“That’s why we science-wallahs only tabulate facts. We describe what happens and how it happens. But why it happens…?” He shrugged. “Is gravity a form of love, as many say? All we can know is that it is the nature of matter to attract matter, as Shree Einstein decreed. To answer why it is natural exceeds our writ.”
“Does that not make you feel limited?”
“Oh, no, Lucy! I have the whole of the universe to play with—from the little thread shapes all the way to galaxies, and everything in between. That there is more, who can deny? There is love and justice and beauty—and hate and bias and ugliness.”
“No, Debly, those last three don’t exist. They are only the names we use when the good is absent. And the opposite of justice is not bias, but fate; and the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. And there is no thing that exists that lacks for beauty. You told me that yourself.”
“So I did,” Sofwari said in mild wonder. The breeze quickened and he shivered. “The damp air has given the sunset a chill.” He put an arm around her shoulder. “You may share my cloak, if you wish.”
“For a while, Debly. For a while. There. At the eastern horizon. That’s the Spiral Arm peeking up. What did they call it?”
“The nuxru noorin. The river of light.”
“Dangchao seems so far away. As if it were in a different universe.”
Sofwari hesitated. “Did you…know that Donovan is your father?”
Méarana turned to him in surprise. “Did he tell you that?”
“No. He never speaks of his past. A man might suppose he didn’t have one. I tested his little thread shapes, and yours…”
“I thought your sinlaptai passed only from mother to daughter!”
“Those of the mighty chondrians do. But there are other thread shapes. If you think there is a vast universe out there in the sky, it is nothing to the vast universe inside each one of us.”
“If the universe is infinite, I suppose it is only fitting that we be, too. Why did you think I did not know?”
“The two of you do not act as father and daughter. Only, sometimes, when you look at each other.”
“There is a history between us. Or rather, an absence of history.”
“Oh?”
“The rest, you need not know.”
They walked a little farther through the mud.
“I look at these ruins here…” Sofwari kicked at a shard poking up through the mud. “I am a bone-picker. I will never discover anything. I will only rediscover it. Whatever I may learn, someone unknown learned it ages ago.”
Méarana said, “It might have been better if we had forgotten all this entirely—all the legends, all the wonders—for we live forever in its shadow.” She leaned against him.
“No. As much pain as it causes me, ignorance is never better. It was not all wonder. There was decay and war and collapse. If all we can hope for is to repeat the glories of the past, then we can hope not to repeat the mistakes.”
They heard Roaring Gorge before they saw it. It was a narrow cleft in the foothills of the Kobberjobbles—like a slit in a wall—and it howled and moaned at their approach, as if some great beast crouched within. Sloofy trembled in fear and even Sofwari seemed alarmed for a moment. Then he laughed and said, “The gorge acts like a megaphone for the waterfall at the farther end.”
The steersman heard them and he said, “Sure, but the roar of the waterfall might also cover the roar of a genuine dragon.” He laughed without waiting to see if he had alarmed them. The other boatmen laughed, too, but Méarana noted how they looked at their passengers sidewise, licked their lips, rubbed their hands.
Anticipation; but not a little fear beside. Surely, they had been through the gorge often enough to know there was no dragon.
The river narrowed and the current grew swift. The oarsmen pulled the cotter pins and lowered the walking planks that ran the length of the boat on each side. Then, two at a time, they shipped their oars and took up “setting poles” battened to the inside hull. These poles were almost as long as the boat itself. The two stemmen stepped out onto the walking boards and went to the bow of the boat, where they lowered the poles into the water. “Bottom!” one of them called, and the sweeper acknowledged. Then they put their shoulders to the leather-padded butts on the poles and began walking toward the stern, punting the boat ahead. Then the two bowmen stowed their oars and did the same, so that the four men were now walking stem to stern, pushing against the current. One of the stemmen said something low and angry to the steersman when he reached the back end of the boat, and the steersman pointed emphatically to the shoreline. Méarana looked where he pointed, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
She took up her harp and began to play at random—a jig, a taarab, a halay. She adjusted the tempos to match that of the men walking the setting poles, and the steersman grinned and beat the tempo against the handle of his steering oar. The right bowman, when he reached the head of the plank, glanced across to his counterpart and, ever so slightly, shook his head, a gesture his companion repeated before they put shoulder to pole and pushed.
They made night-camp on a sandy shelf on the east side of the river where the cliffside had broken away into rubble. Upstream the river vanished into a mist created by the waterfall at the far end of the gorge. The roar was, oddly, more muted inside the canyon than at the approach, but they still had to speak up to be heard.
Donovan was the last out of the boats and when he set foot on the ground, he said in a distinct, though conversational tone, “Is that a sand viper?” And then, almost immediately, “But no, it is only a branch buried in the mud.”
It struck Méarana as a curious performance—and she did not doubt for a moment that it was a performance, for Donovan did little without intent. She and the two Wildmen erected the tent. The boatmen had grown used to the tent-that-pitched-itself, and no longer gathered around to gawk openmouthed when Méarana activated the equipment.
Billy Chins and Donovan approached, talking in Confederal Manjrin. Donovan bent and looked inside the tent.
“Where are Teddy and Paulie?” he asked.
“They went back the boats for our supplies.”
“Sofwari,” said Billy, “go fetch-them.”
The science-wallah looked to Donovan, who nodded.
“What’s going on?” Méarana asked when Sofwari was gone.
“Trouble,” said Billy.
“Nothing, we hope,” said Donovan.
“I’m glad for the warning, whichever it is.” Méarana retrieved her harp. She was still tuning it when the others returned.
Once they were gathered round, Donovan told them that Billy thought the boatmen were planning something.
“I thought so before we cast off,” the Confederate said. “The old taverner was too concerned that we expect peaceful passage through Roaring Gorge, and a little too unconcerned with our gold and silver.”
“I believe him,” said Donovan. “When I claimed to see a sand viper, I spoke Gaelactic. But several of our ‘friends’ turned around in alarm. I pretended to take no notice, and I don’t think they gave it second thoughts.”
“They have earwigs,” said Méarana.
“Or they’ve had force-learning. But in either case, why conceal their understanding? They want to know what we are saying without letting us know they knew.”
“I saw you test them,” said Billy. “There were only four who reacted.”
Donovan nodded. “Earwigs cannot be all that plentiful here. The sweeper on each boat has one.” He looked at Theodorq. “Go find Sloofy and bring him here.” The Wildman nodded and trotted off.