fish and hunt. But the females constructed nothing. Everything they had was grown. They were good enough at this, at least the scientists were. But they were still incapable of making something even as simple as a spear.
Then Kerrick grew very still as the thought gripped him. The realization that the world was not what he had always thought it was. He had been born Tanu but grew up as a Yilanè and too much of his thinking was still Yilanè.
But no more! He could see the future with a greater clarity now. He knew just what it was he had to do.
CHAPTER THIRTY
eistaapeleghè eistaaii, yilanè’ninkuru yilanè gebgeleb.
A Yilanè with two eistaa? Disgustedly impossible/inconceivable.
It was the largest river that Fafnepto had ever seen, larger even than the ones she knew in Entoban*. The soil that it carried spread far out into sea, formed banks and islands that clogged the river’s mouth. It took them many days just to find the main channels through the islands, before they entered the river itself where it flowed between high bluffs. They swam the uruketo upstream for an entire day and the river was just as wide as ever. That night they drifted in the backcurrents of the shallows and in the morning were ready to go on. Fafnepto saw that Gunugul and Vaintè were already on the fin, climbed up to join them. They had to hold tight to the edge of the fin which was rocking back and forth as the uruketo thrashed itself free of the shallow water. When they were once more in the deep channel Fafnepto signed for attention.
“This is a large river,” she said. “The size of it, and the many days we have spent on this search, force me to a single conclusion. I have come to the realization that Gendasi* is not Entoban* and things cannot be done the same way here. This land is rich, but it is empty. Not empty of life as we well know, but empty of Yilanè. It is still strange to me to see a rivermouth like this without a fine city upon its banks. Then I remember that there are still cities in Entoban* that grow cold as the winter comes close. When I return I will go to them and tell them not to fear. There is an empty world here for the filling. You know that, Vaintè, for did you not grow the first city on these shores?”
“Alpèasak. I did. You are correct in everything you say.”
“That reassures me. Now you must follow my thoughts again. The Eistaa Saagakel has entrusted me with this mission. She has ordered me to find the uruketo that was taken from her, to find Ambalasei who ordered its taking. Is this not what I agreed to do?”
“It is,” Vaintè said, wondering what this was all leading to. Fafnepto was as circuitous with her language and thought processes as she was direct and decisive in the forest. Perhaps it was the solitary life. Vaintè hid her impatience in a posture of rigid attention to listening.