Contact was refused from the other end. The warship would do as it pleased. There was nothing they could do to prevent it.
The convoy moved in, silent, ominous with the load it bore, and he reached for the alert for security.
iii
The rain still came down, the thunder dying. Tam-utsa-pi-tan watched the humans come and go, arms locked about her knees, her bare feet sunk in mire, the water trickling slowly off her fur. Much that humans did made no sense; much that humans made was of no visible use, perhaps for the gods, perhaps that they were mad; but graves… this sad thing the hisa understood. Tears, shed behind masks, the hisa understood. She watched, rocking slightly, until the last humans had gone, leaving only the mud and the rain in this place where humans laid their dead.
And in due time she gathered herself to her feet and walked to the place of cylinders and graves, her bare toes squelching in the mud. They had put the earth over Bennett Jacint and the two others. The rain made of the place one large lake, but she had watched; she knew nothing of the marks humans made for signs to themselves, but she knew the one.
She carried a tall stick with her, which Old One had made. She came naked in the rain, but for the beads and the skins which she bore on a string about her shoulder. She stopped above the grave, took the stick in both her hands and drove it hard into the soft mud; the spirit-face she slanted so that it looked up as much as possible, and about its projections she hung the beads and the skins, arranging them with care, despite the rain which sheeted down.
Steps sounded near her in the puddles, the hiss of human breath. She spun and leapt aside, appalled that a human had surprised her ears, and stared into a breather-masked face.
“What are you doing?” the man demanded.
She straightened, wiped her muddy hands on her thighs. To be naked thus embarrassed her, for it upset humans. She had no answer for a human. He looked at the spirit-stick, at the grave offerings… at her. What she could see of his face seemed less angry than his voice had promised.
“Bennett?” the man asked of her.
She bobbed a yes, distressed still. Tears filled her eyes, to hear the name, but the rain washed them away. Anger… that too she felt, that Bennett should die and not others.
“I’m Emilio Konstantin,” he said, and she stood straight at once, relaxed out of her fight-flight tenseness. “Thank you for Bennett Jacint; he would thank you.”
“Konstantin-man.” She amended all her manner and touched him, this very tall one of a tall kind. “Love Bennett-man, all love Bennett-man. Good man. Say he friend. All Downers are sad.” He put a hand on her shoulder, this tall Konstantin-man, and she turned and put her arm about him and her head against his chest, hugged him solemnly, about the wet, awful-feeling yellow clothes. “Good Bennett make Lukas mad. Good friend for Downers. Too bad he gone. Too, too bad, Konstantin-man.”
“I’ve heard,” he said. “I’ve heard how it was here.”
“Konstantin-man good friend.” She lifted her face at his touch, looked fearlessly into the strange mask which made him very horrible to see. “Love good mans. Downers work hard, work hard, hard for Konstantin. Give you gifts. Go no more away.”
She meant it. They had learned how Lukases were. It was said in all the camp that they should do good for the Konstantins, who had always been the best humans, gift-bringers more than the hisa could give.
“What’s your name?” he asked, stroking her cheek. “What do we call you?”
She grinned suddenly, warm in his kindness, stroked her own sleek hide, which was her vanity, wet as it was now. “Humans call me Satin,” she said, and laughed, for her true name was her own, a hisa thing, but Bennett had given her this, for her vanity, this and a bright bit of red cloth, which she had worn to rags and still treasured among her spirit-gifts.
“Will you walk back with me?” he asked, meaning to the human camp. “I’d like to talk with you.”
She was tempted, for this meant favor. And then she sadly thought of duty and pulled away, folded her arms, dejected at the loss of love. “I sit,” she said.
“With Bennett.”
“Make he spirit look at the sky,” she said, showing the spirit-stick, explaining a thing the hisa did not explain. “Look at he home.”
“Come tomorrow,” he said. “I need to talk to the hisa.”
She tilted back her head, looked at him in startlement. Few humans called them what they were. It was strange to hear it. “Bring others?”
“All the high ones if they will come. We need hisa Up-above, good hands, good work. We need trade Downbelow, place for more men.”
She extended her hand toward the hills and the open plain, which went on forever.
“There is place.”
“But the high ones would have to say.”
She laughed. “Say spirit-things. I-Satin give this to Konstantin-man. All ours. I give, you take. All trade, much good things; all happy.”
“Come tomorrow,” he said, and walked away, a tall strange figure in the slanting rain. Satin-Tam-utsa-pitan sat down on her heels with the rain beating upon her bowed back and pouring over her body, and regarded the grave, with the rain making pocked puddles above it.
She waited. Eventually others came, less accustomed to men. Dalut-hos-me was one such, who did not share her optimism of them; but even he had loved Bennett.
There were men and men. This much the hisa had learned
She leaned against Dalut-hos-me, Sun-shining-through-clouds, in the dark evening of their long watch, and by this gesture pleased him. He had begun laying gifts before her mat in this winter season, hoping for spring.
“They want hisa Upabove,” she said. “I want to see the Upabove. I want this.”
She had always wanted it, from the time that she had heard Bennett talk of it. From this place came Konstantins (and Lukases, but she dismissed that thought). She reckoned it as bright and full of gifts and good things as all the ships which came down from it, bringing them goods and good ideas. Bennett had told them of a great metal place holding out arms to the Sun, to drink his power, where ships vaster than they had ever imagined came and went like giants.
All things flowed to this place and from it; and Bennett had gone away now, making a Time in her life under the Sun. It was a manner of pilgrimage, this journey she desired to mark this Time, like going to the images of the plain, like the sleep-night in the shadow of the images.
They had given humans images for the Upabove too, to watch there. It was fit, to call it pilgrimage. And the Time regarded Bennett, who came from that journey.
“Why do you tell me?” Dalut-hos-me asked.
“My spring will be there, on Upabove.”
He nestled closer. She could feel his heat. His arm went about her. “I will go,” he said.
It was cruel, but the desire was on her for her first traveling; and his was on him, for her, would grow, as gray winter passed and they began to think toward spring, toward warm winds and the breaking of the clouds. And Bennett, cold in the ground, would have laughed his strange human laughter and bidden them be happy.
So always the hisa wandered, of springs, and the nesting.
iv
It was frozen dinner again. Neither of them had gotten in till late, numb with the stresses of the day — more refugees, more chaos. Damon ate, looked up finally realizing his self-absorbed silence, found Elene sunk in one of her own… a habit, lately, between them. He was disturbed to think of that, and reached across the table to lay his hand on hers, which rested beside her plate. Her hand turned, curled up to weave with his. She looked as tired as he. She had been working too long hours — more than today. It was a remedy of sorts… not to think. She never spoke of
“I saw Talley today,” he said hoarsely, seeking to fill the silence, to distract her, however grim the topic. “He seemed… quiet. No pain. No pain at all.”
Her hand tightened. “Then you did right by him after all, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think there is a way to know.”
“He asked.”
“He asked,” he echoed.
“You did all you could to be right. That’s all you can do.”
“I love you.”
She smiled. Her lips trembled until they could no longer hold the smile.
“Elene?”
She drew back her hand. “Do you think we’re going to hold Pell?”
“Are you afraid not?”
“I’m afraid you don’t believe it.”
“What kind of reasoning is that?”
“Things you won’t discuss with me.”
