"Now!" He jumped up, straddled the rail. Komeitk Lelianr climbed nimbly after. Startled white faces turned. There was an excited chatter, a couple of arms tentatively outstretched.
Barch bared his teeth, kicked. The commotion attracted the eye of the Podruod controller. With great lunging strides he came forward.
"I'm ready," panted Komeitk Lelianr. "Step on my feet."
Barch jumped down, clasped her around the waist; they toppled off into gray air. He glimpsed the rectangular hull of the barge slipping past overhead with a hundred little nubbins of heads silhouetted against the twilight. Sky and mountains whirled in sickening topsy-turvy motion.
Komeitk Lelianr was crying in his ear. "My feet, my feet!"
Barch clamped his legs around hers, set his feet on her instep. He felt a braking, the sky and mountains steadied.
Looking anxiously aloft he saw the raft drifting quietly on; the cargo was fuzzy gray, like a load of jute. He turned his eyes down. A massive crag, like a rotten tooth, stabbed up at them with frightening velocity; below was the vast slot of a valley, the shining trickle of a river.
"We're braking," she said. "The lower we get, the slower we fall."
Barch relaxed, tried to follow her as she shifted weight. Dark fronds of vegetation reached up at them. Thirty feet… twenty feet… ten feet…
There was the crash, scatter, agitation of breaking stems and snapping branches. Barch saw the ground, the black humus of the hillside; at six feet he jumped, so as not to land with Komeitk Lelianr's feet under his. She cried out in surprise. Relieved of Barch's weight, she bounced back into the air. She caught at branches swung back and forth like an acrobat, then slowly settled, to the ground.
They had landed on a high slope. The sky was a black ceiling overhead; dank wind blew roaring through the valley below. Trees flapped and clattered; from the far distance came a harsh gurgling whistle. Komeitk Lelianr whispered, "What's that?"
Barch said, "It's breakfast, if I can catch it."
"In the dark it might catch you."
They looked down the slope, found the river. "We'll be warmer up here," said Barch, "out of the valley. We'd better not build a fire until we learn more about the country."
In a little hollow under a rock he piled moss, dry humus, and contrived a covering of fronds wrenched down from the trees. "Like sleeping in a haystack," said Barch. "You get in first."
Rain fell during the night, but the wind blew it over the rock, and they stayed dry. Magarak morning came damp and gray.
"Ouch!" said Barch, "my aching bones." He felt his face. "At least, no whiskers. I've got your father to thank for that."
Komeitk Lelianr sat brushing moss off her gray smock. Barch went on cheerfully. "Next-breakfast. Are you hungry?"
She made no answer.
Barch rose to his feet, looked carefully up and down the hillside. The trees by daylight were like kelp: black and brown, with red veins along the leaves. Overhead the sky was heavy with clouds.
Barch pulled down a branch, broke free a cluster of nuts. He broke one of these open, smelled, recoiled from the acrid odor. "No nourishment here. Let's see what's down by the water."
Cautiously they made their way downhill to the river. Standing in a pool was a blackish-green creature with the head of an owl, a bat's wings, the legs of a heron. It watched them approach, then fluttered up, flapped croaking off down the valley.
"That's a good sign," said Barch. "It means that there's something to be caught. That bird wasn't just taking a bath."
"We catch things-then eat them?"
"We're savages now," said Barch airily. "Both of us, remember?"
"I remember very well."
Barch crept forward, crouched down by the edge of the pool. Water swirled quietly over round stones of various colors. He scanned the bottom. One of the round stones moved. Barch grabbed shoulder-deep into water like ice, came up with a squirming bulb. Dangling tentacles flapped, wound around his wrist; his skin burned as if singed with flame. Barch cursed, threw the bulb up on the shore. It scuttled toward the river. Barch kicked it back, dropped a chunk of rock on it. When he picked up the rock, there was nothing below but a mat of whitish fibers and ooze.
Barch turned away in disgust. A red weal had formed along his wrist, the bones of his forearm ached. "Let's go on downstream," he said through his teeth. "Maybe we'll find something a little less hard to get along with."
The river flowed smoothly a hundred yards, then began to drop. It pounded over step-like ledges, split itself against boulders. Scrambling over the wet rocks, Barch almost fell a dozen times. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Komeitk Lelianr walking serenely two or three feet over the river.
Said Barch quizzically, "I wish I had a pair of sandals."
Komeitk Lelianr made no reply.
"How long will the power hold out?" Barch asked.
"With steady use, perhaps a month or two."
"And how high can you walk?"
"Two or three hundred feet. Higher, if I take care."
"Suppose you walk up fifty feet, and tell me what you see."
Swaying and stepping as if walking on stilts, she rose into the air. The wind caught her, carried her drifting down the valley.
Barch scrambled over the rocks to keep abreast. "What do you see?"
"Rocks, more black trees, a lake."
"No smoke? No buildings?"
"Nothing." She came back down in great sliding steps. "Do you dunk we'll find anything to eat?"
"Of course," Barch said confidently. "Down by the lake, perhaps."
A few minutes later the valley widened. Before them spread the lake, roughly circular, surrounded first by a rim of marsh, then a strip of open slope overgrown with thorny bush. Each bush terminated in a tight green sac, like a greengage. Barch picked one, split it, smelled of the pulp. "Rather like lemon verbena, or bay turn."
Komeitk Lelianr said in practical tones. "It's likely to be poisonous."
Barch smelled again, doubtfully. "One can't hurt me too much…"
"It might make you sick."
"Then we'll know it's poison; there's nothing like the empirical method." He bit into the sac, chewed thoughtfully. "It doesn't taste very good."
"Look," said Komeitk Lelianr. "There's that flying thing again."
Barch dropped the thorn-berry, watched the owl-headed, bat-winged, heron-legged creature slide to an awkward landing along the shore of the lake.
"If we can catch him," said Barch, "we'll have roast owl." He bent, picked up a rock, moved cautiously forward.
The owl-bat-heron waded out into the lake-stopped short, one leg high in the air. The leg jerked forward, jerked back up; a black shape twisted through the air, fell into the thorny thicket.
"That looks like a fish," exclaimed Barch. The bird stalked toward his catch. Barch ran forward, waving his arms. "No you don't." Gingerly he picked the black fish out of the thorns, while the owl-bat-heron scuttled back into the water. Komeitk Lelianr watched with distaste.
Barch tossed her his cigarette lighter. "You build a fire, I'll clean this thing."
He set it on a flat rock beside the river, sawed off head and tail with a sharp flake of stone. Gritting his teeth, he split open the soft belly, pulled, scraped, washed, and eventually had two strips of leathery white flesh.
Komeitk had started a fire by the edge of the forest; Barch secured a pair of green twigs, carefully roasted the fish for them.
"There," he said, "that smells pretty good." He laid the fish on a rock, licked his fingers. "It even tastes good."
Komeitk Lelianr ate without comment.