But how could Haik know this much about the history of life? How could she know that wild animals were more varied than she had observed? There are wild sulinin the far northern islands as thick furred and white as the local people. There is a rare, almost extinct kind of wild sulinon the third continent, which is black and entirely scaly, except for a ridge of rust-brown fur along its back. She, having traveled on only one continent, was hypothesizing in the absence of adequate data. In spite of this, she caught a glimpse of how inheritance works.
How likely is this? Could a person like Haik, living in a far-back era, come so near the idea of genes?
Our ancestors were not fools! They were farmers and hunters, who observed animals closely; and they achieved technological advances–the creation through breeding of the plants that feed us and the animals we still use, though no longer exclusively, for work and travel–which we have not yet equaled, except possibly by going into space.
In addition to the usual knowledge about inheritance, Haik had the ideas she’d gained from fossils. Other folk knew that certain plants and animals could be changed by breeding; and that families had traits that could be transmitted, either for good or bad. But most life seemed immutable. Wild animals were the same from generation to generation. So were the plants of forest and plain. The Goddess liked the world to stay put, as far as most people could see. Haik knew otherwise.
Dapple came after her, saying, "We need help in setting up our stage."
That evening, in the long summer twilight, the actors performed the peshacomedy. Dapple had to make a speech beforehand, explaining what a peshawas, since they were far inland now. But the town folk knew about sulin, tli,and penises; and the play went well, as had the trading of the merchants. The next day they continued west.
Haik traveled with Dapple all summer. She learned to make masks by soaking paper in glue, then applying it in layers to a wooden mask frame.
"Nothing we carry is more valuable," said the costume maker, holding a thick white sheet of paper. "Use this with respect! No other material is as light and easy to shape. But the cost, Haik, the cost!"
The bitalincontinued to fascinate her: living animals as unfamiliar as the fossils in her cliffs! Her first mask was a bital. When it was dry, she painted the face tan, the six horns shiny black. The skin inside the flaring nostrils was red, as was the tongue protruding from the open mouth.
Dapple wrote a play about a solid and reliable bitalcow, who lost her milk to a conniving tli. The tliwas outwitted by other animals, friends of the bital. The play ended with Dapple as the cow, dancing among pots of her recovered milk, turned through the ingenuity of the tliinto a new substance: long-lasting, delicious cheese. The play did well in towns of the western plains. By now they were in a region where the ocean was a rumor, only half-believed; but bitalinwere known and loved.
Watching Dapple’s performance, Haik asked herself another question. If there was a hand inside the pesha’s flipper, could there be another hand in the bital’s calloused, two-toed foot? Did every living thing contain another living thing within it, like Dapple in the bitalcostume?
What an idea!
The caravan turned east when a plant called fire-in-autumn turned color. Unknown in Tulwar, it was common on the plain, though Haik had not noticed it till now. At first, there were only a few bright dots like drops of blood fallen on a pale brown carpet. These were enough to make the merchants change direction. Day by day, the color became more evident, spreading in lines. (The plant grew through sending out runners.) Finally, the plain was crisscrossed with scarlet. At times, the caravan traveled through long, broad patches of the plant, tsinaand bitalinbelly-deep in redness, as if they were fording rivers of blood or fire.
When they reached the moist coastal plain, the plant became less common. The vegetation here was mostly a faded silver-brown. Rain fell, sometimes freezing; and they arrived in the merchants’ home town at the start of the first winter storm. Haik saw the rolling ocean through lashes caked with snow. The pleasure of salt water! Of smelling seaweed and fish!
The merchants settled down for winter. The actors took the last ship north to Hu Town, where the innkeeper had bedrooms for them, a fire in the common room and halinready for mulling.
At midwinter, Dapple went to Ettin. Haik stayed by the ocean, tired of foreigners. It had been more than half a year since she’d had clay in her hands or climbed the Tulwar cliffs in search of fossils. Now she learned that love was not enough. She walked the Hu beaches, caked with ice, and looked for shells. Most were similar to ones in Tulwar; but she found a few new kinds, including one she knew as a fossil. Did this mean other creatures–her claw-handed bird, the hammer-headed bug–were still alive somewhere? Maybe. Little was certain.
Dapple returned through a snow storm and settled down to write. The Ettin always gave her ideas. "When I’m in the south, I do comedy, because the people here prefer it. But their lives teach me how to write tragedy; and tragedy is my gift."
Haik’s gift lay in the direction of clay and stone, not language. Her journey south had been interesting and passionate, but now it was time to do something. What? Hu Town had no pottery, and the rocks in the area contained no fossils. In the end, she took some of the precious paper and used it, along with metal wire, to model strange animals. The colors were a problem. She had to imagine them, using what she knew about the birds and bugs and animals of Tulwar. She made the hammer-headed bug red and black. The flower-predator was yellow and held a bright blue fish. The claw-handed bird was green.
"Well, these are certainly different," said Dapple. "Is this what you find in your cliffs?"
"The bones and shells, yes. Sometimes there is a kind of shadow of the animal in the rock. But never any colors."
Dapple picked up a tightly coiled white shell. Purple tentacles spilled out of it; and Haik had given the creature two large, round eyes of yellow glass. The eyes were a guess, derived from a living ocean creature. But Haik had seen the shadow of tentacles in stone. Dapple tilted the shell, till one of the eyes caught sunlight and blazed. Hah! It seemed alive! "Maybe I could write a play about these creatures; and you could make the masks."
Haik hesitated, then said, "I’m going home to Tulwar.–"
"You are?" Dapple set down the glass-eyed animal.
She needed her pottery, Haik explained, and the cliffs full of fossils, as well as time to think about this journey. "You wouldn’t give up acting for love!"
"No," said Dapple. "I plan to spend next summer in the north, doing tragedies. When I’m done, I’ll come to Tulwar for a visit. I want one of your pots and maybe one of these little creatures." She touched the flower-predator. "You see the world like no one else I’ve ever met. Hah! It is full of wonders and strangeness, when looked at by you!"